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NEXT@CNN
New Internet Scam Has Trade Commission Worried; North Korea Has Suspected Second Processing Plant; A Possible New Ape Was Discovered In African Congo.
Aired July 20, 2003 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to NEXT for this Sunday, July 20. Coming up in this hour, North Korea's nuclear program is back in the news and we will talk to an expert about reports of secret reprocessing facility and whether the threat to peace is increasing.
Also a mysterious ape that could be a new species. We'll talk with a researcher who captured video of the apes, about the scientists efforts to figure out just what kind of animal they are looking at.
And we'll fill you in on a growing Internet scam that has the Federal Trade Commission worried and tell you how to avoid getting burned.
But first, since the current nuclear standoff with North Korea began last fall, all eyes, have been glued to it's known nuclear complex in Yongbyon. Now the U.S. suspects North Korea may also be operating a secret plutonium reprocessing facility in an unknown location.
President Bush is at his ranch this weekend in Crawford, Texas. Chris Burns joins us from there. And, Chris, tell us what you do know at this point about the administration. What are they saying about North Korea? Any kind of information coming out about this suspected second site in the northern portion of the country.
CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sean, President Bush is about to host Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister this hour, in fact. Though distracting, of course, to the Bush administration, this new information coming out of North Korea. Now, according to our Pentagon correspondent, Chris Plante, he has confirmed through a U.S. defense official that it is suspected that they have detected the evidence of a second reprocessing plant, kind of like the one at Yonbyong in North Korea, which has been used, according to North Koreans to reprocess, some of the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods that they have into weapons grade plutonium.
The North Koreans make no secret of that. But about this second plant, that does appear to a secret. How they detected it was through some kind of crude detection process where they found -- the U.S. and Asian officials found Krypton-85 gas that is a byproduct of refining. So that's an indication and it doesn't appear to come from Yonbyong. It could come from somewhere else.
It could very well come from mountainous regions where the North Koreans are known to have caves that are used for manufacturing certain defense materiel. How is the White House responding to that? Well, t the White House, up until through last night, were saying they cannot confirm or deny the report, but here are some words from Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, saying: "Reprocessing to recover plutonium is a clear indication that North Korea is seeking to enlarge its nuclear arsenal despite repeated calls from the international community to reverse the provocative steps it's taken in its nuclear weapons program."
He said, "We will be working closely with our allies and friends towards a shared objective of a complete verifiable and irreversible end of North Korea's nuclear weapons program." However, there are no talks planned at the moment. The Bush administration remains in consultation with its partners in the region. The Democrats, however, are pressing very hard, saying that the military options should not be ruled out, but at the moment, they should be talking, and talking now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN, (D)-DELAWARE: We cannot rule out a military option, but the next step should be aggressive diplomacy. The step should be the same one that Richard Lugar, Republican, chairman of the committee, and I called for eight months ago. Talk, talk. Sit down, find out specifically what it is they need, what it is we're willing to do, and if we can not work it out diplomatically, then the option left is a military option.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNS: The last time the U.S. and North Korea did speak was back in April, and they haven't spoken since. The Bush administration saying they don't want to be blackmailed by the North Koreans, a failing Stalinist starving regime, which is trying to secure more economic help for its country and that nuclear card is their ace card. That's how they see it at the moment. Sean?
CALLEB: OK. Chris Burns with the president in Crawford, Texas. Chris, thanks very much.
OK. Now joining us more to talk more about North Korea's nuclear program, and put all this in perspective, Bob Alvarez with the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. He was formerly with the Department of Energy and was one of the first U.S. officials to inspect North Korean nuclear facilities dating back to 1994. Bob, welcome. Thanks very much for joining us. A lot to talk about today.
BOB ALVAREZ, INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES: Thank you for having me.
CALLEBS: When you hear information like, provocative, let's not rule out military action. Everything is escalating. Your concern. Is this the time we should be ratcheting back and perhaps seeking more dialogue with North Korea and its unpredictable leader, Kim Jong-Il?
ALVAREZ: Well, I think the options that face us, none of them are very good. And the worst option of all would be war. This would not be a cake walk, at least in terms of the initial war that took place in Iraq. The war in the Korean peninsula would be quite a bloody carnage, you know, with hundreds of thousands of casualties.
CALLEBS: We're talking about an army in North Korea that has more than 1 million troops.
ALVAREZ: It is the fifth largest army in the world.
CALLEBS: OK. Let's first take a look through our keyhole effect, you got to love this effect, as we can go through and take a look at the Korean peninsula. There you can see it. And we move in past the DMZ where you see Seoul, just beyond it. Now, there's the capital and in this bend in the river, that's where you see the nuclear facility where nuclear weapons are apparently produced for North Korea. In essence, it is their Los Alamos.
And now, we move in to what is known, this five mega watt facility, which is a small facility, but, Bob, just to the right of that, the processing area, that is critical. That is where there are some 8,000 spent fuel rods and why is that important?
ALVAREZ: That's the facility where the fuel rods would be dissolved in an acid and they would be chemically extracting the plutonium from the fuel rods. There's probably about -- of the 48 tons of spent fuel, there may be one half of 1 percent of the 48 tons is plutonium.
CALLEBS: OK, and as we go back to that graphic, we can see the reprocessing center, which is among the largest in the world. So they can literally drive those spent fuel rods with a certain degree of safety to that reprocessing plant and then get out the plutonium. Apparently, the U.S. says, North Korea has at least two nuclear weapons and the material to make as many as five more. Is this enough to make people in the U.S. very concerned, very terrified?
ALVAREZ: Well, I think you have to understand that this facility has been frozen for eight years. This is not, if you were to imagine - if you were to let your car sit for eight years, you don't go and open the door and turn on the key and drive it. This a facility that requires a substantial amount of activities in terms of just getting it ready for start up and, so...
CALLEBS: Well, let's not down play it too much. I mean, they have detected the krypton gas at the border.
ALVAREZ: Well, I think that what has been -- this is the first time there has been physical evidence of them resuming plutonium production. You have to keep in mind that krypton also is emitted from the reactor. So they also could be producing more plutonium in the reactor in addition to separating this plutonium. So, it is an open question as to where that Krypton-85 is coming from. But nonetheless, I think that it is abundantly clear that the North Koreans are seeking aggressively to obtain more plutonium for nuclear weapons.
CALLEBS: And Kim Jong-Il, their supreme leader, the concerns about him? ALVAREZ: Well, I think that the concerns is that we know very little about how they're ruling elite makes their decisions, and what are the factors that will influence their decisions down the road. It's really a big question mark.
CALLEBS: Okay, Bob Alvarez, thanks very much for coming in from...
ALVAREZ: Thank you.
CALLEBS: ... Washington this week and bringing us up to date. A very tense situation, one we will continue to monitor.
A team of nearly 80 weapon specialist from the Pentagon and the intelligence community is back from Iraq after inspecting dozens of sites the U.S. bombed during the war with its highly touted precision weapons. The weapons hit the targets they aimed at, but some of the targets were a big surprise. CNN's Barbara Starr had an exclusive chat with a key member of that team.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): After all the shock and awe, did those precision bombs really work? Did they destroy the bunkers where the CIA thought Saddam Hussein and his top generals were hiding? There had been high hopes after the first strike.
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: There's no question but the strike on that leadership headquarters was successful. We have photographs of what took place.
STARR: And at the later bombing of a Baghdad restaurant, four two-thousand pound bombs hit so precisely, there was only one crater. Military and CIA specialists combed have now combed through both those sites and found one big surprise. Contrary to U.S. intelligence, no bunkers.
The team has looked through 150 bombed facilities around Iraq to see how well U.S. precision weapons did against some of Saddam Hussein's most secret facilities. The bombs hit their targets, but surprisingly, Saddam's bunkers were even stronger than the U.S. thought. A senior team official told CNN they found unexpectedly sophisticated construction techniques. Many bunkers built with European assistance, designed specifically to withstand U.S. precision bombs with especially hardened concrete, steel reinforcement and shock absorbing equipment.
The team concluded the Iraqis had world class facilities built years ago with multiple layers of protection against U.S. attacks the Iraqis always feared.
STARR (on camera): And the team has discovered new clues about how Iraqis might have escaped other U.S. precision attacks.
STARR (voiceover): A B-2 bomber dropped a 2,000 and 5,000-pound bomb on the command and control bunker under layers of soil and concrete reinforced with 1 inch steel bars. U.S. intelligence thought there were six to eight large rooms inside. But the team found underground tunnels connecting 25 small rooms protected by individual blast doors. The eight-food wide entry remained open after the bombs hit, and underground damage was limited because unexpected small rooms absorbed the shock.
The team's final assessment? While the bombs were stunningly accurate in Iraq, the U.S. will need much better intelligence about targets the next time it goes to war. Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CALLEBS: And when we come back, we will talk to a researcher who managed to get some video of some elusive apes in western Africa. Scientists are wondering if this is a species they have never seen before.
And later in the show, a new study shows those big 15 passenger vans can be dangerous. We'll tell you what changes safety officials would like to see.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CALLEB: Welcome back, everyone. In environment news this week, heavy rain and flooding in India isn't just bad for people, it is hurting wildlife, too. The one horned rhinoceros and other endangered species can get in trouble when floods drive them out of their wildlife refuge. Officials say animals trying to get away from the water have been hit by cars on the highway, even shot by poachers looking for rhinoceros horn, which is sold illegally as an aphrodisiac.
These rare northern bottlenose whales have their prime feeding area off the coast of Nova Scotia. That is also where petroleum companies are conducting seismic tests to look for oil and gas deposits. Scientists have just completed ten days of research. They are trying to figure out if underwater sounds are damaging to the mammals. They hope to have some answers in a few months.
Deep in the forest of the democratic Republic of Congo, there is an ape that is not quite like anything scientists have seen before. Preliminary evidence suggests it could be a new species. Gary Strieker has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY STRIEKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No one yet knows exactly what they are.
SHELLY WILLIAMS, PRIMATOLOGIST: They were rushing at us and I'm telling you they were huge, and...
STRIEKER: But Shelly Williams is back from the Congo with more proof that they do exist. Strange mystery apes that might be completely new to science.
DUANE RUMBAUGH, GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY: Without question what she has brought back is worthy of scientific notice and continued research.
STRIEKER: Inside rebel-held territory in northern democratic Republic of Congo, primatologist Shelly Williams continues research on the apes, started several years ago by wildlife photographer Carl Amon (ph). In this forest, known to be populated by chimpanzees, Amon (ph) believed that there was a separate population of larger apes based on tantalizing clues, big footprints, ground nests, fecal samples, an intriguing skull, and eyewitness accounts by villagers. And then last year, Williams shot this videotape, just a few frames revealing a large female ape carrying a baby.
WILLIAMS: Doesn't look very much like a gorilla. It doesn't look very much like your common chimpanzee, and it doesn't look like a Bonobo.
STRIEKER: The nearest populations of gorillas and Bonobos, so- called pigmy chimpanzees, are hundreds of miles from this region. This year with a few local trackers, Williams got lucky.
WILLIAMS: This time we actually could find the groups and track them during the day and follow them for several hours.
STRIEKER: She and her team collected samples for DNA analysis. And more videotape confirming how different these primates are from common chimpanzees.
WILLIAMS: They have very large feet and they have very large hands. Their faces look somewhat different and their vocalizations are also different.
STRIEKER: What are they? Other scientists who've seen these videotapes say much more research is needed to answer that.
RUMBAUGH: We cannot rule out the possibility that it is a new species of ape or new subspecies or some form of hybrid. Just a lot of puzzles to be answered through future research.
STRIEKER: Williams plans another expedition to the ape's forest later this year. The next step, a permanent research camp for continuing study of the apes and a conservation program to protect them. Gary Strieker, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CALLEBS: And Shelly now joins us to explain why these apes are such an exciting discovery to the scientific community. Shelly, thanks a lot for coming in. Two trips to the Congo and eight to Africa overall.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
CALLEBS: What was it like and what do you think is going to be the significance of finding what you believe could be a new species?
WILLIAMS: To me, personally, it's an accelerating, it's an exciting venture. The expedition is hard work. We're in a very primitive area of the Congo, very isolated, so we're living like the villagers live in an area that has never been investigated in science in any way, so it's probably the last pristine area left in tact in the whole world.
CALLEBS: Any concerns that a lot of scientists are trying - are going to rush to that area to see what you photographed?
WILLIAMS: It's very difficult to get in and we already established relationships with the people there, and we have the support of the missionaries there. And just to get into the forest is also very difficult. You have to put in a lot of hard physical labor as well as paperwork.
CALLEBS: Now you brought us an imprint of a footprint. Tell us why this is so important and explain it to us?
WILLIAMS: This is important in that the size of this footprint.
CALLEBS: You should hold it this way, please. OK. The size of the footprint...
WILLIAMS: The size of the footprint is about 32 centimeters, and we couldn't get all the toes here because it was in the grass. Your average common chimpanzee is 25 to 26 centimeters in length. The Bonobos are a little longer because they have longer limbs, so they are about 28 centimeters. And the largest gorilla footprint taken by George Shallow (ph) was 29 centimeters. Our footprints range from 28 to 34 centimeters long. Very large.
CALLEBS: Now, as I understand it too, these apes sleep on the ground?
WILLIAMS: Yes.
CALLEBS: Chimps sleep in trees...
WILLIAMS: Right.
CALLEBS: ... to avoid predators?
WILLIAMS: Yes.
CALLEBS: Any danger to these animals sleeping on the ground?
WILLIAMS: I think based on their size and also some experiences I've had with them, one being, we pretended to be -- one of my trackers pretended to be an injured Diker and made the sound of a -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- like that. And all of a sudden the huge apes did come rush us in for the kill. And I'm telling you, these apes were large, they were muscular, they had long limbs, and they were ready to come in until they saw my white face.
CALLEBS: Was it a false charge, do you believe, or were they really ready?
WILLIAMS: No, they were coming in for the antelope, the Diker.
CALLEBS: Now, do you believe you have found a new species?
WILLIAMS: I believe that there is something unique and something very different there. In terms of both what the apes look like, their culture, the behavior, their eating habits, and about these nests, these nests on the ground. These apes -- the folklore of the villages that -- they call them lion eaters, lion killers.
CALLEBS: So you're talking about a big animal.
WILLIAMS: Yes. And so -- and the nests documented on the ground are always near water, which is highly unusual, and they're very deep. They're built like platforms. They have layers of roots underneath, then they have sticks, then they have grass, and then the big leaves on top for a nice comfy bed. So they could be almost two feet deep and they're really nice.
CALLEBS: When do you plan to go back?
WILLIAMS: Hopefully in October.
CALLEBS: Hopefully in October. Shelly, please keep us informed.
WILLIAMS: OK.
CALLEBS: A fascinating discover. Best of luck to you and we will keep an eye on this one.
WILLIAMS: OK. Thanks.
CALLEBS: Thanks.
Well, when we come back, there is growing concern about one of the many scams our there in cyberspace, trying to rip you off. We will show you what to watch out for.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CALLEBS: If you use a computer, this story concerns you. Internet fraud appears to be stepping up to the next level. Tomorrow the FBI, Federal Trade Commission, and Earthlink will issue a warning to the general public to watch out for what's known as a brand spoofing scam. Our science correspondent, Ann Kellan, has more on this growing threat.
ANN KELLAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's a warning to anyone using e- mail or surfing the web. These are rip off artists getting personal information out of you like bank accounts, credit card numbers without you realizing it. One example. You get an e-mail like something from a bank and it tells you they are updating your personal information with a link. Now, this link is not taking you to the bank after all, but it is to the rip off artist's website where you are giving them all of your personal information. With me, now, to discuss this new type of scam, Susan Getgood with Surfcontrol. Thank you for joining us today. Tell us how these rip off artists are doing, and what companies are they saying they are?
SUSAN GETGOOD, SURFCONTROL: Basically, what they are doing is they're sending you an e-mail pretending to be from a legitimate company, some kind of - it is others - potentially -- you purchased something and there's something wrong with the purchase or they lost your records and they need to update the records. And they'll send you, as you mentioned, to these websites where they ask you to put in the personal information. Companies like Best Buy, Pay Pal, Earthlink, The Massachusetts State Lottery have all been affected by this recently.
KELLAN: And basically what they'll tell you is there is something wrong with your personal data, that they need more information out of you and to fill out this form. Now -- then they have you link to some form. How will people know to worry about this?
GETGOOD: Well, for -- one key thing is to look for type graphical errors in the message. Things like spelling mistakes - I just receiving -- was spelled incorrectly. The other thing to do is if you're asked to go to a website for a company you are doing business with, say it's your bank. Don't click on that link in that e-mail. Actually type in the url address of the bank, and that way you'll go right to your bank the way you always normally do, and if it's a scam, there may even be a notice on your bank's website warning you of the scam.
KELLAN: And you were telling me earlier that if you go right to the website, if you link right to the bank, you would have to put in some kind of code before you put in any of your personal information, right?
GETGOOD: Absolutely. No legitimate company is going to ask you to reply to an e-mail with personal information or send you to a website and ask you to fill out personal information without sending you through their own security. So if you get one of these e-mails and it sends you off to a screen that says, enter your account number or your social security number or anything like that, it's potentially not legitimate, and the best thing for you to do is pick up the phone and call your bank. Because they'll be the ones at the other end of that telephone line to tell you whether or not it is legitimate.
KELLAN: OK. This has happened to hundreds of people already. So what if they have been duped already. What do you do, is there any way to correct the problem or is it too late?
GETGOOD: Well, if you have been duped already, you should do the exact same thing you do if you left your credit card at the table at the restaurant. You should call your bank, you should call your credit card company and tell them you had a problem. If you haven't been on the duped and you want to be on the alert to this sort of thing, you should report fraud -- the potential fraud to law enforcement and you should consider using filtering technology whether you're at home or whether at work to make sure you don't even get these spams delivered to you in the first place.
KELLAN: Thank you, out of our Boston bureau. Susan, thanks for joining us. Susan is with Surfcontrol.
Sean, it's a good idea to keep an eye on that e-mail and don't answer everything you get.
CALLEBS: It's really frightening, all that information. Ann, thanks very much, I appreciate it.
Well, coming up in our next half hour, hate in terrorist groups are using the internet more and more for fundraising and recruiting. We will get some insight from the head of a taskforce that monitors hate on the web.
And Caribbean coral reefs are disappearing at an alarming rate. We'll talk to an expert about whether the reefs can be saved.
First, our quick break, and then we will check the latest headlines.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CALLEBS: NEXT@CNN continues in just a minute, after a check of the news headlines at this hour.
Two more U.S. soldiers have died from hostile action in Iraq. The troops were from the 101st Airborne Division. Their unit was ambushed west of Mosul in northern Iraq. A third U.S. soldier was killed in a jeep accident near Baghdad's airport today. That makes 92 U.S. deaths in Iraq since President Bush declared major combat over there.
A mom and dad are dead, their three children hospitalized after lightning struck their camp site in the Utah mountains yesterday. Police say Richard and Lisa Goff, both 34 years old, were killed as they sought shelter under some trees. The children are expected to recover from their injuries.
And a sport shocker from Sandwich, England, today. American rookie Ben Curtis capturing the British Open, finishing at 1 under par. Curtis was the only golfer to finish under par. Vijay Singh of India -- Fiji rather, and Thomas Bjorn of Denmark tied for runner up.
We will have more news at the top of the hour. NEXT@CNN resumes right now.
Well, this is the sixth year of the Simon Wiesenthal Center has released a report on hate websites. The group describing itself as an international Jewish human rights organization dedicating to preserving the memory of the holocaust. It's taskforce against hate and terrorism compiles a list of extremist websites. There are 4,000 of them in their report out this week.
Mark Weitzman is director of that task force, and he now joins us from New York. Mark, thanks very much. I guess we'd like to talk to you under better circumstances. We hear a lot about terrorism around the globe. Let's talk about home grown hate.
MARK WEITZMAN, SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER: Well, what we've seen is that the Internet has become the primary tool for communication for both home grown and international hate groups and extremist groups. When we first began monitoring this in 1995, at the time there was only one Web site that was devoted to the theme extremism and hate on the Internet. As you just mentioned, Sean, our database currently is over 4,000 such sites online.
CALLEBS: Well, Mark, how do you sort of balance free speech between groups that you believe cross the line and really encourage hate, encourage violence, encourage things of that nature?
WEITZMAN: Well, for example, we put out this report and it's not accompanied by any call for censorship or any call to restrict First Amendment rights. We're putting this out for educational purposes, for law enforcement. People can go to our Web site at wiesenthal.com to click on and get more information. So basically, we see it as a call to the public, a call to educators, to parents to realize that the Internet can be used, along with all the great means of information and education, it can also be used for propagating hate and extremism.
CALLEBS: Well, Mark, you have a DVD that people can also order that comes from your task force. We have some video of that. It's basically the open portion of that DVD. Are you also finding out that there are terrorist groups around the globe that are a lot more active on the Web? I guess we saw a lot of that with the group connected to the September 11 attacks.
WEITZMAN: Well, that has been probably the single -- one of the two most important things that we have found in the last two years. There's been the growth of Web sites associated with Islamist extremist groups. These really did not exist three, four years ago. And what they say is that they both -- have become very much more technologically literate than they had been in the past, as well as they're using this as a form of communication internationally, and it's something that, again, that we need to all be aware of if we're going to pay attention to the events and globe around us.
CALLEBS: Now, 4,000 groups that you're talking about, how can you be sure that a lot of these aren't condoning violence? I mean, that is quite a bit for your organization to go through and look at in a very thorough level.
WEITZMAN: We spend our time looking at these basically every day. We have people around the world who do the research, reporting to us every day on this, and we review the sites carefully.
There are sites that definitely encourage violence. We've seen sites that recruit -- attempt to recruit people to be suicide bombers, to carry on jihad against the U.S. and calls for it, and that's some of the things that we found and is out on the DVD. But on the whole, this is the price that you pay in a free society, but, again, if you don't pay attention to it and if you're not aware to it, then you suffer the consequences, perhaps. CALLEBS: You know, looking at the past, the way organizations have grown online, you thoroughly expect hate groups are going to continue to recruit and do things like try and find people who will commit suicide bombings. Is that going to grow?
WEITZMAN: I think it will grow. I think the fact that they've grown so much, 4,000 times essentially, is an indication that they see it as a successful tool, as the best -- well, in their words, as one extremist described it, it's better than a sword. It has become the best way of getting their message out cheaply, instantaneously. They can target different groups, whether it's women, or kids, or teenagers and so on and so forth. And they can try to get to people in a form that they consider getting their message across in a free form way.
CALLEBS: Well, Mark, you've put this together. What do you do with it now? Other than people, yes, these groups are out there?
WEITZMAN: Well, I think that one of the things we're hoping is that by raising awareness about this, first of all, that people, whether it's parents or educators, will teach their children, their students to use the Web critically, because some of the material that's put out there is pure propaganda and it attempts to influence people's minds, and manipulates and distorts lies about history, blaming, for example, 9/11 on U.S. support for Israel, for example, or a page that claims that -- talks about Martin Luther King Jr. that was put out by a neo-Nazi group. Things like that.
And the other part is, for law enforcement, as well, that they need to raise their consciousness and to realize that as some have begun doing that this is a problem that they need to address, as well as that it's not just a local, domestic problem, but it's an international problem. It needs to be solved internationally as well.
CALLEBS: OK, Mark Weitzman, from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, thanks very much for joining us here today. We appreciate it.
WEITZMAN: Thank you.
CALLEBS: Well, there are more than 500,000 of them on the roads. Federal safety officials this week recommended that auto makers redesign 15-passenger vans and that anyone who drives them gets special training. Kathleen Koch has our story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The 2001 crashes in Texas and North Carolina that left five dead were sadly similar. Both 15-passenger church vans, loaded with mostly unbelted passengers, both had blowouts. Federal investigators say the pictures tell the story.
SHANE LACK, NTSB: The blowout occurs about right now. The vehicle begins to veer to the left.
KOCH: A simulation of the Texas crash.
LACK: As you can see, the driver must react to these changes in handling very quickly and precisely, or risk losing control.
KOCH: But in another NTSB test, even a trained driver who knew his tire was about to go, couldn't control the vehicle.
DENNIS COLLINS, NTSB: There is the tire blowout and tread separation. And as you can see, the driver clearly exceeds his lane.
KOCH: So the NTSB has recommended all drivers of 15-passenger vans have special training and be licensed to operate them.
ELLEN ENGLEMAN, CHMN., NTSB: We clearly identify that there are items such as braking, steering, the loss of control issue that's really important for a driver to understand.
KOCH: The NTSB also showed simulations of how passengers inside the Texas van were tossed about. It recommended automakers put shoulder belts in all 15-passenger vans, and redesign the vehicles to prevent roof crush.
The aunt of the 14-year-old girl killed in the North Carolina accident says it's about time.
BRIDGET HELMS, VICTIM'S AUNT: If they're not going to make the necessary changes to make the vehicles safe, then children and groups, anyone, should not be transported in them.
KOCH: Dodge no longer makes 15-passenger vans like the ones in the two fatal accidents. Automakers Ford and General Motors say their 15-passenger vans are safe, though General Motors announced in May it was adding stability enhancement systems on its vans starting in 2004.
Federal safety officials have warned drivers the last two summers that when fully loaded, the vans are three times more likely to roll over than a smaller van.
JOAN CLAYBROOK, FMR. NTHSA ADMINISTRATOR: If it's 15 people, which is what it's designed for, supposedly, then it's very susceptible to rollover. You take an evasive maneuver or one wheel goes off the edge of the road, these vehicles go out of control. It's virtually impossible to control them after that.
KOCH (on camera): More than 420 people have died in 15-passenger van crashes since 1990. The Senate is so concerned that it is considering a measure to force the big vans to meet the same crash tests and rollover standards cars do.
Kathleen Koch, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CALLEBS: Still to come, we get a look at a rocket launch from some unusual angles and find out what its pay load will do for you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CALLEBS: OK. Time to take a look at some "NEXT News" headlines. The Recording Industry Association has promised to start going after individual downloaders with a vengeance and it's making good on its threat. The industry has at least 871 federal subpoenas against digital music swappers. This according to the Associated Press, which got a look at the subpoenas this week. About 75 new subpoenas are being approved each day in the recording studios' efforts to cripple illegal music downloading on the Net.
Well is it on? Is it off reports from Russia say Yuri Melenchenko decided to postpone his marriage to an earthbound fiancee. But the bride to be says the wedding is still set for August 10. While the bride groom orbits the Earth aboard the international space station. Katerina Dmitriev the Russian-born daughter of a college professor got a marriage license in suburban Houston on Thursday. Apparently Texas law required only one of the potential spouses actually be present on planet Earth.
A new type of Atlas rocket blasted from Cape Canaveral Thursday providing some amazing pictures of the launch. The rocket carried a satellite that might provide you another option of bringing television pictures into your home. Dan Billow from our affiliate WESH explains.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Instrumentation, power, communications
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go.
DAN BILLOW, WESH AFFILIATE CORRESPONDENT: The launch team knew this blast off would come with additional risk.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have ignition.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Life off.
BILLOW: The Atlas 5's two new booster rockets kicked in, the risk is that they have never yet been tested in flight. They would pass this test. And the atlas, with three-onboard cameras, would deliver stunning views of the ride. This is what it would look like if you were on your way to 22,000 miles up.
From below you could see the rocket ascend from twilight up into the bright sunshine. Two minutes in, to the relief of many, the new solid boosters finished their jobs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we have jettisoned the SOBs
BILLOW: Next, a one of a kind view of the new nose cone separating. It is six stories tall and 18 feet in diameter. Under the nose cone was a giant 5 ton satellite designed to last a remarkable 18 years in orbit, that's the money-saving advantage in a big rocket like the Atlas 5, it carries big satellites that hold more fuel for a longer lifetime in space.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stage separation.
BILLOW: Another onboard camera showed the first stage getting smaller in the distance as the smaller stage took over. Lockheed Martin bosses could brag they're new rocket is not only bigger, but also operates with unheard of efficiency. Rolling out, fueling and launching all within ten hours. The new satellite owned by cable vision is big enough, by itself, to bring a new subscription TV service to the nation. It'll compete with EchoStar and DirectTV. At the Cape, Dan Billow, news channel 2.
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CALLEBS: I was just reading a report on the health and the future of the coral reefs across the Caribbean. In a comprehensive look at hundreds of different sites, researchers say coral cover is down by 80 percent across the region. That report is in the "Journal of Science".
Joining us to talk about what those losses mean is Jack Sobel. He is director of the Strategic Conservation Science at the Ocean Conservancy and author of an upcoming book "Marine Reserve: A Guide to Science, Design, and Youth" joining us from Washington. Just some amazing pictures down there. Such a diverse beautiful area and really an area that is widely threatened, isn't it?
JACK SOBEL, DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC CONSERVATION SCIENCE: Yes, across the region. The reefs of the entire region are threatened and have been for a long time. I first started diving in 1980, so this study basically covers my lifetime of diving and for anyone who spent time in the Caribbean diving almost anywhere they've seen the deterioration of the reefs, so it's not a surprise of them. But for anyone who hasn't been down there, it should be shocking. I mean, the study points out that 80 percent of our coral cover has disappeared across a large range of reefs.
CALLEBS: Jack we have a map now, we're going to go to it, and walk us through this. You talk about 80 percent and these coral reefs are vital to ocean life, without the reef can the oceans survive?
SOBEL: Well I think the ocean will continue to survive, but we will lose tremendous benefits. Coral reefs are amongst the most diverse and charismatic ecosystem systems, if you can call an ecosystem charismatic. I mean, from the time we're very young we see images on television, Jaques Cousteau advertising, they use coral reefs. They're very appealing to people. They also are diverse in the same ways as tropical rain forests are. And as we lose them even -- coral reefs will probably persist, but we have lost huge chunks of them and we're continuing to pull vital components out of them through fishing and other extractive activities, at the same time that we're putting things in that don't belong: pollutants, sediments, nutrients.
CALLEBS: Let's pick up on that, Jack. To what degree are humans responsible for the destruction of coral reefs?
SOBEL: Well I would say that from my perspective, in terms of my definition, humans are solely responsible for the destruction of coral reefs.
. I mean coral reefs are not a static system. They are a dynamic system. They're naturally changing, but naturally they don't change over the time period that these have in the way they have. And things like hurricanes and other natural disasters -- reefs evolve with those kinds of threats to them. And yes, they impact reefs, but reefs recover from them. In fact, in some ways, that kind of natural disturbance helps reefs maintain their diversity.
Those kind of disturbances are only problematic when you have human imposed stresses on top of them. Then a hurricane can damage a reef in ways that it won't normally, it won't recover in the same way. It's what we call the resilience of reefs. How they respond to those changes, how they recover when they're stressed. You now have a suite of human stresses including, especially, acting over fairly large scales, fishing, extractive activities, pulling those components out that are supposed to be there, kind of fraying the web of life that a coral reef is.
CALLEBS: Well, Jack, how do you tell people that you're not just an environmentalist who is screaming the sky is falling? That this study is different and very extensive?
SOBEL: I am screaming the sky is falling, but I also think there's good news in the study too, and I think they're is good news about coral reefs, they are naturally resilient. If we keep the pieces there and if we protect the bloodline of the coral reefs, the water quality and if we keep all the components there. Aldo Leopold (ph) the conservationist once said, that the first law of intelligent tinkering is keeping all the seemingly useless parts, and it's true of coral reefs. We have been pulling components off of those reefs for years and years and years and then you have a hurricane and a die off of sea urchins, you have various, even natural events suddenly become problematic because you have already frayed that web of life.
This isn't just environmentalists, this is scientists saying this, this is credible scientists. And as I said, this shouldn't come as a surprise, and doesn't come as a surprise, to those of us who have been on reefs, whether we're fishermen, whether we're environmentalist, whether we are divers, whether vacationers. Anyone who has seen the reefs in the Caribbean over this time span can't have helped -- can't have not noticed the change.
CALLEBS: Well Jack...
SOBEL: This is confirming that over a large scale over many years and the numbers are less important than the fact that there has been a huge decline in these reefs and we've lost things that are very valuable to us.
CALLEBS: Well Jack, we can tell you're impassioned about this, thanks very much for coming in and bringing us up to date. Beautiful pictures, and let's hope we can keep those reefs alive and healthy for years to come.
SOBEL: I hope so too.
CALLEBS: Jack Sobel thanks very much. Still ahead the sport of remote control blimp racing is more competitive than you think. It's more competitive than I thought. We will show you what it takes to win.
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CALLEBS: Blimp race, it sounds as though it's almost an oxymoron, but that has not stopped having a bunch of New York artist types from pitting their model blimps against eachother. Jeanne Moos reports.
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JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): And they're off. Depending on how you define off.
MICHELLE MACCARONE, BLIMP PILOT: Well, the idea of having a blimp race is kind of absurd. I mean, the fact that they go so incredibly slow.
MOOS: Slow? This is blinding speed for a blimp, operated by remote control. Even the real ones cruise at only around 25 miles an hour. At the blimp derby, contestants need all the help they can get.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, no blowing.
MOOS: The blimp derby is actually an art project at a gallery called Sculpture Center in Queens.
Artist Olav Westphalen dreamed up the derby.
OLAV WESTPHALEN, CREATOR, BLIMP DERBY: I've always been interested in blimps. My grandfather was supposed to be on the Hindenberg, but he had an abscessed tooth and couldn't go.
MOOS (on camera): Are you joking?
WESTPHALEN: No. I'm German.
MOOS (voice-over): The first blimp derby featured eight remote- controlled blimps, the kind you built from a kit but custom decorated. For instance, "it's a girl."
JONATHAN FARBER, BLIMP PILOT: It looks like a helium balloon that you bring to the hospital.
MOOS: Some blimps have trouble gaining altitude.
MACCARONE: I couldn't get it up.
MOOS: And once they're up...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is up with the wind currents? Wind currents? Hello?
MOOS: A blimp named "helium hellfire" had its own rooting section.
They say pilots' skill rather than blimp technology is what counts.
(on camera): Can I bring it in for a landing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure.
MOOS (voice-over): It didn't seem to help that I'd once briefly piloted a real blimp. Very briefly.
(on camera): Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. No, I don't want to drive anymore.
(voice-over): Mid-air collisions at the derby are encouraged, and dirty tricks are allowed, like pins jutting out from the side and a razor blade on the nose of the Swiss Institute blimp.
(on camera): This is so mean.
CHRIS MOSS, BLIMP PILOT: You've got to be. You know, we tried to be nice the first race, and it just didn't work out.
MOOS (voice-over): Neither did the razor blade. In two separate derbys, the race went to Hellfire.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Helium Hellfire won.
MOOS: As for the future of blimp racing ...
WESTPHALEN: We have been thinking. I mean, Sculpture Center and I were negotiating about a weekend of nude blimping.
MOOS: Let's hope the nudes aren't as rotund or as limp as the blimps were.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And it got sucked up into one of those vents up there.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God.
MOOS: Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CALLEBS: A Bud Longneck and a blimp, right?.
Well that's all the time we have for today, but before we go, here's a peek at what is coming up next week.
The Tour de France wraps up next Sunday, and we will take a look at the high performance, tricked-out, light weight bikes used in competitive bicycle racing.
That story and much more coming up next week. We hope you will join us then. Coming up next "CNN LIVE SUNDAY" with the latest with the latest on the U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq today, as well as a live report from Crawford, Texas on White House reaction to events in Iraq. That's followed by "People In The News" profiling Lance Armstrong and Will Smith. That is at 7:00 Eastern time. Then at 8:00 CNN presents "Harsh Continent; Life in Antarctica" Kyra Phillips will take us to the South Pole. CNN continues right after a quick break.
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