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CNN Live Today

Interview With Bono, Paul Martin

Aired May 14, 2004 - 11:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: White House hopeful John Kerry has joined the ranks of senators who have seen still classified photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse. Let's find out more about what the presidential candidates are up to from Candy Crowley in Washington. Hi, Candy.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Betty. We want to begin with President Bush. He is on his way to a campaign event in Missouri, one of two battleground states he's visiting today. He'll give a commencement address in at Concordia University in Wisconsin this afternoon.

Vice President Cheney also is reaching out to voters in a key state, Florida. He speaks to a Jewish group in Boca Raton about a half hour from now.

And John Kerry is back in Washington where he is scheduled to speak to the International Brotherhood of Police Officers in a few hours before heading home to Boston.

Last night Kerry went over to the Capitol where he got a firsthand look at those photos on of Iraqi prisoner abuse. Kerry left about 45 minutes later without make any comment.

President Bush has reached a milestone in the race for the campaign cash. The Associated Press reports Bush has crossed the $200 million fund raising mark. John Kerry his raised a little more than half that, about $110 million. Both candidate have declined public financing which allows them to avoid federal spending limits.

Give back $100,000 in matching funds. That's what the Federal Election Commission tells Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton. The FEC says Sharpton exceeded a $50,000 limit that candidates who accept matching funds may spend on their own campaigns. A Sharpton spokesman says the FEC bowed to pressure from right wing hate groups. He says the campaign will appeal the order.

A controversial issue in the spotlight again. This week's "Play of the Week" goes on a woman who put stem-cell research back into the headlines. We'll tell you who we're talking about this afternoon.

Plus, for many of you take a look outside. It's the attack of the cicadas. This afternoon we'll take a look back in time at the political mood of the nation in the years of the cicadas.

We'll have more on all of that and more when I go INSIDE POLITICS at 3:30 p.m. Eastern, 12:30 p.m. Pacific. But right now we want to go back to Atlanta and Betty.

NGUYEN: Got to love those cicadas.

CROWLEY: Or not.

NGUYEN: Yes, or not. They do make a lot of noise. Thanks, Candy.

Racially, in a melting pot. But politically we're more segregated than ever. Our senior political correspondent (sic) Bill Schneider looks at the great divide.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): America is becoming more segregated between Democrats and Republicans. That's the startling conclusion of "Austin American Statesman" reporter Bill Bishop who sees a trend going back nearly 30 years.

BILL BISHOP, "AUSTIN AMERICAN STATESMAN": People are moving to places where they feel comfortable socially. And that social comfort now has a political meaning to it.

SCHNEIDER: According to bishop's data, in 1976 when Jimmy Carter beat Gerald Ford in a close election, just over a quarter of Americans lived in landslide counties where either Carter or Ford got at least 60 percent of the vote.

In 2000, there were a lot more landslide counties. Nearly half of all voters lived in counties where either George W. Bush or Al Gore got at least 60 percent of the vote.

Americans are less likely to live near someone with a different political point of view and more likely to live in a place that is overwhelmingly Republican or Democratic. A place like Cobb County, Georgia, for example, which voted 60 percent for Bush.

MARILYN GILHULY, AUTHOR & COMMUNITY ACTIVIST: This area has voted for the conservative Republican in every election. In every election.

SCHNEIDER: What attracts people to Cobb County? The values.

GILHULY: People feel strongly about family values. Strongly about church and faith.

SCHNEIDER: A place very much unlike Montgomery County, Maryland, which voted 63 percent for Gore.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have to have friends with Democrats to live in Montgomery County or you won't have many friends.

SCHNEIDER: Montgomery County residents are attracted by the lifestyle.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People are very tolerant of different lifestyles here. And in general it's just very liberal socially.

SCHNEIDER: Politics is becoming more and more about values and lifestyle and less and less about economic interests.

BISHOP: The parties have aligned themselves to sort of ideological divides that already existed geographically in the country.

SCHNEIDER: Which means the great divide between Democrats and Republicans in Washington has deep roots in places like Cobb County, and Montgomery County.

(on camera): The parties seem to occupy two different worlds, in part because their voters occupy two different worlds. Segregated worlds, separate, but in this case, equal.

Bill Schneider, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: Here's a question for you. What scares you the most? Snakes, heights? Another season of "MTV's Newlyweds"? Well, if what you could take -- if it was a pill to cure those phobias? Well, that's on the plate. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has the scoop. It's next.

And later, he's a major force in music and politics. Now Bono is lending his voice to the fight to save millions of lives. He's talking to us about it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: For some it's a fear of heights, for others it might be a fear of flying. Millions of Americans suffer from phobia and now scientists say a drug used to treat tuberculosis may help people overcome their fears. Senior medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta has our "Daily Dose" of health news.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Fears. Television shows prey on them, and according to the surgeon general, 16 million Americans suffer from some kind of phobia. Most people learn their fear. But what if a little pill could help unlearn them?

For 30 years, Beth Cox has been terrified of heights.

BETH COX, HAS FEAR OF HEIGHTS: As long as I remember being an adult, I remember being afraid.

GUPTA: Tall bridges, mountains and elevators, anything high, they all stopped her cold.

COX: I am hyperventilating, I am crying, my hands are shaking, my legs are shaking -- I was scared to death.

GUPTA: Tired of it, Beth joined a medical trial in Atlanta. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Go on up to the ninth floor.

GUPTA: Beth was part of a small story that focused on the fear of heights. It involved a virtual reality elevator, combined with a little pill called depyschoslarin (ph). The drug, already approved to combat tuberculosis, seemed to also affect the brain's fear center.

Dr. Michael Davis, a psychiatry professor at Emory University conducted the study and found patients who took the drug before therapy, actually unlearned their fears faster.

MICHAEL DAVIS, EMORY UNIV.: What this medication seems to do is to speed up or improve your ability to get over your fear.

COX: I feel great.

GUPTA: Beth took one pill a few hours before her therapy, and after only two sessions, instead of the normal seven or eight, was able to unlearn her fear of heights, going all the way to the top floor on the simulated elevator.

And once you are done with therapy, you are also done with the pill.

Not everyone is sold on the idea of the medication, however. Some experts believe therapy alone is still the most effective. Researchers caution depyschoslarin (ph) only works when combined with exposure therapy.

For Beth Cox, it gave her the courage to go to great heights.

COX: OK, I don't love it, but I can do it. I don't have to like it, but I know I'm safe.

I can probably even stay on one of these floors.

GUPTA: Thanks to therapy, she is able to take long looks down.

(on camera): A commonly prescribed fear factor probably won't be prescribed for two to five years, but based on this small study, it does appear safe and holds promising for those with phobias, and for the psychiatrists trying to treat them.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: For your daily dose of heath news online, log on to our Web site. You'll find the latest medical headlines, and there's a health guide from CNN and the Mayo Clinic. The address is CNN.com/health.

Space, it's not just for astronauts anymore, at least that's what some are hoping. Find out why this flight is one of the most popular stories on our Web site, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: Private space travel is our click of the day, one of the most popular stories of the hour at CNN.com. A private company has set a civilian altitude record, soaring 40 miles above the Mojave Desert into the stratosphere. The pilot was able to float in weightlessness once the craft leveled out at 200,012,000 feet.

Spaceship I is one of 24 entries competing for the X Prize, which will go the first company that sends three people into suborbital flight. The X Prize foundation is promoting low-cost space tourism. This particular spacecraft was funded by Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, and that is our click of the day.

Tomorrow is the Preakness Stakes, the vital second leg in the pursuit of horse racing triple crown.

CNN's Louise Schiavone looks at the bottom line in rout the finish line in this sport of kings.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LOUISE SCHIAVONE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The life and career of a thoroughbred champion is nurtured in some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world by a team of caregivers ever on the lookout for a winner.

JONATHAN SHEPPARD, PRES., NATL. STEEPLECHASE ASSN.: Sometimes great horses come from very humble origins, and were brought inexpensive at the sale, so not (UNINTELLIGIBLE) bred, and vice versa. People can go out and spend millions of dollars buying fancy-bred yearlings and have not much to show for it at the end of the day.

SCHIAVONE: Even routine upkeep can be astronomical, upwards of $30,000 a year for a single horse, not including breeding costs. Unlike other breeds, thoroughbreds must mate naturally, and with eyewitnesses.

KEVIN CONLEY, AUTHOR, "STUD": Other breeds can use artificial insemination, which allows for the influence of a potent sire, a valuable sire, to be much more widespread, and there is a kind of controlled scarcity about the potent sires in the horse world, which means that you have to pay $500,000 a pop to get an appointment with the best horses, because there only are a hundred of them.

SCHIAVONE: But there are no guarantees, and each expert looks for something different.

RICHARD VALENTINE, WHITEWOOD FARMS, VIRGINIA: A good overstep. You like to see him walk their hind foot, cross over the print where their front foot has been, and, you know, a good walk, you like to see their tails swing, and you like a good eye on the horse.

MAIREAD CARR, HORSE TRAINER: They have to be able to breathe. They have to be pretty sound, so nothing hurts them, and then it's down to them. SCHIAVONE: Courage and the will to win are universal traits in winners, and the qualities that lead buyers to sink millions of dollars into the sport. There are more losers than winners.

PAUL FOUT, HORSE OWNER: When you go into it, you better have some deep pockets, because you never know.

SCHIAVONE: How deep? This year, U.S. horse breeders will do $7 billion in business, and that's just where the spending starts.

Louise Schiavone for CNN, Middleburg, Virginia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(STOCK MARKET UPDATE)

NGUYEN: Well, up next, U2's Bono has an important cause he's fighting for, and he wants your help. We're talking to him, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: In the war on AIDS, the World Health Organization has what it calls the three by five initiative. It's a lofty goal to provide AIDS-fighting drugs to some three million infected people by the year 2005. But such an effort requires a lot of money. That's where rock star Bono and Canada's prime minister come in. CNN's Daryn Kagan spoke with both men about the health crusade.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Bono and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. Gentlemen, thanks for being with us.

PAUL MARTIN, PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA: Great to be here.

KAGAN: Bono, about six months ago you showed up in Canada, promising in your own typical way, to be a pain in the you know what to this prime minister.

(LAUGHTER)

BONO, SINGER, ACTIVIST: Yes, well, you know, we were make some demands of the Canadian people and Prime Minister Martin's new administration.

But, you know, the quid pro quo is the pain in the arse, if they don't do what we're asking. But we're here to give applause today because actually Canada has done some extraordinary things this week in dealing with the AIDS emergency. And I'm proud to be sit beside the man tonight.

KAGAN: Mr. Prime Minister, tell us exactly the commitment that Canada is making to the global fund to fight AIDS.

MARTIN: We doubled our commitment in terms of the global fund from last year. But in addition to that we just put $100 million into the World Health Organization's fund to essentially deal with roughly 50 percent of the 6 million people who are not receiving the AIDS cocktails that they require.

And at the same time we're the first country to allow low-cost, generic drugs to be made available to Africa. This is a total package.

And I've to say you're right about Bono's threat to be a pain. But I tell you, if that's the kind of pain that we're going to have to have, that's the kind of pain we'd like to have.

KAGAN: When the call comes here in America to give overseas and to give to people who are fighting AIDS in Africa, Mr. Prime Minister, people often say there's enough to do at home. So how do you answer your own critics in Canada that say that that money should be staying domestically?

MARTIN: We all live in different countries, but there is common humanity among us. And it's very, very hard, I certainly think for Canadians, for anybody in North America, to look at what's happening in Africa, to look at the decimation of societies and to look at the fact that there are more health care workers dying than that are being created. The same for teachers.

It's very hard for anybody to turn their back on that. And that's why I think that people like Bono were able to really create a huge wave of support for this kind of thing, effectively, then make it possible for governments to act. And in fact make it impossible for governments not to act.

KAGAN: So you've gotten your message across there in Canada, Bono. I understand you're planning some battleground states here in the U.S., trying to affect the U.S. presidential election.

BONO: Well we're trying to elect our issues throughout this, really. The AIDS emergency and extreme poverty.

And, you know, people are interested. They're not so cold. And they're cleverer than you think because these are dangerous times, it's a dangerous world. And, you know, in the southern hemisphere we are not, you know, always seen as a benign force in the world, in Europe and America and the United States and Canada.

I think these AIDS drugs are great advertisements for what we do best, out ingenuity and our technological capacity. And I just think that the time, it's smart money. As well as being compassionate, it's just smart money.

And we want to in the U.S. election just raise the bar for both President Bush and John Kerry. Both of whom have shown, you know, some far-thinking approaches on this issue. But both of them, you know, we want to go further.

And, yes. So the 15 swing states we're going to have church folk, soccer moms, rock stars, God knows who turning up and being a pain in the arse -- which is what we do best. MARTIN: You know, your earlier question about what the effect on Canada. The fact is when Bono made his speech six months ago or when he and I worked on debt relief even earlier, what really is happening is that is reflecting Canadian values. This is not a difficult sell. In fact, Canadians are essentially asking their government -- and this may make it a lot easier for us -- they're asking our government to take a lead on this.

KAGAN: Your fans would be mad with me, Bono, if I didn't ask when is the next U2 album coming out?

BONO: You'll be very pleased or upset to hear that the U2 album is nearly finished. I had to sneak out and down the bathroom pole to get out over here today. But we'll be finished by the summer, single in September, album in October and November. And I can't tell you what it's called, but...

KAGAN: Sure you can.

BONO: ... it's a rock 'n' roll album. It's our first rock 'n' roll album.

KAGAN: First rock 'n' roll album. Well, you know, we always love you to come on and talk about world health issues so dear to your heart. you're also going to have to come back and talk about the album when it comes out.

Bono, thank you so much. Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. Gentlemen, thanks for your time. Appreciate it.

MARTIN: Thank you.

BONO: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: And Bono will be among the featured speakers Monday at the University of Pennsylvania commencement. Afterward you can call him Dr. Bono. He'll receive a honorary doctorate of laws degree from the university.

(WEATHER UPDATE)

NGUYEN: That is going to do it for LIVE TODAY. It's time now to send it over to Wolf Blitzer in Washington.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired May 14, 2004 - 11:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: White House hopeful John Kerry has joined the ranks of senators who have seen still classified photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse. Let's find out more about what the presidential candidates are up to from Candy Crowley in Washington. Hi, Candy.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Betty. We want to begin with President Bush. He is on his way to a campaign event in Missouri, one of two battleground states he's visiting today. He'll give a commencement address in at Concordia University in Wisconsin this afternoon.

Vice President Cheney also is reaching out to voters in a key state, Florida. He speaks to a Jewish group in Boca Raton about a half hour from now.

And John Kerry is back in Washington where he is scheduled to speak to the International Brotherhood of Police Officers in a few hours before heading home to Boston.

Last night Kerry went over to the Capitol where he got a firsthand look at those photos on of Iraqi prisoner abuse. Kerry left about 45 minutes later without make any comment.

President Bush has reached a milestone in the race for the campaign cash. The Associated Press reports Bush has crossed the $200 million fund raising mark. John Kerry his raised a little more than half that, about $110 million. Both candidate have declined public financing which allows them to avoid federal spending limits.

Give back $100,000 in matching funds. That's what the Federal Election Commission tells Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton. The FEC says Sharpton exceeded a $50,000 limit that candidates who accept matching funds may spend on their own campaigns. A Sharpton spokesman says the FEC bowed to pressure from right wing hate groups. He says the campaign will appeal the order.

A controversial issue in the spotlight again. This week's "Play of the Week" goes on a woman who put stem-cell research back into the headlines. We'll tell you who we're talking about this afternoon.

Plus, for many of you take a look outside. It's the attack of the cicadas. This afternoon we'll take a look back in time at the political mood of the nation in the years of the cicadas.

We'll have more on all of that and more when I go INSIDE POLITICS at 3:30 p.m. Eastern, 12:30 p.m. Pacific. But right now we want to go back to Atlanta and Betty.

NGUYEN: Got to love those cicadas.

CROWLEY: Or not.

NGUYEN: Yes, or not. They do make a lot of noise. Thanks, Candy.

Racially, in a melting pot. But politically we're more segregated than ever. Our senior political correspondent (sic) Bill Schneider looks at the great divide.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): America is becoming more segregated between Democrats and Republicans. That's the startling conclusion of "Austin American Statesman" reporter Bill Bishop who sees a trend going back nearly 30 years.

BILL BISHOP, "AUSTIN AMERICAN STATESMAN": People are moving to places where they feel comfortable socially. And that social comfort now has a political meaning to it.

SCHNEIDER: According to bishop's data, in 1976 when Jimmy Carter beat Gerald Ford in a close election, just over a quarter of Americans lived in landslide counties where either Carter or Ford got at least 60 percent of the vote.

In 2000, there were a lot more landslide counties. Nearly half of all voters lived in counties where either George W. Bush or Al Gore got at least 60 percent of the vote.

Americans are less likely to live near someone with a different political point of view and more likely to live in a place that is overwhelmingly Republican or Democratic. A place like Cobb County, Georgia, for example, which voted 60 percent for Bush.

MARILYN GILHULY, AUTHOR & COMMUNITY ACTIVIST: This area has voted for the conservative Republican in every election. In every election.

SCHNEIDER: What attracts people to Cobb County? The values.

GILHULY: People feel strongly about family values. Strongly about church and faith.

SCHNEIDER: A place very much unlike Montgomery County, Maryland, which voted 63 percent for Gore.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have to have friends with Democrats to live in Montgomery County or you won't have many friends.

SCHNEIDER: Montgomery County residents are attracted by the lifestyle.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People are very tolerant of different lifestyles here. And in general it's just very liberal socially.

SCHNEIDER: Politics is becoming more and more about values and lifestyle and less and less about economic interests.

BISHOP: The parties have aligned themselves to sort of ideological divides that already existed geographically in the country.

SCHNEIDER: Which means the great divide between Democrats and Republicans in Washington has deep roots in places like Cobb County, and Montgomery County.

(on camera): The parties seem to occupy two different worlds, in part because their voters occupy two different worlds. Segregated worlds, separate, but in this case, equal.

Bill Schneider, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: Here's a question for you. What scares you the most? Snakes, heights? Another season of "MTV's Newlyweds"? Well, if what you could take -- if it was a pill to cure those phobias? Well, that's on the plate. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has the scoop. It's next.

And later, he's a major force in music and politics. Now Bono is lending his voice to the fight to save millions of lives. He's talking to us about it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: For some it's a fear of heights, for others it might be a fear of flying. Millions of Americans suffer from phobia and now scientists say a drug used to treat tuberculosis may help people overcome their fears. Senior medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta has our "Daily Dose" of health news.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Fears. Television shows prey on them, and according to the surgeon general, 16 million Americans suffer from some kind of phobia. Most people learn their fear. But what if a little pill could help unlearn them?

For 30 years, Beth Cox has been terrified of heights.

BETH COX, HAS FEAR OF HEIGHTS: As long as I remember being an adult, I remember being afraid.

GUPTA: Tall bridges, mountains and elevators, anything high, they all stopped her cold.

COX: I am hyperventilating, I am crying, my hands are shaking, my legs are shaking -- I was scared to death.

GUPTA: Tired of it, Beth joined a medical trial in Atlanta. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Go on up to the ninth floor.

GUPTA: Beth was part of a small story that focused on the fear of heights. It involved a virtual reality elevator, combined with a little pill called depyschoslarin (ph). The drug, already approved to combat tuberculosis, seemed to also affect the brain's fear center.

Dr. Michael Davis, a psychiatry professor at Emory University conducted the study and found patients who took the drug before therapy, actually unlearned their fears faster.

MICHAEL DAVIS, EMORY UNIV.: What this medication seems to do is to speed up or improve your ability to get over your fear.

COX: I feel great.

GUPTA: Beth took one pill a few hours before her therapy, and after only two sessions, instead of the normal seven or eight, was able to unlearn her fear of heights, going all the way to the top floor on the simulated elevator.

And once you are done with therapy, you are also done with the pill.

Not everyone is sold on the idea of the medication, however. Some experts believe therapy alone is still the most effective. Researchers caution depyschoslarin (ph) only works when combined with exposure therapy.

For Beth Cox, it gave her the courage to go to great heights.

COX: OK, I don't love it, but I can do it. I don't have to like it, but I know I'm safe.

I can probably even stay on one of these floors.

GUPTA: Thanks to therapy, she is able to take long looks down.

(on camera): A commonly prescribed fear factor probably won't be prescribed for two to five years, but based on this small study, it does appear safe and holds promising for those with phobias, and for the psychiatrists trying to treat them.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: For your daily dose of heath news online, log on to our Web site. You'll find the latest medical headlines, and there's a health guide from CNN and the Mayo Clinic. The address is CNN.com/health.

Space, it's not just for astronauts anymore, at least that's what some are hoping. Find out why this flight is one of the most popular stories on our Web site, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: Private space travel is our click of the day, one of the most popular stories of the hour at CNN.com. A private company has set a civilian altitude record, soaring 40 miles above the Mojave Desert into the stratosphere. The pilot was able to float in weightlessness once the craft leveled out at 200,012,000 feet.

Spaceship I is one of 24 entries competing for the X Prize, which will go the first company that sends three people into suborbital flight. The X Prize foundation is promoting low-cost space tourism. This particular spacecraft was funded by Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, and that is our click of the day.

Tomorrow is the Preakness Stakes, the vital second leg in the pursuit of horse racing triple crown.

CNN's Louise Schiavone looks at the bottom line in rout the finish line in this sport of kings.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LOUISE SCHIAVONE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The life and career of a thoroughbred champion is nurtured in some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world by a team of caregivers ever on the lookout for a winner.

JONATHAN SHEPPARD, PRES., NATL. STEEPLECHASE ASSN.: Sometimes great horses come from very humble origins, and were brought inexpensive at the sale, so not (UNINTELLIGIBLE) bred, and vice versa. People can go out and spend millions of dollars buying fancy-bred yearlings and have not much to show for it at the end of the day.

SCHIAVONE: Even routine upkeep can be astronomical, upwards of $30,000 a year for a single horse, not including breeding costs. Unlike other breeds, thoroughbreds must mate naturally, and with eyewitnesses.

KEVIN CONLEY, AUTHOR, "STUD": Other breeds can use artificial insemination, which allows for the influence of a potent sire, a valuable sire, to be much more widespread, and there is a kind of controlled scarcity about the potent sires in the horse world, which means that you have to pay $500,000 a pop to get an appointment with the best horses, because there only are a hundred of them.

SCHIAVONE: But there are no guarantees, and each expert looks for something different.

RICHARD VALENTINE, WHITEWOOD FARMS, VIRGINIA: A good overstep. You like to see him walk their hind foot, cross over the print where their front foot has been, and, you know, a good walk, you like to see their tails swing, and you like a good eye on the horse.

MAIREAD CARR, HORSE TRAINER: They have to be able to breathe. They have to be pretty sound, so nothing hurts them, and then it's down to them. SCHIAVONE: Courage and the will to win are universal traits in winners, and the qualities that lead buyers to sink millions of dollars into the sport. There are more losers than winners.

PAUL FOUT, HORSE OWNER: When you go into it, you better have some deep pockets, because you never know.

SCHIAVONE: How deep? This year, U.S. horse breeders will do $7 billion in business, and that's just where the spending starts.

Louise Schiavone for CNN, Middleburg, Virginia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(STOCK MARKET UPDATE)

NGUYEN: Well, up next, U2's Bono has an important cause he's fighting for, and he wants your help. We're talking to him, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: In the war on AIDS, the World Health Organization has what it calls the three by five initiative. It's a lofty goal to provide AIDS-fighting drugs to some three million infected people by the year 2005. But such an effort requires a lot of money. That's where rock star Bono and Canada's prime minister come in. CNN's Daryn Kagan spoke with both men about the health crusade.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Bono and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. Gentlemen, thanks for being with us.

PAUL MARTIN, PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA: Great to be here.

KAGAN: Bono, about six months ago you showed up in Canada, promising in your own typical way, to be a pain in the you know what to this prime minister.

(LAUGHTER)

BONO, SINGER, ACTIVIST: Yes, well, you know, we were make some demands of the Canadian people and Prime Minister Martin's new administration.

But, you know, the quid pro quo is the pain in the arse, if they don't do what we're asking. But we're here to give applause today because actually Canada has done some extraordinary things this week in dealing with the AIDS emergency. And I'm proud to be sit beside the man tonight.

KAGAN: Mr. Prime Minister, tell us exactly the commitment that Canada is making to the global fund to fight AIDS.

MARTIN: We doubled our commitment in terms of the global fund from last year. But in addition to that we just put $100 million into the World Health Organization's fund to essentially deal with roughly 50 percent of the 6 million people who are not receiving the AIDS cocktails that they require.

And at the same time we're the first country to allow low-cost, generic drugs to be made available to Africa. This is a total package.

And I've to say you're right about Bono's threat to be a pain. But I tell you, if that's the kind of pain that we're going to have to have, that's the kind of pain we'd like to have.

KAGAN: When the call comes here in America to give overseas and to give to people who are fighting AIDS in Africa, Mr. Prime Minister, people often say there's enough to do at home. So how do you answer your own critics in Canada that say that that money should be staying domestically?

MARTIN: We all live in different countries, but there is common humanity among us. And it's very, very hard, I certainly think for Canadians, for anybody in North America, to look at what's happening in Africa, to look at the decimation of societies and to look at the fact that there are more health care workers dying than that are being created. The same for teachers.

It's very hard for anybody to turn their back on that. And that's why I think that people like Bono were able to really create a huge wave of support for this kind of thing, effectively, then make it possible for governments to act. And in fact make it impossible for governments not to act.

KAGAN: So you've gotten your message across there in Canada, Bono. I understand you're planning some battleground states here in the U.S., trying to affect the U.S. presidential election.

BONO: Well we're trying to elect our issues throughout this, really. The AIDS emergency and extreme poverty.

And, you know, people are interested. They're not so cold. And they're cleverer than you think because these are dangerous times, it's a dangerous world. And, you know, in the southern hemisphere we are not, you know, always seen as a benign force in the world, in Europe and America and the United States and Canada.

I think these AIDS drugs are great advertisements for what we do best, out ingenuity and our technological capacity. And I just think that the time, it's smart money. As well as being compassionate, it's just smart money.

And we want to in the U.S. election just raise the bar for both President Bush and John Kerry. Both of whom have shown, you know, some far-thinking approaches on this issue. But both of them, you know, we want to go further.

And, yes. So the 15 swing states we're going to have church folk, soccer moms, rock stars, God knows who turning up and being a pain in the arse -- which is what we do best. MARTIN: You know, your earlier question about what the effect on Canada. The fact is when Bono made his speech six months ago or when he and I worked on debt relief even earlier, what really is happening is that is reflecting Canadian values. This is not a difficult sell. In fact, Canadians are essentially asking their government -- and this may make it a lot easier for us -- they're asking our government to take a lead on this.

KAGAN: Your fans would be mad with me, Bono, if I didn't ask when is the next U2 album coming out?

BONO: You'll be very pleased or upset to hear that the U2 album is nearly finished. I had to sneak out and down the bathroom pole to get out over here today. But we'll be finished by the summer, single in September, album in October and November. And I can't tell you what it's called, but...

KAGAN: Sure you can.

BONO: ... it's a rock 'n' roll album. It's our first rock 'n' roll album.

KAGAN: First rock 'n' roll album. Well, you know, we always love you to come on and talk about world health issues so dear to your heart. you're also going to have to come back and talk about the album when it comes out.

Bono, thank you so much. Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. Gentlemen, thanks for your time. Appreciate it.

MARTIN: Thank you.

BONO: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: And Bono will be among the featured speakers Monday at the University of Pennsylvania commencement. Afterward you can call him Dr. Bono. He'll receive a honorary doctorate of laws degree from the university.

(WEATHER UPDATE)

NGUYEN: That is going to do it for LIVE TODAY. It's time now to send it over to Wolf Blitzer in Washington.

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