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Man-made Diamonds Rival Natural Ones; Experts Say Video Cameras In Plane Cockpits Could Help Investigations
Aired July 31, 2004 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello again I'm Fredricka Whitfield at the CNN Center in Atlanta in the news right now U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell meets with leaders in Bosnia today. He calls for the arrest of accused war criminals. Powell also urged for key economic and political changes in the region saying he wants Bosnia and Herzegovina to become part of NATO and the European Union.
Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry and his running mate John Edwards held a rally in Greensburg, Pennsylvania this afternoon. It's one of the early stops on their two-week bus tour across the country. And they will be apparently going through two dozen states coast to coast.
Next on the campaign trail, West Virginia and Ohio. Kerry and Edwards will practically bump into President Bush today. A busy schedule will bring them within 25 miles of each other. The president is also campaigning today in the battle ground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.
And many western states are facing drought conditions, which can help fuel wildfires. Meteorologist Arch Kennedy has more on the conditions out west, and when they may see some relief.
ARCH KENNEDY, METEOROLOGIST: It doesn't look like we'll see any rain relief for our fire weather danger here out west. As we head through the weekend, in fact, through parts of the Oregon Cascades, our fire weather danger increases as we get into Sunday afternoon. The reason being, high pressure really dominating the weather pattern out west. You can see one center of high pressure out over Colorado, another broad area out over the Pacific Ocean. And that is just not allowing for any weather systems to come in to give any relief.
We see plenty of dry conditions all up around the western mountains here. Western mountain range, the Cascades extending from Washington all the way down through Oregon. Well we see the radar vantage point. And that again indicates the very dry conditions here. And through the afternoon, the forecasts through Saturday afternoon showing nothing but a lot of sunshine, warm temperatures, and again dry weather.
Now the fire weather danger increases, in fact the fire weather watch in effect for the Oregon Cascades for Sunday afternoon. Due to some thunderstorm activity.
Back to you.
WHITFIELD: Thanks a lot Arch.
Well more news at the bottom of the hour. NEXT@CNN begins right now.
SIEBERG: I'm Daniel Sieberg. Today on NEXT@CNN, air safety officials say video cameras in cockpits would help explain crashes. Maybe even prevent future accidents. We'll tell you why pilots are opposed to the cameras.
Also, manmade diamonds that rival the ones found in nature but cost a lot less. Find out how they're made.
And we'll meet a man whose homestead sits in the path of plans to restore Florida's Everglades. All that and more on NEXT.
With threats of upcoming terrorist attack, the intelligence community is using every tool it has to look for clues in satellite photos of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr looks at technology that may help track down Osama Bin Laden.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, the U.S. intelligence community now is using leading- edge technology that sorts through satellite imagery to find patterns unseen by the eye. It's called change detection. Here is how it works.
Satellites are scanning western Pakistan near the Afghan border, looking for perhaps a newly paved road, cars at a mountain camp, initial tips not that Bin Laden is there, but clues that Al Qaeda may be gathering to plot. It's a trail of breadcrumbs that Bin Laden and his associates might leave behind. Change detection looks at how these clues in satellite images evolve.
High-speed computers convert imagery into a bar graph that charts the pixels. Dots of pure black to pure white and all of the grays. Analysts then look for change. For example, a sudden increase in the range of gray tones that result when the gravel is laid for a new road. They can also remove certain features of a landscape to enhance others and isolate subtle changes with mathematical precision.
Analysts will then go a step further, asking themselves, for example, if what they see is really a new road. Looking for very small developments, like a satellite dish on top of a house. Would any of this tip off Bin Laden's location or those who are hiding him?
STARR (on camera): Only then would aerial and ground sensors be used to fence off a suspect area, trying to catch anyone who might attempt to cross, maybe an eventual key informant, maybe Osama Bin Laden.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Well besides those intelligence satellites, there are hundreds of commercial satellites in orbit around the Earth. So what are they all doing up there? Bill Tucker takes a look at the satellite business.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): An American-built satellite launched in South America on a European rocket to bring high-speed Internet access and telephone service to remote parts of the United States and Canada. Total cost to build, launch, and insure, $600 million. The cost will pay off quickly.
That's because it's the largest communications services satellite ever launched. And communications services are where the money is in space.
DAVID CAVOSSA, SATELLITE INDUSTRY ASSN: That's almost 60 percent of the revenues. Perhaps even 65 percent of the total revenues for the satellite industry. Total revenues global for the satellite industry are about $90 billion for 2003. Of that, about $60 billion is the services sector.
TUCKER: Direct broadcast services, like Echostar and Direct TV, produce nearly $50 billion of that revenue. Business networks, like the ones which connect Wal-Mart stores to its headquarters in Benton, Arkansas, or the ATM in a gas station to a bank, account for another roughly $7 billion.
Then there are satellites, which provide us with the now ubiquitous GPS services. The military is another big buyer of commercial services. Being in space is financially worthwhile but building and launching satellites is not.
JOHN DOUGLASS, AEROSPACE INDUSTRIES ASSN: It's an industry that's turned out to be more cyclic than we thought it would be. Satellites last longer than we thought they were going to last. The demand globally has been lower than we thought it would be.
TUCKER: Since 1996, revenue in the satellite sector has nearly tripled from $38 billion to $91 billion. The U.S. satellite industry accounts for about half that revenue.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: OK a team that is leading the push for private space flight has set a date for its next attempt. Spaceship One, the private spacecraft that flew into sub orbital space in June, will fly September 29 in the first stage of a bid to win the X Prize. To win the $10 million prize, the craft will have to fly into space twice within a two-week period.
Spaceship One is financed by Microsoft's Paul Allen and built by Aviation guru Burt Rattan and his team at Scaled Composites.
Well would video cameras in airplane cockpits help investigators understand plane crashes? The National Transportation Safety Board thinks so and held hearings this week to discuss the issue, but soon ran into turbulence. Kathleen Koch reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Cameras peer down at passengers in airports and sometimes even inside aircraft cabins. But they have never been installed in cockpits. At a hearing this week, investigators from the U.S. and the United Kingdom said such video could prove invaluable in deciphering crews actions before or during plane crashes.
KEN SMART, CHIEF INSPECTOR, UK AIR ACCIDENTS: It's quite relatively common to hear words like "look at this." We're sat there wondering what "this" is. Where as the image recording would perhaps give us a good chance of capturing exactly what they were referring to in the circumstances.
KOCH: For example, in the 1999 Egypt air crash officials who concluded the copilot intentionally crashed the jet say cockpit video could have answered many questions.
FRANK HILLDRUP, CRASH INVESTIGATION NTSB: Who was in the cockpit. What were the circumstances? Who was manipulating the flight controls and other controls in the cockpit?
KOCH: But pilots unions have long opposed cameras. They worry shocking crash video of a crew's final moments could become public. Pilots call the technology intrusive and unnecessary and deny they're worried cameras would reveal mistakes or unprofessional behavior.
CAPT. PAUL RICE, AIR LINE PILOTS ASSN: Pilots don't have anything to hide. In fact pilots want more information in solving accidents. But where we think that best information will come from is an enhancement of the tools we already have.
KOCH: Tools like flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders, the so-called black boxes. But small aircraft have neither so investigators insist video cameras could easily be installed and would help solve small plane crashes like the 2002 accident that killed Senator Paul Wellstone.
KOCH (on camera): For now, the Federal Aviation Administration is studying how such a system would work. Airlines want to see a cost benefit analysis before being forced to install the new technology.
KOCH (voice over): Safety officials say they have managed without them. Video cameras could speed investigations.
CAROL CARMODY, NATL. TRANSP. SAFETY BOARD: We would save time and therefore money and potentially improve safety if we can get to the conclusions quickly.
KOCH: Conclusions, officials say, that could yield speedier safety upgrades, potentially saving lives.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming up a year after Europe's most deadly heat wave, scientist's debate what caused it and whether it will happen again.
And later in the show the Baghdad Zoo comes back to life.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, aren't you Smoky the forest fire preventing bear? You've got a great place here. I'm nuts about it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And why burn it down?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Me? Why, I wouldn't hurt the tiniest little tree.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With the careless use of matches and smokes is no way to show your love of the forest.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To think what I could have done with one little match.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Remember, only you can prevent forest fires.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIEBERG: It's wildfire season in the United States and especially in the west. Years of drought have officials worried just how bad the fires might get. Donna Tetreault reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONNA TETREAULT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In Southern California, the sizzle has just begun. Already, this summer four large fires have consumed thousands of acres and the forecast doesn't look any better.
JOHN TODD, ASST. CHIEF, LOS ANGELES FIRE DEPT: We certainly have the conditions that are just like they were last year. We could have equally bad fire season.
TETREAULT: And the seasons before haven't been like Mother Nature intended. According to assistant fire chief John Todd; extremely mild winters producing below average rainfall have lead to a five-year drought. These satellite images from NASA show how barren it really is. This is Lake Mead in Southern California in May of 2000. And here it is in 2003. Water levels fell 60 feet, and this year officials predict another drop of between 15 and 20 feet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back here, we have some scrub oak.
TETREAULT: The drought has left the native brush, like this Samese (ph) dry. And that means extremely flammable.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's got these very small leaves, very high oil content. You can see it's bone dry, even the new growth. TETREAULT: What's more non-native plants are invading the land; they are unlike indigenous plants, which have deeper root systems with the ability to hold in moisture.
BARBARA DYE, EXEC. DIRECTOR: Acacias, which also come from Africa and are very big fire danger. And you can see some of them as the green, the big green bumps down there as those spread, that's one of the things we'd like to eliminate for fire protection. Because they're one of the worst fire plants.
TETREAULT (on camera): And another contributing factor is the wind. When the Santa Anas blow, sometimes gusting up to 70 miles per hour, there's no stopping the fire.
TETREAULT (voice over): And so the blackened hills tell the tale. This land is in no condition to maintain its natural fire resistance. And firefighters are bracing for another long season.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Well this week, Europe marks the first anniversary of a weather disaster that's painful to remember but impossible to forget. And scientists are still at odds about what caused it. Guillermo Arduino has more.
GUILLERMO ARDUINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It was the worst heat wave to hit Europe in recent memory. Tens of thousands dead. Bodies stacked up. Overwhelmed hospitals and power outages. Europe was at war with the weather. And the historic cities were no match for Mother Nature. The scorching temperatures lasted about two weeks. And there was no relief from the heat or humidity.
Even at night. But how did this happen? What was the cause of one of the worst weather-related disasters to hit the continent? Scientists cannot seem to agree on a specific reason. Some say global warming. Others mention unusual weather patterns similar to El Nino. But here's what we do know.
KEVIN TRENBERTH: You know there's a relationship between the Asian monsoon and the Mediterranean climate. So we suspect that the global sea temperatures and in particular what was going on the Indian Ocean was a factor in helping to make the persistent conditions exist over Europe.
ARDUINO (on camera): Usually low-pressure centers in France provide a continent an area with some rain showers, therefore cooler temperatures. But in this case, for two weeks we had a blocking high. The high was so strong, it was not letting the fronts and the lows go through the hot area. Therefore, there was no relief.
ARDUINO (voice over): Although the unrelenting heat was responsible for most of the deaths, other factors came into play. Pollutants like smog, dust, car and factory exhaust, mixed with stagnant air, creating a toxic possession for sensitive lungs. Most buildings in Europe are not air-conditioned. Will there be a repeat this year? Probably not. Temperatures are cooler than last year. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think it's going to happen this year. Except maybe on a much smaller scale in little pockets. Because the conditions don't seem ripe for it in Europe. But these kinds of things will happen somewhere else around the world instead.
ARDUINO: However, scientists do warn that although the Mediterranean temperatures in Northern Europe may have been an anomaly in 2003, visitors to Southern Europe, like those trekking to the 2004 Olympics in Greece, should come prepared. Because they say athletic performance may not be the only thing breaking records there this summer.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: They're feeling the heat in the American west too. Although the results are not nearly as devastating as last year's European heat wave, but hot weather is taking a toll on Montana's glaciers. Aaron Brown reports on the landmark that's melting away.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AARON BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It is a place that once boast both spectacular and sublime, Glacier National Park. At the height of summer, everything here is practically perfect. Except for this. The glaciers are disappearing.
DON FAGRE, U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY: Right now, our best guess is that by the year 2030, all the glaciers in Glacier National Park will be gone.
BROWN: Gone the way geology is measured, in the blink of an eye. With the only hope of saving them, scientists say, a return of something they call the little ice age, unlikely in the extreme.
FAGRE: These glaciers probably formed 7,000 years ago. And the ice in them is at least several hundred years old. And so it's very, very fast. Not only in geologic terms, even in human terms.
BROWN: You can see what scientists are talking about. In this series of still photos taken over the last 90 years or so. A steady, unrelenting retreat. Of the 150 original glaciers in the park, only about 20 remain today. And the rangers who guide the tours surround use the photos to discuss it with stark clarity.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is about 700 feet thinner than it was in the late 1800s. And about 10 percent of the mass that it was in the late 1800s.
BROWN: The million-dollar question, of course is why?
FAGRE: There's no question that some of it is the global warming that is attributable to humans.
BROWN: There are other factors at work as well. In scientific terms, they are called climactic pulses. In plain English, it's been far too hot. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This kind of heat isn't actually normal out here. Last summer was unbelievable. It was almost 100 every day.
BROWN: The best way to see what glaciers remain is in person. Visitors first take boat rides across two small lakes, then hike through the woods and up the cliffs in a trek that takes about nine miles in all. That the glaciers will soon be gone is a topic always of conversation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The beauty of the park will still be outstanding. It's very similar to New Zealand as a matter of fact. I think New Zealand has nothing on this part of our country.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was in Glacier National Park 40 years ago. They weren't having this conversation at all.
BROWN: But they certainly are now. And if the glaciers can disappear, many visitors wonder, what's next?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The glaciers are the indicator of something much larger. So in a sense it's the symptom to something else. That's the part that really worries me a great deal.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Frances Crick the influential British scientist who aided in the discovery of the structure of DNA died Thursday in San Diego after a long battle with colon cancer. Crick's work redefined genetic studies and helped recreate the science of molecular biology. Along with James Watson and Maurice Wilkins, Crick won the 1962 Nobel Prize in medicine. He was 88 years old.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just ahead imagine a future where clothes don't need to be washed. Can smart fabrics keep clothes clean forever?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Well if you couldn't do any searches on the Internet Monday, it may have been because of my doom. Well not my doom per se, but the latest version of the "My Doom" virus. This one hijacked PCs and used popular search engines to find more e-mail addresses to keep replicating itself.
Overwhelmed, sites like Google and Yahoo could only provide sporadic service for a few hours. If the virus infected your computer, it may have opened a back door. So you want to download the latest Microsoft security patch. The outbreak coincided with Google's latest initial public offering announcement the company expects shares to be valued between $108 and $135, which some analysts have called very high. No word on when it will happen.
Well in the state that's already the poster child for voting chaos, some election reform groups are asking a judge to require a paper trail for all touch screen voting machines. Florida officials say a paper backup is not necessary. But the ACLU and others are not so sure. It seems electronic records from the first widespread use of the touch screen machines in 2002 were lost in a computer crash.
That malfunction was revealed when another citizens group, the Miami Dade Election Reform Coalition, requested the data. The group says the problem makes the paper backup even more urgent.
All right, does the idea of never having to do laundry appeal to you? Well it does to me. A few scientists in Hong Kong are using nano technology to design smart fabrics that do the job for you. Christie Le Stout has the nitty gritty.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTI LE STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Back in 1951, Sir Alec Guinness starred in "The Man in the White Suit," a film about a scientist who invented a self-cleaning fabric. More than 50 years later, scientists in white coats here in Hong Kong believe they might have turned this fantasy into reality.
WALID DAOUD, HONG KONG POLYTECHNIC UNIV: The whole thing started when we decided to make fabrics functional and more intelligent.
STOUT: And they do this with nano technology, using the tiniest useable particles available to man.
JOHN XIN: We actually are using a nano technology to do the thin layer of nano structure on the surface of the fiber. This layer of material can actually decompose organic matters and dirt, soils, when you have the light, especially the sunlight or UV light.
STOUT: The key chemical involved in this process is titanium dioxide. The scientists say it's already found in toothpaste, so shouldn't have adverse effects on contact with the skin. The fabric is simply dipped in a liquid bath, dried, and then boiled for three hours.
The special coating is cheap but the effectiveness of the self- cleaning does decline over time. While a self-cleaning suit is still a long way from shop shelves, the very idea of constantly clean clothes is already attracting a lot of interest from companies all over the world.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a kind of ritualistic even now. But I think the technology will be ready quite soon.
STOUT: And that could mean a lot more free time ahead.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming up in our next half hour, manufactured diamonds that might fool Mother Nature because they're made the same way as natural diamonds.
And why is this monkey walking upright like a human? Those stories and a lot more are coming up after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SIEBERT: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN. Well, diamonds found in nature are expensive and hard to come by. But what if there was a way to make as many diamonds as you want? Well, for decades, Russian researchers have been trying to recreate the natural conditions, that being intense heat and pressure, that produce earth's most precious gems. They've had little success, but now a few entrepreneurs in the U.S. are adapting those original Russian machines to perfect the diamond-making process.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG (voice-over): The slogan proclaims "a diamond is forever" and that might be how long it'll take you to pay for one as well. But soon, 100 years of price control by the diamond industry may come to an end. A couple of start-ups, Apollo Diamond in Boston, and Gemsis Corporation headed up by retired Brigadier General Carter Clarke, are looking to demolish conventional thinking about diamonds by mass producing them in labs.
CARTER CLARKE, FOUNDER AND CEO, GEMESIS: We make diamonds like the earth does. A diamond is nothing more than carbon. It's a -- we say "graphite," which is the second form of carbon. We convert graphite through a lot of temperature and pressure, 850,000 pounds per square inch of pressure, and almost 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
SIEBERG: The creation process takes several hours. The resulting size, quality, and exact color of the diamond depends upon how long it's left to mature. The system isn't perfect. Once the process begins, no one knows exactly what kind of diamond will be created.
DAVID HELLIER, GEMESIS: You're looking for very rare and beautiful colors. So in the diamonds we grow, fancy, intense, in vivid yellow -- very lemony yellows are popular.
SIEBERG: Gemsis gave us a look at their blue diamonds, a color they're perfecting before shipping to retailers. The researchers say clear diamonds are also possible, but for now their target market is for more rare colored gems.
HELLIER: You're looking at for, fancy colors, typically $15,000 up to $500,000 per carat and that's not in the range of your typical consumer.
SIEBERG: These man-made, or cultured diamonds, are available now for a fraction of the price. And retailers say consumers are welcoming the new option.
FRED SHRODER, JEWELER: The price is so good compared to the natural stone mined out of the earth. Number two thing is, they're conflict-free.
CLARKE: This is grown in America. We have no -- none of the issues of blood diamonds or diamonds being used for terrorism or environmental concerns or slave labor concerns. SIEBERG: DeBeers, the diamond industry's largest player, is taking notice. A statement to CNN reads, "...the diamond trading company has spent considerable time and money in developing and making available simple equipment to identify synthetics." The problem is, these are diamonds, so differentiating between man-made and natural without special equipment can be problematic. DeBeers goes on to say that, "Gemesis and Apollo Diamonds are to be congratulated for their stated policy of declaring their products as man-made."
CLARKE: I don't think they really like us being in the picture at this particular time, because I think they view us as a threat, obviously. I also think they're concerned about maybe some of our diamonds would be passed off as natural, which we don't want either.
SIEBERG: But, the potential for these man-made gems cuts deeper than any fashion trend or economic concerns from the diamond cartel.
HELLIER: The ultimate is is to be able to take a diamond crystal and use it as the basis for a computer chip. It has properties that are orders of magnitude superior to anything you can do in silicone. It is the ultimate material for semiconductors and for computer chips.
SIEBERG: These super computers would run hundreds of times faster than anything in existence today. The possibilities are enough to make diamonds everyone's best friend.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: All right, if buying diamonds for someone is a little beyond your budget, how about a singing flower? No, this lady isn't crazy, she's actually listening to music that is being amplified through the petals and leaves of a plant. The flower speaker amplifier is the latest thing from Japan. Why am I not surprised? It attaches to a vase or potted plant and sends sound waves that vibrate the leaves, turning a basic flower arrangement into small speakers. The sound is a bit tinny, but the gadget's creator says, we can now experience plants and flowers with all five senses -- whatever that means.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Coming up: Birth control for wild elephants, and how it could keep them alive.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Some residents of Baghdad are moving to a new neighborhood after years of abuse and neglect. Michael Holmes reports the lions once kept by Saddam Hussein's sadistic son Uday have at least a fighting chance.
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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Fully armed and loaded, Humvees head out on an unusual mission for the U.S. Army. On board, precious cargo, lions, former pets of Uday, son of Saddam Hussein. The adults have lived here for years in the grounds of his palace. But one by one, they're off to a new home at the Baghdad zoo, and the army's going to miss them.
CAPT. DAVID HASTINGS, U.S. ARMY: Everybody's been down taking pictures and coming by and see them and it's just been -- we've really been trying to get all of them we can.
HOLMES: Out of the unit now?
HASTINGS: Oh, yeah, definitely.
HOLMES: Dad, two mothers, and six cubs take turns being sedated, then moved a mile or two down the road to the zoo, past symbols of the former regime that kept them in such dire conditions. Soldiers showing concern for their charges, a little caution too, in case one wakes up. Overseeing the move, South African zoologist, Brendan Whittington-Jones, who came to help out a few weeks after the fall of Baghdad and has been here ever since.
BRENDAN WHITTINGTON-JONES, ZOOLOGIST: Can we get some lifters?
HOLMES: Helping make some big changes.
WHITTINGTON-JONES: Seeing the animals in bigger areas. Seeing the cheetah was moved into a big area, today the lions, the bear behind us is -- you know was moving into -- just giving them open space, which they've never had before.
HOLMES: Originally, the coalition paid Whittington-Jones for his efforts here, but the contract ran out at the end of last year. Since then, he's been working for nothing. The local veterinarian Farah Murrani says he'll be missed.
FARAH MURRANI, VETERINARIAN: He helped us to change the attitude of the workers, get them to do things that they never dreamed of doing.
HOLMES: We come here at the end of the war too, and saw a zoo in chaos, open cages and animals barely alive, due to neglect and the war itself. This bear, 30 years old and completely blind, had spent 15 years in this cage and fed figs or bread. Today, he's outside and enjoying daily fruit salad. Other changes too, not just the new lion enclosure, paid for by the U.S. military, but also a new aviary, a new home for the cheetahs, and other residents are even starting a family.
Those first pictures of the zoo, more than a year ago, saw a flood of cash and help. But it's all dried up.
(on camera): When there's a human tragedy in the world and people give up and stop giving money, it's call called donor fatigue. Well, it happens with animals too.
WHITTINGTON-JONES: Well it's a similar thing, you know, I think there's a lot of publicity to be had in the beginning and everybody jumps on the bandwagon the as soon as -- you know, the major interest wears off, the people that are stuck in the long run that really actually carry it through.
MURRANI: I think they think like, well OK, it's going now, so they don't need our help anymore, but we still need it.
HOLMES: Too late for Brendan Whittington-Jones, he's out of money, needs a job, and is headed home. But he'd like to come back and finish the job one day.
WHITTINGTON-JONES: There's still a lot to go. There's a lot of work still to be done. Just to keep it going to the next level -- you know, to make it a not just an average zee, but it can be made into a great zoo, but it just needs (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to step up to the plate a bit.
HOLMES: As the sedative wears off, the lions stir, settling into a new home and if the help keeps coming, a brighter future.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: In San Antonio, maybe it was the hormones. Things got a little dicey during a performance by a killer whale at SeaWorld, last week. A young male named "Ky" kept slamming trainer Steve Aibel under the water. Most of the audience thought it was just a dramatic part of the show. Aibel, who's a veteran of 17 years working with animals, kept his own cool and that finally managed to calm down the big mammal. Nobody got hurt. Ky is close to breeding age, the trainer says he probably just lost his focus.
Well, veterinarian surgeons in South Africa had to be plenty focused to perform a first-every procedure in the wild. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has more on the giant-sized efforts to save elephants.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Elephants in the wild, a major African tourist attraction. But more and more, too many elephants in the wild -- wild being destroyed by the elephants' eating habits. Eating what they like of the tree, but destroying the whole tree. Game reserve manager, Kevin Pretorius, says it's taking a toll on Africa's natural forest landscapes.
KEVIN PRETORIUS, RHINDA MANAGER, GAME RESERVE: Hundreds of years ago, elephants would have come into the sand forest and were fed. But now with the areas fenced off, these elephants have got no where just to move.
HUNTER-GAULT: The problem now, so serious, wildlife officials, in many countries, are considering culling -- wholesale killing of the excess elephants. Enter these conservationists, here to try what they hope will be a more humane way of curbing the natural appetites of these hefty creature, the first-ever elephant sterilizations in the wild.
It's hide and seek to start, the elephants dart in and out of the thick brush below, trying to elude the noisy helicopter above. The vets are searching for a female elephant they can shoot with a dart filled with anesthetic to put her to sleep. They eventually find her. This one's already pregnant, so they'll use her as the control elephant, outfitting her with a special collar for tracking her and another elephant from the same herd they will find later for the sterilization.
(on camera): They say this is one of the most important aspects of the project. They want to be able to monitor this elephant to see if there's any difference between her behavior and the behavior of the ones sterilized.
(voice-over): Early the next morning, the second elephant is found, and within no time a full operating theater is set up in the bush, complete with elephantine laparoscopic instruments developed at Disney's Animal Kingdom over the last three years.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
HUNTER-GAULT: Over the next four hours, the team ties off one and then another of the elephant's ovaries.
The veterinary team acknowledges this may not be the answer for all elephant overpopulation, but if it works here, they will join African wildlife officials to expand to other areas across South Africa in the hope of saving some elephants and some of the wild they inhabit.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Ahead on NEXT@CNN, mixed signals means big headaches for cellular customers near the Hong Kong/China border.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: If you own a cell phone, did you know that those roaming minutes can be costly, and that means going into a zone not supported by your wireless carrier. But as Andrew Brown reports, some users along the Hong Kong/China border are getting reeled into a sea of additional charges.
ANDREW BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Each day, fishermen sell prawn and lobster by the boatload to the villagers Lapau Sung (PH). The village has countless seafood restaurants so its close proximity to the ocean is a blessing. Well, mostly. This stretch of water, used by fishermen and local oyster farmers, belongs partly to Hong Kong, partly to mainland China. That's the mainland city of Senjen you can see on the other side of the bay. The problem is, these communities are so close, they can receive each other's mobile phone signals. In Lapau Sung phone users often lose contact with their own network.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Some customers told me, once they come to my restaurant, their phones lock on to the China signal.
BROWN: Sometimes, residents say, you only have to move a few meters closer to the sea and your phone behaves like it's in a different country. That means users are charged international rates for local calls. Ask restaurateur, Mock Lau Chi (PH).
MOCK LAU CHI, RESTAURATEUR (through translator): It's charged as roaming, so it's more expensive.
BROWN: Neither the Hong Kong government nor the city's phone operators could tell us how much customers are overcharged. Some villagers say the amounts are less than five U.S. dollars a month, others claim they're paying 50 times more than the regular rate for certain calls. Some grumble, their phones don't work at all near the border.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I've got this Sunday operator. It doesn't work down there by the pier.
BROWN: These connection hiccups, known as overspill, don't always work against the consumer.
DUNCAN CLARK, BDA CHINA: You could be a winner if you had a network from the other country and you wanted to access cheap rates to make an international call.
BROWN: Overspill occurs all over the world. According to Duncan Clark's consultancy, some North Koreans use overspill to piggyback on the Chinese networks. Taiwan signals can be picked up in parts of mainland China, and French signals are strong enough to reach Geneva, Switzerland. Europeans are trying to simplify roaming charges, though.
CLARK: Wherever you are in Europe, eventually you'll have one price.
BROWN: In Lapau Sung (PH), residents and visitors are coping with overspill by scaling back on calls.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): If our phone has roaming service, we have to switch it off.
BROWN: Many phones will likely stay off until agents, regulators, and phone companies resolve their differences.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: When we come back, we'll tell you why this man is turning down a multi million dollar offer for his land.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SIEBERG: Well, a monkey in an Israeli zoo has zookeepers going bananas. She started walking upright, like a human. The five-year- old monkey, Natasha, had a life-threatening case of the flu a few weeks ago. She was treated with oxygen and various drugs and recovered. But, once she started walking again, it was exclusively on two feet. Zoo veterinarians suspect it's due to brain damage from the illness -- so, what does that say about us humans? Hmm.
Well, these monkeys in China aren't acting brain damaged. They found a way to keep cool from the summer heat. I give that one a 6.5. They started diving into two chilly mountain ponds. Wildlife researchers say the monkeys have been trying higher and higher platforms, with some diving as far 60 feet. And the most of the thrill seekers are young male moneys. Again, hmm.
Well, here's a more serious swimmer, Chris Swain, this week wound up a 315 mile swim down the Hudson River. It took him eight weeks, swimming six hours a day. He did it to draw attention to pollution in the river. It's not Wayne's first river, he actually swam the full length of the Columbia River more than 1,200 miles, finishing that marathon last year.
Well, restoring the everglades is a good thing, right? Well, it may not seem so wonderful if it means that your homestead has to be turned into a swamp. John Zarrella has the story of a man who finds himself in the path of progress.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jesse James Hardy. Yes, that's his name. Doesn't like some of the things big city folks call him.
JESSE JAMES HARDY, LANDOWNER: I'm not no recluse and I'm not no hermit.
ZARRELLA: Jesse James owns 160 acres of mostly hard ground, thick brush, palm, and pine trees in southwest Florida near Naples. He built the house himself. A rented generator runs the A/C. You've got propane tanks?
HARDY: I use propane for refrigeration and cooking.
ZARRELLA: Hardy's a man who just wants to be left alone, but that's not going to happen. You see, he stands in the way of perhaps the most ambitious environmental project ever undertaken, the $8 billion Everglades restoration. Hardy's land is part of 55,000 acres that would be re-flooded to return the glades to a river of grass.
ERNIE BARNETT, FLORIDA DEPT. OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION: Without that critical last piece of property in public ownership, we would not be able to do the restoration project without jeopardizing his constitutionally afforded rights for flood protection.
ZARRELLA: In 1976, Hardy, a disabled former Navy SEAL, paid $60,000 for the land. The state is offering him $4.5 million. He's not selling. At 68 years old, Hardy says, what would he do with the money?
HARDY: I quit cigarettes and the pina coladas, so that -- and I'm to the point of age-wise, that the women ain't looking that brightly anymore, anyway. So $4.5 million is not that important to me. They should have given me that 30 or 40 years ago and I would have been out of here.
ZARRELLA: Hardy and the state are still negotiating.
HARDY: The only way you can fight them is in court. You know what happened at Waco. You know what happened in some of those other places, buddy, they put the heat on you. I mean, you're gone!
ZARRELLA: If negotiations fail, Florida says it will use its eminent domain authority to force him to sell the piece of land that, until now, no one wanted, except Jesse James Hardy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: I know you're torn between admiring his resolve and saying, "take the money!" Well, that's all the time we have for now, but here's what's coming up next week. Invader species, like Zebra mussels cause billions of dollars worth of damage. Well tell you about some new moves to keep alien species out of waters where they don't belong.
That's coming up on next. Until then, let's hear from you. You can send us an e-mail at NEXT@CNN.com. And don't forget to check out our website, that's at CNN.com/NEXT. Plus, there's something new. As of Monday, Comcast and Time/Warner digital cable subscribers will be able to watch NEXT@CNN on video on demand. That means anytime you want. Check with your local cable provider to see if the service is available in your area.
Thanks for watching this week. For all of us, I'm Daniel Sieberg. We'll see you next time.
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