Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

Harried by Hurricanes; Terrorist Bombing; 'Genocide' in Sudan; Surviving Terror; Stamp of Approval

Aired September 10, 2004 - 05:30   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.


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Life-threatening, dangerous and powerful. Those are words forecasters are using to describe Hurricane Ivan as it barrels towards Jamaica.
It is Friday, September 10. This is DAYBREAK.

And good morning to you, welcome to the second half-hour of DAYBREAK. From the CNN Global Headquarters in Atlanta, I'm Carol Costello.

"Now in the News."

President Bush campaigns for reelection today in West Virginia and Ohio. The latest CNN-"USA Today" Gallup Poll gives Bush an 8 percentage point lead over John Kerry among likely voters in the battleground state of Ohio.

Kerry is looking for votes today in Missouri and Pennsylvania. That same CNN-"USA Today" Gallup Poll gives Bush a lead of 14 percentage points among likely voters in Missouri.

And the "New York Times" is reporting that Transportation Security Administration will pay a half a million dollars, $1.5 million, rather, to 15,000 airline passengers. They claim items in their checked baggage have been stolen or damaged.

And Hurricane Ivan is on the move. It's an extremely dangerous storm with 145 mile an hour winds. Ivan is on track to hit Jamaica tonight.

But, Chad, tell us exactly when.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, exactly, Carol.

Here is the storm right here, and it's easy to see the eye. The eye was a little bit more defined in the overnight hours. Now it's a little bit more as we call ragged (ph). It kind of filled in here a little bit.

And obviously Jamaica, the island, right here, Kingston, Spanish Town right up here on the bad side of where the eye is actually going to be passing. If you do the math, you do the addition, this is about a 24 hour loop, this thing actually going to be pulling on in.

We're going to start to see hurricane conditions probably in the next 10 hours. So by a little after 2:00 or 3:00 we start to see the hurricane conditions and then, obviously, eyewall passes later on this afternoon into tonight. Continues from Jamaica and then right on up into the Cuba area by the Isle of Youth there in Cuba.

Here are the numbers here for you. Winds at 145, gusting to 180. It's a category 4. It needs to be 156, we just talked about this, 156 is the threshold for a category 5. It is moving to the west-northwest at 13. It's still gaining strength, 150 as it heads right over Jamaica.

And then here we go back into Saturday and into Sunday. Sunday still south of Cuba. And then as it moves into the Sunday night, into Monday area, right very, very close to Key West. And then, well, you know the rest from there -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Yes, unfortunately we do. Thank you -- Chad.

MYERS: Seen that before.

COSTELLO: Yes. Hopefully we won't see it this time around.

MYERS: Exactly.

COSTELLO: Thank you, Chad.

And as Chad just told us, Hurricane Ivan is now a category 4 storm. In less than two hours, residents of the Florida Keys will begin their ordered evacuation. And in Jamaica, as many as half a million people could be evacuated before the storm hits. In the Caribbean, 23 deaths have been blamed on Ivan so far, 17 of them in Grenada.

People in the Florida Keys are trying to get away from Ivan. And throughout the state, they are boarding up yet again.

CNN's John Zarrella takes a look at how Floridians are fed up with this season of storms.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Denis Chavez has had just about all he can take. He and daughters Alexis and Ashley spent Thursday cleaning up the yard of their Palm Beach County home.

Less than a week ago, they watched as the core of Hurricane Frances just missed them. Now, it's Ivan, and now the anxiety level is going up again.

Denis says maybe it's time to leave Florida for good.

DENIS CHAVEZ, RESIDENT: It's a tough decision mentally, but we're exhausted. We're just -- I don't -- I just don't want to go through it again, and I don't want to put my kids through it again.

ZARRELLA: But it's very possible that it will be deja vu all over again for some parts of the so-called Sunshine State. Ivan, coming up from the south, compounds the problems. Evacuations have begun in the Keys, but do people go east or west to get out of harm's way?

Debris, that could become deadly projectiles, still litter streets from Punta Gorda to Fort Pierce. Fuel is still a precious commodity. Utility trucks handling Hurricane Frances repairs need it, but so will evacuees.

GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: So, I mean, welcome to our world. This is -- there is no set answer to any of these questions. A lot of this depends on where the storm goes. We have a huge challenge in front of us.

ZARRELLA: Plywood continues pouring out of home improvement stores. People who didn't or couldn't board up for Charley or Frances are now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You could only get so many pieces of wood, and now we're boarding up the rest of it, because I'm just too scared to see what's going to happen now.

ZARRELLA: With no let up in this mean season, many hurricane- punch-drunk Floridians have opted to live in the dark, even those who have electricity. Everywhere you look, shutters or plywood cover windows, and people say they are not coming down until the tropics calm down.

John Zarrella, CNN, Miami.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Do you have questions about Hurricane Ivan? If so, send us an e-mail. Chad will try to answer them throughout the newscast. Our address, of course, DAYBREAK@CNN.com. DAYBREAK@CNN.com. If you have any questions at all about Hurricane Ivan, DAYBREAK@CNN.com.

Want to talk about that al Qaeda tape that came out and also get you an update on what happened in Jakarta yesterday.

Our senior international editor Eli Flournoy is joining us now with updates. You have some new information on the bombing in Indonesia.

ELI FLOURNOY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: Yes, the investigation is going on right now. A team of Australian investigators came in yesterday with Australia's foreign minister. They are on the ground, taking no chances, wanting to find out what exactly happened. The bomb going off, of course, right in front of the Australian Embassy in downtown Jakarta.

This one you can see the cloud from it, twice the size of the Marriott bombing that killed 12 people. Nine people confirmed dead in this bombing yesterday. And as you can see in these pictures of the buildings and stuff, 10 buildings in the area where just completely devastated.

COSTELLO: Wow! FLOURNOY: And it is remarkable that more people were not killed. Now there are a number still in critical condition and we're waiting to hear on their status. But I've been, myself, on this street in front of this building a number of times, and it is really crowded. This happened right around midday. I mean people were in their offices, people are walking around, it's a very, very crowded part of town in Jakarta, which is a crowded city in and of itself.

COSTELLO: And they think right now one suicide car bomber was responsible for all of that damage?

FLOURNOY: That's correct. So far they have been able to confirm that it was definitely at least one suicide bomber. There may have been more than one person in the car that exploded. And in fact there may have been more than one simultaneous explosion. But so far they have been able to confirm that at least part of the blast was caused by one bomb in a car because they found the scattered body parts.

COSTELLO: Right. And they still suspect that the group responsible for this is connected somehow to al Qaeda. And I want to talk about that new al Qaeda tape that came out yesterday that's playing on Al Jazeera television.

FLOURNOY: Yes, that's correct. Ayman al-Zawahiri, you can see him here, the Egyptian doctor who is supposedly the No. 2 man to Osama bin Laden. First time we've seen him since we saw him and Osama bin Laden walking through a mountainous territory a year ago. It's not clear exactly when this was shot, but he does make reference to some things like the situation in Sudan in Darfur that make us think that it is relatively recent.

COSTELLO: Which is odd. Isn't that odd? Why would he refer to that situation?

FLOURNOY: Well it's hard to tell. I mean they tie in human suffering in different places. Of course the situation in Sudan has a lot of elements of the Islamic north of Sudan versus the Christian south. So he was tying in you know the religious battle. So that's all playing into it.

COSTELLO: So strange. And he also said some stuff about Afghanistan as far as the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters having control of certain parts of Afghanistan. That couldn't be true.

FLOURNOY: Well that's what he claims. Of course U.S. officials "scoff" -- quote/unquote -- at those remarks and saying that the U.S. military is moving around freely within Afghanistan. Of course al- Zawahiri in the statement saying that they are afraid to go in certain areas and that the Janjaweed, the Islamic fighters, are in control of large parts of Afghanistan are essentially winning the war in Afghanistan. That's the claim.

COSTELLO: Yes, we'll have much more on this in the next hour of DAYBREAK. Thank you, Eli.

Let's talk about Sudan now, because Sudan today categorically denies U.S. accusations that it's carrying out genocide against black Africans in the western region of Darfur. The charge was made by Secretary of State Colin Powell who calls on the United Nations to get more involved.

CNN's Andrea Koppel has more on that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The secretary of state did not mince words.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: We concluded -- I concluded that genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility and that genocide may still be occurring.

KOPPEL: Less than three months after he toured Darfur, Secretary Powell told senators a State Department report detailing interviews with Sudanese refugees shows a pattern of atrocities targeting black Africans.

The report cites racial and ethnic epithets made by both Arab militia known as Janjaweed and Sudanese government sources, including, "Kill the slaves" and "We have order to kill all the blacks." But even as he called the crisis a genocide, Powell suggested the U.S. was not obligated to intervene more forcefully than it already has. Instead, Powell put the onus on the United Nations.

POWELL: Call it civil war, call it ethnic cleansing, call it genocide, call it none of the above. The reality is the same. There are people in Darfur who desperately need the help of the international community.

KOPPEL: Powell said the U.S. was circulating a new draft U.N. resolution which calls on the Security Council to bring those responsible to justice. The resolution also threatens sanctions on Sudan's lucrative oil industry unless Khartoum ends its support for Janjaweed militia and allows the African Union to send in thousands of troops to monitor the situation. But under questioning, Powell conceded there was a caveat.

POWELL: There's no immediate sanction to come out of this resolution.

SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD (D), WISCONSIN: What good does it do to pass U.N. resolutions with deadlines when there are no actual consequences?

KOPPEL: Senator Barbara boxer pointed to a "Washington Post" editorial criticizing Powell, saying the Bush administration -- quote -- "has not expended the diplomatic capital necessary to achieve a solution."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

A point echoed by a former Clinton administration official and expert on Sudan. GAYLE SMITH, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: And I think the government of Sudan has made a calculation that the international community is threatening but is unlikely to act. So a resolution that speaks of specific targeted sanctions by a date certain is likely to send a stronger message to Kartun than a resolution that talks about possible sanctions at some unspecified time.

KOPPEL (on camera): Powell called the resolution strong, but conceded it will be a tough sell with significant opposition from China and Pakistan. For its part, Sudan's government rejected the U.S. claim, saying it was a political ploy by President Bush to get his hands on Sudan's oil and win reelection in November.

Andrea Koppel, CNN, at the State Department.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Of course we are keeping a close eye on Ivan and people in Florida and the Florida Keys are not taking any chances with this monstrous storm. They are preparing for the worst. More details for you ahead.

And if you have questions this morning about this hurricane, e- mail us at DAYBREAK@CNN.com. DAYBREAK@CNN.com.

But first, here's a look at what else is making news this Friday morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Beslan, Russia, population 30,000, is a city in mourning. More than 350 people were killed, many of them children, after terrorists took over a school.

And as CNN's Jill Dougherty reports, the grief in Beslan is palpable.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN MOSCOW BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): The first thing you hear is the praying. But there are silent prayers that need no words. Cries of fury and despair. Clutching a photograph of her still missing 12-year-old niece Modina (ph), Dr. Azza Pukhayeva asks anyone she can for information about her fate.

DR. AZZA PUKHAYEVA, NIECE STILL MISSING: She maybe jump from a window.

DOUGHERTY (on camera): In spite of the horror, in spite of all the deaths, in spite of the nightmarish memories, people here in Beslan are drawn back to the school. In a sense it's become a kind of church, a sacred place where they say they can still feel the souls of their loved ones.

(voice-over): Miraculously there are survivors, like 12-year-old Suslan Beteyev (ph) who fled the gym in a hail of bullets.

SUSLAN BETEYEV, SURVIVOR (through translator): I tried to climb out the window but there was an explosion that knocked me down. So I tried a second time. We had to climb through broken window glass but we got out and ran.

DOUGHERTY: Stunned families moved slowly from classroom to classroom uncovering more horrors. One room sprayed with the blood of female terrorists blown apart by explosives strapped to their bodies. Even praying seems more than some of these families can bear.

Jill Dougherty, CNN, Beslan, Russia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: In the next hour of DAYBREAK, another emotional account from Russia, this one through the eyes of a child. We'll share Georgi's story. Just a little boy forced to think and behave like a grownup warrior in order to save his own life. He was actually inside of that school and he has a moving story.

Your news, money, weather and sports. It's 5:47 Eastern. Here's what's all new this morning.

Indonesian police say at least one suicide car bomber is responsible for that deadly blast in Jakarta. Killed 9 people and wounded more than 180 others near the Australian Embassy. A local terrorist group with ties to al Qaeda is being blamed.

John Ritter's family has filed a wrongful death suit against the Burbank Hospital where he died. The suit contends that doctors misdiagnosed Ritter's heart condition, which contributed to his unexpected death. The 54-year-old actor died last September during surgery for a torn aorta.

In money news, mortgage rates crept up slightly this week but are still well below 6 percent. The average 30-year mortgage rate is now at 5.83 percent.

In culture, Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent girlie-man references may be coming back to haunt him. A Democratic lobbyist is planning to market a Schwarzenegger bobble-head doll with the California governor wearing a pink dress and high heels.

In sports, boxing great Muhammad Ali is calling on Congress to create a U.S. boxing commission. Ali says a national governing body is needed for the sport to protect boxers from injury and exploitation -- Chad.

MYERS: And good morning, Carol.

(WEATHER REPORT)

MYERS: That's all I have for you.

COSTELLO: Well you have to stick around for more, because we have been getting e-mails fast and furious about Hurricane Ivan.

MYERS: Yes, all kinds of them.

COSTELLO: You know this one from a D.J. at 99 Rock (ph), actually he's a D.J. at 99 Rock...

MYERS: Right.

COSTELLO: ... on the Gulf Coast in Fort Walton Beach. He's originally from Florida. He just got there with this new job. People are calling in and asking him about this hurricane and where it might hit and if it will follow the path of Hurricane Opal.

MYERS: Opal, that was one that really exploded in the Gulf. They woke up, it was a one. They woke up, it was like huge. And all of a sudden nobody realized it was going to actually get that big that fast. This could be an Opal.

It looks more to me like a Charley as it goes past Key West and then maybe makes a big right hand turn. All the computer models are somewhere within Florida, either the very eastern tip moving through the Bahamas, like they could use it, too, like they don't need it either. And then another one taking it as far west probably as Apalachicola. And all the other models somewhere in between, all approaching Florida sometime today (ph).

COSTELLO: Another interesting question comes from Richard in Seattle. He says how well prepared are the troops and detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba?

MYERS: No idea.

COSTELLO: Is it going to hit Cuba?

MYERS: It is going to hit Cuba but nowhere near Guantanamo Bay.

COSTELLO: OK.

MYERS: So it's actually going over Havana. Actually, I had some that I had picked out that I could actually have a decent answer to.

COSTELLO: Well the reason I asked you this is because in Grenada it destroyed the prison there.

MYERS: It did.

COSTELLO: And all the prisoners escaped.

MYERS: It did.

COSTELLO: And now looting is a terrible problem.

MYERS: You know that whole island is a terrible problem right now. Ninety percent of all structures were damaged or destroyed. There were very few structures that actually were not destroyed. And most of the boats are actually sunk in the harbors as well. But here's one here from Carol (ph) who wants to know couldn't we just drop some dry ice in this thing or drop a bomb inside of it and blow it up?

MYERS: This hurricane right now, Carol, is generating four times the amount of power that the entire world is consuming right now. All the lights, all the refrigerators, all the cars, all the trucks, everything we use for power out there, this hurricane is four times stronger than everyone is using in the world.

COSTELLO: Wow!

MYERS: If we could only harness the power of the hurricane. So to say can we blow it up, absolutely not. They said a 100-megaton bomb would not even touch it, except then you'd have radiation in it and then it would go over people's homes and then the radiation would fall out. So clearly we are not going to try to blow up hurricanes.

COSTELLO: I don't think so.

MYERS: No.

COSTELLO: Thank you -- Chad.

MYERS: OK.

COSTELLO: And thanks for your e-mails this morning.

MYERS: Yes.

COSTELLO: Well you don't have to be famous to grace the corner of a letter. How you could have your face on a stamp.

MYERS: I can do that on my computer.

COSTELLO: That's true. Some of the more bizarre stamps are already out there. Our Jeanne Moos will have that story for you next.

This is DAYBREAK.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: An Internet company is working with the U.S. Postal Service to offer stamps with a very personal touch. You can submit just about any picture and turn it into a stamp. An honest to goodness legitimate stamp.

But as CNN's Jeanne Moos reports, not every image is going to make it on to your mail.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ready to stamp out flags and presidents? Maybe you'd rather monkey around with your own image. You're looking at a valid U.S. postage stamp featuring Chippy (ph) and me. Or maybe you'd prefer your wedding photo, your baby or former dictator Slobodan Milosevic. Hey, how did an alleged war criminal become valid postage?

KEN MCBRIDE, CEO, STAMPS.COM: In some cases people are doing it somewhat like a game to try to get stuff by us...

MOOS: Ken McBride is the CEO of Stamps.com. On a trial basis, the postal service is allowing personalized stamps. You send in your favorite digital photo, pick a border and in a couple of days you're turned into a usable, actual stamp with a machine-readable bar code.

MCBRIDE: Babies and kids. That's about 40 percent of what we're getting.

MOOS: But then there's the 5 percent reject rate. Nudity, political content, violence, anything objectionable.

MCBRIDE: We actually have human beings who look at every photo that's submitted.

MOOS: But humans being human apparently neglected to recognize Linda Tripp or this now famous photo of New Jersey governor James McGreevey and the former aide with whom he has reportedly had a sexual relationship.

BILL BASTONE, CO-FOUNDER, THE SMOKING GUN: They pretty much did it to see if they'd get through.

MOOS: Bill Bastone is a co-founder of the Web site, Thesmokinggun.com. Their first attempts to bypass the photo stamp censors when Lee Harvey Oswald and the Unabomber was denied the stamp of approval but Jimmy Hoffa made it and so did the Unabomber's Harvard photo.

BASTONE: We decided to put it on an envelope and mail it to ourselves.

MOOS: It arrived valid postage. Though personalized stamps cost more than twice as much as regular ones. At the United Nations there's a similar service. Jurors pose and get their new stamps in minutes valid only if mailed from U.N. headquarters. The idea behind photo stamps is to send in sentimental photos like this Santa picture of me with my brother. Instead they let Monica Lewinsky's stained dress get by. Talk about a sticky stamp. Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: From Jamaica to the Florida Keys, thousands are getting ready for Ivan. In the next hour of DAYBREAK, we'll update you on how fast the storm is moving and exactly where and when it is expected to hit.

This is DAYBREAK for a Friday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Ivan is coming. Will everyone be ready

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 September 10, 2004 - 05:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Life-threatening, dangerous and powerful. Those are words forecasters are using to describe Hurricane Ivan as it barrels towards Jamaica.
It is Friday, September 10. This is DAYBREAK.

And good morning to you, welcome to the second half-hour of DAYBREAK. From the CNN Global Headquarters in Atlanta, I'm Carol Costello.

"Now in the News."

President Bush campaigns for reelection today in West Virginia and Ohio. The latest CNN-"USA Today" Gallup Poll gives Bush an 8 percentage point lead over John Kerry among likely voters in the battleground state of Ohio.

Kerry is looking for votes today in Missouri and Pennsylvania. That same CNN-"USA Today" Gallup Poll gives Bush a lead of 14 percentage points among likely voters in Missouri.

And the "New York Times" is reporting that Transportation Security Administration will pay a half a million dollars, $1.5 million, rather, to 15,000 airline passengers. They claim items in their checked baggage have been stolen or damaged.

And Hurricane Ivan is on the move. It's an extremely dangerous storm with 145 mile an hour winds. Ivan is on track to hit Jamaica tonight.

But, Chad, tell us exactly when.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, exactly, Carol.

Here is the storm right here, and it's easy to see the eye. The eye was a little bit more defined in the overnight hours. Now it's a little bit more as we call ragged (ph). It kind of filled in here a little bit.

And obviously Jamaica, the island, right here, Kingston, Spanish Town right up here on the bad side of where the eye is actually going to be passing. If you do the math, you do the addition, this is about a 24 hour loop, this thing actually going to be pulling on in.

We're going to start to see hurricane conditions probably in the next 10 hours. So by a little after 2:00 or 3:00 we start to see the hurricane conditions and then, obviously, eyewall passes later on this afternoon into tonight. Continues from Jamaica and then right on up into the Cuba area by the Isle of Youth there in Cuba.

Here are the numbers here for you. Winds at 145, gusting to 180. It's a category 4. It needs to be 156, we just talked about this, 156 is the threshold for a category 5. It is moving to the west-northwest at 13. It's still gaining strength, 150 as it heads right over Jamaica.

And then here we go back into Saturday and into Sunday. Sunday still south of Cuba. And then as it moves into the Sunday night, into Monday area, right very, very close to Key West. And then, well, you know the rest from there -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Yes, unfortunately we do. Thank you -- Chad.

MYERS: Seen that before.

COSTELLO: Yes. Hopefully we won't see it this time around.

MYERS: Exactly.

COSTELLO: Thank you, Chad.

And as Chad just told us, Hurricane Ivan is now a category 4 storm. In less than two hours, residents of the Florida Keys will begin their ordered evacuation. And in Jamaica, as many as half a million people could be evacuated before the storm hits. In the Caribbean, 23 deaths have been blamed on Ivan so far, 17 of them in Grenada.

People in the Florida Keys are trying to get away from Ivan. And throughout the state, they are boarding up yet again.

CNN's John Zarrella takes a look at how Floridians are fed up with this season of storms.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Denis Chavez has had just about all he can take. He and daughters Alexis and Ashley spent Thursday cleaning up the yard of their Palm Beach County home.

Less than a week ago, they watched as the core of Hurricane Frances just missed them. Now, it's Ivan, and now the anxiety level is going up again.

Denis says maybe it's time to leave Florida for good.

DENIS CHAVEZ, RESIDENT: It's a tough decision mentally, but we're exhausted. We're just -- I don't -- I just don't want to go through it again, and I don't want to put my kids through it again.

ZARRELLA: But it's very possible that it will be deja vu all over again for some parts of the so-called Sunshine State. Ivan, coming up from the south, compounds the problems. Evacuations have begun in the Keys, but do people go east or west to get out of harm's way?

Debris, that could become deadly projectiles, still litter streets from Punta Gorda to Fort Pierce. Fuel is still a precious commodity. Utility trucks handling Hurricane Frances repairs need it, but so will evacuees.

GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: So, I mean, welcome to our world. This is -- there is no set answer to any of these questions. A lot of this depends on where the storm goes. We have a huge challenge in front of us.

ZARRELLA: Plywood continues pouring out of home improvement stores. People who didn't or couldn't board up for Charley or Frances are now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You could only get so many pieces of wood, and now we're boarding up the rest of it, because I'm just too scared to see what's going to happen now.

ZARRELLA: With no let up in this mean season, many hurricane- punch-drunk Floridians have opted to live in the dark, even those who have electricity. Everywhere you look, shutters or plywood cover windows, and people say they are not coming down until the tropics calm down.

John Zarrella, CNN, Miami.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Do you have questions about Hurricane Ivan? If so, send us an e-mail. Chad will try to answer them throughout the newscast. Our address, of course, DAYBREAK@CNN.com. DAYBREAK@CNN.com. If you have any questions at all about Hurricane Ivan, DAYBREAK@CNN.com.

Want to talk about that al Qaeda tape that came out and also get you an update on what happened in Jakarta yesterday.

Our senior international editor Eli Flournoy is joining us now with updates. You have some new information on the bombing in Indonesia.

ELI FLOURNOY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: Yes, the investigation is going on right now. A team of Australian investigators came in yesterday with Australia's foreign minister. They are on the ground, taking no chances, wanting to find out what exactly happened. The bomb going off, of course, right in front of the Australian Embassy in downtown Jakarta.

This one you can see the cloud from it, twice the size of the Marriott bombing that killed 12 people. Nine people confirmed dead in this bombing yesterday. And as you can see in these pictures of the buildings and stuff, 10 buildings in the area where just completely devastated.

COSTELLO: Wow! FLOURNOY: And it is remarkable that more people were not killed. Now there are a number still in critical condition and we're waiting to hear on their status. But I've been, myself, on this street in front of this building a number of times, and it is really crowded. This happened right around midday. I mean people were in their offices, people are walking around, it's a very, very crowded part of town in Jakarta, which is a crowded city in and of itself.

COSTELLO: And they think right now one suicide car bomber was responsible for all of that damage?

FLOURNOY: That's correct. So far they have been able to confirm that it was definitely at least one suicide bomber. There may have been more than one person in the car that exploded. And in fact there may have been more than one simultaneous explosion. But so far they have been able to confirm that at least part of the blast was caused by one bomb in a car because they found the scattered body parts.

COSTELLO: Right. And they still suspect that the group responsible for this is connected somehow to al Qaeda. And I want to talk about that new al Qaeda tape that came out yesterday that's playing on Al Jazeera television.

FLOURNOY: Yes, that's correct. Ayman al-Zawahiri, you can see him here, the Egyptian doctor who is supposedly the No. 2 man to Osama bin Laden. First time we've seen him since we saw him and Osama bin Laden walking through a mountainous territory a year ago. It's not clear exactly when this was shot, but he does make reference to some things like the situation in Sudan in Darfur that make us think that it is relatively recent.

COSTELLO: Which is odd. Isn't that odd? Why would he refer to that situation?

FLOURNOY: Well it's hard to tell. I mean they tie in human suffering in different places. Of course the situation in Sudan has a lot of elements of the Islamic north of Sudan versus the Christian south. So he was tying in you know the religious battle. So that's all playing into it.

COSTELLO: So strange. And he also said some stuff about Afghanistan as far as the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters having control of certain parts of Afghanistan. That couldn't be true.

FLOURNOY: Well that's what he claims. Of course U.S. officials "scoff" -- quote/unquote -- at those remarks and saying that the U.S. military is moving around freely within Afghanistan. Of course al- Zawahiri in the statement saying that they are afraid to go in certain areas and that the Janjaweed, the Islamic fighters, are in control of large parts of Afghanistan are essentially winning the war in Afghanistan. That's the claim.

COSTELLO: Yes, we'll have much more on this in the next hour of DAYBREAK. Thank you, Eli.

Let's talk about Sudan now, because Sudan today categorically denies U.S. accusations that it's carrying out genocide against black Africans in the western region of Darfur. The charge was made by Secretary of State Colin Powell who calls on the United Nations to get more involved.

CNN's Andrea Koppel has more on that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The secretary of state did not mince words.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: We concluded -- I concluded that genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility and that genocide may still be occurring.

KOPPEL: Less than three months after he toured Darfur, Secretary Powell told senators a State Department report detailing interviews with Sudanese refugees shows a pattern of atrocities targeting black Africans.

The report cites racial and ethnic epithets made by both Arab militia known as Janjaweed and Sudanese government sources, including, "Kill the slaves" and "We have order to kill all the blacks." But even as he called the crisis a genocide, Powell suggested the U.S. was not obligated to intervene more forcefully than it already has. Instead, Powell put the onus on the United Nations.

POWELL: Call it civil war, call it ethnic cleansing, call it genocide, call it none of the above. The reality is the same. There are people in Darfur who desperately need the help of the international community.

KOPPEL: Powell said the U.S. was circulating a new draft U.N. resolution which calls on the Security Council to bring those responsible to justice. The resolution also threatens sanctions on Sudan's lucrative oil industry unless Khartoum ends its support for Janjaweed militia and allows the African Union to send in thousands of troops to monitor the situation. But under questioning, Powell conceded there was a caveat.

POWELL: There's no immediate sanction to come out of this resolution.

SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD (D), WISCONSIN: What good does it do to pass U.N. resolutions with deadlines when there are no actual consequences?

KOPPEL: Senator Barbara boxer pointed to a "Washington Post" editorial criticizing Powell, saying the Bush administration -- quote -- "has not expended the diplomatic capital necessary to achieve a solution."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

A point echoed by a former Clinton administration official and expert on Sudan. GAYLE SMITH, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: And I think the government of Sudan has made a calculation that the international community is threatening but is unlikely to act. So a resolution that speaks of specific targeted sanctions by a date certain is likely to send a stronger message to Kartun than a resolution that talks about possible sanctions at some unspecified time.

KOPPEL (on camera): Powell called the resolution strong, but conceded it will be a tough sell with significant opposition from China and Pakistan. For its part, Sudan's government rejected the U.S. claim, saying it was a political ploy by President Bush to get his hands on Sudan's oil and win reelection in November.

Andrea Koppel, CNN, at the State Department.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Of course we are keeping a close eye on Ivan and people in Florida and the Florida Keys are not taking any chances with this monstrous storm. They are preparing for the worst. More details for you ahead.

And if you have questions this morning about this hurricane, e- mail us at DAYBREAK@CNN.com. DAYBREAK@CNN.com.

But first, here's a look at what else is making news this Friday morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Beslan, Russia, population 30,000, is a city in mourning. More than 350 people were killed, many of them children, after terrorists took over a school.

And as CNN's Jill Dougherty reports, the grief in Beslan is palpable.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN MOSCOW BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): The first thing you hear is the praying. But there are silent prayers that need no words. Cries of fury and despair. Clutching a photograph of her still missing 12-year-old niece Modina (ph), Dr. Azza Pukhayeva asks anyone she can for information about her fate.

DR. AZZA PUKHAYEVA, NIECE STILL MISSING: She maybe jump from a window.

DOUGHERTY (on camera): In spite of the horror, in spite of all the deaths, in spite of the nightmarish memories, people here in Beslan are drawn back to the school. In a sense it's become a kind of church, a sacred place where they say they can still feel the souls of their loved ones.

(voice-over): Miraculously there are survivors, like 12-year-old Suslan Beteyev (ph) who fled the gym in a hail of bullets.

SUSLAN BETEYEV, SURVIVOR (through translator): I tried to climb out the window but there was an explosion that knocked me down. So I tried a second time. We had to climb through broken window glass but we got out and ran.

DOUGHERTY: Stunned families moved slowly from classroom to classroom uncovering more horrors. One room sprayed with the blood of female terrorists blown apart by explosives strapped to their bodies. Even praying seems more than some of these families can bear.

Jill Dougherty, CNN, Beslan, Russia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: In the next hour of DAYBREAK, another emotional account from Russia, this one through the eyes of a child. We'll share Georgi's story. Just a little boy forced to think and behave like a grownup warrior in order to save his own life. He was actually inside of that school and he has a moving story.

Your news, money, weather and sports. It's 5:47 Eastern. Here's what's all new this morning.

Indonesian police say at least one suicide car bomber is responsible for that deadly blast in Jakarta. Killed 9 people and wounded more than 180 others near the Australian Embassy. A local terrorist group with ties to al Qaeda is being blamed.

John Ritter's family has filed a wrongful death suit against the Burbank Hospital where he died. The suit contends that doctors misdiagnosed Ritter's heart condition, which contributed to his unexpected death. The 54-year-old actor died last September during surgery for a torn aorta.

In money news, mortgage rates crept up slightly this week but are still well below 6 percent. The average 30-year mortgage rate is now at 5.83 percent.

In culture, Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent girlie-man references may be coming back to haunt him. A Democratic lobbyist is planning to market a Schwarzenegger bobble-head doll with the California governor wearing a pink dress and high heels.

In sports, boxing great Muhammad Ali is calling on Congress to create a U.S. boxing commission. Ali says a national governing body is needed for the sport to protect boxers from injury and exploitation -- Chad.

MYERS: And good morning, Carol.

(WEATHER REPORT)

MYERS: That's all I have for you.

COSTELLO: Well you have to stick around for more, because we have been getting e-mails fast and furious about Hurricane Ivan.

MYERS: Yes, all kinds of them.

COSTELLO: You know this one from a D.J. at 99 Rock (ph), actually he's a D.J. at 99 Rock...

MYERS: Right.

COSTELLO: ... on the Gulf Coast in Fort Walton Beach. He's originally from Florida. He just got there with this new job. People are calling in and asking him about this hurricane and where it might hit and if it will follow the path of Hurricane Opal.

MYERS: Opal, that was one that really exploded in the Gulf. They woke up, it was a one. They woke up, it was like huge. And all of a sudden nobody realized it was going to actually get that big that fast. This could be an Opal.

It looks more to me like a Charley as it goes past Key West and then maybe makes a big right hand turn. All the computer models are somewhere within Florida, either the very eastern tip moving through the Bahamas, like they could use it, too, like they don't need it either. And then another one taking it as far west probably as Apalachicola. And all the other models somewhere in between, all approaching Florida sometime today (ph).

COSTELLO: Another interesting question comes from Richard in Seattle. He says how well prepared are the troops and detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba?

MYERS: No idea.

COSTELLO: Is it going to hit Cuba?

MYERS: It is going to hit Cuba but nowhere near Guantanamo Bay.

COSTELLO: OK.

MYERS: So it's actually going over Havana. Actually, I had some that I had picked out that I could actually have a decent answer to.

COSTELLO: Well the reason I asked you this is because in Grenada it destroyed the prison there.

MYERS: It did.

COSTELLO: And all the prisoners escaped.

MYERS: It did.

COSTELLO: And now looting is a terrible problem.

MYERS: You know that whole island is a terrible problem right now. Ninety percent of all structures were damaged or destroyed. There were very few structures that actually were not destroyed. And most of the boats are actually sunk in the harbors as well. But here's one here from Carol (ph) who wants to know couldn't we just drop some dry ice in this thing or drop a bomb inside of it and blow it up?

MYERS: This hurricane right now, Carol, is generating four times the amount of power that the entire world is consuming right now. All the lights, all the refrigerators, all the cars, all the trucks, everything we use for power out there, this hurricane is four times stronger than everyone is using in the world.

COSTELLO: Wow!

MYERS: If we could only harness the power of the hurricane. So to say can we blow it up, absolutely not. They said a 100-megaton bomb would not even touch it, except then you'd have radiation in it and then it would go over people's homes and then the radiation would fall out. So clearly we are not going to try to blow up hurricanes.

COSTELLO: I don't think so.

MYERS: No.

COSTELLO: Thank you -- Chad.

MYERS: OK.

COSTELLO: And thanks for your e-mails this morning.

MYERS: Yes.

COSTELLO: Well you don't have to be famous to grace the corner of a letter. How you could have your face on a stamp.

MYERS: I can do that on my computer.

COSTELLO: That's true. Some of the more bizarre stamps are already out there. Our Jeanne Moos will have that story for you next.

This is DAYBREAK.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: An Internet company is working with the U.S. Postal Service to offer stamps with a very personal touch. You can submit just about any picture and turn it into a stamp. An honest to goodness legitimate stamp.

But as CNN's Jeanne Moos reports, not every image is going to make it on to your mail.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ready to stamp out flags and presidents? Maybe you'd rather monkey around with your own image. You're looking at a valid U.S. postage stamp featuring Chippy (ph) and me. Or maybe you'd prefer your wedding photo, your baby or former dictator Slobodan Milosevic. Hey, how did an alleged war criminal become valid postage?

KEN MCBRIDE, CEO, STAMPS.COM: In some cases people are doing it somewhat like a game to try to get stuff by us...

MOOS: Ken McBride is the CEO of Stamps.com. On a trial basis, the postal service is allowing personalized stamps. You send in your favorite digital photo, pick a border and in a couple of days you're turned into a usable, actual stamp with a machine-readable bar code.

MCBRIDE: Babies and kids. That's about 40 percent of what we're getting.

MOOS: But then there's the 5 percent reject rate. Nudity, political content, violence, anything objectionable.

MCBRIDE: We actually have human beings who look at every photo that's submitted.

MOOS: But humans being human apparently neglected to recognize Linda Tripp or this now famous photo of New Jersey governor James McGreevey and the former aide with whom he has reportedly had a sexual relationship.

BILL BASTONE, CO-FOUNDER, THE SMOKING GUN: They pretty much did it to see if they'd get through.

MOOS: Bill Bastone is a co-founder of the Web site, Thesmokinggun.com. Their first attempts to bypass the photo stamp censors when Lee Harvey Oswald and the Unabomber was denied the stamp of approval but Jimmy Hoffa made it and so did the Unabomber's Harvard photo.

BASTONE: We decided to put it on an envelope and mail it to ourselves.

MOOS: It arrived valid postage. Though personalized stamps cost more than twice as much as regular ones. At the United Nations there's a similar service. Jurors pose and get their new stamps in minutes valid only if mailed from U.N. headquarters. The idea behind photo stamps is to send in sentimental photos like this Santa picture of me with my brother. Instead they let Monica Lewinsky's stained dress get by. Talk about a sticky stamp. Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: From Jamaica to the Florida Keys, thousands are getting ready for Ivan. In the next hour of DAYBREAK, we'll update you on how fast the storm is moving and exactly where and when it is expected to hit.

This is DAYBREAK for a Friday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Ivan is coming. Will everyone be ready

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