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American Morning

Hunger Strike Spreads at Guantanamo Bay; Winter Aftershock in Pakistan

Aired December 30, 2005 - 06:30   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Some new pictures this morning of flames in Oklahoma. A devastating toll; more fires already reported today. We'll look at the deteriorating conditions there.
Gridlock in Colorado as a powerful snowstorm descends on the Rockies and hurricane-force winds blow near Denver.

Right now, a little Iraqi baby in desperate need of medical help taking what everyone hopes will be a life-saving flight to America.

Good morning. We're glad you're with us.

Darkened Columbus Circle in New York City. A little after 6:30 in the morning here. We're glad you're joining us on this Friday edition of AMERICAN MORNING.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: It's eerily warm in New York City. It's almost scary warm.

O'BRIEN: Yes. I'm not sure what that's all about.

COSTELLO: I don't know, but out West it's really nasty. We're heading into this long holiday weekend, and it's just going to be dangerous for people to drive.

O'BRIEN: Yes, it will. Lots of severe weather pounding the West right now as we speak. We've got driving torrential rains on the West Coast in California. They call it, I think, the Pineapple Express is what Jacqui Jeras has been calling it.

And let's see. We have more flooding expected today, with up to eight inches in some areas.

Farther east in the Rockies, it's high winds and snow causing all the problem. That, plus winds gusting to 75 miles an hour, making for some severe traffic headaches in Colorado.

Now, let's contrast this with Texas and Oklahoma. It's just the opposite there.

Forecast there for hot, dry and windy. Perfect mix for those fire conditions, unfortunately. And those states, of course, as you know, in the middle of a full-blown fight against those grass fires.

Let's get to Jacqui Jeras in the weather center.

Jacqui, it's positively biblical. What's going on?

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, it's awfully extreme, isn't it, Miles?

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: In the headlines this morning, Baby Noor is coming to Atlanta. We've been telling you about this Iraqi infant. She was discovered by members of the Georgia National Guard unit.

The infant has Spina Bifida. That's a birth defect in her spine. The baby, her father and grandmother left Baghdad about an hour ago. They're set to arrive in Atlanta this weekend.

In the meantime, the State Department says a 16-year-old Florida boy traveled to Iraq by himself. He just wanted to experience life there. He's set to be back home this weekend. And as we heard from his dad earlier this hour, his family is anxious to have him come home.

Three teenagers being held in a brutal mob beating of a Milwaukee man. The suspects, two 16-year-olds and a 14-year-old, are allegedly members of a street gang called the Tray 6 Mafia (ph).

Police are looking for more suspects. They say the group nearly beat Samuel McClain to death after he honked his horn at them so he could drive by.

Divers have recovered the body of a New Jersey police officer who's been missing since Christmas night. A truck carrying two officers drove off a drawbridge and into the Hackensack River on Sunday. One officer's body was found that night.

Thirty-year-old Robert Nguyen was found on Thursday not far from where the truck hit the water. Divers said the body was lodged about 50 feet under water.

A father turned in by his sons has been sentenced to 40 years in prison. Do you remember we talked to his sons on Wednesday? They recognized their father, 64-year-old William Alfred Ginglen, from surveillance video and from a description of the getaway car.

Ginglen pleaded guilty. He will serve jail time and has also been ordered to pay about $57,000 in restitution.

Lynndie England, whose name is as infamous as Abu Ghraib has reportedly gotten hurt in prison. England was sentenced in September to three years for her role in the Iraqi abuse scandal. She's being held at a naval base in San Diego, where she works in the kitchen. Her mother says England was splattered with grease and has second and possible third-degree burns on her body.

Head coach Tony Dungy is back with the Indianapolis Colts. He hugged his players and his assistance coach and thanked them for his support. The coach buried his son James two days ago. A preliminary autopsy shows the son committed suicide. Dungy is expected back on the sideline coaching this Sunday when the Colts take on the Arizona Cardinals.

That's a look at the headlines this morning.

O'BRIEN: More now on that hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. The number of detainees refusing food there has more than doubled in just the last week. The number now is 84. The military says it is now resorting to force-feeding many of those hunger strikers through tubes.

AMERICAN MORNING'S Bob Franken joining us from Washington. He has spent an awful lot of time at the place they call Gitmo.

Bob, what is at the root of this hunger strike?

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's, first of all, notable because it is not something unusual. As long as I've been going down there, which was almost from the moment they opened Camp X-ray -- you're remember that -- there have been hunger strikes, protests against a variety of offenses, real or imagined, on the part of the detainees. And now we're told with some credibility that it is a protest against the desperation and the seeming futility of the existence there.

Now, part of the problem is, is that nobody really knows how the detainees are being treated. The military will take you down there for a tour. Take you, meaning members of the media. But most reporters, including this one, have long started calling those dog and pony shows.

You have severely restricted access, no access whatsoever to the detainees. You have no ability to communicate with them. Your video is strictly censored, leaving people to believe that maybe some of the charges that have been made down there are charges that might have some credibility. At least there's nothing that has been shown that would refute the charges.

So we have evidence, such things as this glimmering of a hunger strike. They do force-feed them in an effort to keep them alive. Meanwhile, about 500 continue down there in circumstances that we can only guess at.

O'BRIEN: Well, and as you say, without -- without any sort of specific end game, it's got to be very difficult to maintain some order in any sort of detention center.

FRANKEN: Well, desperation, of course, is always something that is an incubator for danger, and that is the situation in Guantanamo. To the best of our knowledge, the detainees, as they prefer to call them, are absolutely cut off from any information about the outside world or information about their future.

Now, it should be pointed out, I should say, Miles, that these are people that the United States are desperate and dangerous enemies of the U.S.

O'BRIEN: Yes, and that's important, important to underscore. But just -- you've been there as much as any reporter, and what you're saying is you really feel like you haven't really had -- gotten a good glimpse of what goes on there.

FRANKEN: I'm not the only reporter. We, as a matter of fact, get into really tough battles with the military when it comes time to decide what it is we can report, what tape we can show of that kind of thing. And when you do report that from down there, under conditions which are not always ideal, oftentimes you get what amounts to implied intimidation by military people who say that we're not being fair.

O'BRIEN: Bob Franken in Washington for us, but also a man that's spent a lot of time at Guantanamo.

Thank you very much -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Still ahead, bitter cold and harsh reality in the mountains of Pakistan. Dr. Sanjay Gupta looks at the greatest threat facing millions of homeless earthquake victims.

That's just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: In Pakistan right now, it is a race against time and the elements. Winter is setting in, and lives hang in the balance for the hundreds of thousands of people whose homes were destroyed by an October earthquake. Staying warm is proving harder every day.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta continues his journey through Pakistan, a story you will only see on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Since the earthquake of October 8 in Pakistan, there have been more than 2,000 aftershocks. It seems the earth is always trembling. And it has left a feeling of everything being unsettled, both physically and psychologically.

But as we learned, the greatest threat to the more than two million displaced survivors was not coming from the ground, but from the air. It's getting cold, really cold.

The snow has already started to fall in the hilltop town of Gangwal, snow-covered peaks with impossibly blue rivers running through them. Today, the Aga Khan Foundation brings supplies.

As I watch the young boys and men jostle for the few bags, it never seems like enough. Never before have I seen relief at such a raw level. Simply, if these supplies hadn't arrived, many of these people would have probably died within the next few weeks. I know many of them still will.

Ten-year-old Javid (ph) and 13-year-old Masir (ph) are brothers. They lost their mother during the quake. And their father is too ill to help. So -- and this is too often the case -- young boys are quickly turned into men, as they move their family from higher in the mountains to this village.

(on camera): So, he's moved here because it's -- it's too -- too cold?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because their houses are all gone. So, they have decided to move to that place. And there are (INAUDIBLE) brothers and sister in that tent. They're burning wood to keep them warm. And they're all right.

GUPTA (voice-over): Their job today is to try and hoist at least one of these 50-pound bags of supplies up the side of one of these mountains to their home. They don't want any help, afraid someone will steal their bag.

Their hands are working hands, already far too callused and cracked for such a young age. But they do have shoes, more than this boy can say -- no shoes, no jacket, no gloves and, some would say, no chance at survival.

Today, it is below freezing. As he curls his toes in a futile attempt to stay warm, it looks to me like frostbite may have already claimed his black feet. He runs away when I offer him my coat.

(on camera): The snow has started to fall in many places of Pakistan, as you can see here.

And it is a tremendously large problem. Obviously, it is very cold. But, even more pragmatically speaking, it just makes this area absolutely uninhabitable. What you want to do is to be able to drive stakes into the ground here. You absolutely can't do it.

The ground is just too tough. Some of the people around here are telling me they can't even dig to bury people. They can't even dig their own graves.

And get this. Even when the snow starts to melt, all this water actually will come down and cause significant mudslides -- so, one problem on top of another.

Right now, a lot of people are trying to be encouraged to move to lower ground to get away from all this. But, as you can see, so many people are still staying around here.

(voice-over): The Pakistani government has set up tent relief camps, like this one, but many aid organizations are trying to help people stay where they live and continue the lives they know.

ROGER DEAN, GOAL IRELAND: And every person -- there's no selection criteria. Everybody gets what they need to stay alive this winter.

GUPTA: A few miles away, Roger Dean with the GOAL foundation is fighting for the life of that boy with no shoes and everyone else in the area.

(on camera): So, tell us what's going on here. DEAN: What we have got here is, we have got the logistical base for GOAL in this area. We have got -- our shelter and our food programs are all being supplied from here. So, we are having all the metal sheets for people to build their homes, their winter shelters coming out from here.

GUPTA: We're about a mile in the sky now, you know, about 5,000 feet or so. What has been the biggest challenge to get all this done?

DEAN: It's the time scale. We're working against a very, very tight time scale. We could have had snow any day. As you can see outside, the cloud has come in overnight. This is new for today. And that's a bad sign. That means rain is on the way. And, when there's rain, there's snow. So, anything can happen.

GUPTA (voice-over): GOAL and many relief organizations, including USAID, World Food Program, and Doctors Without Borders, are working to make it safe to continue living here.

(on camera): This home costs about $200.

Point out a couple of things here. First of all, this is corrugated iron. And for many people living in this area, this could be the difference between life and death, as the winter gets much colder here.

Also, as you look up here, you will see a lot of straw in between the tarp and the corrugated iron. That's the best form of insulation they can have around here. And, also, this tarp itself, a simple tarp, gray on the outside, and actually white on the inside.

And the -- and the point of that is to actually attract the sun, to keep it even warmer. This is what they are going to have to deal with, as the winter gets much colder around here and the temperatures drop below freezing at night.

What this the -- what is the thing you need more than anything else?

M. MUSHTAQ KHAN, VILLAGER: We need no -- iron sheets. If we have iron sheets, we can live here. Otherwise, this tent is not enough.

GUPTA (voice-over): And there it was, a problem. Yes, it was getting colder, and a solution, $10 iron sheets.

It wasn't clear that these corrugated iron sheets would make it here in time to save the lives of Javid (ph), Masir (ph), and that boy with no shoes. Some say it's already too late. Some say the aftershock of winter came too quick and too strong.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Gangwal, Pakistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: That's been an amazing series, hasn't it? COSTELLO: Oh, it's just so sad.

O'BRIEN: It is. It is. It's a story that we should not forget.

Sanjay Gupta has been giving us gripping accounts all week long. We hope you've seen them. If you have, or even if you haven't, either way, Saturday night, 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time, a special report which will contain some of the material you saw this week, as well as additional material.

Sanjay Gupta reporting "From the Quake Zone," once again, 6:00 p.m. Eastern, 3:00 Pacific. Watch it, TiVo it. It's worth reminding yourself of what happened there.

COSTELLO: Coming up on AMERICAN MORNING, we're "Minding Your Business." We'll look at the three big reasons the Dow Jones was virtually flat in 2005.

That's just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: 6:49 Eastern. Some headlines for you now.

It's going to be another hot and dry and windy day in Texas and Oklahoma. Not good news for firefighters battling those relentless wildfires. The latest of four major fires starting to enter the fringes of Oklahoma City.

In Texas, nearly 20,000 acres now scorched, more than 200 homes destroyed. The governor now asking President Bush for disaster relief.

Let's head straight to the forecast center to check in with Jacqui Jeras to see if it's getting any better out West.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: In Egypt, at least 10 people are dead after a violent confrontation between police and Sudanese refugees. Troops fired water cannons at groups of Sudanese men, women and children. They had refused to leave a makeshift campsite near the United Nations offices in Cairo. The area is only about the size of a tennis court but at one point housed nearly 2,000 people. Armed police then stormed the area and shoved refugees onto buses.

More signs of recovery along the Gulf Coast. The Palace Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi, reopening for business in just about two hours.

This is what it looked like after Hurricane Katrina hit. The hotel lobby was converted into a gambling area, a ballroom into a buffet. Hurricane Katrina damaged most of the gambling barges in Biloxi. Two other casinos have also reopened recently.

Two 16-year-old girls suing their Lutheran high school because it expelled them for being suspected lesbians. The Riverside, California, school's principal admitted that officials had seen no physical contact between the girls, but he said their friendship was "uncharacteristic of normal girl relationships and more characteristic of a lesbian one." He said such a relationship violates the Christian code of conduct.

The girls are now seeking re-enrollment.

And it is Friday, the start of a holiday weekend. So why not some pandas, pandas for you? Who wouldn't love these things?

O'BRIEN: There's really no news value to this at all, right?

COSTELLO: No.

O'BRIEN: This is simply to show pandas at the end of kind of a slow news week, right?

COSTELLO: Exactly. This is Su Lin. It means a little bit of something cute.

The little panda cub is 21 weeks old. And zookeepers say she's very curious and precocious.

And guess what?

O'BRIEN: That she loves bamboo shoots.

COSTELLO: She loves that, and she loves standing on her head, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Standing on her head? That is so cute.

COSTELLO: So there's your bit of happiness and sunshine for the day.

O'BRIEN: Look at mommy dragging her by the scruff. "Don't you do that again, young lady. I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times... too much bamboo will make you fat."

COSTELLO: OK. Enough, all right? Enough.

O'BRIEN: Oh, come on. A little more -- a little more panda. Can we put up just five more seconds, Michael? Come on. Just a little.

COSTELLO: No, please. No more panda.

O'BRIEN: No? All right.

Well, Ellen McGirt is here, "Fortune" magazine. And she's here to tell us -- oh, there we go. There's pandas for you.

Thank you very much, Michael.

Tell us why the Dow is kind of... (CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Ellen's going to bring us down after the panda pictures.

ELLEN MCGIRT, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Well, because pandas aren't investing in the market enough. If we could only get them interested.

(LAUGHTER)

O'BRIEN: No pandemonium on the market floor.

MCGIRT: Exactly.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

O'BRIEN: Ellen McGirt, very well done.

COSTELLO: Coming up, the latest on a developing story. Right now, Baby Noor on her way to the United States. This Iraqi girl desperately needs treatment for a potentially fatal birth defect. A live report on the mission to save her life.

That's just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Be sure to check out our Web site. It is located at CNN.com. That's -- that's a good name for our Web site, CNN.com. I'm glad they came up with this.

COSTELLO: Very clever.

O'BRIEN: It's got the latest on this morning's top stories. Of course we have everything you need to know about the wild weather and the fire situations. But on the popular count here, NSA cookies.

Now, we're not talking about, you know, Toll House here. These are cookies that come on your computer. Your computer surfs the Web, you go to certain sites, it grabs little pieces of data which are deposited on your hard drive which ideally make it easier for you to surf the Web.

But the point is, the National Security Agency, which is a spying agency, was offering up cookies. Not a good idea. As a matter of fact, it's illegal for the federal government to do that, especially in the wake of all the issues of domestic spying related to that.

We're going to get a little primer on this from Daniel Sieberg coming up in a little while.

Now, also on the Web, a story you're interested in is this kid from Fort Lauderdale, 16 years old, an American of Iraqi descent, really wanted to find out what was going on down there. Took $900 that he had in his savings accounts, got on a plane and went, just went. Showed up, found himself in all kinds of harrowing situations. Lived to tell the tale. We'll hear from his parents a little bit later in the program.

Amazing story, makes me want to make sure that I know where my kids are right now. Not going to Iraq, I hope. I hope they're at home right now.

COSTELLO: I know. I can't wait to hear what the parents have to say...

O'BRIEN: Yes.

COSTELLO: ... because they must have been beside themselves.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

COSTELLO: You have any plans for New Year's Eve yet? Well, Anderson Cooper does. He'll be in the thick of the celebration, New York City's Times Square. And you've got an invitation to join in all the festivities from the comfort of your very own living room.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Carol.

I hope you haven't made plans yet and can join me Saturday night starting 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time for a look at New Year's around America and the world. This marks my third time hosting the party for CNN, and given what's happened in the past this year, I think it's going to be pretty interesting.

We've got Barenaked Ladies, John Mayer Trio, the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, is singing for us, Harry Connick Jr. with a special look at what's going on in New Orleans. We're also going to be live in New Orleans and in Chicago, and in Key West, Florida, as well as in Times Square.

It's going to be a great evening. Hope you join me. It starts 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time, and we're going all the way to past 1:00 a.m. because we want to be live for the people in the Central Time zones to help them ring in the new year as well -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Sounds perfect. We'll be there. Thank you, Anderson -- Miles.

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