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American Morning
Mudslide Search; Miners Trapped; Safe Harbor?; Bird Flu Fears
Aired February 21, 2006 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome, everybody, I'm Soledad O'Brien. Miles is on a little vaca continuing.
Rob Marciano, though, is filling in. It's great to have you.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN ANCHOR: Great to be here, day two. And when is Miles coming back, end of the week?
O'BRIEN: I think on Thursday. No, yes, he's got a couple of days, just a few days.
MARCIANO: You look like you care so much.
O'BRIEN: I love the man. He's an O'Brien, I'm an O'Brien, lots of love all around, blah, blah, blah.
MARCIANO: You guys will be back together soon.
O'BRIEN: Let's get to our top story this morning where they are, unfortunate as it is to say, they are running out of hope. Bad weather is now hindering rescue efforts in the Philippines. And there are some new fears of more mudslides to tell you about. We're going to be live with the very latest this morning.
Plus, rescue crews in Mexico close in on dozens of trapped miners. Are they too late, though? We've got a live report on that story just ahead.
MARCIANO: And tough questions about the president's energy strategy, but it's not the programs that are catching the most heat.
O'BRIEN: And Bird Flu spreading quickly through Europe now. Now fears of further infection are leading to emergency meetings. We're going to take you live for the very latest of that as well.
MARCIANO: And the marquee event gets under way at the Olympics today, women's ice skating. We're live in Torino with a look at all the Olympic action.
O'BRIEN: We begin though this morning with a developing story that we're watching. Rescuers expanding the search for mudslide survivors in the Philippines. Rescue specialists from Malaysia and Taiwan are now on the scene. Hope, though, is fading fast for survivors.
Let's get right to CNN's Hugh Riminton. He joins us by phone from the island of Leyte. It's about 300 miles south of the capital, which is Manila.
Hugh, how is the search going this morning?
HUGH RIMINTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the big focus for the search today was to try to find out what, if anything, there was behind sounds that were being detected up on the slopes yesterday. The Filipino authorities were saying that they were hearing scratching noises and what were described as rhythmic tapping sounds. They believed that they were, as they described it, increasingly positive signs of life.
Well all day today they have been up there digging away, and it's come to nightfall again now, there has been no further sign of life, no sign of survivors. But a new device that they used was an old- fashioned one, some dogs that have been flown in from Spain, specialist canines used in search and rescue work. They fanned out across the mountain to see if they could detect any human living creature, and they have come up with nothing.
O'BRIEN: I know that there are some people who managed to escape this horrific mudslide. And some of the descriptions have truly been horrible. What kinds of things are they telling you -- Hugh?
RIMINTON: All of the survivors were plucked out in the first few hours after the village was obliterated and their stories are quite extraordinary. These are the ones who were hit by a falling mountain and somehow survived.
One of the key questions is is there a pattern? Is there something that can be learned by the searchers from their stories? Where, for example, they had been when it happened? Was there some way in which they might, through their stories, have a clue as to where to search now? There is no pattern. This is a classic example of random survival, pure fate.
Some of the people who have survived were fit, strong workers. Others were the frail, a 72-year-old woman. A 1-year-old baby was in the center of the village and somehow came to the surface.
Those who were talking about it, some of the children are not talking about it, but those who are talking about it say the whole earth moved. There was a noise like an explosion. One said the coconut palms looked like they were walking across the earth, then everything broke up into massive boulders and mud. Many of them were knocked unconscious. Many of them had mud in their faces and were unable to breathe. All of them, those that lived, were rescued out there within five hours of the landslide hitting.
O'BRIEN: Those descriptions are just awful.
Hugh Riminton this morning with an update for us from Leyte.
Thank you, Hugh, we'll check in with you again -- Rob.
MARCIANO: Soledad, another developing rescue story this morning, this one out of Mexico. Search crews battling the odds against saving 65 miners trapped underground since Sunday. Desperate relatives huddled around bonfires throughout the bitter cold night praying for a miracle.
Correspondent Morgan Neill is on the phone with us from the site about 85 miles south of the Texas border.
Morgan, how are the rescue efforts going right now?
MORGAN NEILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, rescue workers haven't let up in their efforts since the blast went off Sunday. But the latest we have heard is that they are still very far from most of the 65 miners who were working when the blast went off.
Now the rescue teams face a big challenge in making sure they can find not just a way in, but a way out as well. Now there's a team that's been in the mine working with oxygen suits in the most dangerous areas, but the going has still been very slow because of the dangers involved.
MARCIANO: But what are the conditions of the mine besides that? And has there been any sign at all of survivors, any tapping, any sort of noise heard by rescuers?
NEILL: Well, as to the conditions in the mine, the families of some of the trapped miners say they did complain often of gas in the mine. And one of the men I spoke to yesterday in the hospital, who survived the blast, said the mine was lacking in some very basic protections that other mines have. Now it's only fair to say that the mine's owners, Group of Mexico (ph), they deny those claims.
MARCIANO: What about regulation? What does the Mexican government do to regulate these mines?
NEILL: Well, what we're hearing is the Mexican government has been saying that regulations were in place, otherwise this mine simply would not have been allowed to operate. Having said that, this is a very dangerous profession. Anywhere in the world you see mine accidents with some regularity. So they are defending themselves on their ground (ph) despite the claims of some of the families of those men trapped underneath -- Rob.
MARCIANO: Thanks for your update, Morgan Neill in Mexico. Sixty-five miners still trapped underground -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: The White House is facing skepticism over the president's commitment to alternative energy. Today he's going to visit a federal research lab in Colorado. He's promoting the plan that he talked about in the State of the Union speech, but that very lab laid off dozens of workers in the weeks after the speech. On Monday, the money for those jobs was restored. And now the workers are wondering about the timing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TINA LARNEY, ADMIN. ASSISTANT: I'm still questioning why the budget cuts even happened or why the layoffs had to happen in the first place. Like how it can happen that two, three weeks later they can restore the money to the budget.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: CNN is going to have live coverage of the president's speech on energy. It begins at 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
The White House also facing some very tough criticism from a lot of directions. And the criticism seems to be getting louder, all in response to a plan to turn over control of six of America's biggest ports to an Arab country with ties to terrorism.
Congressional correspondent Ed Henry has reaction from Washington this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Political pressure mounting this morning on President Bush to block this port deal. The pressure coming from the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Panel, New York Congressman Peter King who's been briefed on the transaction. King flatly rejected claims by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff who said the necessary safeguards will be put in place to keep U.S. ports safe.
Congressman King told CNN those safeguards can only work if Congress has faith in the company, Dubai Ports World. But King said he does not have that faith, because it's a state-owned company in the United Arab Emirates, which was an operational and financial base for some of the 9/11 hijackers.
King said he believes midlevel bureaucrats fumbled this issue and were politically tone-deaf and it's time for President Bush to intervene. If the president does not intervene, Democratic Senators Robert Menendez and Hillary Clinton say they will push through a new law prohibiting the sale of operations at U.S. ports to companies owned by foreign governments. It's a cause that a growing number of Republicans are starting to join.
Ed Henry, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MARCIANO: Yesterday at this time we were talking about the bitter cold that's been gripping the nation. That cold air mass moderating somewhat.
Bonnie Schneider in for Chad Myers down at the CNN Center, the Weather Center down there.
Bonnie, a little bit warmer today, isn't it?
BONNIE SCHNEIDER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Absolutely. You're probably feeling that in New York and you'll especially feel it this afternoon.
(WEATHER REPORT) MARCIANO: Fog, not such a bad price to pay for the warmth of Florida.
SCHNEIDER: No.
MARCIANO: Thanks, Bonnie.
O'BRIEN: Yes, absolutely. We'll take the fog over the cold.
Thanks, Bonnie.
Coming up this morning, new accusations of government secrecy. Thousands of pages of public documents are suddenly reclassified. What's going on? We'll explain coming up this morning.
MARCIANO: Also, history at the Olympics. U.S. ice dancers make history in Torino. I smell some medals.
O'BRIEN: Yes, yes, they did very well.
Plus, video gamers can't wait to get their hands on PlayStation 3. Trouble though at Sony could keep them waiting longer than expected. We've got that story as well ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
A short break and we're back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Twelve countries in just the last three weeks. That is how quickly the deadly strain of Bird Flu is spreading. In India, they are planning to kill nearly a million chickens. The positive tests there could have a $1 billion affect on the country's poultry industry. However, among the newly affected countries, no human cases. All those have been confined to just seven Asian countries. The most recent is a death last week in Indonesia.
The majority of the new Bird Flu cases are in Europe, that includes Germany and France and in Italy. And now the European Union is set to debate emergency measures to try to stem the tide.
Let's get right to CNN's Robin Oakley. He's live for us at a poultry farm in East Sussex. That's about 50 miles just south of London.
Robin, good morning to you. How worried are people where you are today?
ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
Well, certainly there are lots of worries, because although we've had in six European Union countries now examples of Bird Flu. it's all been in wild birds, nothing has happened yet to contaminate the flocks in poultry farms like this one.
And the key thing is that they have got to keep apart the wild birds and these domestic fowl. And there are on this farm, for example, 10,000 chickens. The farm owner here, Peter Barton (ph), has got five other farms, 50,000 chickens in all. If the Bird Flu arrived here, they would all have to be destroyed. So there's a lot at stake, a $24 billion industry across Europe, the poultry industry.
We're getting -- even hearing Britain now 340 calls a day to the emergency hotline by people who are worried, found dead birds of some kind or another. And of course a lot of people worried about their livelihoods. The poultry market has declined by 70 percent in Italy, by 40 percent in Greece, by 15 percent in France, so there's a whole lot at stake here -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Twenty-four billion dollars, give me a sense of what that means overall economically to the area.
OAKLEY: Well it does mean that an awful lot of jobs will be at stake. Thirty thousand jobs, they say, lost already in Italy. And of course if a lot of farmers, like Peter Barton here on this estate, had to get rid of their chickens, it would be some time before they could get new stock arriving. And in the meantime, would the public have the same taste for poultry and for free range eggs coming from places like this? So there are considerable worries.
And the big debates going on in Europe at the moment are should they try vaccinating all these chickens? Eight hundred fifty million birds in Britain in a year that would need vaccinating or should they all be shut up permanently in the kind of houses that you see behind me here? And that has not yet been decided as a Europe-wide policy -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Robin Oakley for us this morning.
Robin, thank you. A big question there, obviously, that you're leaving us with, thanks -- Rob.
MARCIANO: Time now to go to Carol Costello who is in the newsroom with this morning's headlines.
Good morning -- Carol.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Rob. Good morning to all of you.
A major development in the California execution of Michael Morales, it is on hold indefinitely. Prison officials say two anesthesiologists brought in to monitor the execution are now refusing to participate. Morales' lawyers had tried to block the execution, claiming the way the lethal injection is administered amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. Morales was convicted of raping and killing a 17-year-old girl.
More accusations of government secrecy, parts of the National Archives once public and available to historians and researchers have been reclassified. According to "The New York Times," some 55,000 pages have been taken from open shelves since 1999 back in the Clinton administration. Some experts say the CIA is driving the program and not the White House. The militant group Hamas is a step closer to forming a new government. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will present a Hamas member with an official letter of appointment today. Ismail Haniyeh was announced as the group's choice for prime minister. He'll have until next month to form a government.
A church where four black girls were killed in a KKK bombing back in 1963 has been declared a national landmark. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales honored the girls' memory. He watched as Interior Secretary Gale Norton signed a proclamation adding the church to a national list of historic landmarks. The dedication comes amid a new string of attacks against churches in Alabama. So far, no suspects have been detained.
Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco unveiling a $7.5 billion housing plan for the devastated Gulf Coast. The governor's plan would provide money to rebuild damaged homes and to relocate people who want to build elsewhere in Louisiana. For those who want to leave the state, the plan would buy them out at a 60 percent of the pre-storm home value.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. KATHLEEN BLANCO (D), LOUISIANA: It would be easy to say that we've got to hand out compensation checks and wash our hands of all accountability. This would be simple and politically expedient, but it would not rebuild our state. After all, we never asked for a handout, we always wanted a hand up. As we begin to debate the plan I'm proposing, I insist that our program be grounded in a commitment to rebuild our state safer and better than before.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Registration for the housing aid is expected to begin in March.
The first ice dancing medal for the United States in 30 years and the first U.S. silver ever. Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto came in second after a day where the ice became a roller derby. This time they skated a nearly perfect program. They finished with 196 points to capture the silver, just four points behind the Russian couple that got the gold. Congrats to them.
Let's head to the Forecast Center to check in with Bonnie Schneider in for Chad today.
Good morning.
SCHNEIDER: Good morning, Carol.
(WEATHER REPORT)
Soledad, you were saying earlier, you'll take the fog. Looks better like this, I'm sure. Everybody else down there agrees.
O'BRIEN: Yes, I bet they do. All right, Bonnie, thank you.
MARCIANO: Eighty-two, 82, 81.
O'BRIEN: I know. I know.
MARCIANO: Hey, gamers out there, there's...
O'BRIEN: I know it's winter, I know it should be cold.
MARCIANO: Feels good, changing of the seasons.
Hi -- Carrie Lee.
CARRIE LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: From one day to the next, it's been changing a lot here.
O'BRIEN: Good morning.
I know, yes, it's just weird.
LEE: Good morning to both of you, nice to see you.
MARCIANO: What's up with Sony PlayStation? You know Soledad is a little bit nervous, she's a big gamer.
O'BRIEN: You know...
LEE: Are you or maybe your kids are?
O'BRIEN: No, he's -- no, they're not, and he's lying.
LEE: They can just be a time vacuum, I know, but people love them.
O'BRIEN: Miles' kids, now they are good gamers.
LEE: Sony shares fell 4 percent on Monday...
O'BRIEN: Why, what's going on?
LEE: ... after news that the company may have to delay the release of its PS3. That's the PlayStation 3. They are aiming for a spring release in Japan, a November release in the U.S.
But what's happening now is they are waiting for some industry consortiums to set specs for some of the technology it's using. This includes the DVD drive. So they are saying you know it might be delayed a little bit. May take until June in Japan. They're just not giving a definitive timeline here.
And you know we went through this with Microsoft's Xbox 360 last fall. Well Microsoft is already on its next generation Xbox 360, so really giving them a lead in terms of time to get their games out.
So that's the latest on Sony. Shares could take a hit. O'BRIEN: Yes, the competition loves that.
LEE: Exactly.
O'BRIEN: Don't they?
LEE: Exactly.
The other story we have, RadioShack, and we talked about this a bit last week, the company's board of directors has accepted the resignation of Chief Executive Officer David Edmondson. Some of you may remember this. He basically claimed to have two college degrees, which he hadn't earned.
Now the board didn't get too specific about why they accepted his resignation now. They had said that they were going to hire some outside lawyers to look into this. They originally supported Edmondson. Well now they're shifting gears.
Since he became CEO back in May, Radio shares down 23 percent. And on a poor quarterly profit report last week, shares hit a three- year low. So the company has got a lot of things it's dealing with right now.
O'BRIEN: Well, yes, on a lot of different fronts.
All right, Carrie, thank you very much.
LEE: OK, my pleasure.
MARCIANO: Thanks, Carrie.
O'BRIEN: Carol is up next with a look at "Morning Coffee."
What you got for us? Good morning.
COSTELLO: Soledad, coming up, how do you disperse that pesky annoying crowd of teenagers gathered at the movie theater or in the mall? We've got just the thing. Think dog whistle. That's coming up on "Morning Coffee."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: "Maggie May (ph)," Rod Stewart.
Look how bright out it is now. Looks kind of nice.
COSTELLO: That means spring is coming.
O'BRIEN: I know, I'm so happy about that.
MARCIANO: Now, Carol, yesterday you talked about the Olympics. You had a little bit of an edge on the "Morning Coffee."
COSTELLO: I know I did.
MARCIANO: A little bit...
O'BRIEN: Not a lot of love for Bode yesterday.
COSTELLO: No.
O'BRIEN: Or a couple other people. What you got for us this morning?
COSTELLO: No, I have something totally different for you this morning in this "Morning Coffee." You know the old saying, careful what you say because it might come back to bite you right in the, well, you know what.
O'BRIEN: Beep.
COSTELLO: That is the case for one lawyer in Massachusetts who maybe should have watched her manners in an e-mail. Diana Abdullah (ph) initially accepted a job and then decided it didn't pay enough. This is what she e-mailed the law firm. This is what she e-mailed. She said the pay you are offering would neither fulfill me, nor support the lifestyle I am living.
The guy at the law firm e-mailed back that her e-mail smacked of immaturity and unprofessionalism. And then the e-mail exchanges got really hot and nasty. The last e-mail that she sent had three words, blah, blah, blah. That was her e-mail to this firm.
O'BRIEN: For god sakes, you're turning down the job, who cares? I mean shouldn't they just let it go?
COSTELLO: And don't you know that that stuff gets around, especially in...
MARCIANO: I know.
COSTELLO: ... the you know legal field where it's pretty small. And you know where those e-mails ended up, all over the Internet,...
MARCIANO: I know.
COSTELLO: ... on the front pages of three major newspapers.
MARCIANO: Nice.
COSTELLO: Needless to say, it could make job offers scarce for poor Diana Abdullah who describes herself as a trust fund baby.
MARCIANO: That doesn't hurt.
O'BRIEN: Well there you go, lucky for her then.
MARCIANO: Yes.
O'BRIEN: You know she don't need that job. She's right, the jobs don't pay enough to have her live in the style she's accustomed to. COSTELLO: She needs a lesson, doesn't she?
O'BRIEN: Diana Abdullah.
COSTELLO: Yes. Let's talk...
O'BRIEN: Not so smart.
COSTELLO: Not so smart.
Let's talk about the Mosquito. So you go to the movie theater and there they are, a huge crowd of rowdy teenagers with their cell phones and their midriff-bearing pants. You want them to go. Here's an idea, the teen zapper.
O'BRIEN: No.
COSTELLO: Listen. No, listen.
O'BRIEN: Yes.
COSTELLO: Hear that noise?
O'BRIEN: It sounds like a mosquito.
MARCIANO: Does it hurt their ears or something?
COSTELLO: No, no, no. But you normally would not be able to hear that noise. That's just, you know, kind of a facsimile of the noise. But teenagers evidentially are the only ones that can pick up that sound. The inventor of the device calls it the Mosquito. It can only be heard by people between the ages of 12 and 22. It actually sounds like a demented alarm clock going off.
MARCIANO: So it's like a dog whistle for kids?
O'BRIEN: Yes.
COSTELLO: Yes, for teenagers.
O'BRIEN: It's brilliant.
COSTELLO: Isn't it brilliant? It supposedly drives teenagers nuts in 10 minutes and they're gone. Right now it's being tested in Britain. A lot of shopkeepers have bought it. So maybe it'll make its way to the United States.
O'BRIEN: That's really great (ph).
MARCIANO: Teenagers are now pests?
O'BRIEN: Well some are...
MARCIANO: Come on, show a little love for the youth of today.
O'BRIEN: No, some are a little pesky. Some are very... COSTELLO: Have you ever gone to a movie theater and they are in this big glob of bodies and they are all talking on their cell phones but not to each other?
MARCIANO: A little lacking in manners, I'll say that.
COSTELLO: So you just and they're gone.
O'BRIEN: I love it. I love that. I need one of those.
Carol, thank you.
COSTELLO: Sure.
MARCIANO: Thanks, Carol.
O'BRIEN: We've got a look at the morning's top stories just ahead this morning. Plus, we're going to go to Torino live for you, Torino, for an Olympic update. One of the biggest events, women's figure skating starts today. Sasha Cohen, the American, one of the medal favorites, we're going to take a look at her chances for the gold. Beautiful turn there, Sasha.
And the breakup between Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, it's finally official. Yes, we've been talking about it for 15 years now.
MARCIANO: Yes.
COSTELLO: It is?
O'BRIEN: But there are details of the divorce settlement that you probably haven't heard.
COSTELLO: Does she get the baby, Jennifer Aniston?
O'BRIEN: Cold.
COSTELLO: I know.
O'BRIEN: Cold, man.
MARCIANO: That's nice (ph).
O'BRIEN: We're on that ahead this morning. We're back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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