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American Morning

Chilling Confession?; Plane Crash Probe; What's Next for Iran?; Kidnapped Journalists; 'Welcome to the Future'

Aired August 23, 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: Morning. Welcome, everybody. It is Wednesday, August 23. I'm Soledad O'Brien.
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Rick Sanchez filling in for Miles this morning.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's take a look at what's happening this morning.

In the Ukraine, investigators have found that flight recorders in the wreckage of that Russian passenger jet that crashed yesterday. Early indications are that the plane may have been struck by lightning. All 170 people on board that flight were killed.

SANCHEZ: Most Americans think Osama bin Laden is planning another attack on the U.S. There's a new CNN poll just released moments ago, it shows 74 percent think an attack is being planned. However, most feel that al Qaeda leader will not succeed.

S. O'BRIEN: The Marines are ordering thousands of reservists back to active duty. It is the biggest recall since the early days of the Iraq war. Twenty-five hundred troops, in fact, will be called up next spring and next summer.

SANCHEZ: Paramount Pictures is cutting its ties with Tom Cruise's production company. The head of the studio reportedly says Cruise's off-screen behavior is to blame for it. However, Cruise's production company says it was their decision to leave and that it's setting up an independent operation. We'll try and sort that one out for you throughout this newscast.

S. O'BRIEN: The fourth named storm of the year has formed in the eastern Atlantic. Forecasts have Tropical Storm Debby closing in on Bermuda in about a week. Too early to say, though, if it's going to hit land.

Let's check in with Chad Myers with a look.

Hey, Chad, good morning.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Soledad.

Of the 15...

S. O'BRIEN: Debby.

MYERS: Debbies -- Debby, right, and then the next one could be Ernesto.

Of the 15 computer models that we talk about, only one even approaches the U.S. at all. So 14 of them have a different opinion than that.

There is Debby right there, the Cape Rhode Islands here. Here's the British Virgin Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico over there, so a long, long way from any land mass whatsoever; in fact, a lot closer to Africa than anything in the western part here of the Atlantic Ocean.

There is another threat, though, of this down here beginning to develop into something, moving through the Windward Islands. The showers and storms we were watching around Cancun did not develop overnight, just kind of made a cloud mass there, so no real development in the Gulf of Mexico expected for the next few days, maybe even a week or so.

(WEATHER REPORT)

Back to you guys.

S. O'BRIEN: Sounds good.

All right, Chad, thank you.

MYERS: You're welcome.

S. O'BRIEN: New details now coming to light about the JonBenet murder case. The suspect, John Mark Karr, apparently opened up to authorities during his transfer to an L.A. county jail.

Let's get right to CNN's Ed Lavandera. He's in Boulder, Colorado for us this morning.

Ed, good morning.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

Well we're outside the jail where we expect John Mark Karr to be brought at some point. He waived extradition yesterday at a court hearing in Los Angeles. That gives Boulder authorities up to 10 days to pick him up there and bring him back here, we presume to file charges of murder against him. That officially hasn't been done here yet. So right now there is no word exactly as to when John Mark Karr is going to be brought here. In fact, in the words of the sheriff, he says, "we will be told as soon as he is booked and his mug shot has been taken here but not before that" -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Give us some of the details that obviously he has spoken a little bit more about the case. What is he saying?

LAVANDERA: There's a couple things to update you on in terms of that. A source in Los Angeles, a law enforcement source, says that when John Mark Karr was in custody there that he had expressed some sort of disbelief that people couldn't understand how he had gotten into the Ramsey house. He's saying that he had been in the house at 5:00 p.m. Christmas night and hid in the house while the Ramseys were away at the Christmas party.

Also there's a comment from a Thai police source in Thailand who says that while he was in custody there, John Mark Karr had admitted to having sex with her. But what exactly he meant by that was unclear when this Thai police officer was questioned further.

And then the last thing we should tell you about is this question of the pictures. A lot of people might remember that last week the family was saying -- his family was saying that we had picture proof that he was with his family that Christmas season.

Unfortunately, the family says they've only been able to find pictures of the three -- his three children together, not a picture of him with the family that he appears in. But the family continues to maintain that it would have been extremely out of the ordinary for them not to be together and that they don't remember them not being together during the Christmas season.

S. O'BRIEN: The case is just weirder and weirder every day.

All right, Ed Lavandera for us this morning. He's in Boulder.

Thanks, Ed -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: Here's a follow on a story that we first told you about right here yesterday on AMERICAN MORNING. Investigators are hoping the flight recorders recovered from the scene of that deadly plane crash in the Ukraine will somehow help shed some light on what caused the plane to actually go down. Now it was a passenger jet. It crashed near the Russian border yesterday. It killed 170 people. All people on board, we should say. Early indications suggest that lightning may have been to blame.

CNN's senior international correspondent Matthew Chance is joining us now live from Moscow to bring us up to date on what details he's been able to garner at this point.

What do you know, -- Matthew?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know that within the last few hours Russian and Ukrainian emergency workers at the scene of the crash site have managed to recover the two black box flight recorders to try and take those away for analysis to try and get to the bottom of what it was that caused this crash.

There are a number of theories being circulated. You mentioned there the severe weather conditions, the lightning strike that's being looked into. It seems that the plane, when it was en route from the Black Sea resort town of Anapa, en route to St. Petersburg, encountered these severe weather conditions. It requested to change course somewhat, perhaps to gain altitude, perhaps to change direction slightly, to avoid those very severe thunderstorms. It was given permission to do that. But the latest theory that's being looked at is that the pilot took the plane too high over the ceiling, the operational ceiling of the engines, causing the engines to stall. The plane then plunged downwards, having run out of power, and went through that very turbulent weather. So that may have been the point at which the lightning struck. So it seems to have been a whole combination of factors, Rick, that led to this particular crash.

SANCHEZ: It sounds like the type of thing that's less apt to happen over here because was he not in touch with the tower? Was he not being diverted or told which way to head around that storm?

CHANCE: You know it's not clear yet because the Russian authorities and the Ukrainian authorities, who are both jointly dealing with this, haven't released the transcripts of the conversations that were had with air traffic control. But certainly there are big issues, big systemic problems when it comes to Russian traffic in the air and all the traffic in the former Soviet Union.

There are big issues when it comes to safety. It's not clear whether these planes are rigorously checked in the same way planes in the U.S. are. It's not clear whether the pilot had sufficient training to achieve this. And there are all sorts of issues, particularly to the age of these aircraft. They're often very decrepit and therefore subject to mechanical failure -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: Yes, and I'm glad you pointed up that distinction, because I can almost hear a lot of our viewers right now asking themselves, boy, is that the kind of thing that can happen here? That's why we had that discussion.

Matthew Chance, thank you so much for bringing us up to date on that. We'll be touching base with you from time to time.

Meanwhile, let's go over to Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, thanks, Rick.

Iran is now saying that it is open to serious talks about its nuclear program. Several Western nations, including the U.S., are going to meet today to talk about what is next.

CNN's Aneesh Raman, the only U.S. television correspondent who is reporting from Tehran, he's with us this morning.

Hey, Aneesh, good morning.

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Soledad, good morning.

We're getting a better sense of what Iran actually said in that response. This is the "Teflon Times (ph)," a government-leading newspaper and it presents this choice that the world now faces. Iran is unwilling to suspend its nuclear program just because the U.N. says it must by the end of the month. But what Iran is willing to do is talk about suspension, along with everything else, if a new round of negotiations takes place.

The other point that was interestingly mentioned in this paper is that Iran is willing to slow down the pace of its nuclear program to appease international concerns.

Now of course there have been any numbers of rounds of negotiations up until this point. And the U.N. is now faced with a stark choice, does it want more talk in the pursuit of bringing about some diplomatic solution that includes Iran or does it want action? Iran is saying it's not going to provide the action the U.N. wanted, so should the U.N. then take action after this deadline? We'll have to see what the Western countries do.

And another hitch in all of this is that Iran's president will have a press conference next week. He could change their response, there are multiple power centers in Iran, and we could be -- he's talking about a whole new response at that point -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Could be, and you'll be there covering it for us.

Aneesh Raman is reporting from Tehran this morning.

Aneesh, thanks -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: Nearly five years after 9/11, Americans say they're still concerned another major terror attack may be in the works. There's a new CNN poll out. It's coming out just minutes ago. It shows 74 percent believe Osama bin Laden is planning another attack, while only 21 percent say they do not believe he's planning another attack. Now 58 percent of those said they think Osama bin Laden will be captured or killed. Forty percent are saying, no, that he won't.

Here's another one, 47 percent say that bin Laden would have been captured by now if there had been no war in Iraq. Fifty-one percent disagree.

We should point out the Opinion Research Corporation conducted the poll on behalf of CNN.

Don't miss "In The Footsteps of Bin Laden." It's going to be a "CNN PRESENTS" special. Two-hour investigation with host Christiane Amanpour and it's tonight, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, only right here on CNN.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, nearly two weeks since two television journalists kidnapped in Gaza, is there a chance they're still alive? We're going to have the latest on the efforts to find them.

SANCHEZ: Also, the Marine Corp trying to beef up their numbers in Iraq, but it means they'll have to do something they haven't done since the early days of the war.

S. O'BRIEN: And tracking a tropical storm. We're keeping an eye on Debby and looking at the prospects she could become a major hurricane.

Plus, Carrie Lee has got business headlines for us.

Good morning.

CARRIE LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you. Thank you.

After a long-running criminal case, a former high-flying investment banker is a free man. We'll have that story and more coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Happening this morning.

The U.S. Marines ordering thousands of reservists back to active duty. It's the biggest recall since the early days of the Iraq war.

More family members of John Mark Karr saying he could not have killed JonBenet Ramsey. Karr's father says his son was with the family in Georgia when JonBenet was killed in Colorado.

And the fourth named storm of the year has formed in the Atlantic near the Cape Verde Islands. Forecasts have Tropical Storm Debby closing in on Bermuda in just about a week.

Let's check in with severe weather expert Chad Myers for more on Debby.

Good morning.

MYERS: Good morning, Soledad.

We are kind of switching our attention here to a NOAA satellite, a little bit of a different intensity scale here. Here are the Cape Verde Islands and the Azores. Also here is more weather going to be popping up with this storm. We do expect it to increase in intensity.

Here's our radar satellite picture here of the Cape Verde Islands. We do expect this thing to get a little bit stronger and probably get to be the first hurricane of the year, but only a minimal hurricane, only Category 1, and really way out in the middle of the Atlantic.

Now if you're in Bermuda or thinking about going there on vacation next week, you may want to keep your eye on this, because that's an island right out there kind of waiting to be hit by this thing. This thing kind of making a track to it.

Other than that, we're watching a little bit of convection here just to the south and southeast of the Windward Islands. Nothing all that significant so far, but the computers are picking it up and making it into something later in the week.

(WEATHER REPORT)

Soledad and Rick, back to you

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Chad, thank you.

MYERS: OK.

SANCHEZ: You know in the Middle East the events in southern Lebanon have overshadowed the kidnapping of two FOX News journalists in Gaza a week and a half ago. The American reporter and the New Zealand cameraman disappeared August 14. There is obvious concern for their safety.

CNN's Paula Hancocks, who is joining us now live from Jerusalem, she's been following up on this story.

Paula, what do we know?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rick, unfortunately, at this point, we still know very little. We don't know who has taken them and why they have taken them. And also, unfortunately, we're now entering unchartered territory. This is the longest, or coming up to the longest, period of time that any journalist kidnapped in Gaza has been held so far.

And also the silence of the kidnappers is very unusual. Usually we do see demands. It's a means to an end. Kidnappers either want to make a statement or they want to make demands for money, jobs or even sometimes a prisoner exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HANCOCKS (voice-over): It's the 10th day since two FOX journalists were kidnapped in Gaza. Still no word on who took them and why.

Thirty-six-year-old cameraman Olaf Wiig from New Zealand and 60- year-old American reporter Steve Centanni were abducted by masked men in the center of Gaza City. Both men are well-respected, experienced journalists who have worked for a number of broadcasters, including CNN.

KEN CENTANNI, BROTHER OF KIDNAPPED JOURNALIST: Our brother, Steve Centanni, was kidnapped on August 14, last Monday.

HANCOCKS: Families of both have made televised appeals for their release. The brother of Centanni made a statement on Arab network Al Jazeera.

The wife of cameraman Wiig met protesting mothers of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails.

ANITA MCNAUGHT, WIFE OF KIDNAPPED JOURNALIST: In Gaza today, it's like a prison.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING ARABIC)

MCNAUGHT: And now my husband, his colleague Steve, and I are all in prison with you.

HANCOCKS: But, still, no contact has been made by the kidnappers.

The press freedom organization, Reporters Without Borders, says it "is becoming increasingly concerned that no group has claimed responsibility for their abduction despite the many appeals for their release."

Palestinian journalists took to the streets of Gaza over the weekend, saying, coverage of the Palestinian cause would be severely damaged if abductions continued.

A New Zealand diplomat, Peter Rider, met with Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Haniyeh gave a personal commitment to do all he could to secure the journalists' release.

PETER RIDER, NEW ZEALAND DIPLOMAT: Gaza is a very confused place. That's why it's so difficult to get leads. It's not an ordinary city, where ordinary policing works in a normal way. It's much more going to be somebody coming to tell somebody something, because they think that's the right thing to do. So, I would ask them to come out and tell us if they do know anything.

HANCOCKS: Palestinian security sources say, an unnamed militant group has warned all foreigners to leave Gaza, threatening abductions.

At least 26 foreigners have been kidnapped in Gaza over the past two years, nine of them from the media. Hostages have usually been released within hours.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

Now many Western journalists have left Gaza for fear of further abductions. And some are saying in Gaza that this particular kidnapping may show an extra bit of expertise and experience on behalf of the kidnappers as Gaza is a very difficult place to keep secrets and it's very densely populated and very intimate. And it's very unusual that either the identity of the kidnappers and also the location of the two men is still being kept a secret -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: You're right, usually, experts say, this is all about money. So the fact that there has been no communication is somewhat bizarre. But how about the details as to how and when they were taken, have we been able to get that information, -- Paula?

HANCOCKS: Well, what we know at this point, Rick, is that it happened on August the 14th. That's a week last Monday. And the two were with a security assistant just outside the Palestinian security forces' headquarters in Gaza City. Now this is usually quite a safe area of the center of Gaza City. And they were sitting there in their satellite truck. Then masked gunmen cordoned off the area with two other cars, blocked them in and then took the two journalists with -- at gunpoint and then took them away.

Now at this point is where the trail runs cold. Nobody knows where they were taken. Security sources are saying it's very difficult to get any leads. Any leads that they had in the first few hours of the kidnapping have led to dead ends at this point. And this is what everybody is increasingly concerned about the fact that no fresh leads are emerging at this point and nobody knows who has them -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: Wow, taken right out of a satellite truck.

Paula Hancocks, thanks so much for that story.

Soledad, over to you.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, thanks.

Coming up this morning, remember that Bausch & Lomb recall earlier this year we told you about? Well it turns out it could be even worse for some contact wearers. We're going to update you on some of the serious implications for folks who wear contacts.

Also this morning, AOL starts digging for gold in a back yard. We'll explain why just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: And welcome back.

A former high-profile investment banker, who made a fortune during the dot-com mania, has reached a deal with federal prosecutors.

And Carrie Lee has your business headlines. She's bringing us up to date.

Who are we talking about?

LEE: We are talking about Frank Quattrone. Remember this name...

SANCHEZ: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Back in the news, Frank Quattrone.

LEE: ... back in the day, right, late 1990s? He was with Credit Suisse First Boston. Well the government now giving up on Mr. Quattrone. The former investment banker helped a lot of Internet companies go public. Well, he is now a free man. This comes after two trials on charges he obstructed investigations into stock options.

Now the first trial -- stock offerings, rather. Now the first trial ended in a hung jury. The second, the government won, but then Quattrone appealed and a court ruled in his favor on a couple of measures for future trials, so he doesn't have to admit any wrongdoing. And in the face of all of this, the two sides have struck a deal.

He said he does plan to resume his business career. We don't know exactly what that means. But during the heyday, he earned as much as $120 million a year. That's really tough to beat.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, but resume it as what?

LEE: We don't know exactly what.

S. O'BRIEN: I mean who did he work for? He was...

LEE: Credit Suisse First Boston and now of course Credit Suisse. But who knows, obviously a very intelligent man, very successful at the time, so he'll be back in some way, shape or form.

S. O'BRIEN: Wow, that was just a crazy case to follow.

LEE: It really was. It really was something.

SANCHEZ: When you make that kind of dough, you wonder why he needs to work again.

LEE: What -- yes, why not just sail around the world or something, right.

S. O'BRIEN: Retire.

LEE: Turning to the markets. Two Federal Reserve presidents indicated it might not be done hiking interest rates. Michael Moscow, Chicago Fed, says there is more risk that inflation will be too high then the economic growth will be too slow. And then, at the same time, Atlanta Fed president also said the Fed is committed to controlling inflation. So indicating here perhaps the Fed might not be done raising interest rates.

That spooked the markets a little bit yesterday. We did issues and a bit to the down side. You can see the Dow down five points. Looking a little weak for today. We will get a look at existing home sales once the market opens and that could give us some further direction.

SANCHEZ: All right, we'll look forward to that.

LEE: OK.

SANCHEZ: Thank you, -- Carrie.

LEE: Sure.

S. O'BRIEN: Morning's top stories straight ahead, including some new details in the JonBenet Ramsey case. What exactly did murder suspect John Karr tell investigators who were accompanying him from Thailand to the U.S.? Got an update just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LORI: If I go to a baseball game, I want to see baseball. I don't want to see commercials that really have nothing to do with baseball. Corporate sponsorship is not a bad thing, it's a necessary evil in sports, but I think there's better ways to do it. I will stop coming if it gets much more commercialized. If that's what's going to happen, you're going to have more and more people attending sports for the entertainment value and the true sports fans staying at home.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR (on camera): If you're a sports purist, like Lori, you, too, may long for the days when athletic competition wasn't tainted by corporate sponsorships. But this is a $25-billion-a-year game and corporate sponsors are determined to win your attention.

(voice-over): Sports business analyst Rick Harrow has quarterbacked $13 billion of sports deals in his career. While revolving corporate names on venues and wall-to-wall logos may leave fans annoyed and confused, he claims these marketing tools mean money saved.

RICK HARROW, SPORTS BUSINESS ANALYST: The cost of going to a game has been up 5 to 7 percent every single year. If corporate America weren't involved, there would be a major shift where fans would be spending more money than they do now to attend a game.

M. O'BRIEN: Harrow says European fans have come to expect a large corporate presence in sports, while Americans tend to rebel against it, but that could change. In fact, Harrow believes every American sport, even the esteemed Masters, will soon go the way of NASCAR.

HARROW: Sports marketers are going to find creative ways to slap logos on backs, on cars, on foul poles, on helmets, on everything that moves and doesn't move until they have sapped every last corporate dollar.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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