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Your World Today
Atlantis is Cleared for Landing; Hugo Chavez Refers to President Bush as 'The Devil'; Second Night of Violent Protests Against Hungarian Government
Aired September 20, 2006 - 11:59 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Tiger Woods is coming out swinging. It's what he does for a living, but he's pretty ticked off this time.
The golf superstar is rushing to his wife's defense just days before the Ryder Cup gets under way in Ireland. A magazine there accused the Swedish model, Tiger's wife, of doing soft core Internet porn.
Tiger says it's not true and a topless woman shown in the newspaper article is simply not his wife.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TIGER WOODS, GOLFER: For me, personally, and for my wife, things that have occurred over here, we -- I'm very disappointed. I mean, not the fans, not the people here. Not the Irish people. But very disappointed in how the article was written.
My wife, yes, she has been a model prior. And she did do some bikini photos. But to link her to porn Web sites and the such is unacceptable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: The magazine and its publisher are planning to issue a statement later today. CNN has learned that they plan to say the article was meant as a satire, but they apologize for offending Tiger Woods and his wife.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Want to go straight now to the Johnson Space Center and Mission Control, listen in about the briefing and the shuttle returning to Earth.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
WAYNE HALE, SHUTTLE PROGRAM MANAGER ... is excellent, whereas today it was not in Florida a good day to land. So we spent our day profitably making sure that everything was ready to come home.
At the end of this exciting mission, I just have to remind everybody that we are back in the assembly business. I couldn't be prouder of the team. This is one of the most complex missions that has ever been flown in space.
We achieved a new -- a record in assembling a major component in a minimum number of spacewalks. We have had a number of get-ahead tasks that were not on the previous plan, or on the baseline plan, I should, say when we started this flight that we accomplished. We transferred a lot of logistics for the onboard station crew.
It has been on outstanding effort both in the planning, the training and the execution. We've seen a new standard in NASA in vigilance, and the thoroughness of engineering rigger when we face problems and learn how to deal with them in real time. And I couldn't be prouder of the team.
We are set up in a very good way for the next set of assembly flights. You know, there are about six in a row here that we really need to pull off in fairly rapid order without major problems in order to keep the assembly going.
The next assembly flight will be the flight of Discovery. Currently, we've got that pencilled in for December 14th. The solid rocket boosters are being stacked in the VAB. They're just about done with that job.
The external tank is at the Cape in the VAB today. The orbiter is in the orbit processing facility. And we are running a little bit ahead of schedule.
We have asked the team to evaluate the potential of working a little bit extra hard, getting perhaps a week ahead, looking at a December 7th potential launch date. And thereby letting our folks have the Christmas holidays off.
So, if that's not incentive, I don't know what is.
So, everybody is cheering that -- that effort. And we'll get a report next week on whether or not it is a possibility for us to accelerate that launch date.
Looking out for the year 2007, we have a number of flights ahead of us. If we are able to pull them off with even half the success that we saw on this flight, we will have a great year in 2007 and I think we'll be well down the road to getting the space station assembled on time -- the schedule that was laid out in 2005.
And I just have to say life is really good this morning.
I did bring one show and tell. I don't have any pictures, but I brought a piece of shim stock with me.
This is most likely the culprit. It's not a guarantee, and I don't know that we'll ever be able to positively prove it, but a piece of plastic very much like this that's used to install tiles is -- was there before, is not there now, was most likely shaken loose during the flight control system checkout. And we -- we probably will never know for sure, but suspect that this piece of plastic shim which comes out of our stockroom -- that's why they call it shim stock -- is most likely what we saw in that camera view floating away.
The crew executed a well-planned inspection with -- with no problems at all. We got great imagery back and can say that the heat shield is in great shape.
The arms (ph) stowed. The inspection boom is stowed. The (INAUDIBLE) antenna is stowed.
The crew is heading into their sleep period either -- well, I think very shortly. And they will get a good night's sleep, and tomorrow morning they will be on a completely normal timeline for de- orbit and entry, culminating in a landing early morning at the Kennedy Space Center, as Steve Stitch (ph) told you a little bit earlier this morning.
So with that, I'm open for questions.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. We'll start here and then go to Florida. And we'll start with Mark.
QUESTION: Thanks. Mark Caro (ph) from the "Houston Chronicle." I have a couple of questions.
First, could you tell us in addition to the heat shield, what components of the orbiter that you looked at specifically -- things like the rotor (INAUDIBLE) -- to assure yourself that there wasn't some mechanism that came loose there?
HALE: There was an extensive list. Much of that list was worked off...
HARRIS: That's it. You've been listening to Wayne Hale, the shuttle program manager, giving us the briefing at noon.
It sounds like, Heidi, everything is go.
COLLINS: And we saw the shim.
HARRIS: We saw...
COLLINS: I've been waiting to see the shim. The little piece of plastic was floating around. You know, I wanted to see what it looked like.
HARRIS: Shim stock from the shim stockroom.
COLLINS: That's right. Oh, there's more pictures of it right there.
HARRIS: Yes. Let's bring in Daniel Sieberg.
And Daniel, it sounds like everything's OK. The shuttle is going to come back tomorrow. You see the time there, 6:21 a.m.
But I guess that's the headline, all systems go.
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: It does seem that they're very optimistic. They are happy with the way things have checked out on the protective heat shield.
Let's show you a picture of what Wayne Hale was talking about a few minutes ago, this shim or shim stock.
It's basically a 2"x 5" piece of plastic, about 40 millimeters thick. The purpose of it is to act as a spacer between these protective heat shield tiles.
It was spotted still in place after the launch. That wasn't a problem at all. But they believe that yesterday during some of the test-firings of these maneuvering jets that this piece of shim stock or plastic may have wiggled free or shaken loose, and that may have been one of the mysterious objects that they spotted over the last couple of days.
So, during the last couple of days they have been doing this increased inspection looking at this heat shield for any possible contact with these pieces of debris that have been floating around. They've used this extended arm that's part of the shuttle to get a really good look at the nose cap, the wing leading edge, make sure that that's all intact. Of course, you'll remember back to 2003 with Columbia, it was a piece of foam that actually pierced that heat shield and caused it to break apart during reentry.
Wayne Hale went through a number of things. He was even talking about the shuttle launch schedule over the next several months and into next year, if that gives any indication of how optimistic they are.
The earliest landing time tomorrow would be 6:21 a.m. Eastern Time here at Kennedy Space Center, then again at 7:57 a.m. -- Tony.
COLLINS: Hey, Daniel, you know, he did sound really excited, Wayne Hale, about the bigger picture and the assemblies and how the progress is being met, the construction of the space station.
Talk to us a little bit more about that and what it means for those future flights. They've got to come pretty quickly, one after the other.
SIEBERG: Yes, they do come one after another. They've got about 15 missions scheduled between now and 2010, when the shuttle fleet will be retired.
The purpose of most of those missions, if not all of them, is to complete the assembly of the International Space Station. It was during this mission that they unfurled those massive solar panels to add some more juice, some more power up there.
They've got a number of missions scheduled. The next one, as Wayne Hale was talking about, scheduled for mid-December. I believe another one picks up in February.
So they've got a lot of things to get in place between now and then. But the landing as Wayne was pointing out, Wayne Hale was pointing out, is scheduled for tomorrow at 6:21 a.m. Eastern Time. And, you know, it was just about 20 minutes ago we actually heard them letting the crew know aboard shuttle Atlantis that they would be trying to come home tomorrow. HARRIS: And you know what? Can I just for a moment -- we get so worked up about, oh, there's a piece of debris here at launch. And understandably so. But I loved Wayne's excitement in talking about the fact that we are back in the assembly business, which is clearly what Heidi was referring to just a moment ago.
Remind us again of the really good work that was done on this mission with the solar arrays.
SIEBERG: Sure. There were actually three spacewalks that were conducted over the last 11 days or so. They were done to prepare for the unfurling of these solar arrays. And then they actually did that from inside the International space Station.
The arrays when they are unfurled are about 240 feet long. Very impressive, shining in the sunlight. And they will actually double the power that's up there at the International Space Station.
So a key component to it all. And they will have many more missions like this, where they've got additional components, they've got some European and Japanese modules that will be added over the next little while. So they've really got to keep these things moving, keep the trains running on time, in a sense, to keep to this schedule that they've got that continues through 2010.
HARRIS: Daniel Sieberg for us.
Daniel, thank you. Appreciate it.
COLLINS: Let's go ahead and get back for a moment to another story that developed just the last hour. Call it political theater with a worldwide audience. Most of the people there, anyway.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez takes on President Bush in front of the United Nations General Assembly.
Here's his take on the president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRES. HUGO CHAVEZ, VENEZUELA: I think that the first people who should read this book are our brothers and sisters in the United States, because their threat is in their own house. The devil is right at home.
The devil, the devil himself is right in the house. And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the devil came here.
(APPLAUSE)
CHAVEZ: Right here. Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Our Suzanne Malveaux is standing by in New York now to give us a little bit of an idea about what the White House thought of those comments -- Suzanne.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Heidi, it's certainly not surprising how the White House is responding to this. Generally speaking, this does not rise to the level of the president even responding to this.
So we've got a Blackberry e-mail here from the deputy press secretary, Dana Perino, simply saying, "It is not worthy of comment." And so that is not really surprising on this side.
This is something that generally the White House, the administration is used to kind of hearing, the bluster, the rhetoric of Chavez, and dismissing it outright. They don't take it very seriously.
We know that the president is not watching, he's not listening to his address. As a matter of fact, during the address he was making his way traveling to New York City. He's soon going to be leaving here, going back to Washington.
He spent much of his morning in an interview with our own Wolf Blitzer. And before, of course, meeting with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Yes, I was going to be very surprised, Suzanne, if there was a big, huge response. So interesting it was the Blackberry there, that it really wasn't much of a response. But I'm sure that the White House is very closely keeping track of the dealings with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the oil deal that these two countries have gone together on, the arms deal with Russia between Hugo Chavez and the Russian president there.
Certainly they are watching those developments.
MALVEAUX: Oh, absolutely. And what they are looking at is really the alliances between a lot of these leaders and these countries that are powerful in and of themselves, but even more so when they are aligned with one another.
So we are talking about the Iranian leadership, as well as Venezuela. Both of them on the same page.
There was that summit that happened last week, when you had a whole bunch of leaders who were very critical of the Bush administration and its policies. That could become a problem. But isolated, they don't take Chavez very seriously -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Suzanne, pardon me. Let me go ahead and get over to the U.N. We've got Bolton standing by. We want to go ahead and listen in to him.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
JOHN BOLTON, U.S. AMB. TO U.N.: ... freedom of speech in Central Park, too, and say pretty much whatever he wanted. Too bad President Chavez doesn't extend the same freedom of speech in the press to the people of Venezuela. That's my comment on his speech.
QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) country and that he's deliberately singled out President Bush. I mean, you just -- something more specific on that?
BOLTON: It's insulting. The way -- the way I look at this is the -- I have serious work to do and I'm not going to respond to that speech.
QUESTION: But he got -- he got a lot of positive applause afterwards. I mean, isn't it an issue that maybe has to be addressed in some way, these criticisms?
BOLTON: We're not going to address that sort of comic strip approach to international affairs. And as I say, the real -- the real issue here is he knows he can exercise freedom of speech on that podium. And as I say, he could exercise it at Central Park, too. How about giving the same freedom to the people of Venezuela?
QUESTION: Is there any talk -- is there any plans to have more talks this week while the foreign ministers are in town, or is this simply going to be left to Javier Solana to continue this conversation?
BOLTON: I think it will be left to Mr. Solana for the next step.
HARRIS: All right. You've been listening to the comments, reaction.
Talk about getting a little more reaction, not much of a reaction from the White House, which is what we expected.
COLLINS: He brings up an interesting point, though, John Bolton, about Hugo Chavez saying whatever he wants.
HARRIS: Free speech for Chavez.
COLLINS: But the people of Venezuela do not enjoy that liberty.
HARRIS: And the point being, look, I'm not going to respond to the speech. Responding, but not really responding.
COLLINS: Right.
HARRIS: So, we're going to take a break.
And first of all, thank you for joining us in the NEWSROOM.
YOUR WORLD TODAY coming up right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JIM CLANCY, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Welcome back, everyone. You are watching YOUR WORLD TODAY, where we bring CNN's viewers around the globe the most important international stories of the day. Well, protesters demanding the resignation of the Hungarian prime minister fought with police for a second night in Budapest. Emergency workers report more than 100 people injured. They say there's been dozens of arrests. But Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany is vowing to stay in office as of this hour. He says his recorded remarks (INAUDIBLE) voters are being taken out of context.
Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson has been there on the streets of the Hungarian capital.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): At first, an impasse. Police stand-off from rioters, fire tear gas. It's past midnight in the center of Budapest, on the second night of violent demonstrations, fueled by anger their prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, lied to them. Both sides seeming to get the measure of each other.
Then, the demonstrations have turned much more angry and violent now. There's been tear gassing down the street here. The police are moving in on the road here. They're moving in from the back here. It appears as if they're trying to get around and encircle the crowd.
The crowd pulls back, tortures a police car. These protesters are mostly men, mostly young, mostly very angry. Police on horse back advance. A water cannon fires. The crowd runs again. A violent version of cat and mouse in shoes.
The prime minister's headquarters are down the end of the street there. The police are trying to advance up, firing wave after wave of tear gas, forcing the crowds back. Everyone here, the eyes are streaming, their throats are sore.
But only a few hours earlier, a few miles away outside the parliament, the protest had been far more controlled. Ten thousand people, young and old, men and women, bigger, louder, not as violent as the previous nights. After three days, the protesters, far more focused in their demands, calling the prime minister to quit.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They have power because of their lies. So we want to -- the prime minister to go away and with the government as well.
ROBERTSON: Even as the demonstrators called for him to step down, not far away, in a secure TV station, the prime minister upped the ante, refusing to go.
FERENC GYURCSANY, HUNGARIAN PRIME MINISTER: The majority of the people are supporting us.
ROBERTSON: So you won't step down?
GYURCSANY: Pardon?
ROBERTSON: So you won't step down? GYURCSANY: I won't.
ROBERTSON: In interview after interview, he defended the revelation he lied to the country, claiming lying is endemic in the political elite and that only he can fix the country's broken economy.
GYURCSANY: Many believe that I am the only one who is able to fool (ph) through program and to execute these changes.
ROBERTSON: At the peaceful rally, a growing acceptance the prime minister may, as he predicts, be able to live through this political storm.
Do you think they will? Do you think the prime minister will resign?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
ROBERTSON: With more demonstrations planned, the violent crowd seems to be putting their faith in their muscle. The city seems far from peace.
Nic Robertson, CNN, Budapest, Hungary.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HALA GORANI, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: All right. Nic Robertson reporting there from the ground in Budapest.
Let's check in on some other stories making news this hour.
CLANCY: We're going to begin that in Africa. The corruption case against former South African deputy president Jacob Zuma thrown out of the courts. Zuma's supporters say the charges were part of a campaign to destroy his political career. Back in May, a judge found Zuma not guilty of rape.
GORANI: Taking you to Iraq, the former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, was ejected for an outburst moment after his genocide trial resumed in Baghdad. Hussein's lawyers had just walked out of the court protesting a new chief judge. The previous judge was removed after he said Hussein was not a dictator, raising questions about his neutrality.
CLANCY: Atlantis plans a Thursday return after inspections find no danger from the debris spotted around the space shuttle. As the shuttle moved away from the International Space Station, some objects were seen floating nearby. There was concern about possible damage to the reentry heat shield.
GORANI: Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party has overwhelmingly elected Shinzo Abe as its new president. As head of the LDP, Abe is all but assured to win the prime ministership in next week's parliamentary vote in Japan. Abe is known as a conservative and backs a stronger military role for his country.
CLANCY: A daughter pays tribute to her famous father in a final good-bye.
GORANI: Coming up on YOUR WORLD TODAY, a family and a nation memorialize the man known as "The Crocodile Hunter."
CLANCY: Plus, staying the course. The top U.S. commander in Iraq says U.S. forces won't be going home anytime soon.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CLANCY: A warm welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the globe.
This is YOUR WORLD TODAY.
We want to go straight now down near the United Nations right now, where there's an anti-Iranian demo that is going on. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is there and joins us now, John Bolton.
Ambassador Bolton, good to have you with us. We heard earlier that President Ahmadinejad telling the delegates there at the U.N. General Assembly that his country has done everything under the spotlight and the watchful eye of the IAEA. A lot of people looking on at that in disbelief.
Any sense here that Iran is coming up, coming clean on its nuclear program?
BOLTON: No. And in fact, a very recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency recloses another series of efforts by the government of Iran to conceal their activities. So this is more propaganda by the government of Iran. And I don't think it's taken that seriously.
CLANCY: Well, there was some debate coming from the IAEA regarding a U.S. congressional report that alleged that there was a weapons-grade enrichment possibly going on.
What's the reality there?
BOLTON: Well, there's some dispute about the origin of that weapons-grade material. But let me say, the overwhelming bulk of the evidence about the nearly 20-year-long program by the government of Iran to achieve nuclear weapons is public information. It's been made public by the International Atomic Energy Agency, a variety of very clear indications of what the Iranians are up to. And in fact, there's no real explanation for their program given its scope other than that they seek a nuclear weapons capability.
CLANCY: A senior French diplomat is being quoted now as saying that the major powers want to see some results on this Iranian nuclear issue by the first week of October.
Is that the sense that you have?
BOLTON: Well, I think that we're certainly prepared, as we have been for some time, to give the European negotiator a little bit more scope to see if the Iranians will meet the precondition that the Security Council will set: suspension of their Iranian uranium enrichment activity. They have not done that yet. They have not given a serious indication they will.
But we're trying to go the extra mile. In fact, we've gone several extra miles now to show that we're pursuing this through peaceful and diplomatic means. We think it's fair to let that play out. But time is not indefinite. That's for sure.
CLANCY: Another sticking point, we expect to hear more on this today, Darfur. We now have the Sudanese leadership saying that they would allow the African Union to remain in place. The terms of that still not quite clear. But the African Union itself saying that it could extend its presence in Darfur until the end of the year.
Is that really a solution?
BOLTON: It's not a solution over the long term, but it's certainly a step to maintaining a presence through the African Union in Darfur, which the U.N. will try and strengthen until the time that the U.N. itself can actually take over. That's very important so there's no hiatus and that the conditions there could get worse. So that's -- that's a step forward.
We expect to hear from the African Union today on that subject. And we're waiting to hear the result of their meeting.
CLANCY: We already heard you speaking at the microphone outside -- inside the United Nations, and I understand you don't want to make any comment on the speech that we heard today from Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. But how concerned is the United States that with additional money from oil income coming in, he is arming his countries? He's got a billion-dollar arms deal with Russia right now in the works. He is, some say, radicalizing Latin America all over once again.
What are the concerns there?
BOLTON: Well, I think there's -- there's a very legitimate concern that Chavez is attempting to influence domestic politics in other Latin America countries. And that he has an agenda that's really quite contrary to a democratic agenda, which is what the president stressed in his speech to the U.N. yesterday.
I think that his rhetoric today shows exactly what kind of man he is. And reasonable people can listen to that kind of rhetoric and draw their own conclusions.
CLANCY: You know, a man -- a man that is often seen at his side is Evo Morales, the Bolivian president. We did an interview with him. He seems to be much more moderate. He wants a dialogue with the United States.
Is that moving forward? BOLTON: Well, I think we've -- we have obviously diplomatic relations with Bolivia. And I hope that they can see this kind of attitude by Venezuela is just counterproductive to their own interests. And in that sense, I suppose President Chavez's performance today may have some benefits.
CLANCY: All right. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton.
Our thanks, sir, to you for being with us.
BOLTON: Glad to be here. Glad to be here.
GORANI: We'll have a roundup of the main stories in just a moment.
CLANCY: And the Pentagon now says no significant withdrawals of U.S. forces from Iraq likely before sometime next year.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GORANI: Welcome back to YOUR WORLD TODAY. I'm Hala Gorani.
CLANCY: I'm Jim Clancy, and these are some of the stories that are making headlines.
Martial law prevails on the streets of Thailand today after a bloodless coup. The military says an interim prime minister will be appointed after about two weeks, with elections to be held in about a year. Ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra now on his way to London from New York, where he was attending United Nations meetings.
GORANI: Also the pope cites what he calls an unfortunate misunderstanding at a recent remark by Muslims. Addressing pilgrims at the Vatican, Pope Benedict says he hopes the controversy leads to dialogue. The pontiff has said he's deeply sorry for the reaction to his speech last week, in which he cited a medieval Byzantine emperor's criticism of the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed.
CLANCY: Hungary's prime minister says he remains committed to a program of tough economic reforms, and he will not resign. Calm appears to have returned to the streets of Budapest after another night of anti-government riots. Unrest erupted as the prime minister admitted he lied about the size of budget deficits in order to win elections.
GORANI: All right, the prestigious golf event known as the Ryder Cup begins on Friday, in a couple of days. But all the talk right now has little to do with golf.
CLANCY: Almost nothing, Hala. It has to do with the world's top golfer, Tiger Woods.
Here's Terry Baddoo to explain a little bit more about it. Terry, not a pretty sight. TERRY BADDOO, CNN WORLD SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Indeed not. Dangerous to speculate on this one. With two days to go until the Ryder Cup tees off, the upbeat mood in Dublin has been tarnished by claims in the Irish media that Tiger Woods' wife Elin Nordegren is a former porn model.
The world number one, who is in Ireland is part of the 12-man U.S. team hoping to reclaim the Ryder Cup from Europe, saw his wife named in an article in the latest edition of the "Dubliner" magazine, which also caused aspersions on the morality of other American golf wives. The comments on Nordegren, seemingly endorsed by the "Irish Daily Star," newspaper, which printed nude pictures of the woman who they claim to be the ex-Swedish model.
Tiger denies the reports and stayed as diplomatic as possible in his response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WOODS: My wife, yes, she has been a model prior, and she did do some bikini photos. But to link her to porn Web sites and the such is unacceptable. And I do not accept that at all. Neither does our team. It's hard to be very diplomatic about this when you have so emotion involved and my wife is involved like this. So I just don't that it was the right thing to do. And overall, as I said, I don't want this to deter from the beauty of this event.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BADDOO: Following Tiger's response, the publishers of "Dubliner" magazine issued a statement apologizing for the comments, which they claim were intentionally untrue and part of a satirical article aimed at lampooning inaccurate tabloid journalism. So it was all a big joke. Laugh, I thought I'd never start. Back to you.
GORANI: Yes, the laughing never stops. Ha, ha, ha. Well, listen, I thought he seemed pretty contained, frankly. I mean, he didn't seem too angry at the whole thing. Although, you know, he must have been affected. It's his wife after all. But the big question, I guess, for golf fans is will this effect his play on the course?
BADDOO: I wouldn't have thought so. You know, above any other golfer in the world, Tiger is a man who can go into the zone. Ever since his father died, he's come back, won five tournaments on the (INAUDIBLE), including two majors. He lives his life in a goldfish bowl, and if anything, I think this will steel him for the challenge.
He has a losing record in the Ryder Cup. Not as good in match play as he is in other forms of golf. And I think this is probably bad news for the Europeans, but remains to be seen. One man cannot win the tournament. Back to you.
CLANCY: All right. Terry Baddoo. Terry Baddoo, thank you very much for that update on the Ryder Cup and the controversy with Tiger Woods' wife. Well, we've heard so much about Hugo Chavez today. And we talked for a moment there with the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, about another president in Latin America, Bolivian president Evo Morales. Frequently seen in the company of Hugo Chavez. The two leaders are viewed as part of the leftist trend sweeping Latin America.
But as we learned in an interview with Mr. Morales, the pair represent some very different ideals.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLANCY (voice-over): Bolivian president Evo Morales is on a mission, a quest to prove the indigenous people of Latin America can transform what he called a "dark and negative history."
"We're talking about indigenous peoples who, for more than 500 years, have been forgotten, exploited and ill-treated. And at certain points in history, been threatened with extermination," he says. "Now we've become fully part of a state. We want to be the main players, the protagonists finding solutions to our own problems."
On May 1st, President Morales nationalized Bolivia's oil and gas fields, declaring that anyone who wanted to remain in the country must renegotiate their contracts. It was a move that sparked immediate concerns he was on a path to Marxism. He insists it is only to redress centuries of pillaging by outsiders.
"The rules do change," he says. "For example, before the nationalization, from the largest gas fields previously 18 percent of the revenues went to the government and 82 percent went to the companies. Now that has changed. Eighty-two percent stays with the government and 18 percent goes to the companies."
By his accounting, the oil and gas companies are still making money, and an additional $130 million is in the hands of the people.
"In the short time I've been president," he says, "that 20,000 people have learned to read and write, that another 200,000 people have gained access to education. That is a change."
Morales' image is steeped in the culture of Bolivia's indigenous majority. He unabashedly pays homage to Mother Earth, and was ordained leader in native ceremonies before taking the oath of office in January.
"I am religious," he says. "I believe in this Mother Earth that gives us life. I think it's important to save humanity by saving Mother Earth first. And if we don't change the path we are on, we're all going to be responsible for the destruction of the planet."
Washington has been skeptical that this former cocoa farmer may be taking the whole indigenous thing too far. This week at the U.N., Morales brought along a cocoa leaf to underscore his love for the medicinal powers of the plant, and his refusal to cooperate with U.S. eradication efforts. "What I want to make very clear," he says, "is that in Bolivia, neither will be there be free cultivation of cocoa, nor will there will be any acceptance of eradicating cocoa. But we are pushing for zero cocaine. Cocaine is not part of the indigenous culture. The narco-trafficking problem is something that was imported to the region."
Morales is an endearing character, who has won a grace period with Washington. He has had to back up son some of his nationalization moves and has cooled his anti-U.S. rhetoric.
"Every day, every meeting, every debate, every discussion, it's an enormous learning process for me," he says. "This dialogue with you, for example, is a learning process for me."
And everyone else. Morales is unafraid to break some rules and traditions. For example, he's famous for never wearing a necktie.
"When I was in high school, my civic education teacher made me put on a necktie. I used to wrap it up in a newspaper. And when I had to pass by the professors, I would quickly sneak on the necktie so they wouldn't flunk me," he says. "That's my experience with neckties."
Morales sees himself as part of the growing movement in Latin America to undo the economic and social inequities of the past. Some of his ideas are radical. But he sees no reason why that should prevent him from being friends with Washington.
"We want to be friends with all of the governments," he says, "all of the countries on all continents. We come from a culture of dialogue. Who could be a better friend to the United States? Together, looking for solutions, looking for justice."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CLANCY: Well this was Evo Morales's first visit to the United States. The American that impressed him most? Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. He said that he discovered that Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer. Evo Morales says he was, too.
All right, we're going to take a break here.
GORANI: And when we come back, when sorry just isn't enough.
CLANCY: Explanations, expressions of regret and a claim he was misunderstood. The pope is still in hot water after all of it falls short in the eyes of the Islamic world.
We'll have more on that after the break.
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GORANI: Welcome back. Seen live in more than 200 countries across the globe, this is YOUR WORLD TODAY on CNN International. We're going to show you a live picture of the U.N. briefing room, where reporters gathered to ask world leaders and others questions. We are expecting Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, to enter that briefing room and perhaps take questions after that fiery speech where he called the American president the devil, and said that coming to the podium where the U.S. leader had addressed the U.N. General Assembly still smelled of sulfur. That and other very colorful remarks in an unusual speech by a world leader criticizing another world leader. We will bring you those comments by Hugo Chavez as soon as they start live here on CNN.
For now, though, we're going to talk about the Pope Benedict, and making another attempt to make peace with Muslims. No, let's go back to Hugo Chavez. He's just entered the room. Let's listen to what he has to say.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much, all of you for coming (INAUDIBLE). It is my pleasure this afternoon to introduce the president of Venezuela, his excellency, Mr. Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias. President Chavez was elected to the presidency of his country in December 1998 and took office in February of 1999. President Chavez is accompanied by the minister of foreign affairs, Nicholas Maduro, and the Venezuelan representative of the United Nations, Francisco Arias Cardenas.
Mr. President will have opening remarks, and then he will take your questions.
Thank you very much, Mr. President. You have the floor.
HUGO CHAVEZ, VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Thank you very much. Thank you. Good afternoon to you all. It is a great pleasure for me to see familiar faces in this room. I wanted to greet you with great affection today, which is such an important day. And I am at your disposal.
So as not to waste time, let's go directly to the topic.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first question to the representative of the U.N. Correspondents Association. Sir, you have the floor.
QUESTION: Mr. President, on behalf of United Nations Correspondents Association, allow me to welcome you at this occasion.
My first question to you is that in your speech today, you said -- you talked about those four points you made about reforming the United Nations. Those four points that you made, other leaders also made similar points. What is it that you have, any plan you have to implement those reforms, given the fact that the United States has sway over most of the things over here? So can you implement those reforms?
CHAVEZ (through translator): I believe, that at this point in time, given the degree of deterioration of the United Nations system. I believe that given the degree of deterioration, we cannot speak of a reform any longer, but rather of a re-foundation. What started happening here in 1945 after World War II has collapsed. There is no way to save it. There is no room for reform. That is my opinion, at least. This is a mortal defeat. I believe the system was created for a certain era. But the era is over. It was designed for a bipolar era. The Soviet Union collapsed. The United States empire is on the way down, and it will be finished in the near future, for the good of all mankind. And I hope that we will never have to face another empire.
That is why I believe we need to refound the system, the international system. I don't know whether it should be called the United Nations again or not.
Now, regarding the plan, we have some ideas. There are four proposals in order to elaborate a plan. We in no may mean to elaborate the whole plan for the United Nations. We hope that the United Nations, we hope that the secretary general and the secretariat, we hope that our friend Kofi Annan could create a committee. This would be the first starting point, a committee of heads of states, of world leaders in order to have a diagnosis, a position and a plan, something that I consider fundamental, and then later on able to make proposals to the General Assembly.
But if we have a dictatorship, if we still face international dictatorship that exists, this proposal would not be feasible because it would be enough to have one hand for the veto go up to stop the whole reform.
So it would be a matter of a refoundation, or a revolution, that new actors emerge, and a new international system emerge in order to guarantee the respect for peace, of sovereignty in the people, for self-determination, and so that we can see the emergence of a new international system, what Simon Bolivar used to call the balance or equilibrium of the universe that cannot be imposed through war.
There is no possibility of having a balance or an equilibrium through war. That is what gives way to imbalances, violence, bloodshed and terror. We need to retake the path of brotherhood and peace. Those would be our modest contributions. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have two questions. In the case Venezuela is elected to the Security Council this year, what would be the agenda that you would follow as a member state? What would be the real impact that it would have on the Security Council agenda, given the fact that it has a vote but not a veto?
And my second question, very briefly you have said that you do not recognize the president, the new president of Mexico, and the government of Mexico have told you that they will not let you in.
GORANI: All right, we are going to break away from this. There you had Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, addressing reporters, really just a few hours after having made his speech at the U.N. podium addressing the United Nations General Assembly, calling the U.S. president the devil and a global dictator.
We will keep following this story and the reaction to that speech. Although the White House has said it is not worthy of comment, and we heard similar wording also from the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton a little earlier.
Well, during his speech at the U.N. General Assembly, the U.S. president George Bush named Andrew Natsios a special envoy for Sudan. He joins us now live from New York City to talk about this mission.
We heard from the U.S. president, Mr. Natsios, since the Sudanese government does not approve a peacekeeping force quickly, the U.N. must act. What does that mean exactly, the U.N. must act?
ANDREW NATSIOS, WHITE HOUSE SPECIAL ENVOY FOR SUDAN: Well, I think maybe what we are looking at is a more aggressive diplomacy in trying to convince the Sudanese government that they've made a mistake in keeping the U.N. Blue Helmets out. Because the African Union, they're only 5,800 troops, they've done a fine job, but there are not enough of them.
And the funding mechanism for the African Union is simply donor contributions. We need a permanent funding mechanism, the U.N. mechanism. And of course the Resolution 1706 calls for a much larger contingent, I think it's a total amount that they are planning now would be 17,000, including the 5,800 from the African Union. So we combine the forces.
I think we need to convince the Sudanese government that the best way forward to stabilize Darfur is to bring those troops in, because there's a huge military offensive that's comparable to what we saw in '03 and '04 where so many people died. We can't let that happen again.
GORANI: Well, the mission is to convince the Sudanese government. The President Bashir of Sudan has said though quite clearly, that a U.N. force would be essentially tantamount to wanting to carve up Sudan, it's a crusader force coming in to his country, essentially. If you're going to read in to what he says, how do you do that? How do you convince the Sudanese authorities that a U.N. force of Blue Helmets should come in to stabilize Darfur?
NATSIOS: Well they already have a large U.N. contingent in the south. There are 15,000 U.N. troops going to southern Sudan to implement the peace agreement. And the Sudanese government agreed to it. And they have in fact facilitated the arrival of those troops. So the argument that this is somehow an invasion is a little bit contradictory, since they've already agreed to all these troops coming in. And troops are arriving, in fact, from many countries, and they are in Blue Helmets and they are from the United Nations.
GORANI: Let me ask you this, about what some critics say about the U.S. approach. And they welcome your appointment, for instance, as a special envoy. But some say, well the U.S., for instance, started a war in Iraq without U.N. backing. If it is calling what happening in Darfur a genocide, why would it not act unilaterally to stop the largest human catastrophe in the last few decades, as it's been called?
NATSIOS: Well I mean, we can debate about the legality of the U.N. resolutions on Iraq. There are a whole bunch of them and, as you know, there's a long legal debate over that. I don't think that's relevant to what we are dealing with in Darfur.
We have a unified donor community. The Japanese, the Canadians, the Australians, the U.S., the Europeans, our allies in Africa. The African Union has taken a very strong stand on this. And there's some Arab states, I understand, that are very uncomfortable with what is going on in Darfur right now. So I think that there's a growing movement within the international community to simply say enough is enough, we have to end this now and bring peace to Darfur.
And I might add, it can't be just a political plea of peace. One of the problems is we tend to separate development and reconstruction from diplomacy. We can't do that in this case. There are serious development problems in Darfur that have been there for years. This is the third war in Darfur in 15 years. And we are just going to have another one if we don't deal with this both in terms of the diplomacy of it, but also in dealing with the serious development issues in a very remote and poor area of the country.
GORANI: All right. Quite a challenge. Andrew Natsios, recently appointed the U.S. special envoy to Sudan. Thank you very much for joining us.
NATSIOS: Thank you.
CLANCY: Interesting comments there. That's going to have to be it for this hour. I'm Jim Clancy.
GORANI: I'm Hala Gorani. Thanks for watching. Stay with CNN, the news continues.
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