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North Korea Announces Successful Nuclear Test
Aired October 09, 2006 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CO-HOST: Hello everyone, I'm Kyra Phillips at the CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta.
DON LEMON, CO-HOST: I'm Don Lemon.
North Korea ups the ante, sending a shudder around the world, triggering calls for a tough response. Just how real is the nuclear threat? And who will make the next move?
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DAN RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: North Korea lies about two kilometers up this way, just out there in the mist and the haze. Now this has become a massive international fault line.
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PHILLIPS: CNN's Dan Rivers is as close as you can get to North Korea. We're live from the DMZ.
LEMON: And a Russian investigative journalist killed in cold blood. Who killed her? And could the Kremlin have been involved?
You're live right now in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Once again North Korea has defied the will of the international community, and the international community will respond.
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PHILLIPS: Well, North Korea testing the world's patience and pushing the limits, and the world pushes back. Allies, enemies, neighbors all firing a barrage of criticism at Pyongyang over its claim of testing a nuclear weapon.
But the North it says deserves congratulations, not condemnation.
CNN is all over this quickly developing story. We're going to take you to the U.N., Washington, overseas and even into the secret communist country itself.
Let's start with the U.N., where North Korea may face something more than just talk. Our Richard Roth has the latest now -- Richard. RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, the United Nations -- Heidi, the -- Kyra, the United Nations Security Council acted quickly, 30 minutes, in approving a statement condemning North Korea for its nuclear test.
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JOHN BOLTON, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: The entire discussion, in which all 15 council members participated, took only 30 minutes. And that's remarkable in the Security Council, as some of you may know, to have a unanimous condemnation of the North Korean test. No one defended it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: The United States' allies -- Britain and other countries on the council -- also joined in in criticizing and condemning the North Koreans.
As for the North Koreans itselves, its ambassador was around the U.N. near his mission and at the U.N. headquarters. Didn't really meet with the Security Council. Ambassador Pak Gil Yon said should the United Nations should really be praising its country's scientists for the fine nuclear development work they've done.
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PAK GIL YON, NORTH KOREAN AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: Why so successful? Today. And this will be very contributable in maintaining and guaranteeing the peace and security in the Korean Peninsula and the region.
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ROTH: As for the Security Council itself, legal experts are going to be meeting later this afternoon on a resolution, pushed by the United States and others, a resolution would that expand sanctions against North Korea: financial transactions and the like.
The Chinese ambassador said, "We're in favor." A diplomat from China said the door is open to anything at this point.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WANG GUANGYA, CHINESE AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: I think we have to react firmly but also I believe that, on the other hand, that the door to solve this issue from a diplomatic point of view is still open.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: The Security Council resolution that will be considered later today, tomorrow, in this week, would curb import and exports to North Korea of any materials or goods that could be used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons and the like. An expansion of existing U.S. sanctions already on the north -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right. Richard Roth live from the U.N., thanks.
LEMON: Unacceptable, provocative, requiring an immediate response. President Bush's initial response to North Korea's reported nuclear test. For the very latest now from the White House, let's go to our Kathleen Koch -- Kathleen.
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Don, it was a very short statement that the president made in the White House this morning, less than three minutes. But as you pointed out, he did not mince words, the president calling this apparent test a threat to international peace and security.
The president pointed out that the U.S. is still working to confirm the fact that an actual successful nuclear test did occur, and that shouldn't be too difficult to prove. There were more than 100 monitoring stations, as well as spy planes and satellites, keeping watch over events in North Korea, looking for just such an incident.
The president this morning also expressed some very deep concerns that, if a successful test was indeed conducted, that North Korea might some day pass on its nuclear technology to rogue states or to terrorists.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: The North Korean regime remains one of the world's leading proliferator of missile technology, including transfers to Iran and Syria. The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States. And we would hold North Korea fully accountable to the consequences of such action.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KOCH: Now, President Bush said that this morning he did speak with the leaders of China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan. Obviously, these all members of the six-party talks that had been focused, at least through November of last year, on getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapon program, but instead North Korea walked away from the table.
President Bush said that all of those countries condemned the test and said it was time for immediate action from the U.N. Security Council. And as you heard, Richard Roth said the U.S. is going to be pushing very hard there for more sanctions on North Korea.
Back to you, Don.
LEMON: And Kathleen, a lot of this happened late last night, overnight. Some people are just waking up to it, finding out about it. Tell us what we knew and when.
KOCH: Very interesting, the U.S. did get some cursory notification, Don, in advance of this test.
What happened was North Korea let the Chinese know that it was going to go forward with the test. The Chinese then reached out and contacted the U.S. embassy in Beijing, passed on that information. But it just wasn't soon enough for the word to get right to Washington. And that was about 9 p.m., when that all are occurred.
At 9:35 the U.S. Geological Survey had some evidence of a seismic event in North Korea.
About 9:45 the embassy in Beijing notified Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She reached out to national security advisor Stephen Hadley, who then got to the president.
But again even if the U.S. had had some kind of more lengthy advance notice, there's really very little it could have done to stop this test, if indeed it was a successful test.
LEMON: Not much we could have done. Thank you very much, Kathleen Koch at the White House.
KOCH: You bet.
PHILLIPS: Among the hot button worries sparked by North Korea's apparent nuclear test, a brand-new, all-out nuclear arms race. Our Dan Rivers is near the demilitarized zone between the Koreas. He takes a closer look now at the regional impact.
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RIVERS (voice-over): in a surreal TV moment, this was North Korea's newscaster, cheerfully telling her compatriots the army had just detonated a nuclear bomb in an underground test.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We carried out a safe and successful nuclear test. There is no leak or danger from this test. The nuclear test was conducted with indigenous wisdom and 100 percent DPRK technology. It marks an historic event.
RIVERS: Kim Jong-Il had already warned they were planning a nuclear detonation, but when it came, it still sent political shock waves around the world.
Regional reaction was swift. China, warned of the detonation by the North Koreans 20 minutes before it occurred, said it was, quote, "resolutely opposed to the test."
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in Seoul meeting South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, almost at exactly the moment the blast occurred far to the north.
SHINZO ABE, JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER (through translator): We must make sure we send a clear message to North Korea, and we have to take stringent measures for them to understand that point.
ROH MOO-HYUN, SOUTH KOREAN PRESIDENT (through translator): What North Korea's done is breaking the trust of the international society. Our government will take care of this in a fast and in a very clear and cut way. RIVERS: Analysts are worried North Korea poses a much more menacing threat.
JUNG-HOON LEE, INTERNATIONAL STUDIES PROFESSOR, YONSEI UNIVERSITY: I think it's very dangerous. Because first of all, North Korea is the so-called, quote/unquote, "rogue state." And if we look at the track record of the Pyongyang regime, all it's done in dealing with outside world is threaten, the so-called brinksmanship. And now it has the ultimate weapon, the nuclear weapon.
RIVERS: Tensions in the region had been building, with North Korea firing a number of long-range rockets. The last failed launch was in July.
Six-party talks, that included the United States, and were aimed at preventing North Korea from going nuclear, now appear to be in tatters. And observers are worried about the risk of proliferation by the North Koreans.
PETER BECK, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP: Seeing they have a track record for selling whatever they can get their hands on, even if it's other people's drugs or their own, counterfeit currency, missiles to the Middle East. So I see no reason to trust them not to sell nuclear material to the wrong party.
RIVERS (on camera): This observation post is one of a handful of places that you can actually get a glimpse into North Korea. Down here is the demilitarized zone, the no-man's-land that is strewn full of mines and has been deserted since 1953, the end of the Korean War. And just beyond is North Korea itself.
This is the last front line in the Cold War. A front line that now has global significance.
(voice-over) There's no suggestion that the two million soldiers camped on either side of the demilitarized zone are being prepared for conflict. But now the South Koreans know their northern neighbor has become a nuclear power. A dictator with a weapon of mass destruction.
Once the world worried that frightening combination was brewing in Iraq. Now it's become a reality in North Korea.
Dan Rivers, CNN, on the border of North and South Korea.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: Six years of secrecy? That's the question. The "Washington Post" reports Republican Congressman Jim Kolbe knew about inappropriate Internet messages from his then-colleague Mark Foley as far back as 2000.
"The Post" says a former page showed Kolbe the messages, and Kolbe confronted Foley.
A former Foley aide is expect to stalk this week to the House Ethics Committee. An attorney for Kirk Fordham says he expects Fordham to tell the panel that he told House Speaker Dennis Hastert's chief of staff about Foley's conduct in 2003. That aide, Scott Palmer, denies it.
Both Foley and Fordham have quit. Should others follow? A new CNN poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation finds just over half of those surveyed says -- say House Speaker Dennis Hastert should resigned. Almost a third say he should stay; 17 percent aren't sure.
And the same poll asked about lawmakers' ethics. It shows, Americans are split on whether most Republicans in Congress are ethical. Forty-seven percent say they are; 44 percent disagree. Democrats in Congress fare a little better: 54 percent say most Democrats are ethical. About a third say they are not.
PHILLIPS: Well, talk for now, action for later. North Korea's alleged nuclear test sets the world on edge and scrambling for a response. What will that be? We're going to get some expert insight, straight ahead from the NEWSROOM.
LEMON: Plus, a rare look inside North Korea, where children were brought to witness the unthinkable. Our coverage of this story continues right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.
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PHILLIPS: Back to our top story now: North Korea's alleged nuclear test. What does it mean to the region and the world? And what kind of response can Pyongyang expect?
Let's get some answers from international security analyst Jim Walsh.
Of course, Jim, you follow this on a regular basis. Let me just get your first reaction to the quote coming out of North Korea, "The field of scientific research and the DPRK successfully conducted an underground nuclear test under secure conditions October 9, 2006, at a stirring time when all the people of the country are making a great leap forward in the building of a great, prosperous, powerful socialist nation."
How powerful was this?
JIM WALSH, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, the actual test appears not to have been that powerful. The early report suggests that the yield of the test, the blast affect of the test, is less than half a kiloton.
Typically, when countries test for the first time, they do so in a big, bold way. You know you'd have tens of kilotons. And this was less than half a kiloton. And so I think it is raising some questions about the particulars of the test.
And people are still waiting to get more data before they come out and characterize it.
PHILLIPS: All right, now tell me if I'm correct. If we talk about which countries can detect nuclear test blasts, I have United States, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, that they have the equipment strong enough to pick this up. So the only seismic picture that we could get was from Japan of what happened in North Korea.
When we look at this graph, when you see this, does it look drastic? Does it look like no big deal? Does it concern you? Not really concern you?
WALSH: Well, I think -- anytime you have only one test and a test that's less than a kiloton, it's going to raise certain questions.
Remember, Kyra, back to the 1998 Indian and Pakistani tests, there were a whole bunch of technical questions after those tests. Did they really work? Did they have the yield that the Indian and Pakistani scientists claim they had? What was really going on here?
And I'm afraid we're going to get those same set of questions over the course of the next couple of weeks about this test.
At least in the Indian and Pakistan tests, you had multiple tests. Some were many kilotons. A few of them were less than a kiloton. We only have one test here. It's less than a kiloton, so some people are going to say this was a fizzle. Some people may say it was a fake. It doesn't really matter, Kyra, because this....
PHILLIPS: It could be a fake? Could it be a fake? Let me ask you that. Is there a way to create this type of activity to where sensors would pick it up and think it's a nuclear test, but really it's not?
WALSH: Yes, yes. And you can do it with conventional explosives. Remember, it just this past year -- I think it was this past year -- that the Europeans were concerned that the North Koreans had tested a nuclear weapon. And the North Koreans said no, no, no. That thing you saw on your seismic readings was us using conventional explosives to dig a hole in a tunnel.
If you use enough conventional explosives, then you will get the same affect. So there will be questions.
But on this I want to emphasize, Kyra, whether it's a fake, or a fizzle or it's a real test, essentially this test was a political act and not a military act. And all the political consequences are going to happen, whether it was fake or true, whether it was a fizzle or a success.
The sanctions at the U.N., the increased nationalism in Japan, questions about the Chinese-North Korean relationship, questions about U.S. policy and whether we are going in the right questions, all of these questions will continue even if the test turns out to be technically not very spectacular.
PHILLIPS: And within the circles of journalism or politics or military, these are all the things that we are discussing right now, because of this, whatever this test was. Let me ask you another question. If the U.S. can detect nuclear test's blasts, why aren't we hearing from the U.S. right now?
WALSH: I think the U.S. is going to wait until it has all the data in before it offers any assessment. Because there's more than just seismic evidence that you can collect. You can collect air samples, and those air samples may have traces of radioactivity.
And from those traces, you can sort of work backwards and figure out more about the device itself. That's been true of every nuclear test taken, going back to the Indian-Pakistani tests, the Chinese test in 1964, the Indian test in '74.
So the Americans are going to be collecting data in addition to the seismic data. And they're going to come to some conclusion before they decide and announce it publicly what actually happened here.
PHILLIPS: Final question, when we talk about nuclear facilities and the threat, it seems like Iran is what you and I are talking about all the time, and could there be military action to take out these nuclear facilities and what's the president going to do and say next?
Now here we go. The headlines have switched. We're talking North Korea. How does this affect the Iran factor and this race to the nuclear door for Iran?
WALSH: Well, I think Iran and North Korea are in different situations. But some of the things are the same.
The president in his comments today emphasized that diplomacy, and I think it's unlikely that the U.S. will respond to this with a military attack. And I think it's unlikely the U.S. will respond to Iran's program with a military attack, for the same reasons.
We're overstretched and losing in Iraq. We're in Afghanistan. You know, we're extending tours of duty. It's just very hard for the U.S. to contemplate military action when we're stretched so thin and when we have allies in the region, both around Iran and also allies in Northeast Asia, South Korea, China, who would object vociferously to a U.S. military attack.
So the countries are different, the problems are different, but the constraints on what U.S. can do militarily are similar.
PHILLIPS: Jim Walsh, always a pleasure. Thanks so much.
WALSH: Thank you, Kyra.
LEMON: A chilling murder in Moscow. A well-known critic of the Putin government the apparent victim of a contract hit. We'll have a live report on the investigation ahead in the NEWSROOM.
PHILLIPS: Plus, new risk on the produce aisle. A company recalls its lettuce amid concerns over E. coli. The who, what and why, just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: First, it was spinach; now it's lettuce. Green leaf lettuce packed under the Foxy brand is coming off the shelves. A recall was ordered by a California company after it was discovered water used to irrigate the lettuce may have been contaminated with E. coli.
It was grown in the same area as the tainted spinach, but so far as we know, no one has been sickened by the lettuce. It was distributed last week in seven western states. If you think you bought a pack of it, take it back to the store for a refund or simply toss it.
PHILLIPS: Drivers are getting some good news. Susan Lisovicz joins us live from the New York Stock Exchange with the latest on the gas prices.
Hey, Susan.
SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra. It was so nice to meet you and Don last week in person.
PHILLIPS: Finally in person. Took long enough.
(STOCK REPORT)
LEMON: See that Susan Lisovicz, Kyra, right there in the corner? She looks great on TV, but in person, man, oh man!
PHILLIPS: She's blushing.
LEMON: She is.
PHILLIPS: That's great.
LEMON: Susan, thank you. We'll see you a little bit later on.
LISOVICZ: Very nice, Don. You've got it.
LEMON: It seems as though North Korea doesn't have a friend in the world today. Its claim of an underground nuclear test brings blanket condemnation to the surface. Full coverage of this developing story straight ahead in the NEWSROOM.
PHILLIPS: Plus, Iraqi police poisoned by food. Was it by accident or by enemies armed with a frightening new tactic? That's coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Some breaking news think right now. Let's straight to the newsroom and Betty Nguyen.
Betty, what do you have for us?
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, hi, Don. As if we need to hear about another shooting. This one out of Joplin, Missouri. Here's what we know so far. According to local police and school officials a 13-year-old student wearing a makeshift mask walked into Joplin Middle School today and fired an Ak-47 assault rifle, just one into the air. It hit one of the water pipes there and caused some problems.
But here's what happened though. According to the superintendent, the boy pointed a weapon at two students and two school administrators saying, don't make me do this, and then as I said, shot that gun into the ceiling breaking a water pipe. Now the administrator did talk the boy out of shooting again, and then was able to get him to leave the building where he was immediately taken into custody.
But there was some question how long the student had been planning this attack? They checked his locker, also checked a backpack, which did reveal evidence of explosives, and part of this plan that was going on. Police did search the building. There was some question as if anyone else was involved?
I've got a press release in my hand right now from the school department, which says that the building has been thoroughly searched, and it was determined that this was just a single-person incident. They also say that all students are back in class, and that school is proceeding as usual.
But again, we've got a school shooting to tell you about. Lucky thing here is no one was injured in it. But still very disturbing out of Joplin, Missouri today.
LEMON: Betty, very lucky considering with what just happened in the past couple of weeks.
Thank you very much.
PHILLIPS: Well, it's a line in the sand, an unresolved remnant from the Cold War, but North Korea's apparent nuclear test could make the DMZ something much more.
Our Dan Rivers is near the no-man's-land between North Korea and South Korea, where has a clear view of the impact.
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DAN RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT, CNN NEWSROOM: Where you join me, about as close as can you get to the border of North Korea. I'm standing, literally, just on the edge of the Demilitarized Zone.
If we pan the camera across, this area here is strewn with mines and has been like this, a Demilitarized Zone since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
North Korea lies two kilometers up this way, just out there, in the mist and the haze. Now, this has become a massive international fault line after the news that North Korea has successfully tested this nuclear weapon.
We understand from Russian confirmation that the test was carried out underground. The Chinese are saying that it was the equivalent of about 550 tons of TNT. Now, to put that in perspective, the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima at the end of the Second World War was 15,000 tons of TNT equivalent. A fairly small blast, conducted deep underground.
It's thought it was going to be conducted at the bottom of a coal mine, right up in the northeast of North Korea. But now, clearly, this is ratcheted up tensions here on the Korean Peninsula, especially for the government of South Korea, a government which has long gone for policy of engagement with the North Koreans. Now, that policy some would say, has come slightly unstuck, because the North Koreans have developed this nuclear bomb. They've said they were going to test it, and now they have tested it.
A lot of condemnation has come in as one would expect from the Chinese, from the United States, from Japan.
But everyone now is concerned about what this means for this region. What does this mean for the six-party talks? Effectively, they are left in tatters. And perhaps, more importantly, what does this mean for the region? Does this now mean this part of Asia will be engaged in an arms race. Already, the South Korean army has been put on a state of higher alert after this bomb. What does this mean now for the rest of the region? Does it mean now that South Korea and possibly Japan will also seek to get a nuclear deterrent?
What message does this send to countries like Iran, who have been trying to develop nuclear weapons? Their critics say. Does this give them a green light to go ahead and test that? Dan Rivers, CNN, in the Demilitarized Zone, South Korea.
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LEMON: All right, Dan, very poor, very secretive, cut off from the rest the world. That's North Korea. What you're about to see is a rare and chilling look at a slice of life and death there. It's part of a "CNN PRESENTS" documentary "Undercover in the Secret State." Here's special correspondent Frank Sesno.
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FRANK SESNO, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): North Korea, March 2005. A crowd has been ordered to gather in an open field. A party official makes an announcement. Children have been brought to watch. The sentence is about to be passed. Three men are about to die.
These people have committed the crime most damaging to North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-Il. They made contact with the outside world. Three policemen step forward and raise their rifles. On the left, a prisoner is tied to a pole.
(COMMAND GIVEN, GUNSHOTS)
This video was passed from person to person, along a secret underground network, powerful evidence of public executions under the regime of Kim Jong-Il.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: North Korea defies the U.S., the U.N., even China. "AC 360" takes a look, the impact, the fallout and what is next? Plus, go undercover in the secret state for a brutal look at life inside North Korea, tonight beginning 10:00 Eastern.
(NEWSBREAK)
PHILLIPS: Straight ahead a chilling murder in Moscow. A well- known critic of the Putin government, the apparent victim of a contract hit. We'll have a live report on the investigation straight ahead.
LEMON: When was Mark Foley's inappropriate conduct first known on Capitol Hill? A new report says one Congressman confronted him years ago. That story is ahead in the NEWSROOM.
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PHILLIPS: Well, she was known for exposing corruption. Now the shocking story of her death out of Russia. An apparent hit on a journalist known for her fearless pursuit of the truth. CNN's Matthew Chance knew her and actually had just talked to her last week. Did she give you any indication that she felt her life was in danger, Matthew?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anna Politkovskaya, who was one of Russia's leading investigative reporters knew what risks she was taking. She was under a virtual constant death threat, or life death sentence by the various powerful people -- because of the various powerful people that she upset by her, with her reporting.
She was very hard-lined on her criticism on the Kremlin's war in the breakaway republic -- Russia republic of Chechnya. She was recently investigating accusations of torture and kidnapping by the Kremlin-backed administration in that Russian breakaway republic.
And she knew very well that because she was doing that, she would make very powerful enemies. What we've seen today is the first official reaction by the Russian government to the death of one of Vladimir Putin's fiercest critics. Anna Politkovskaya came up in a conversation between Vladimir Putin on the telephone and President Bush, the Russian president saying that Russian law enforcement agencies would objectively investigate the killing of Anna Politkovskaya. As I say, Anna was Russia's leading investigative reporters. Police say they believe she was the target of a contract killing.
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CHANCE (voice-over): Grainy images of a man police say could be the killer of one of the Kremlin's most outspoken critics. Captured on closed-circuit television cameras, few believe he was anything more than a hired gone. Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent Russian journalist, was found slumped in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building, shot four times in the head and chest. Prosecutors say it looks like a contract killing, linked to her work. A determined investigative reporter and a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, Anna made powerful enemies. Her reporting of Russia's war in Chechnya was relentless. She was one of the only independent Russian journalists who continued to travel there, exposing human rights abuses despite the risks.
"Each time I return from Chechnya, I appreciate my life," she says. "I love my life, because it can be finished at any time."
On occasion, Anna stepped outside the role of journalist, negotiating with Chechnyan militants, who took hundreds of hostages in a Moscow theater in 2002. In 2004, during the Beslan school siege, she believed she had been poisoned to prevent her from covering what turned out to be a fiasco with more than 130 killed.
As a mother of two, she spent time outside Russia to protect her family from death threats. She often spoke to colleagues about what she believed was the official campaign of intimidation against her.
PAVEL FELGENHAUER, JOURNALIST: Russia is an authoritarian, aggressive leadership where people who are trying to write real journalism are constantly under threat.
CHANCE: But 'till the end, Anna continued to report. Her recent work was sharply critical of the Kremlin-backed administration in Chechnya, and the militia controlled by its controversial prime minister.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHANCE: The tributes are now pouring in from around the world for Anna Politkovskaya, a woman of incredible courage in a country where as she often reported, the powerful often operate above the law, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Matthew, was her article finished and ready to come out in the papers this week? And also, any word to who could be behind the hit?
CHANCE: Well, obviously there's a lot of speculation in the Russian media and amongst her colleagues about who may have been or may not have been responsible for this.
But certainly I think what we can say is that Anna Politkovskaya continued right up until the very end to be a fierce critic of the Kremlin, a fierce critic of the Kremlin-backed administration in the breakaway republic of Chechnya.
And her articles really for the past several years, but particularly in the past several weeks, including her most recent reporting, which was published today in her Russian-language newspaper Novaya Gazeta in Moscow, focused on the problem of kidnapping, the problem of corruption inside Chechnya. And so many observers of the situation here, including her editor and many of her colleagues are pointing the finger to that breakaway republic, to an area where perhaps her killing was ordered from.
PHILLIPS: Matthew Chance, appreciate you telling us about her life.
LEMON: The political battle and the Bible belt.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I find a Democrat or a liberal within this area, it just blows me away.
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LEMON: A normally conservative Republican district but now the Republican incumbent faces a tough battle for re-election. Is Mark Foley a factor? The story ahead in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Switch sides, or stay home? Two equally potent option for any so-called base voter in any election. Two unequally unnerving prospects for the GOP in light of the Mark Foley problem.
CNN's Mary Snow went to heavily conservative southeast Virginia to get a feel for the Foley fallout.
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MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here are Norfolk, Virginia, Christian conservatives are eager to offer their prayers for political leaders, but it's their votes that Republicans really need, and there are questions about whether or not the GOP will get them.
(voice over): Just how conservative is this northern tip of the Bible Belt?
SCOZZAFAVA: When I find a Democrat or liberal within this area, it just blows me away.
SNOW: So it may come as quite a shock that incumbent Republican congresswoman Thelma Drake is in a tough reelection battle against Democrat challenger Phil Kellam. And that was before the Mark Foley scandal. Last week, Kellam's campaign began re-airing these ads about protecting kids from sexual content on the Internet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As a father of two, Phil Kellam knows protecting our children is more difficult than ever.
SNOW: Drake says she doesn't think the fallout over Foley will affect her.
REP. THELMA DRAKE (R), VIRGINIA: Certainly because Mark Foley did something wrong doesn't mean that Thelma Drake had anything to do with that. I'm a mother, I'm a grandmother. SNOW: Her Democratic challenger disagrees, saying Foley symbolizes what's wrong with Washington.
PHIL KELLAM (D), VIRGINIA CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: And certainly people that I talk to at work, in church, around the community are concerned about this. They're concerned about this culture of corruption in Washington.
SNOW: But Kellam also might receive help from the most unlikely of places, dissatisfied Christian conservatives here, those like Pat Diffley, who's retired from the Marine Corps.
PAT DIFFLEY, U.S. MARINE CORPS. (RET.): I mean, the current administration in the White House and some of the things that Congress has done has not necessarily forward the conservative values.
SNOW: While Diffley says he'll still vote Republican, there are others among this conservative community who aren't so sure.
SUSIA POTTER, NORFOLK RESIDENT: I probably will end up voting Republican as long as I don't see anything else come up.
SNOW (on camera): And it's the undecided Christian conservative voters that Republicans worry about. Republican strategists say the fear is that this voting bloc which is crucial to Republicans will send a message by not voting at all.
Mary Snow, CNN, Norfolk, Virginia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: And that report from Mary Snow is part of the best political team on television.
And make sure you get your daily dose of political news from CNN's new political ticker. Just go to CNN.com/ticker.
(WEATHER REPORT)
LEMON: Well, it seems as though North Korea doesn't have a friend in the world today. Its claim of an underground nuclear test brings blanket condemnation to the surface. We'll cover this developing story straight ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM.
When was Mark Foley's inappropriate conduct first known on Capitol Hill? Well, a new report says one Congressman confronted him years ago. That story also from the NEWSROOM.
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