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The Fight For Iraq; Tangled Triangle?; The Deep Freeze; Top Tips
Aired February 08, 2007 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everybody. I'm Heidi Collins.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Tony Harris. Spend a second hour in the NEWSROOM this morning and stay informed. Here's what's on the rundown.
Dangerous waters. Our Africa correspondent in search of an elusive rebel leader. The bottom line -- who gets a piece of Nigeria's oil riches?
COLLINS: Car bombs across Iraq. More people killed or injured again today. An Iraqi government minister arrested, accused of helping the insurgents.
HARRIS: Oh, good grief! First winter won't start, now it won't stop. Some spots in upstate New York buried under six feet of snow.
Today, Thursday, February 8th. You are in the NEWSROOM.
COLLINS: Iraq. Car bombs explode and coalition forces go on the attack. One suspect caught in the dragnet. A government official. CNN's Michael Holmes is in Baghdad live now with the very latest.
Michael, there was a raid on the Iraqi health ministry today. U.S. and Iraqi forces arrested this government official we mentioned. Tell us a little bit about that if you would.
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Heidi.
That's right, a lot of people on the Iraqi side seemingly surprised at what occurred. Iraqi special forces carrying out this raid, we're told, but U.S. advisors were with them. They arrested one of the two deputy health ministers for Iraq. He is also, according to the U.S., a senior member of the political group that is loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Of course, al-Sadr's Mehdi army being blamed for a lot of the sectarian violence in Iraq.
Already been complaints, the health minister himself saying he had no knowledge that this was going to take place. He says that the prime minister didn't know it was going to take place. And some lawmakers calling for this deputy minister's release.
However, the U.S. says that he is suspected of being a central figure in alleged corruption and Mehdi army infiltration of the ministry. Not only that, they say he's implicated in the deaths of several ministry of health officials.
Heidi.
COLLINS: And, Michael, we know that more U.S. troops are already deployed to Baghdad. The Iraqi security plan for Baghdad produces more checkpoints and more boots on the ground. But still today, another violent day. The details on the violence.
HOLMES: Yes, a lot more activity around Baghdad as this increase in forces gets underway. But the violence, as you point out, doesn't stop. Two car bombs, in particular, we'll mention, killing at least 27 people, wounding 61 others.
The first one was about 100 miles southeast of here. It was a car bomb in a meat market. It killed at least 20 people, wounded 40 others.
Yet another attack on a commercial area. We've seen a lot of those in the last month or so. And here in the capital, a car bomb outside a mosque. Seven people were killed, sixteen wounded in that attack.
Heidi.
COLLINS: Michael Holmes coming to us live from Baghdad today.
Michael, thank you.
HARRIS: And, once again, want to update you on a horrible story out of Thorsby, Alabama. This is a collision. A van a train at a crossing and the results not good. At least four people killed this morning when a CSX freight train struck an eight-passenger van at a rural Alabama crossing. That happened about 6:00 a.m. this morning. The coroner's office is reporting four people survived the crash -- a miracle that is -- with serious injuries, being cared for at a local hospital. And the sheriff's deputy at the scene puts the death toll at four. We will continue to watch these pictures and update this story as we get more information.
Distractions for NASA over the past few days. Today the space agency trying to stay focused on the business at hand. Look at these pictures! Two astronauts stepping out into space right now for more repairs to the International Space Station. It is a precedent-setting third space walk in nine days.
But back to the NASA story everyone is talking about. They are the other parts of astronaut Lisa Nowak's alleged love triangle. This morning we're learning more about a fellow astronaut, Bill Oefelein, and Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman. CNN's John Zarrella reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): A no comment next to a neighbor's door. Most of the folks who live in Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman's Cape Canaveral neighborhood weren't talking but apparently knew she was dating astronaut Bill Oefelein. She let everyone know Oefelein was flying on board the shuttle Discovery in December.
BILL BAILEY, SHIPMAN'S NEIGHBOR: She was all excited when the shuttle came back. She was all happy, you know, that they didn't have any trouble or anything.
ZARRELLA: Oefelein spent almost all his youth in Alaska and is proud to call himself the only astronaut from the state he loved to explore.
BILL OEFELEIN, SHUTTLE PILOT: Oefeline As I got older, I wanted to see even more. And one of the best ways, as you know, to do that up in Alaska is by air.
ZARRELLA: He became a Naval aviator in 1990. He and his older brother are both into flying, which never sat well with mom.
BILLYE OEFELEIN, BILL OEFELEIN'S MOTHER: And I told both of them, I would much rather have you flying a desk.
ZARRELLA: When Discovery lifted off, Oefelein's parents and friends came to the cape to cheer him on.
BILLYE OEFELEIN: And I just started shaking and I was going, oh my God, that's my son going up there!
ZARRELLA: We don't know if Colleen Shipman was there. Her neighbor, Bill Bailey, says he never saw Shipman with Oefelein. She was a private person but always smiling and friendly.
BAILEY: She'd do anything for you. I mean if you asked for -- if you wanted to go over there and ask for sugar or anything, whatever, she'd get it.
ZARRELLA: Shipman grew up in Pennsylvania and went to Penn State University. As an Air Force captain, she's part of the shuttle's support team at Patrick Air Force Base, not far from Cape Canaveral, and not far from Helicopter Adventures.
PATRICK CORR, HELICOPTER ADVENTURES INC.: I was quite astonished.
ZARRELLA: Patrick Corr, who runs Helicopter Adventures, couldn't believe it when the woman who had been coming here for flying lessons suddenly showed up on the news. She had been coming here since October.
CORR: Initially, she was working on private pilot rating to fly helicopters. Our school is very oriented towards career training. And ultimately I think her goal was to prepare for a future career as a helicopter pilot.
ZARRELLA: Shipman took her first lesson October 9th. She last flew January 29th, just a few days before her encounter with Lisa Nowak. On the restraining order Shipman filed against Nowak, the flight school and this dance studio were listed as places she wanted off limits to Nowak. On that petition, requested in a Titusville court, she referred to Nowak as "acquaintance of boyfriend." But neither Oefelein or Shipman have talked publicly yet about their private relationship or how Lisa Nowak fits in.
John Zarrella, CNN, Titusville, Florida.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Airport Amber Alerts. Along with suspicious baggage, screeners will now be on the lookout for abducted children. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children plans to distribute Amber Alerts to the TSA. Photos and distributions of the missing children flash on monitors and even passengers can see them. The exposure might prevent a kidnapper from taking an abducted child on a plane.
Bone-chilling temperatures and snow piling up by the foot. Dangerous arctic conditions keeping much of the east and Midwest in a deep freeze today. Forecasters saying some areas of upstate New York could find 100 inches of snow on the ground by this weekend. Parts of western New York could get a foot of lake-effect snow today alone.
Icy roads from the cold weather making travel treacherous, too. The storms have also snarled air travel and shut down schools. The severe cold is blamed now for at least 16 deaths across the eastern half of the U.S., including five in Ohio. The coldest temperature in the nation yesterday, 29 below zero in Devil's Lake, North Dakota.
HARRIS: Let's get the latest on the frigid conditions now. Meteorologist Chad Myers is in the CNN Weather Center and meteorologist Rob Marciano is out in the snow in Oswego, New York.
Let's start with you, Rob.
Rob, we just love how you volunteer to go out into these very difficult conditions to bring us the very latest information close to the action.
Good morning, Rob.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Tony.
Well, that's how we do at the CNN severe weather team.
Hey, backhoes now coming out, front loaders. It's no longer just a plowing operation. You actually need machinery that can take the snow and move it somewhere else. Another plow coming through. They just can't keep up with it. Look at this. Look out! Oh!
HARRIS: Oh, man! What is that? What happened?
MARCIANO: You all right? You all right, Joe (ph)?
HARRIS: No, really, what happened?
MARCIANO: Well, you know, they've got these -- I don't know what you call them, the double whammy plow deals, you know. We've got two plows moving in tandem. And the bank is so high behind the camera, is that I couldn't see the second plow. HARRIS: Oh, OK.
MARCIANO: And that plow was actually shoving that snow up and over the top. Anyway, long story short, I saw the lower plow, and the upper plow almost clipped Joe's head off along with the camera!
HARRIS: Goodness!
MARCIANO: All right. So the kinds of things we do to bring you the pictures.
It is not snowing nearly as bad now as it was about three hours ago when we had snow fall rates of about two, three, four inches an hour. The road crews are keeping up on things relatively well. A hardy bunch here in upstate New York, so folks are out and about a little bit. About half -- maybe a quarter of the businesses here on main street are open. Schools are closed. Last check from the highway department, there aren't any major highways that were shut down, but the chairman of Oswego County is about to declare a state of emergency, which basically gives him the power to say, you guys need to work some overtime and help out everybody when you can.
I talked to a guy who runs a local drugstore. He's not making deliveries today, so that could be an issue with elderly people who need prescriptions. Also spoke with a business manager of an auto parts store. And as you would imagine, Tony, windshield wiper blades, windshield wiper motors, deicer for your windshield, things like that, are selling like hot cakes, so to speak.
HARRIS: Yes. Hey, Rob, let me ask you a quick one. In your immediate area, I know one of the real concerns here is that you've got to get these fire hydrants cleared. In the case of a fire, you've got to have access to those things. And sort of the immediate areas, some of the areas that you've seen, how are the crews, the firefighters doing in clearing those fire hydrants?
MARCIANO: Well, we haven't seen any firefighters actually going out and do that. What local media is telling the locals to do is if you know you live near a fire hydrant or have a business near a fire hydrant, get out and dig that out.
HARRIS: Yes, that's great.
MARCIANO: And it's really a -- you know, it's - well, you know, if I have a house near a fire hydrant, I want to be able to make sure the firefighters can get to that hydrant if my house starts to burn down. So, you know, some signs of the selfish attitude will serve the entire community well. So that's the deal here.
Snow advisory, or a lake-effect snow warning, Tony, is in effect until 6:00 p.m. tomorrow night. So even though we're in a lull right now, with the situation that's set up atmospherically, we're likely to get things cranking a little bit more as we go throughout the day.
HARRIS: Beautiful. All right, Rob, appreciate it. Stay safe. Who knew? Rob Marciano for us in Oswego, New York. Let's check in with Chad Myers now.
Chad, what a scene.
(WEATHER REPORT)
COLLINS: The problem with political parties. Is a website the answer for '08? Well, actor Sam Waterson (ph) says it is. That's ahead in the NEWSROOM.
HARRIS: Also, blazing inferno in Kansas City. We will update you on the chemical plant explosion and fire from yesterday. Hundreds forced to leave their homes, schools, and businesses.
COLLINS: And shots fired. A frightening day on the job for Africa correspondents Jeff Koinange.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We wondered, were we finally going to meet the Misty Rist Jomo (ph)?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: The fight over oil riches. Figuring out who's who in Nigeria's bloody battle. It's an eye-opening report you don't want to miss, coming up in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: That chemical plant fire in Kansas City, it's out, almost. Firefighters this morning are dousing the last of the flames at Cam Central Corporation. Look at that. The EPA says tests show smoke from Wednesday's explosion and fire was not toxic. The fire forced everyone, though, within a mile to evacuate. That included eight elementary schools. School is back in session today, but three elementary school buildings are still closed, their students being taught elsewhere.
HARRIS: Heidi, here's a quote for you, "like all hell broke loose." The reaction of a customer when a train smashed into a South Carolina convenient store. The accident left one person seriously hurt. It's reported the railroad says the engineers were trying to add a car and accidentally shoved the train off the tracks. It landed about eight feet, as you can see, inside the store. What's left of the building will be torn down.
COLLINS: OK, so get a load of this video and watch really closely. It appeared this guy probably failed burglary 101.
HARRIS: Good.
COLLINS: He breaks the lower half of one side of that glass door there. Watch. It's coming up in a second after he grabs the tip jar. Anyway, runs in, grabs the tip jar, spills it, quickly scoops up the money, starts to dash out. Wrong door, though. This restaurant thief got $15 to $30. And we imagine, a great big headache. You know what that reminds me of?
HARRIS: What's that?
COLLINS: "American Idol." They keep on going out the wrong door. And like they had made all of these clips saying "wrong door, wrong door." And they go with all their might out the wrong side of the door.
HARRIS: Oh! Hey, have a little concussion with the $30 there, buddy. Way to go, sporto.
COLLINS: I hope it was worth it, you know?
Meanwhile, Gerri Willis is here today now, personal finance editor, talking about how to be a better burglar?
GERRI WILLIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I love that video. It was awesome. Just great.
Well, you know, today we're talking about the frigid temperatures and what they do to your home. They can endanger it. Make it unsafe. How to keep you and your family toasty coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: All right, Heidi, let's get a check of the big board, New York Stock Exchange, Wall Street for this Thursday. First hour of the trading day about under our belt. What a bit of an improvement on this number. The Dow down 56 points. The Nasdaq down 10. But the day is young. There's certainly time for a turn-around. We will check all of the business headlines in just a couple of minutes with Susan Lisovicz from New York.
COLLINS: Across much of the country, as you've heard, winter is hitting hard. So how can you protect your home and your family from the big freeze? Here with "Top Tips" now, CNN personal finance editor Gerri Willis on top of the news this morning, joining us now from New York.
So, Gerri, what should . . .
WILLIS: Hey, Heidi. Good too to see you.
COLLINS: Yes, you too. And I'm glad that we're warm.
What should people be doing?
WILLIS: I wasn't so warm a couple of days ago. I was living this story. Our furnace went out. So this is some first-hand info. But we're going to start with those ice dams, because heavy snow and ice can do a lot of damage to your roofs as it builds up and as it melts. Ice dams are the ice on your eaves that blocks water from draining and forces the water into your house. You can prevent them by keeping your attic well ventilated to maintain a temperature close to that of the out of doors. You should also make sure that the attic floor is well insulated so the heat rising into the attic is minimized. Heidi.
COLLINS: All right. So tell us the story, this next one that you're talking about, protecting your pipes. What happened?
WILLIS: That's the scary part. Well, our furnace went out and I was afraid that our pipes would freeze. This happens to a lot of people. And if it happens to you, you should know where your main water shutoff valve is located so you can turn it off in case a pipe freezes or bursts. Now it's usually located along a basement wall next to the water meter.
To keep your pipes from freezing, wrap them in insulation. You'll want to open hot and cold faucets enough to get them drip slowly. That's what I did yesterday. And by keeping water moving through the pipes, you prevent the freezing. Another thing to do, improve the circulation of heated air near your pipes by opening the kitchen cabinet doors beneath the kitchen sink. So just a little prevention really goes a long way.
COLLINS: And, you know, it can get really expensive with these cold temperatures come to run the heat all of the time.
WILLIS: Yes.
COLLINS: What are some of the ways that you can work to keep those heating bills down?
WILLIS: You've got to seal your drafts. You can save 20 percent on your heating bills if you do. Look, use incense or a candle to test for drafts around your windows or your doors. A drifting line of smoke may indicate a problem. You'll want to seal any visible cracks with weather-stripping materials. And you can get those kits at any hardware store. But remember, you don't want to completely button up your home. When you have all your heating equipment running, you need a little fresh air to get into that house every once in a while.
COLLINS: I know a lot of people use the little space heaters, though, too, in certain areas of their homes. Maybe they have an older home that they just can't seem to get the heat to flow into.
WILLIS: Yes. I know people love these, but they can be a danger. Portable space heaters aren't the best or even the most efficient way to heat a house. But if you use one, make sure it has the mark of an independent testing lab. There should also be an automatic shutoff feature that will turn the space heater off automatically if it's tipped over, because that is the main danger.
Heidi.
COLLINS: Yes, I think a lot of the new ones have that now. So that's a good safety feature certainly.
WILLIS: Look for that feature. That's right.
COLLINS: Yes. All right. What about this weekend coming up on "Open House"?
WILLIS: "Open House," Saturday morning. 9:30 a.m. Saturday morning, we're going to talk about the Senate, what they're saying about predatory lending. And we're tracking the recovery of the communities hit by those Florida tornadoes. And you'll meet one handy granny.
COLLINS: Hmm. Interesting.
WILLIS: Yes. It's a good story. You'll love that.
COLLINS: We'll be watching that one, too. Something else that could be pretty handy today. A new report out this morning on the top consumer frauds and complaints. What's that all about?
WILLIS: That's right. Well, it's set to be released this morning by the federal and state officials. And what tops the list this year? Identity theft for the seventh year in a row. Stay tuned. We'll be following all the developments on that topic. But a big problem out there. The highest number of consumer complaints about identity theft.
COLLINS: Seven years and running, wow!
WILLIS: That's right.
COLLINS: OK, Gerri Willis.
WILLIS: Very unfortunate for people in those situations.
COLLINS: It is. It takes forever to get your identity back. I've done a couple stories on that. It's really a nightmare for people.
WILLIS: That's right.
COLLINS: All right, Gerri Willis, personal finance editor. Thank you.
WILLIS: Thank you.
HARRIS: They're hostages in a war for oil.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have a family. And they're -- we need to communicate to them. But our communication is closed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Taking a terrifying trip into the heart of darkness. A story you'll see only on CNN next in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to the CNN NEWSROOM.
HARRIS: Heidi Collins.
COLLINS: I'm Heidi, you're Tony.
HARRIS: I'm Tony. You just flipped it on me a little bit! All right, good morning, everyone.
We have an absolutely amazing story to share with you. Call them prisoners in a war over oil. Militants in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta targeting foreign workers, nine Chinese and two Filipinos. One a woman, were kidnapped this week in separate incidents, 31 people are now being held by different armed groups.
It is one of the strangest stories we have ever reported. It began with a mysterious e-mail and ended that very same way. A story about the oil that heats your house, the gas that runs your car, and a dangerous, some would say magical region in Africa known as the Niger Delta. There a rebel leader battling the Nigerian army contacted us.
Few would go inside this no-go zone. We did and so began a journey by CNN Africa correspondent Jeff Koinange, one that took him into the absolute hearts of darkness.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFF KOINANGE, CNN AFRICA CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A treasure lies beneath these brackish waters, billions of barrels of oil, so much that Nigeria produces about 10 percent of the oil brought into the U.S. So, if this oil is interrupted or stopped, it's all but certain to cause a disastrous recession in the U.S.
But where there are vast riches in Africa, there's always something else: bloodshed. But to see for ourselves what is happening in the Delta, we first needed permission from a mysterious rebel leader named Jomo, who communicates via e-mail, and whose heavily armed and fierce men are fighting for control of the Delta and the oil.
Jomo agreed to have us come by. But he wrote: "There's a snag. I don't do audio or video interviews."
Days later, we were on a speedboat to meet the phantom Jomo. We were an hour-and-a-half upriver from the Delta town of Warri, when, suddenly, out of nowhere, masked gunmen in powerful speedboats surrounded us, shooting over our heads and demanding to know who we are -- their weapons, impressive, small machine guns, a boat-mounted .50-caliber, and grenade launchers, far more firepower than I had ever seen in the Delta.
Simply put, in their black outfits and black ski masks, these guys were terrifying. And that's exactly what they have become: Nigeria's worst nightmare. They call themselves the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND. Their goal, they insist, is to mend what they say is the unequal distribution of the vast wealth reaped from Nigeria's oil bonanza. These murky water contain some of the richest oil deposits, and, ironically, some of the poorest people in the world. The rebels say they are like Robin Hood, and it's a matter of taking back the oil money from corrupt politicians, a corrupt military, and the oil companies, and giving it to the people who live here.
Recently, the rebels have ratcheted up. They are kidnapping expatriate workers who have come to work here. The number of hostages is growing quickly.
As for the Nigerian military, when they come down to the hostile swamps of the Delta, they are easy prey for the rebels, who kill them indiscriminately.
Oil facilities here are also favorite targets. Explosions have sharply cut the flow, a drop from three million barrels of sweet crude a day down to two million.
But for us, there seemed to be a dangerous misunderstanding. The rebel leader Jomo had invited us here, but these men in the black ski masks were suspicious and angry.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How many times do you come here with your cameras, and you didn't do anything? We don't want you guys to come here again.
KOINANGE: But we weren't about to leave so easily. We asked about Jomo. But they insisted he doesn't talk to anyone, especially journalists. But to prove how serious they are, they offered to take us to one of their hide-outs to show us something no western journalist has seen.
Another hour winding through the mangrove swamps, and we arrived at a scene I never thought possible in Nigeria. Men put on a show for us. Men in black dancing and chanting themselves into a trance. Some point their guns menacingly at us. Others try to intimidate us.
And yet we still had no idea who was in command here. No sign at all of our host, Jomo. And there's no way we could have ever guessed what they wanted us to see next.
Like Robin Hood and his men hiding in the dense woods, the MEND fighters have found safety in the unmarked islands hidden among the swamps of the delta. So, of course, there is no way to check on their claim. MEND tells us these are but a handful of 200,000 fighters they have throughout these waterways, an area about twice the size of Maryland.
But they could prove their willingness for audacious crimes.
(on camera) Just to show us how confident these MEND militants are, they brought us here deep in the heart of Niger Delta, to show us their latest hostages, 24 Filipino sailors.
(voice-over) It was a brazen raid at sea, The largest number of hostages kidnapped at once. The armed rebels' speed boat surrounded the workers' ship at sea, and they have now been held captive for nearly a month. MEND insists no harm will come to the hostages. This is about intimidation, a demonstration of MEND's power. It's also about ransom.
As for these dazed and confused sailors, imagine what they must be thinking when they see this menacing dance of madness.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're all OK, but only we want to be free. We want to be released.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have a family. And we need to communicate with them but our communications is closed.
KOINANGE: But how did it ever come to this? Who is coordinating these attacks?
After much discussion, the rebels did agree to take us to their leader, but only under one condition. Because of his superstitions we could only interview him in the water, out in the middle of the swamps. We wondered were we finally going to meet the mysterious Jomo?
(on camera) I'm here to find out about the movement. Who are you? What do you want? What's your struggle?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta is a struggle, a movement for the liberation of the Niger Delta, the most devastated and the most threatened region in the world.
KOINANGE: Is your fight against the oil multinationals or against the Nigerian government or against them all?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our fight is against everybody, every institution that don't want the people of the Niger Delta to have their fair share of the Nigerian project. Any person that is either by knowing or unknowingly has connived to deny the people of Niger Delta their fair share of the Nigerian project.
KOINANGE: And how far are you willing to go? How far is MEND willing to go to accomplish your goals?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: MEND has come to stay and that there is no force in the universe that will stop MEND in achieving these demands.
KOINANGE: What do you want to tell the oil companies right now? To leave Nigeria?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are telling all expatriates to leave Nigeria. Leave Nigeria. We will take lives. We will destroy lives. We will crumble the economy, mercilessly.
KOINANGE (voice-over): And with that the interview suddenly ends. The general's men feel vulnerable here in the open. We're escorted out and into open waters. But as we're about to take off one of the masked men issues yet another threat to the Nigerian government. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If they don't listen, well, maybe we don't know how many pieces it will go into, but the federal government will not be in peace except they listen to us.
KOINANGE: As for Jomo, we never did get to meet the man who invited us here. Or perhaps we did and he just wouldn't reveal himself.
But when we got home, we did get another message from the e- mailer calling himself Jomo. In this one, he complained the hostages we saw were not kidnapped by his group MEND and that our report would be misleading.
We have no doubt those kidnappers were MEND militants, and we have no idea why their leader would now distance himself from that. But the delta is full of mystery and magic and bloodshed.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Jeff Koinange joins us now from Johannesburg, South Africa. Jeff, man, just amazing reporting.
Let me first ask you, this Jomo character, is he suggesting in the last e-mail that you shared with us that MEND, the rebel group MEND didn't kidnap the Filipinos? And if that's the case, is he suggesting that there are other sort of splinter groups involved in the same kinds of activities?
KOINANGE: Look, Tony, we don't even know whether that was the same Jomo. It was a character calling himself Jomo. And again, with MEND, they claim they have 200,000 fighters in an area twice the size of Maryland.
So there's many factions of them deep in those creeks. Difficult to tell, but this is the modus operandi. When I asked them who they were, they did tell us they were MEND. When you heard their leader, his name was General Tomano Godswell (ph), he called himself. He said he was the field commander, or he was the commander of all of MEND. So this was MEND, according to him. So this character Jomo, calling himself Jomo, we don't know where he was coming from and why he was claiming these weren't their hostages.
HARRIS: Hey Jeff, why isn't more of the oil money getting to the people who so desperately need it?
KOINANGE: That's such a really good question. Look, when you think about it, close to three million barrels of oil every single day, at today's prices, Tony, that's close to $200 million every single day.
That's a lot of money to go around. But you know, if you asked people from the Nigerian government, they'll tell you, decades of corruption, mismanagement, military rule have caused this situation to be the way it is today.
And when politicians siphon off the funds, no one says anything, life goes on. No development goes on, no schools are built, no hospitals. These people don't even have drinking water or electricity in that Niger Delta, and no one speaks up. So all of a sudden, you have this movement that says, hey, enough is enough. We're going to do something about it.
HARRIS: OK, but still, I mean, the rebel force, the gun power -- look, you know where the rebels are. The government knows where the rebels are. Why is this a no go zone for the army?
KOINANGE: OK, very good question. If you took me down there again, Tony, I wouldn't know where to find them. We were in a speed boat for an hour and a half when we were confronted. And then got on for another hour inside the creeks.
You meander in and out of the creeks, the swamps. You don't even know where you are. The Nigerian military may know, but these guys, these militants, they are from that area. They know their area very well. They can evade the military. The military doesn't have, A, the fire power, B, the small speed boats to go into these creeks where the waters are shallow.
The military has bigger speed boats, which run aground when they go into these shallow creeks, and these guys know their way around. That's how they evade them and that's how they can keep hiding these hostages in their numbers.
HARRIS: Jeff, great reporting. Great to see you, we appreciate it.
And one more update on Jeff's story. Remember those Filipino hostages? The Philippine government says it is working to secure the release of those sailors. The government has also temporarily banned the deployment of Filipino workers to Nigeria.
COLLINS: The snow, the cold, the deep freeze, arctic weather keeping much of the East and Midwest in an icy grip. Chad Myers is tracking it all from the CNN Weather Center -- Chad?
(WEATHER REPORT)
SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I'm Susan Lisovicz at the New York Stock Exchange. On-time arrivals, does that sound like an oxymoron? When NEWSROOM returns, I'll have details about the government's annual report card on airline performance. You're watching CNN, the most trusted name in news.
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COLLINS: A new government report confirms what many airline travelers already know. Getting from here to there took longer than advertised. Susan Lisovicz is at the New York Stock Exchange now with details on all of this. Hi, Susan. Probably not a huge surprise to those of us who seem to wait around a lot.
(BUSINESS HEADLINES)
HARRIS: Well, he found a small fortune in diamonds, yet never lost his moral compass. That story, coming up in the NEWSROOM.
The plot is sort of cheesy and the main character's kind of stiff. But it's a bonafide hit, on the World Wide Web. We'll tell you that story, too, cheese and all, in the NEWSROOM.
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OSMAN CHOWDHURY, NYC CABBIE: I feel proud. I found (INAUDIBLE) my happiness.
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HARRIS: Happiness! Meet the toast of New York, there. He found 31 diamond rings in his cab with no identification, yet he never considered keeping them. Instead, he spent hours tracking down the owner. The jeweler, relieved, to be sure, rewarded the cabbie with a $100 check?
OK, it was better than the 30-cent tip she gave him earlier for an $11 fare. Geez!
COLLINS: Well, if you lots of free time, this is the channel for you. It is the Cheddar Channel. It's a Web cam of blocks of cheese aging at a farm in Britain. For reasons unknown to us, cheddarvision.tv, has had 47,000 hits since January 1st. Even the farmer can't see the appeal of his cheese cam. He compares it to watching paint dry, but that's actually a different Web cam. You can go there at www.watchingpaintdry.com. It's news you can use all the time.
(WEATHER REPORT)
HARRIS: Still to come, riding with the men of Charlie Company.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of our guys got hit by a grenade. And the IED went off two days ago here right behind our truck.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: The dangers of patrolling Baghdad's meanest streets in the NEWSROOM.
COLLINS: And losing a child because there is no donor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, like. are we killing ourselves with not helping each other?
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COLLINS: The shortage of African-American donors, coming up in the NEWSROOM.
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