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American Morning
Pakistan In Crisis; On Strike; Citi Crisis; Winfrey School Scandal
Aired November 05, 2007 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Pakistan in crisis. Hundreds of protesters under arrest overnight. Can the military government and U.S. ally in the war on terror hang on?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the eight nuclear powers out of control.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Oprah speaks out. A worldwide news conference this morning. A worker at her all-girls school faces the music.
Plus, pencils down. Hollywood writers on strike right now and your favorite shows heading toward repeats, on this AMERICAN MORNING.
And good morning to you. Thanks very much for joining us on this Monday, the 5th of November. I'm John Roberts.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kiran Chetry. Glad you're with us.
Well, it could be the most important ally waging the war on terror. But this morning, Pakistan's government is in total chaos. Democracy itself has been put on hold. President Pervez Musharraf suspending the constitution. Papers and political disinters (ph) being silenced by police. So far, more than 1,500 lawyers arrested across Pakistan. CNN's Emily Chang joins us now from London for our international update desk now with more on what's going on in Pakistan.
Hi, Emily.
EMILY CHANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kiran.
Well, this is a very fast-moving story. New developments are happening by the minute. Just in the last few hours, the U.S. has suspended defense talks with Pakistan and canceled a visit by Pentagon officials scheduled to happen this week.
Also, thousands of protesters have taken to the streets shouting "go Musharraf, go!"
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHANG, (voice over): Police swinging batons and firing tear gas clash with demonstrators outside the courthouse in Lahore. More than a thousand lawyers were arrested there. Hundreds more in other cities across the country. This after President General Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency and suspended the constitution. In a speech, Musharraf explicitly addressed his listeners in the U.S. and compared himself to Abraham Lincoln.
PRES. PERVEZ MUSHARRAF, PAKISTAN: He broke laws, he violated the constitution, he usurped arbitrary party (ph), trampled (ph) individual liberties. His justification was necessity.
CHANG: The government insist it is remains committed to the democratic process. However, critics say this is a last ditch effort by Musharraf to maintain his power. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, traveling in China this morning, called the event in Pakistan disturbing.
ROBERT GATES, DEFENSE SECRETARY: We urge President Musharraf to return his country to law-based constitutional and democratic rule as soon as possible.
CHANG: The U.S. and Britain have given billions of dollars to Pakistan to fight the war on terror, but leaders in both countries now say that funding will be reviewed. Musharraf's leadership has been threatened by the recent return of political rival and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
BENAZIR BHUTTO, FORMER PAKISTANI PRIME MINISTER: I feel that unless regime change comes, we could be facing a takeover by radicals.
CHANG: So far, Musharraf has arrested several hundred political opponents, including the former cricket captain turned politician Inran Kahn (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a total darkness now.
CHANG: Pakistan's prime minister admitted democratic elections scheduled for January could be pushed back by up to a year and said the state of emergency will be in place "as long as it is necessary."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHANG: Now here in London, a group of Pakistani students is expected to be staging a protest at the Pakistani high commission. Also the brother of another exiled former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, is expected to be giving a press conference of his own. Sharif has come out saying, this is an example of one man taking an entire country hostage.
Kiran.
CHETRY: All right, Emily Chang for us in London this morning. Thanks.
ROBERTS: We could soon see some unscheduled repeats on television. That's because the Writer's Guild of America went on strike early this morning. We expect to see picketing outside of major studios in just a short while. Shows that rely on current events, like "The Tonight Show" and "The Late Show" could be forced into repeats. Other shows have episodes already in tape but could be affected if the strike drags on for very long. Our Lola Ogunnaike joins us now. She's been monitoring developments. She's got more on the strike.
Good morning, Lola.
LOLA OGUNNAIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. How are you?
ROBERTS: Good. Good.
So what's going on here?
OGUNNAIKE: So, you know, they met with a federal mediator last night in the hopes of averting this strike, but the WGA and the alliance of motion picture and television producers cannot come to a conclusion. So the strike it on this morning. They'll be picketing in places like NBC's headquarters at Rockefeller Center this morning starting at 9:00 and they'll be picketing in Los Angeles in front of places like Paramount and Disney.
ROBERTS: So this is all because of rights to DVD, Internet downloads, that sort of thing. They couldn't reach any kind of an agreement. Any idea where they ended up before they walked out?
OGUNNAIKE: No idea where they ended up, but they've been negotiating since mid July. So clearly they haven't moved at all in any way.
This is, again, about DVD. They want more residuals. They make about four cents for every DVD sold now. They want to make about eight cents.
And this is also about new media. It's primarily about new media. They want to ensure that they get a cut of what is to come in the future. Scenes like iTunes, iPods, digital downloads, all of that didn't exist in 1988 when they last went on strike. So now they want to make sure that they get a bigger piece of the pie.
ROBERTS: All right. Still pretty dark right now, but I assume that they'll be walking the picket lines soon. We'll get some pictures of that as the morning progresses. Lola Ogunnaike, thanks.
Kiran.
CHETRY: Also new this morning.
He appears to have the votes, but there are still some doubts about the president's nominee for attorney general, Michael Mukasey. The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on his nomination tomorrow. Republican Senator Arlen Specter now says that he will back the nominee. Specter, though, says he's still bothered by Mukasey's refusal to say whether waterboard is torture.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ARLEN SPECTER, (R) PENNSYLVANIA: The Department of Justice is dysfunctional. It is not performing. And every day that passes, we do not have someone in charge of the investigation against terrorism, the fight against violent crime and it's very important in the national interesting that we have a strong attorney general.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Waterboarding is an interrogation tactic that simulates drowning. Mukasey said if Congress passes a law banning it, the president cannot ignore it.
Well, Discovery is heading home right now. These are live pictures from NASA. Just a short time ago, shuttle Discovery undocked from the International Space Station. There you see the live look from the shuttle. Beautiful out there. The shuttle mission was highlighted by a first of its kind repair job. It successfully fixed a ripped solar wing. "Discovery" is scheduled to touch down Wednesday after the 15-day trip.
And coastal New England cleaning up this morning from the remnants of Hurricane Noel. Eighty thousand homes lost power. More than five inches of rain fell this weekend in Maine. Another six inches in parts of Massachusetts. Noel was blamed for more than 140 deaths in the Caribbean.
Also in southern Mexico, flood waters are receding, but thousands remain homeless this morning. At least eight people have died in the floods which destroyed or damaged half a million homes. Mexico's president says the flooding is the country's worst natural disaster in recent history.
John.
ROBERTS: Oprah Winfrey is speaking about this morning about the arrest of a worker at her all girls academy in South Africa. Winfrey will appear via satellite from Chicago about two hours from now. Already this morning, a former dorm worker appeared in court, south of Johannesburg, accused of sexually assaulting students. Winfrey opened her school back in January. We're going to bring you Oprah's news conference live when it happens. That's at about 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time, Eastern Standard Time. I'm sorry. Don't forget, we switched the clocks back over the weekend.
Police in the Chicago area still have no clues in the mysterious disappearance of a police officer's wife. Twenty-three-year-old Stacy Peterson was last seen on October the 28th. Dozens of volunteers searched for evidence over the weekend. Stacy's husband, Drew Peterson, says his wife called him the day she disappeared to say that she was leaving him for another man. Her family and friends believe Sergeant Peterson may have something to do with Stacy's disappearance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think that he's running scared. I think, obviously, he has something to hide if he took off, you know, and he's not helping. If he didn't do anything wrong, why isn't he helping find his wife?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: At the moment, authorities consider her disappearance a missing person's case and do not suspect foul play, but they reopened the investigation into the death of Peterson's third wife, who was found dead in a bathtub. That was back in 2004.
A teacher from Nebraska faces a judge today on charges that she had an affair with a 13-year-old student and ran away with him to Mexico. Twenty-five-year-old Kelsey Peterson and 13-year-old Fernando Rodriguez were captured in Mexicali, Mexico over the weekend. Rodriguez was in the U.S. illegally and may not be allowed back in.
Well, he's 3,000 years old. He's been a hot tourist attraction for years. But for the first time the public gets to see King Tut's face. He's now out of his stone tomb with the linen sheet pulled back so the public can see. Tut's body is in a climate-controlled glass box. Archaeologists say otherwise it might turn to dust. They first found Tut's tomb 85 years ago in Luxor's famous Valley of the Kings.
Kiran.
CHETRY: Wow. It's still fascinating to see that.
It's time now to check in with our AMERICAN MORNING team of correspondents for other stories new this morning. A shakeup at Citigroup. A new CEO is coming in and the credit crisis may be worse than anyone thought. Ali Velshi's live at the business update desk with more details for us.
Hi, Ali.
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kiran.
Another one bites the dust. In two weeks, this is the second major CEO. This time the nation's largest financial services company, Chuck Prince, the CEO of Citigroup has resigned, just hours ago. He has left under pressure relating to Citigroup's exposure to this whole credit crisis. More money again than ever expected. And that's what we heard at Merrill Lynch, we've heard at Lehman Brothers, we've heard at so many of these other groups.
Chuck Prince is going to be replaced as chairman of the company by Robert Ruben, who is the Treasury secretary of the United States, former chairman over there and at Goldman Sachs as well. And the interim CEO will be Sir Win Bischoff, who heads Goldman's European unit.
But the issue at -- who heads Citigroup's European unit at the moment. The issue at Citigroup, of course, is not the two guys at the top. It's going to be how they deal with the sub prime issue, how bad it is, how quickly they and the other major banks are able to tell Americans how serious their exposure has been. This is what has been worrying the markets, that we don't know how exposed these banks have been to these derivative instruments that came from the sub prime mortgage sector.
We continue to follow that. But right now, Citigroup will have a new chairman and CEO and we'll see how the other banks fare.
Kiran.
CHETRY: Ali Velshi, thanks so much.
Also, Rob Marciano at our weather update desk. He's tracking extreme weather, including some parts of the country that are going to be getting quite cold.
(WEATHER REPORT)
ROBERTS: The game was billed as Super Bowl 41 1/2. And for New England Patriots fans, it didn't disappoint. The Patriots rallied to score two touchdowns late in the fourth quarter to beat the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday, 24-20 in a battle of the NFL's unbeatens. The Pats now 9-0.
And check out this play that everybody's going to be talking about today. That's San Diego's Antonio Cromartie in the Minnesota end zone. He grabbed a missed field goal, watch this, and took off. Ran 109 yards for the touchdown. The longest play in NFL history. It was the bright spot for the Chargers, though, because the Vikings won it 35-17.
Kiran.
CHETRY: Well, a drop in oil tops your "Quick Hits" now. Oil fell to about $95 a barrel overnight in Asia. That's nearly $1 lower than Friday's close, even though it still seems very high. The easing tension between Turkey and Kurdish rebels today is said to be making traders more confident in oil supplies.
Gas prices, though, are still up, 16 cents in the past two weeks. According to the Lundberg Survey, the national average for a gallon of regular is $2.96. Newark, New Jersey, the lowest price and San Francisco the highest with $3.28 a gallon.
Well, still ahead on AMERICAN MORNING, a former dormitory matron accused of abuse of students at Oprah's school in South Africa. She now appears in court. We're going to tell you what happened. And Oprah also speaking out about this situation at her school and the controversy surrounding it, live this morning. We'll bring it to you right here on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Coming up to 16 minutes after the hour. Some of the shots you've just got to see in your "Quick Hits" now. Is your kid an atomic wedgie victim just waiting to happen? Put a pair of these in his Christmas stocking. Eight-year-old twins in Ohio have developed wedgie-free underwear. They tear away when a bully goes in for the grab. The Rip-away 1,000 got the twins to the finals of an inventors competition in Ohio earlier this year.
Well, there's a new popular baby name in China, Olympics. A Chinese paper says close to 3,500 children have been named Olympics in honor of the 2008 Beijing games. It's just one way the parents are trying to separate their kids from the pack because, in China, an estimated 1 billion people share just 129 family names. But now there's 3,500 kids all named Olympics.
A 100-car pile-up near Fresno, California. At least two people were killed, including a five-year-old boy. Witnesses say a thick fog made it difficult to see what was in front of them. Police arrested one man for drunk driving.
Now let's go over to Kiran.
CHETRY: All right, John, thanks. Well, Oprah's speaking out this morning and a former worker at her all girls school in South Africa how now made a court appearance. Alina Cho has been following the latest developments for us.
Oprah really trying to get ahead of this and be proactive in light of all this controversy and scandal.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. She's made two trips to South Africa too. Separate ones, Kiran.
You know, the woman is out on bail now. The court appearance happened in South Africa just a couple of hours ago. The suspect is a 27-year-old woman. She was a dorm matron at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls. She was charged this morning with 13 counts of abuse, assault and soliciting girls for indecent acts.
Now there were seven victims, we're told. Most between the ages of 13 and 14. One was 23. Police told CNN, at least one of the allegations is that a woman grabbed a girl by the throat and threw her against the wall.
Now it's hard to imagine this happening when you consider just a short 10 months ago there was a lavish ribbon cutting. Oprah unveiled to the world her $40 million namesake academy. She paid for it with her own money.
The school is built on 52 acres south of Johannesburg. Oprah, as many people know, hand picked each of the 152 students. All of them poor. Every one a straight "a" student. The school provides free tuition, uniforms and room and board.
Now Oprah has made two trips, as I mentioned, to the school since the allegations became public. She's even hired her own investigators. On Friday, Oprah issued a statement saying, "it is my deepest hope that the accused is brought to justice and that this serves as a reminder that at any time a child has the courage to step forward, it is our duty as adults to listen and take immediate action."
Now Oprah will be going before the cameras again this morning, Kiran. That is coming up in our 8:00 hour. In fact, at 8:00 Eastern we're going to carry it here live.
CHETRY: Wow. So Oprah really taking proactive steps. I think the local police said that her hiring her investigators actually did help move that investigation along.
CHO: That's right. From Cook County. From Chicago. She took her own investigator there. I mean she's been there twice. She's issued several statements. Really, really, really getting out in front, as you mentioned.
CHETRY: And then she bought cell phones, apparently, for all 150-some of the girls with her own numbers programmed in.
CHO: That's right. And gave her personal e-mail and told the parents, listen, if you want to get in touch with me, now you can.
CHETRY: And there were sexual accusations as well in this. Could some of these girls have to testify?
CHO: I'm not sure if the girls will be called to testify, but the victims are between 13 and 14 years old. One was 23 years old, which is a little intriguing. But, yes, soliciting indecent acts is one of the charges. Thirteen counts in all. Some of the details are not quite out, but one of them is that she allegedly threw a girl against a wall, grabbed her by her throat.
CHETRY: All right. Well, we'll be following it and we'll bring that news conference live. Alina's on the story all morning. Thank you.
CHO: You bet.
ROBERTS: A volcano ready to erupt tops your "Quick Hits" now. A volcano in Indonesia is sending clouds of white smoke into the sky. A major eruption could be next at Mt. Kelud. But 25,000 residents have ignored evacuations orders and are staying in the danger zone.
North Korea is expected to start disabling its nuclear facilities today. It shut down its only known working nuclear reactor back in July, promised to decommission it in exchange for aid. A U.S. team will help oversee the dismantling.
Imagine being on a plane that crashes into another plane and has its wing tip broken off and you're told that you won't be switching planes? We'll tell you what those passengers did ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Well, some health headlines for you in your "Quick Hits" now. Cargill is recalling more than a million pounds of ground beef because of possible E. Coli contamination. The beef produced between October 8th and 11th at a plant in Pennsylvania and then shipped to retailers nationwide, including Giant, Shop Rite, Stop & Shop, Wegmans and Weis. No illnesses have been reported, but this is the secondary, voluntary recall by Cargill in the past month.
Another case of the drug resistant staph infection MRSA to report. A college freshman at New York University tested positive for MRSA. The student lived in the dorm, but the university says there's no danger to the student body. The video you saw was another young child, a seventh grader, who died from that infection at a New York- area school.
Well, researchers say that every extra hour of sleep a third grader gets can reduce their risk of obesity. A Michigan University study found that children who generally got less than nine hours of sleep were more likely to be overweight by the sixth grade. Our medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, has the breakdown of who needs how much sleep. All of that coming up at the top of the hour
ROBERTS: It is portable peace and quiet. About the size of a pack of cigarettes. You push a button and you can silence every cell phone within earshot. Sounds like something that many people who ride the train or bus to work would love to have in their pockets, but it's not exactly legal. The argument over cell phone jammers. That's coming up in our next hour of AMERICAN MORNING.
And we want to know what you think. Would you use a cell phone jammer even though it's illegal? Cast your vote at cnn.com/am. We'll have the first tally of votes coming up in our next hour here this morning.
CHETRY: All right. And how about this. A "Hot Shot" that could melt the polar ice caps. A polar bear cub kissing momma bear on the shores of Hudson Bay in Canada. How adorable is that? You love polar bears.
ROBERTS: Oh, yes. I mean, they're just the best.
CHETRY: So cute.
ROBERTS: I mean who said it's confined to muskrat love, you know? You got polar bear love.
CHETRY: Hey, how about this one. If you have a great picture you want us to show, send it in. It could be our next "Hot Shot." E- mail us amhotshots@cnn.com. Can we show that one more time, because that's just to cute. Make sure, by the way, that the image is yours, not one that you've just seen while surfing the net or something like that. It has to be yours.
ROBERTS: Look at that.
CHETRY: Very cute.
ROBERTS: Who says animals can't love. CHETRY: Oh.
Well, here's a look at another story coming up that you can't miss. Planes lined up for takeoff, all the way down the runway, none of them going anywhere and, of course, neither are you.
ROBERTS: So why are there so many delays? What does congestion mean? How do you fix the problem? Get the inside scoop today from a guy who spent years at one of the nation's busiest airports. That story and today's headlines when AMERICAN MORNING returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING on this Monday. It is November 5th. I'm Kiran Chetry.
ROBERTS: Good morning to you. I'm John Roberts.
New this morning.
Breaking news overseas. Worldwide reaction to the crisis in Pakistan. President Pervez Musharraf has suspend the constitution. He fired the chief justice of the supreme court, along with 1,500 attorneys. And papers are not being allowed to print anything negative about it. Musharraf says the moves are necessary to head off the growing threat of terrorism and what he calls out of control judicial activism. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair weighed in, saying the faster democracy is restored the better.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TONY BLAIR, FORMER BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: It's a fast- developing situation there, but the sooner that we return to the pledges to restore democracy that were set out, the better. But it's a very, very, very difficult situation, yes, indeed. And it's a situation that, if it's not resolved in the right way, I think it's extremely worrying for the whole of the world, not just for Pakistan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: President Bush is expected to address the crisis in Pakistan later on today.
President Bush and the prime minister of Turkey are scheduled to meet today to discuss the Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. Erdogan and Turkish officials want Washington to redouble efforts against the rebels. Members of the PKK have stepped up their cross-border attacks. The White House is trying to persuaded Turkey not to launch a full scale military attack across the border into Iraq.
There is a new man leading the country's biggest bank as the company faces a crisis. Citigroup named former Treasury secretary Robert Rubin as its new chairman and CEO, replacing Charles Prince. Rubin was named after an emergency meeting of the company's board on Sunday. The company had to write off billions of dollars worth of bad debt related to the crisis and the credit market and may still need to write off billions more.
Kiran?
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: An autopsy on the marathon runner who died during the Olympic trials in New York City this weekend. It turned out to be inconclusive. Ryan Shay was running in Saturday's Olympic Marathon qualifier. It was the day before the actual marathon when he collapsed five and a half miles in. He was diagnosed with an enlarged heart in the past but it had been cleared by doctors to run. He was just 28 years old. Other marathoners call it a big loss for the running community. His wife was also a runner. In our next hour we'll be joined by our medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen with more on the story.
And we're heading back to $3 a gallon for gas, according to the latest Lundberg survey. The average price for a gallon of self-serve is $2.96, up 16 cents over the past two weeks but with oil prices nearing $100 a barrel, the rise in gas was expected.
TV and movie writers on strike today. Contract talks broke off overnight. The two sides cannot agree on how writers should be paid for programs distributed on new media like DVDs and streaming online. You'll see the first effects of the strike on late night talk shows and daytime talk shows and soap operas. Producers of stockpiled movie scripts and said primetime TV will be OK until early next year. The last time writers walk out in 1988, studios lost $500 billion.
ROBERTS: Coming up now, 32 minutes after the hour. A fairly mild October over most of the country but in some areas of the nation, Rob Marciano says it looks like somebody has flipped the switch from fall to winter. Hey, Rob.
(WEATHER REPORT)
ROBERTS: Would you get on an aircraft after the flight crew says everything's fine, the wing's just broken. It's a real life travel nightmare that led to a passenger revolt in Great Britain. According to London's "Daily Mail," Sri Lankan Airline passengers were on board an Airbus 340 when it clipped a British Airways 747 on the runway at Heath Row Airport. This is video from the scene a couple of weeks ago. Here's a closer look, too. The collision sheered off a five- foot chunk of metal. The flight was delayed for 24 hours.
The next day, the passengers were directed onto the very same plane. Seven passengers said, let me out. The airline says that the wing tip is not an essential part of the aircraft, only used to reduce fuel costs. It wouldn't affect safety. But you can clearly see there's a little chunk of it gone there.
CHETRY: Yes, and if you're going on a ten-hour flight, I don't know. I mean, that might hamper your...
ROBERTS: Well, it certainly wouldn't instill confidence, would it?
CHETRY: No. The other thing, too. I mean, to add insult to injury. There were seven passengers wanted to get off. The rest of them decided to stay but the time these guys complained and had to get off the plane, but had to get off their baggage, they were delayed again and the people actually decided to stay and keep quite.
ROBERTS: They still didn't fix the plane?
CHETRY: No. What they say it's purely for aerodynamic reasons, nothing to do with safety. Wow.
Well, other news this morning. We start in Argentina. Prisoners trapped in a deadly fire. At least 29 inmates died in an Argentine prison. Officials say that some of the prisoners set the fire as part of a plan to try to break out. The dense smoke turned the cell into a death trap. Prison officials say that no inmates escaped alive.
Vietnam is bracing for another tropical storm, even as they try to survive flooding that began over the weekend. 24 people dead, hundreds of houses flooded. Today's storm is expected to cause the third flood in three weeks in that nation.
A criminal path for someone in Fred Thompson's camp and why the presidential candidate isn't throwing him under the bus, that's your "Political Ticker" and other news as well coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Coming up on 39 minutes after the hour. Welcome back to the most news in the morning here on CNN. Your "Quick Hits" now. A push for Middle East peace. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas today. She sat down with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday. Rice is trying to jumpstart talks ahead of a major Mid-East conference in Annapolis, Maryland, this fall. Olmert said that those talks could go a long way to establishing a Palestinian state before President Bush leaves the office.
A break-through in talks between two of the world's largest military powers. As defense secretary Robert Gates meets with Chinese leaders in Beijing today. The U.S. and China have reportedly agreed to step up military hot line or set up a military hotline rather in case of a conflict. It's a direct link between the heads of government, much like the one established between the United States and the Soviet Union years ago to prevent nuclear war.
And more troops are ling up on Turkey's border with Iraq. Even as the two sides took a major step toward a peaceful resolution. Kurdish rebels released eight kidnapped Turkish soldiers yesterday on the eve of talks between President Bush and the Turkey's prime minister. The men were captured during an ambush two weeks ago when 12 other soldiers were killed. Turkey has sent an estimated 100,000 troops to the border and threatened a full-scale invasion of Northern Iraq.
Kiran?
CHETRY: All right, well, political loyalty topping our "Political Ticker" this morning. Fred Thompson says he was not aware of the criminal past of one of his presidential advisers. Thompson's been campaigning in a private jet owned by the adviser Phillip Martin. Back in 1978, Martin pleaded guilty to the sale of marijuana and in '83, he was charge with cocaine, trafficking, and conspiracy pleaded no contest and got probation according to the "Washington Post." Thompson said he would not quote "Throw my friend under the bus for indiscretions done 25 years ago."
And a political bond between two former presidents is giving way to the loyalty of the party. Former President George Bush says that his friendship with Former President Clinton will not prevent him from speaking his mind about democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. The former president called for Senator Clinton a formidable opponent but says he's not sure she'll win the democratic nomination. In recent years, the two ex-presidents have worked together on various charitable causes.
Hillary Clinton denying charges that she's keeping any secrets about her role in the health care overhaul. Opponents say the Clintons are blocking the release of White House papers from the 1990s. Campaigning in Iowa this weekend, she said that she's for releasing the documents as quickly as possible.
And Barack Obama took a shot at Hillary Clinton in a surprise appearance on "Saturday Night Live."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, who is that under there?
BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hello Hillary, hello, Bill.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nice to see you Barack. So, you dressed as yourself.
OBAMA: Well, you know, Hillary, I have nothing to hide. I enjoy being myself. I'm not going to change who I am just because it's Halloween.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well then, that's great.
OBAMA: And may I say, you make a lovely bride.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's a witch.
OBAMA: Live from New York, it's Saturday night!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Obama's appearance was kept top secret. He flew in to New York from the campaign trail in South Carolina. And you can find all the day's top political stories around the clock at cnn.com/ticker.
We also have some changes here at CNN to tell you about. Beginning this afternoon, "The Situation Room" with Wolf Blitzer will air from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time and "Lou Dobbs Tonight" moves to primetime with a new start time of 7:00 p.m. Eastern.
ROBERTS: Another young actor in legal trouble today. That tops your "Quick Hits". Transformers star Shia LaBeouf was arrested early Sunday for trespassing. Security guards at Walgreens in Chicago called police after the 21 refused to leave the store. He posted bail and was released. He is due back in court later on this month.
And the pornography groups are going after the Pentagon for not enforcing its own rules. Several groups say the Pentagon is allowing pornographic materials to be sold in military stores, despite a 10- year-old congressional ban on the practice. The Pentagon's resale activities board of review took a look at "Penthouse" and several "Playboy" publications and determined that quote "Based solely on the totality of each magazine's content, they were not sexually explicit."
Flyers frustrated over delayed flights. We want to know just what's causing these delays. We'll hear from one man who is in the middle of it all and wrote about his career as an air traffic controller at O'Hare in a new book.
And for the first time since his death, more than 3,000 years ago, archaeologists are unveiling King Tut's face to the public. We'll give you a firsthand look at the famous Egyptian Pharaoh when AMERICAN MORNING returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: 46 minutes past the hour. And if you're just joining us, here's a look at what's new this morning. TV and movie writers are on strike today. Contract talks broke off overnight. The two sides cannot agree on how much writers should be paid for programs distributed on new media like DVDs and streaming online. The last time writers walked out, it was back in 1988, costing the studios half a billion-dollar.
Breaking news on a growing political crisis in a country central to the war on terror. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf suspending the country's constitution. He fired the chief justice of the Supreme Court, silenced papers and fired 1,500 lawyers. Musharraf says the moves are necessary to head off the growing threat of terrorism in what he calls out of control judicial activism. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the U.S. will now review its financial aid package to Pakistan including billions of dollars given to the country to fight terror.
"Discovery" is headed home. Just a short time ago, the shuttle undocked from the international space station, the shuttle mission was highlighted by a first of its kind repair job that successfully fix a torn solar wing. "Discovery" is scheduled to touch down Wednesday after a 15-day trip.
CHETRY: And this is what a 3,000-year-old face looks like. The first time King Tut's face was on display at the public. Yesterday in Egypt, his body first discovered 85 years ago but until now it would have been kept under wraps in an effort to preserve it. Of course, they're still going to preserved and it's going to be in a climate- controlled glass-encased case there to make sure it stays protected.
The Denzel Washington crime drama "American Gangster" topped the box office this weekend taking in more than $46 million. Not far behind, Jerry Seinfeld highly-anticipated film "Bee Movie." The anime featured brought in over $39 million.
ROBERTS: 48 minutes after the hour. Delays are plaguing the airline industry and the problem only seems to be getting worse. How bad is it and how much of the blame should be put on overworked air traffic controllers? Bob Richards is a retired air traffic controller and is the author of "Secrets from the Tower," an O'Hare traffic controller's personal stories of life and aviation. I had the chance to talk with him about the problems in the air and asked him what he thought was the reason for the increase in delays across the country.
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BOB RICHARDS, AUTHOR OF "SECRETS FROM THE TOWER": I would say the biggest reason has got to be the staffing. The staffing of having enough controllers to get the job done. Currently, the way we're doing business now, the way we've been doing business actually for years is we have one controller doing the job of two or three controllers.
ROBERTS: So, you're saying this is not the airlines of re- scheduling flights. This is a fault of the FAA?
RICHARDS: I would consider the over scheduling of flights a problem but it would not be in my top ten list. And I have a top ten list in my book.
ROBERTS: Everybody is pointing finger at everybody else here.
RICHARDS: Everybody shares responsibility, particularly some of the policies we've set up in our government bureaucracy.
ROBERTS: How do too few controllers result in these delays?
RICHARDS: Well, because what happens now is you have to combine the workload to one which would have been for three. To do that safely, what you have to do is bring in the "r" word, restrictions, and a lot of typically what will happen, is the controller look back and the supervisor say, well, if you've got me combining these two or three positions where there should be two or three other controllers, then now instead of giving me the 37 miles I normally need, I want you to give me between 15 and 20.
ROBERTS: So this is phasing in the aircraft.
RICHARDS: So this becomes a domino effect. Instead of 3 miles to 7, we space it out further...
ROBERTS: And then you can't put as many aircraft in the air. So, when we're taking off from Washington to go to New York City, we hear congestion, they've given us a takeoff time of such and such, 45 minutes from now that's because of a spacing issue?
RICHARDS: We don't have the luxury now of digitalizing it. In other words, they have to be if they're below three miles now, it's an operational error. Eyeballing it is not enough. So, what controllers are doing is building in the extra separation just are not alone, four, five sometimes even six miles because they'll collapse, so quickly sometimes you have to build that in to the system. Something you didn't have to do in the '80s and '90s, but now you have to do in the new millennium.
ROBERTS: What about extra runways? Would that fix the problem?
RICHARDS: Absolutely. You can't have enough runways. Look at Denver...
ROBERTS: But it costs a lot of money.
RICHARDS: It cost a lot of money. The bottom line with money is stuffing too.
ROBERTS: Well, thanks for your insight. You have explained some of this to me now. I understand that when we're told you can't take off now it's because of the aircraft, you can't get so many in the air. Bob Richards, thank you. Former traffic controller. Good to talk to you. Thanks.
RICHARDS: You bet.
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CHETRY: And time for your "Quick Hits" now. The widow of the late crocodile hunter Steve Irwin has written a book about their life together. Terri Irwin says she started writing the book four months after his death last year in a freak underwater accident involving a sting ray. Irwin is also being honored with a commemorative stamp in Australia. There's a look at it. It's being issued just in time to celebrate the inaugural Steve Irwin day, which is November 14th in Australia.
Relatives of a missing Illinois woman believe she's dead. They said 23-year-old Stacy Peterson, last seen October 28th at the moment her husband, pictured there, not considered a suspect but officials have now reopened the investigation into the circumstances of the death of his last wife. We'll have more on that story coming up in the next hour.
Also, a big celebrity in the sea of runners at this weekend's New York City marathon. We'll tell you who it was and some other big names out there to cheer her on as well, that's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
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ROBERTS: Happy but tired feet and sore legs across New York City this morning. Out of nearly 40,000 runners at the New York City marathon on Sunday, Kenyan Martin Lel beat them all. He won the men's race in two hours, nine minutes and four seconds.
CHETRY: I don't know if I could do that on the bike.
ROBERTS: I couldn't do it in two weeks.
The woman's winner was Paula Radcliffe of Great Britain. She crossed the line in two hours and 23 minutes and 9 seconds and she had a baby back in January. Paula Radcliffe joins us live in our 8:00 hour to talk about her win and her training which wasn't without controversy.
CHETRY: She trained the entire time she was pregnant as well.
ROBERTS: She did but if there was one runner who could steal the show, it would be this relatively new mom, Katie Holmes. She finished her first marathon in five hours, 29 minutes and 58 seconds and after it was all over, met up husband Tom Cruise and their daughter, Suri at the finish line.
CHETRY: Hey, more power to you. Anyone that can actually run or even walk or even hobble for 26-some miles, hey, you're a hero in my book.
ROBERTS: It really is incredible.
CHETRY: Absolutely. All right, well, 55 minutes past the hour, Ali Velshi is here. It feels like, you know, what's been going on with the mortgage crisis marathon of sorts.
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's the marathon but another marathon has now come to an end. One story that we've been following for months has now come to an end. We have a deal at Ford. There's not going to be another auto strike. Just news of this over the weekend.
Ford has finally settled with the United Autoworkers. The deal covers 55,000 union workers but of course the bigger story is not the union workers covered, it's the 98,000 retired union members and their spouses, about 30,000 of them who are going to get some deals. Like the other deals that we saw at Chrysler and GM, there will be the shift of retirement health care over to the union. This is interesting, though. Ford has agreed, we understand, reports are that Ford has agreed that it will not close U.S. factories that have been slated for closure already, which a commitment to the UAW did not get from the other two car companies.
They're also going to offer a new round of buyouts so maybe not more layoffs. This is interesting, because the other two, we saw strikes, we're hoping to get a ratification on this in the next couple of weeks. The votes of the ratification, the union members voting for these contracts, the numbers have been lower than you'd expect there'd been more people standing out but Ford is in the worst financial position of all of the Detroit car makers. It lost $12.6 billion last year, which puts it in ranking with the financial services that we've been talking about in the mortgage crisis.
CHETRY: You showed us, I think, just the cost based on these companies, the big three that have to continue to pay for workers...
VELSHI: Right, so every car that you buy, North American car you buy, the equivalent car made by a non-American company either can have $1,500 more worth of stuff or can be cheaper because they don't have what they call these legacy costs, these retiree costs. I mean, not their fault. These are the number of people who used to work for these companies, nor is it the union member's fault because they worked for the companies. The industry has downsized and Detroit is really having a struggle dealing with it.
CHETRY: Right.
VELSHI: At least, we don't have another strike to cover and good news for Ford and for the UAW. We'll continue to follow that.
ROBERTS: Ali, thanks. See you soon.
Look at the story coming up in the next half hour now that you just can't miss. Can a lack of sleep lead to not just tired kids but fatter kids.
CHETRY: Yes, there is a new study that talks about a good night's rest and how it could keep kids from actually lying around when they should be burning up those calories. How sleep translates to keeping weight in check. Elizabeth Cohen is going to take a look for us. The next hour of AMERICAN MORNING starts right now.
ROBERTS: Chaos in Pakistan. Judges and lawyers rounded up this morning, media cut off. Can the U.S. do anything?
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the eight nuclear powers out of control.
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ROBERTS: Oprah's on, speaking out this morning on her school sex scandal.
Plus silence is golden. New technology to jam annoying cell phones. Tempting, but is it legal? On this AMERICAN MORNING.
ROBERTS: And good morning. Thanks very much for joining us on this Monday, the 5th of November. I'm John Roberts.
CHETRY: And I'm Kiran Chetry. It could be the most important ally in waging the war on terror. This morning, though, Pakistan's government is in total chaos. Democracy itself put on hold. President Pervez Musharraf has suspended the constitution and despite a ban, protesters did hit the streets. So far more than 1,500 lawyers were arrested; all of it puts the United States in a very tough position with its biggest ally, one of its biggest allies in the war on terror. CNN's Emily Chang joins us live from London with the latest developments. Good morning, Emily. EMILY CHANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kiran. This story is developing by the minute. So far, already thousands of protesters have taken to the streets, many of them lawyers, many of them journalists. They've been met by police wielding batons and firing tear gas into the crowd. Up to 1,500 lawyers have already been arrested and many of them have been injured. Now, these protesters protesting President General Pervez Musharraf's declaration of a state of emergency and suspension of the constitution. Musharraf has recently been threatened by the return of exiled Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
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