Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
Large Number of U.N. Force Missing; Horror in Haiti, a Catastrophe of Major Proportions
Aired January 13, 2010 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, thanks for joining us on the Most News in the Morning on this Wednesday the 13th of January. I'm John Roberts.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kiran Chetry.
We're following breaking news this morning. Haiti, the devastation there after a 7.0 magnitude quake. It hit yesterday, but today we're going to be learning more just about the number of dead. Red Cross estimating some 3 million people could be affected.
Raging fires, buildings destroyed, and victims trapped everywhere with help unable to get to them. There have been disaster rescue teams being deployed trying desperately to save lives.
ROBERTS: Top executives of the country's biggest bailed out banks take the stand today, part of a bipartisan inquiry in the cause of the financial crisis as the CEOs are about to dish out another round of big bonuses, Congress wants answers. What did they know and when did they know it?
CHETRY: Plus, Google hit by a sophisticated cyber attack from China targeting e-mail accounts owned by human rights activists. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton now saying she wants answers from Beijing, and the Internet giant is firing back, refusing to keep censoring itself in China.
Google could pull out of the country completely. We'll get the breakdown from Jeanne Meserve coming up.
ROBERTS: We begin though with the horror facing 3 million people in Haiti this morning. It has been 14 hours since a magnitude 7.0 earthquake rocked the poorest, most disaster prone nation in the western hemisphere.
We're getting early reports, and there you see part of the presidential palace, that virtually every landmark in the city of Port-au-Prince has reportedly collapsed. The airport's control tower is gone. The presidential palace, as we showed you, in ruins.
The earth began to move at 5:00 last night. The quake centered just ten miles southwest of Port-au-Prince. The damage, as we know it so far, we're getting more and more reports this morning, devastating. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The world is coming to an end.
ROBERTS: When the earth mercifully stopped shaking an ominous cloud of dust and smoke blanketed the capital of Port-au-Prince. When it settled about 20 minute later, it revealed nothing but misery.
All you could hear, according to witnesses, was the sound of victims wailing, people trapped under chunks of concrete everywhere. Street after street in ruin. Some buildings burning, many others collapsed. Even the presidential palace came down, no match for the massive quake and its trailing aftershocks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything was just falling apart.
ROBERTS: These people lived through the nightmare. They're Miami-bound flight was the last to leave Port-au-Prince, taking off 90 minutes after the earthquake hit. Passengers describe the devastation they left behind.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People were crying, and you know the roof, like the ceiling was falling. And there was no place to hide.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The whole building was cracked down. I mean, it looks like a building that they need to build from point a to point z right now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you talking about the airport?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The airport. It's really cracked up.
ROBERTS: The condition of the Port-au-Prince airport could be key to relief efforts today. Urban search and rescue teams like this one in Fairfax, Virginia, waiting into the early morning hours for clearance to deploy to Haiti.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're able to break reinforced concrete and do technical search, which means sound and video and all that. So we'll have our fullest capability with us to go.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: Thousands of buildings in Port-au-Prince have collapsed. There are other reports that more and more are coming in every hour.
The government there is offering no guidance about the possible number of casualties at this point. Again, it's first light there. There's a lot of power out across the island, so it was difficult to get an assessment of what was going on during the night.
A spokesperson for the State Department says, quote, "Clearly, there will be a serious, serious loss of life." Kiran?
CHETRY: And as you said, the sun rose about 30 minutes ago there, and with daylight, the true extent of the death and destruction in Haiti is being revealed. We're covering the earthquake disaster with the global resources of CNN.
We have Errol Barnett. He's monitoring the social networks at our Haiti desk. Sometimes cell phone video and pictures are the only way people are able to get information.
Also, were there warning signs about this monster quake? Rob Marciano is following that and why this fault line under Port-au- Prince was something geologists were watching for years.
Also coming up in just about ten minutes we'll speak with Haiti's ambassador to the United States about relief efforts. He's called for perhaps a U.S. naval ship to try to get out there like they did after 2008 with those devastating hurricanes that hit Haiti in a three-week period. He's calling for something along those lines again because of just how hard it is to get resources into that nation.
But first we'll be speaking with CNN's Susan Candiotti. She's currently on a flight into Haiti's capital. She did file this report from the Dominican on just how difficult it is to get into Haiti.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (via telephone): We're boarding a helicopter to Port-au-Prince from Santo Domingo. The roads are far too dangerous to drive during the night.
At daybreak, the extent of the devastation becomes even more dramatic for Haitians, more traumatizing. They are plunged into depths of despair, suffering not only the initial quake, but a series of strong aftershocks, flimsy homes collapsing, other structures and floors pancaking on top of the other. Even the national palace in Port-au-Prince is heavily damaged.
In Petionville, where diplomats and other professionals often live, a hospital is said to be heavily damaged. Emergency crews are trying to help, but until more international relief teams arrive, people are helping each other, digging themselves out among cries for help.
Susan Candiotti, CNN, en route to Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: No one has the story covered like CNN. We're monitoring social networks for message from witnesses and victims and video that you just have to see.
There are many people here in the United States who are waiting desperately for information on family members there. Most communication across the island is down.
Errol Barnett is standing by right now at our special Haiti desk at our Atlanta headquarters. What are we learning this morning, Errol? ERROL BARNETT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, we are seeing more pictures and images being posted online, social networking sites like Twitter, our site iReport as women as well.
We want to make the point though that as they appear online, we do put them through a CNN vetting process. We have to make sure we can get in contact with the person who sent us the material so we can verify that it is accurate. And that has been a challenge because just communication in and of itself has been very difficult for people in Haiti.
But let me show you some pictures that first appeared on Twitter by photographer Daniel Morrell. He was in the capital when the quake took place, and these pictures really give you a sense of the devastation at some of the buildings.
Here you're seeing one multi-story building there that just appears to have been flattened. It's pulling on some of the power and communication lines there.
In another picture, you understand why it's so difficult and will be for the next few weeks to get in and around Port-au-Prince. This building you're seeing has covered a truck. Some Haitians there are yelling to see if anyone is in the building, if anyone survived. Many eyewitnesses telling us they heard screams and wailing throughout the night.
And in another picture, I think you can see more of the devastation and just how widespread it is, this rubble. That used to be a main road in this town. Now a building lays across it.
And I think in the next image you'll see just how people are trying to really see if anyone's under that rubble. Save lives. This woman, battered and bloody, but still alive as she sits there amid all of that rubble.
There's some more interesting stories, too, when you talk about people trying to communicate with their family on the island. Brian Cory's mother-in-law is a missionary in Port-au-Prince, and after the earthquake she drove around with her camera trying to just survey the damage. Here's what she saw. We've spliced this together for you.
You may find some of these images disturbing. In the foreground of that picture is a dead body while people are still in shock. One missionary here helping out an injured woman. And this is inside a clinic where they're trying to get all their medicines together.
And that's just a brick wall or a concrete wall that fell. But that's a good example of the infrastructure that exists in Haiti right now. This is not reinforced walls at all.
We're continuing to watch this online and on Facebook, on Twitter. Viewers can find me on ErrolCNN, one word. We're hearing from people, a lot of support and encouragement, but people are wondering what happened. And as daylight occurs we'll get a sense of that. But viewers can continue to interact with me on twitter and Facebook.
ROBERTS: I'm sure we'll get a lot more reports in the coming hours. Errol Barnett for us at the Haiti desk this morning in Atlanta. Errol, thanks.
The State Department setting up a hotline for information on family members in Haiti, and that number is, if you want to take this down, 888-407-4747. That's 888-407-47.
If you want to help, can you also text "Haiti" to 90999. That's 90999. That will donate $10 to emergency relief efforts. That will be charged to your cell phone bill. So the moment you dial 90999, ten bucks goes on your cell phone bill.
You can also donate at unicefusa.org or by calling Unicef, 888- 4unicef. All this information is also up on our web page, all on one spot, CNN.com/amfix. I know it's a lot to grasp all at once.
So you can also get more on the emergency response to the earthquake in Haiti by going to our impact your world page at CNN.com/impact.
CHETRY: As we talked about the U.S. ambassador to Haiti calling for countries to come out and help out, and many have pledged support and resources, but they can't even get in there right now. There's been some sores saying the Port-au-Prince airport tower is damaged and that it's very hard to even get in there and begin help.
ROBERTS: It should be fairly easy, I think, as the sun comes up. The U.S. military can get airplanes in just about anywhere, so if they start to move some of those C-17s full of supplies in there, control tower or not, they'll probably put some people on the ground, set up a remote control area, remote control air control operation as they did in 1994, and they'll be able to bring those birds in one right after the other.
As long as the runway is fine, they should be able to get them up and going.
CHETRY: We'll find out more from Secretary of State Clinton and the president who is set to speak about this as well as to whether or not the Navy ships, the big hospital, basically floating hospital can make its way there.
All right, meantime, scientists warned for years that Haiti was at major risk for an earthquake. Our Rob Marciano is taking a look at what signs were there and whether they were missed or not. The other question is, even if there were signs, what could Haiti, this impoverished nation, have really have done about it?
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I don't know how many signs there were, but scientists know this, that there's an incredible amount of stress in this part of the world, much like the San Andreas fault, a very similar structure actually, a strike slip fault, though this one not quite as active. So it's kind of like saying, the big one's coming to San Francisco. The big one's coming to L.A. Well, that's true, we just don't know when.
One thing for sure is they haven't had a whole lot of activity in recent years. You have to go back to 1946 the last time this region had a major earthquake. So certainly the warnings that came out two, three years ago were saying, you know what? We're due. Unfortunately that came to pass yesterday, a 7.0 magnitude quake.
Just to give you an idea, some of these lines we've drawn are actual zones where the tectonic plates, those plates around the earth's crust floating around and bumping into each other, that's where we see the grinding -- or the fault is where we see the grinding, right though here.
And this is the reason this island is so mountainous. The fault line is just grinding against each other, the North American plate and the Caribbean plate just going at it. And that's why this area has so much energy that can be released.
Let's swing it around. The other problem John spoke about last hour is have you this bowl where most of the population is settling in. So that's where all this, all these people are, and surrounded by that are these mountains.
So on the outskirts of town you have mountains and hillsides that could easily come down with this sort of shaking, that's likely some of the damage we were seeing with this particular incident.
This is one of the deepest spots, or is the deepest spot in the Atlantic Ocean, 28,000 feet deep, the Puerto Rican trench, just to give you an idea how much action geologically is going on in this part of the world.
It's not off the radar, scientists are saying it's about time this has happened. But as far as some sort of magical forecast that said this is going to happen and nobody listened, that really isn't the case.
And even if it were, John and Kiran, what are you going to do with this kind of country? It's just set up for disaster, unfortunately.
ROBERTS: There was this fellow, a former professor at the University of Havana, Patrick Charles, who a couple of years ago said Port-au-Prince is due for a big one in the near future, probably about a 7.2. But you can't say when it's going to happen.
And, as you said, in a country like Haiti, where 80 percent of the people live below the poverty line, what do you do?
MARCIANO: Yes. Yes. Not a good deal.
ROBERTS: All right, Rob, thanks so much. Reports of collapsed buildings, people missing, they keep coming in all morning. A large number of U.N. aid workers in Haiti among those who are unaccounted for this morning. Our Richard Roth is monitoring the situation from the United Nations. He joins us live after the break.
Stay with us. It's 14 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN, breaking news.
ROBERTS: It's now seventeen-and-a-half minutes after the hour. And here's the latest on how Haiti is beginning to recover. And they really haven't begun the recovery efforts. It's really just getting an assessment of what happened there.
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake yesterday. President Obama is sending his thoughts and prayers to the people of Haiti. He will address the disaster later on today. Last night, he told his security staff he expects an aggressive coordinated effort by the U.S. government, charging multiple agencies to work overnight to orchestrate a government-wide response.
CHETRY: And the U.S. is getting ready as well to send aid to Haiti this morning. The Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue team, this is a group that is always on the front lines of disasters around the world. They are now waiting word to deploy. The local task force is in partnership with USAID, USAID agency for international development. And we'll bring 72 people as well as six search and rescue dogs, and up to 48 tons of rescue equipment.
ROBERTS: And we're learning this morning that at least 11 United Nations peacekeepers have been killed in the quake. Eight of them from China, three from Jordan. The headquarters of the mission there collapsed. The U.N. has 9,000 peacekeepers in the country. It's had them there since the mid-1990s.
One official says a, quote, "large number of personnel are missing this morning." The Associated Press reporting that among the missing is the head of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti.
Our senior United Nations correspondent Richard Roth is on the phone live now with more on this breaking developments. What are you hearing coming out of the U.N. this morning, Richard?
RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR U.N. CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): There's fast meetings going on now, John. They've been going on for a while. And yes, I'm told they fear a large amount of casualties.
The head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission there, a man that has been at the U.N. for decades named Hedi Annabi is missing. Communication is extremely difficult. Most of the reporting about the casualties are coming in from these U.N.-member countries. Brazil has I think the most soldiers there, more than 1,200. And that's where we're hearing the numbers. But in about an hour or so, the U.N. secretary general and the peacekeeping director will be briefing everyone. It's just, of course, ironic the peacekeepers are there to help protect the Haitian people and they themselves may have taken a devastating blow this time with that quake. It's a former hotel that they were all housed in, built in the 1960s. The U.N. says it was a concrete, reinforced concrete building and it completely collapsed.
ROBERTS: That just goes to show you the power of this earthquake, Richard. We see a lot of the construction in Haiti is basically just cinder block and some mortar, but for a reinforced concrete building like that to come down really demonstrates the power of this earthquake.
ROTH: And, of course, with little warning they said at that hour there are normally 200 to 250 U.N. personnel in that building. So we may have a real heavy total to be announced either later today or when they finally can do a proper rescue.
ROBERTS: Do we have any idea at this point the recovery or the rescue efforts that the United Nations is engaged in? Do they have the equipment there to look beneath the rubble of that collapsed hotel?
ROTH: Well, the soldiers were forming a cordon last night around the collapsed building to start the big search, prevent any looting. But they are -- they don't really seem to know, because of the communication difficulties, exactly how the search indeed is even going.
ROBERTS: All right. Richard Roth for us this morning, monitoring the situation with the United Nations. Richard, thanks so much.
CHETRY: And we're going to continue to follow that and we are on top of the breaking news from Haiti this morning. As we said, they can't even make assessments at this point because of the devastation, because of the lack of communication. Power out, no way to communicate, and they are doing their best.
I mean, people clawing by hand trying to get people out from underneath the rubble. But again, this devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake that rocked the Caribbean island nation yesterday afternoon. Today, we're just finding out more and more about the horrors that lie ahead.
We want to get the latest from Haiti's ambassador to the United Nations, Raymond Alcide Joseph. He joins me now from Washington.
Thanks so much for being with us. Have you gotten an update, Mr. Ambassador, on the latest situation right now in Haiti?
AMB. RAYMOND ALCIDE JOSEPH, HAITIAN AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.: Well -- first of all, a little correction, I'm the ambassador of Haiti to the United States of America. Not the United Nations. And the first thing we can say is that we talked with the first lady of Haiti last night, at least our consul general in Miami did, and she said that she was all right, and the president was all right, and most government officials were all right because this thing happened after hours, and most of the government buildings that have collapsed collapsed after the employees were out.
CHETRY: Right.
JOSEPH: That's -- that's half good news. The bad news is that she said most of Port-au-Prince is destroyed. And she is calling for some help in the form of a hospital ship off the coast of Port-au- Prince, just in the same way that the United States had helped us in 2008 after four hurricanes hit Haiti in three weeks.
CHETRY: Right, the USS Comfort, right? Was able to dock close to Port-au-Prince and provide aid there.
JOSEPH: Yes.
CHETRY: And as we understand it, Mr. Ambassador, they are launching and they're trying to get as much as 48 tons of equipment and aid in there today. But we talk about the infrastructure problems, I mean, people that were there to help, even the United Nations peacekeepers facing real big problems themselves of searching for survivors, and some of them from the missions in Brazil and China saying that they are getting confirmation that some of their peacekeepers indeed perished in this earthquake. What else have you found out about that?
JOSEPH: I have not any information on it, except that I know the Hotel Montana where the U.N. had its headquarters was one of the hardest-hit building. And that's perhaps the reason why some of the U.N. peacekeepers have perished.
As I said, government, Haitian government buildings, however, were empty when it happened. But the hotel is where many of them live. I hear that the head of the U.N., Mr. Annabi, who lives there, is unaccounted for. And I think the numbers are going to be very discouraging to us, when we have all the figures during the day.
CHETRY: Yes. You know, we got word about 20 minutes ago that President Obama is going to be giving a statement about the situation in Haiti, offering their prayers and also assistance. What do you want to hear from the American president about aid to your country in this time of disaster?
JOSEPH: Let me tell you one thing, too. Besides the president, President Obama coming out and making a statement, the State Department has called for a meeting for coordination. I'm supposed to leave here by 9:00, 9:30. I'm supposed to be sitting with State Department to coordinate whatever we can to help Haiti.
In the past, the U.S. did come very quickly to our support, and I believe that this thing will happen the same way this time. Perhaps more aid coming in. It's for us to find out how to do it. We understand that the airport in Port-au-Prince was not damaged, although the tower to the airport was -- is down, but the runway is still usable.
CHETRY: Oh, that's certainly good news.
JOSEPH: In fact, American Airlines -- American Airlines flew out of it last night.
CHETRY: Yes, as we understand, you're right. Ninety minutes after the quake they were able to get a flight out of there. Mr. Ambassador, do you believe that Haiti will be able to recover from this?
JOSEPH: Well, the Haitian people are very hearty. You know, the way we earned our independence was through our own force over 200 years ago, and when we did that, we helped the rest of Latin America. Even the United States got some help from us when we sent our soldiers to Savannah, Georgia, to fight. Even defeating the French troops we helped with the Louisiana Purchase.
Today, perhaps it's time for our friends that got some help from us early on in the 1800 to come to our support. We should help each other. In unity, there is strength. That is the model of Haiti. And Haitians will get united to solve the problem.
CHETRY: No doubt people around the world are sending prayers and perhaps even more aid and help to your nation.
Ambassador Raymond Alcide, the Haitian ambassador to the United States, thanks for joining us and good luck today.
JOSEPH: Thank you very much.
ROBERTS: Continuing coverage of the crisis in Haiti continues after a quick break here on the Most News in the Morning.
Also, big banking hearings today. These are really big. Our Christine Romans and Robyn Farsad (ph) up live next to tell us what's at stake here.
It's 27 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: It's 30 minutes past the hour. That means it's time for a check of your top stories.
We want to update you on breaking news right now out of Haiti. There are rescue efforts that are now going on in Port-Au-Prince. The Red Cross saying three million people are affected by this earthquake that has virtually demolished the city.
There have been more than 30 aftershocks since the 7.0 quake struck yesterday and more are expected. I just spoke to the Haitian ambassador to the United States moments ago. He told me there is no way of estimating the casualties from the devastating earthquake right now.
In other news this morning, the animal rights group, PETA, is pulling an anti-fur ad campaign that featured first lady Michelle Obama in it. There you see it there. The organization admits it used the image without permission and PETA is also saying it wants the White House to tell Ringling Brothers to change the name of its newest performing elephant, Baby Barack. PETA is saying it believes that the circus group abuses animals.
A new study says caffeine gives men, a bigger jolt, or boys, I guess, you could say. Researchers specifically trying to find out the drugs effect on teenagers. Since kids are drinking more and more caffeinated beverages these days. They found that boys would work at a video game much longer than girls if the prize was soda at the end. Researchers say they're not sure why but it may have something to do with hormones. John.
ROBERTS: It may have something to do with the fact that women don't like video games as much as men do.
The country's top bankers in the hot seat today just as they try to prepare to pay out massive bonuses. This is a big story today that you want to hear about. A bipartisan committee looking into the financial crisis will grill the men who run some of the banks that were bailed out with your taxpayer money.
Here with an idea of what we can expect today our very own Christine Romans and Roben Farzad, a senior writer at "Business Week." So Christine, let's start with you. What do you expect the atmosphere there today will be?
We have heard some reports that lawmakers really aren't so much interested in bathing the bankers as they are in actually getting some information.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: And they've said that. The 10 people on this commission say, we don't want to just have fireworks for the sake of fireworks. We want to get down to the bottom of this. We want to figure out why are some of these too big to fail, how did this happen? What were the mistakes made? What kind of risk taking was going on inside these firms?
But also how did our government fail? That's key here, because the government, there was a lot of regulatory failures. Finding out, getting really clear answers, John. So they can lay out what went wrong so it doesn't happen again.
ROBERTS: Roben, don't we already know much of what happened?
ROBEN FARZAD, SENIOR WRITER "BUSINESS WEEK": I fear we do. But this is one of those mandatory exercises like a 9/11 commission. You have to have it for at least the approach toward some sort of closure. Now I agree with Christine but you're going to see some great fireworks --
ROMANS: You think so. FARZAD: Some great pyrotechnics over the next few days. It's an irresistible whipping boy. You have 10 percent unemployment, even soaring food stamp use, and Goldman Sachs about to have a record year about the pay out record bonuses. These firms are still beholden to the taxpayer. They still owe the taxpayer for bailing them out in their darkest hour. So there's going to be some tensions.
ROBERTS: But you know, haven't we heard that some of these outfits like Goldman Sachs didn't need bailing out. They were told to take the money and then, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein's famous comment, "we're doing god's work here." I mean, how much do they owe to the taxpayer? Do they really get it, do they really care?
ROMANS: That's the question. Do they get it? And this has been going on for a year. I mean, people have been screaming about these bonuses for a year. Why has it taken the smartest guys in the universe, if you believe the whole idea that Wall Street is the smartest in the universe, why has it taken them a year to figure out there's a public relations problem here.
How come they haven't figured out how to fix it? I think the spotlight, you're right, is going to be Goldman Sachs. A lot of people are asking, for a year they've been asking question why was Goldman paid out fully on its exposure to AIG. Why is that fair? Who in the government was behind that? Why did that happen, and I think these are issues that just haven't gone away. Even though the banks have sort of sat back and waited for this to blow over, it hasn't blown over. In fact, it's gotten worse.
ROBERTS: On the point about Goldman Sachs and other entities getting paid 100 percent from AIG on these credit default swaps, that, you know, they took out insurance for mortgage-backed securities, for credit default swaps. Tim Geithner came in and said pay it in 100 percent, and then there were reports that he also said, by the way, we're not going to disclose that this happened publicly. Is he going to be on the hot seat today in some way?
FARZAD: They are going to be in the hot seat. They're going to say listen, how was this allowed to happen? You have that really smelly prospect of private profits in socialized risk right there with the AIG example. And when you have such a disparity outside profit, terrible economy puts it in such sharp relief.
But, you know, I think trying to teach bankers not to pay themselves is like trying to teach a dog to become a vegetarian. It's just not going to fly. This is why they go to work. This is why you go to Wall Street. This is the social compact. You put up with the hazing, the long hours, the high divorce rate so you can make money.
ROBERTS: Right.
ROMANS: A lot of money.
ROBERTS: And a ton of money. But we learned a lot and we wonder about lessons of the past. If lessons of the past actually sunk in. The words too big to fail became part of our lexicon after the economic collapse in late 2008, and now we have more organizations that are too big to fail.
ROMANS: And they know they're not going to be allowed to fail. Now they know, and they know that they're not going to be allowed to go down.
ROBERTS: But what are we learning here?
ROMANS: Well, and another interesting thing about this, this commission is based on this 1929 commission that looked at the Great Depression and eventually recommended something called Glass-Steagall, which was this big firewall between commercial banking and all these risk taking and insurance products and the like. in the 1990s, when the Clinton administration, bipartisan, knocked down those walls, some people now say, look, everything old is new again. We're going back to talking about, wait a second, maybe we had an idea back there and the go go days of the 90s, we knocked it down and pause it.
FARZAD: So if you're JPMorgan and Chase and Jamie Dimon or Merrill Lynch or Bank America, say hey, look, we took one for the team. We were told effectively it's in your interest -- it's the country's interest to take these firms over. JPMorgan with Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual, so way too big to fail is suddenly the standard.
ROBERTS: OK. So the report from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission is due out in December. At the same time though, Congress is mulling over changes to financial regulation. Barney Frank has said well maybe we shouldn't be waiting until the end of this report. The report that you said is the Pecora report, came out in 1933 before the final report of the -- or, sorry, the Glass-Steagall Act came out in 1933 before the Pecora report was actually released.
Do you expect that we'll see a repeat of that? Will new financial regulation come out before we get the final report?
ROMANS: Yes. Yes. I think so.
FARZAD: Yes, we certainly will. If it's not going to be a one for one analog for Glass-Steagall, certainly not appropriate in the age of this really esoteric derivatives, just to stay commercial and investment banking are separate. But you're going to see an attempt to slam the door after the horse is gone.
And this is the problem with this. There are great intentions in Congress wanting to do this. It was an epic meltdown. But likely Wall Street is already working on the next jig, the next bubble and it takes depression lawmaker a little more intelligence to look at what that could be.
ROBERTS: The next bubble.
ROMANS: This will be the record, though. This will be the record for what happened and who's to blame.
ROBERTS: Those words, the next bubble.
FARZAD: God willing.
ROBERTS: Send chills down your spine.
ROMANS: Oh, yes.
ROBERTS: Roben Farzad, Christine Romans, as always, thanks for being with us this morning.
FARZAD: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
ROBERTS: Great discussion. Kiran.
CHETRY: Back to our continuing coverage of the quake in Haiti. How does the country keep order? There are so many problems there, no infrastructure, people literally injured in the streets and concerns about looting. We're going to be joined by New York City police commissioner who has advised Haiti about keeping order and is just back from Haiti with more on what to do. It's 37 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: It's 40 minutes past the hour right now. Welcome back to the most news ion the morning. Saving lives, keeping order. Big top priorities right now in Haiti as they're just beginning this morning to assess the immeasurable damage right now in the wake of that horrible earthquake. 7.0 magnitude that hit yesterday.
But it will be a considerable challenge as we know. The capital city, Port-Au-Prince, and its police precinct literally in ruins. There's no fire and rescue resources to speak of in one of the nation's -- one of the world's poorest nations.
New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly is just back from Haiti. He's been overseeing the training of law enforcement there and he joins us this morning. Commissioner Kelly, great to talk to you.
RAY KELLY, NYC POLICE COMMISSIONER: Good to be with you.
CHETRY: When you went there and you're helping advise them on things like dealing with kidnappings, keeping order, preventing looting, what is it like there, and especially in the aftermath, imagine what it would be like for this nation to be dealing with the aftermath of an earthquake?
KELLY: You know, there's no good place to have an earthquake but Haiti is the worst possible place for an earthquake. They have no infrastructure. The building code is virtually nonexistent. As so many people have said, it's the poorest country by far in the western hemisphere.
They have blackouts every day, at the best of times. So every day some portion of Port-Au-Prince that has no power. Now of course the whole city has no power. It's just -- it just is a desperate country, and obviously of a much more desperate as a result of this terrible tragedy. CHETRY: So you know, where do you start? I mean, look, you've been there and you've seen a lot of the tragedies, a lot of the really bad situations where triage was necessary and then trying to figure it out. Where do you start in Haiti today if you're going to try to -- at least try to rescue some of these people and maintain order?
KELLY: I think it falls on the United States. No other country can do it. They need massive help, and I think we've got to do it. No one else is around to do it. Perhaps the Canadians, they've got a long history in Haiti, but there's really no one else. We have to help them. We have to help them in a big way.
You know, you've got to go there to really appreciate the situation. It's about 2.5 million, three million people in Port-Au- Prince, they're crammed together. Anything over two stories is probably going to collapse or, if it hasn't collapsed already. There is no fire department. There is no rescue teams. The police department has improved, but there's only 9,000 police officers for a country of almost 10 million people. So they're in desperate shape, and they need our help.
CHETRY: Looting, that's one of the primary concerns right now in the wake of this. But I mean, some of us are asking what is there to even loot? If you're seeing Port-Au-Prince in shambles and people are still unable to get loved ones out of buildings, I mean, is the crime element going to be a big factor right now?
KELLY: You know, I don't think so. I think Haiti actually is a fusel country, a law-abiding country. It's gotten a bad reputation in certain areas. There probably will be some looting because again this is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. But I don't think we'll see a violence, widespread violence.
I think the people will come together, band together. That's what they've always done. They're really very inspirational people. That's the -- Haiti's strongest asset, the grittiness, the toughness of their population.
CHETRY: We talked about the Virginia search and rescue team that has helped out in countless situations. They're going there with I think, I believe with 72 personnel, six rescue dogs and some 48 tons of equipment. There's also been calls from the U.S. ambassador to Haiti to bring the U.S.S. Comfort, the big naval hospital to Port-Au- Prince, or to dock right outside of Port-Au-Prince to try to help. Short of all these things that are coming in right now, what else do they need?
KELLY: I think they just need massive help. I think these are all good ideas, but we need much more than that. Again, the magnitude of the problem is such that you're going to need thousands of rescue workers. The only troop that's are there from outside of the country to any extent are Brazilian troops as peacekeepers, but they're not really trained to do the type of rescue work that has to be done.
They also have no heavy equipment to speak of. No bulldozers. They have some, but certainly not nearly enough. It's very difficult to get around in the country. It will take you 10 hours to go 100 miles because of the conditions of the roads. So even if they had in other parts of the country like Cap-Haitien, which is a city north of Port-Au-Prince, very difficult to get down into Port-Au-Prince.
CHETRY: You were just there last week. Sounds like a lot of problems and a lot of challenges...
KELLY: Yes.
CHETRY: .... on top of the devastation.
KELLY: And, again, I think, you know, we have to stand up in this country and -- and be the ones that respond. There's no one else around to help them.
CHETRY: I understand the State Department's having a meeting with the ambassador around 9:30 today, 9:00, 9:30, and the president is due to give a speech as well, so I'm sure that the US will respond, as we always do in these types of disasters.
New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, great to talk to you this morning. Thanks.
KELLY: Good to be with you.
CHETRY: John.
ROBERTS: More on the situation in Haiti in just a moment.
But first, a story that could be a game changer on Wall Street, in Washington and online. Google, a company whose mantra is "don't be evil" is contemplating closing up shop in China and completely leaving a market with more than 300 million internet users.
The reason? Google says a month ago it was hit by a highly sophisticated cyber attack, targeting its own intellectual property and e-mail accounts that were owned by human rights activists.
Our Jeanne Meserve is tracking this developing story for us this morning. She joins us now live. Hi, Jeanne.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Hi, John.
Google is saying enough is enough and threatening to pull out of China altogether because of what it calls a highly sophisticated and targeted cyber attack that it detected, as you say, in mid-December.
Google did lose some intellectual property but says the principal target was the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. It says its investigation also revealed that more than 20 other businesses had been attacked.
Cyber attacks can be hard to attribute, but Google is pointing a finger at China.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DAVID DRUMMOND, CHIEF LEGAL COUNCIL, GOOGLE: We can say that it was -- it was organized. We know it came from China and that there being questions about whether this is state sponsored. We're not making -- we're not claiming that to be the case because we don't have evidence, definitive evidence, one way or the other and we prefer not -- not to speculate.
But it's -- it's very clear that it was, you know -- while there could be some elements of sort of traditional industrial espionage here, it -- it seems quite clear that there's some political motivations to this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MESERVE: In response, Google says it will now stop censoring its search service in China, google.cn, and if the Chinese government balks, Google will shut down its China operations altogether, says the company.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a statement saying, "We look to the Chinese government for an explanation. The ability to operate with confidence in cyberspace is critical in a modern society and economy," but our efforts to reach the Chinese embassy for comment were unsuccessful -- John.
ROBERTS: Jeanne Meserve in Washington for us this morning. Jeanne, thanks so much.
Coming up on 48 minutes after the hour, Rob Marciano is going to head this morning's travel forecast right after the break. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Coming up at nine minutes to the top of the hour now.
CHETRY: That's right, and we check in with our Rob Marciano. He has the travel forecast for us as well as what it's going to be like around the rest of the country.
Hey there, Rob!
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hey, guys.
Problem spots are going to be out West. The good news, in the center part of the country we're starting to see things warm up just a little bit, and that will be the ongoing trend, slowly moving off to the East.
But until that happens, we still have some temperatures this morning that are somewhat alarming, 35 degrees still in Orlando, 26 in Jacksonville, 22 degrees in Atlanta, 20 in Birmingham and 14 in Nashville. So, clearly, the cold there is being stubborn. We had that re-enforcing shot of cold air yesterday, but I think that's the last for some time to come. Just some lake effect snow showers expected across parts of the Northeast, Upstate New York, Western Pennsylvania. This spot, keep an eye on this because this is the beginning of what's going to be a weather maker for the entire Northern Gulf Coast, looks like through the weekend, could potentially see some flooding rains there.
All right, and that's going to combine with what's going on out West right now, the first of many storms to roll into the California coastline, very El Nino weather pattern finally setting up this winter and that means that not one, not two, but three storms at least coming into California, the -- the worst of which, I believe, is going to be the latter half of the weekend. That will spell heavy mountain snow -- good news, but lower elevation rain, not so great news.
Forty-eight Atlanta, 32 today (ph), in Chicago 35, warming up there, finally getting actually above average in Kansas City, 51 degrees in Memphis and 67 expected tomorrow in Tampa, and that is a sight for sore eyes across the Sunshine State.
John and Kiran, we'll talk more about that, plus the weather for Haiti should be OK. Temperatures in the upper 80s. It's the dry season there, relatively calm weather conditions expected in the next few days.
ROBERTS: All right. So that will help the rescuers as they search for people trapped in the rubble. Rob, thanks.
This morning's top stories just minutes away, including iReports and tweets from the disaster zone in Haiti, images so powerful you can almost feel the pain of what happened there. CNN's Haiti Desk working to bring you the very latest from the social networks this morning.
CHETRY: And the US, meantime, is racing to get help to the estimated 3 million people affected by the earthquake. Pentagon officials say they're already working on shipments of humanitarian aid, but there are a lot of problems -- no airport communications tower, no communications in general, unreliable roads, and it's proving to be very tough.
Our Jill Dougherty is live at the State Department. She'll have more on the plan.
ROBERTS: And the United Nations suffering a massive blow in the earthquake. "The Associated Press" reporting that among the missing is the head of the UN Peacekeeping Force in Haiti. They were all staying at the Montana Hotel, which apparently has collapsed completely in this quake. We're learning this morning at least 11 peacekeepers have been killed and there could be many more buried in the rubble.
The Secretary General of the United Nations is going to speak in the next hour. Our Richard Roth monitoring the situation at the UN.
Those stories and more, coming your way at the top of the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ROBERTS: It's coming up on four minutes to the top of the hour.
We're at the magic wall this morning to give you an idea of the lay of the land and what's going on in Haiti. Here we, you know, have the southern tip of Florida here with Miami. About 800 miles away is Haiti, part of the island of Hispaniola. At the other side is the Dominican Republic.
Here's the epicenter of the earthquake here, just about 10 miles away from Port-au-Prince. Carrefour is the -- the nearest population center right in there.
We should point out that there is -- you know, this -- we don't think about it too much, but there's a lot of tectonic activity, earthquake activity, in the Caribbean because of the Caribbean Plate that floats against the -- the North American Plate, and there is a fault that runs sort of right through here, just south of Port-au- Prince, all the way out here to Tiburon on the western tip of this lower peninsula coming off of Haiti. And it moves about that much every year, 7 millimeters.
In a report that was done back in 2006 by the University of Texas, at Austin, suggested that because the last major earthquake was in the 1700s, collectively it's built up about a little more than six feet of movement, and that if all of that were to let go at one time, you get a magnitude 7.2 earthquake, and we saw a magnitude 7 earthquake just the other day.
To give you an idea of what we're dealing with here in terms of the population of Haiti, it's the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. Eighty percent of people live below the poverty line. The annual per capita income somewhere between $700 and $1,300 a year. And -- and this is the area that we're talking about here, Port-au- Prince. Petion-Ville, which is where a lot of the diplomatic staff live, is down in this area. This is the airport here.
This -- this area could potentially be completely devastated. This is the Cite Soleil, a slum area down here by the docks, just -- I mean, really hard-scrabble area. The buildings are -- are basically just thrown up. Many of them could have come down. Also, this area here, La Saline, could have been damaged extensively. We do know that the airport here, apparently the runway, is in pretty good shape, even though the control tower has come down. So we could expect to see a lot of relief efforts coming in to that area in the -- the next few hours, as the morning gets going in Haiti.
So we're monitoring that situation very closely. More information coming in by the moment, but we do know at this point that in this area here, this densely populated area of Port-au-Prince, there was extensive devastation. There could be thousands of people killed -- Kiran.
CHETRY: All right, John. Thanks.
We're going to continue to follow all of the breaking developments on the situation in Haiti. Your top stories coming your way in just 90 seconds.
It's 58 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
