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How Would You Stop the Oil Leak?; 12 State Holding Elections Today; Fears of Double-Dip Recession
Aired June 08, 2010 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: All right. It's a new hour, it's a new "Rundown." Let me tell you what I've got for you right now.
For 50 days now, oil has been gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, but now we are seeing more signs of progress.
Plus, today marks the biggest day for politics until the November election. People in a dozen states are voting. The results could actually change the face of the nation. Some key races we'll bring you up to speed on.
And you know Ed Henry is our White House correspondent, but now you can call him "Top Gun." He took one heck of a ride today. You will not believe what he witnessed. There are some people that think I might have it out for Ed, Ed Henry.
We'll tell you about that. You definitely want to stick around for that.
But first thing, day 50 of that oil gusher. Let me tell you what is going on right now.
It's still gushing, OK? If you look at that undersea camera, you will see there continues to be oil coming out of it. It keeps moving around, but there you can see the oil.
This cap has been put on the riser. Why is it still leaking? Well, because there are vents in the cap to prevent it from being blown off by the pressure of the oil. And they have only closed one of the vents.
They're concerned if they close more of them, it might blow off. However, the amount of oil being siphoned to the top is actually increasing. Take a look at this.
June 4th, the first day that it was on there, they collected 6,000 barrels roughly per day. There's 42 gallons of oil to a barrel.
On June 5th, Sunday, 10,500 barrels.
On June 6th, Monday, 11,000 barrels.
And then yesterday, 14,800 barrels have been collected. So we've got a lot more. There are a lot of ideas, as well, going into BP. One of the thing we're concentrating on here is getting some of these ideas.
BP says that it has had 40,000 ideas submitted by the public, 247 of them are in what they call the final assessment stage. They did tell us, by the way, that a lot of the ideas they get are not new, they've heard them before, they're not applicable on large scale.
However, that doesn't change things for us. We are still going to bring you a lot of those ideas to see how they work.
All right. We want to talk a little bit about some other stuff on this. I want to go to Josh Levs. He's joining us now.
Josh, you with us?
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I'm right here. Yes, I've got you, Ali.
VELSHI: All right. What have you got?
LEVS: And we're going to talk about this, because now at CNN we have our own site for you to send in your ideas as well. Let me just tell you all what we've got going here.
I'm going to show you a few Web sites that are opportunities for you to share ideas with the authorities who are on the scene. If you are one of the tens of thousands of people in this country who are saying, I know what to do, whether it's a solution that you have in mind maybe to help stop the leak, or if you have some form of sorbent boom you want to know about to help in the cleanup efforts, there's several Web sites to use.
One of them right here is deepwaterhorizonresponse.com. I'm going to show you in a minute where I've linked them.
BP has its own place here. The EPA, over here, has its own Web site set up, talking you through what to do. And there's another one here, FBO.gov.
There's a whole bunch of Web sites. I'm going to show you where they're linked.
The one I want to tell you -- oh, look, Ali is here.
Hey, Ali.
VELSHI: It's good to see you.
LEVS: What's up, dude?
OK. So take a look at this. We've set this up right now.
This is ireport.com/fixit, and what we have now is our own spot here within CNN.com in which people are sending in their ideas. And lots of people sending us videos.
We got one today. Take a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NATHAN WEBB, FIFTH GRADER: Good morning. My name is Nathan Webb, and I am a fifth grader.
MONTE (ph) WEBB, FOURTH GRADER: And my name is Monte (ph) Webb, and I am a fourth grader.
We are here to demonstrate the buoyancy plug. We believe this is the best way to plug the oil leak in the Gulf.
N. WEBB: Here we demonstrate the blowout protector with the oil gushing out. By using a buoyancy plug, we are able to supply sufficient force to plug the leak.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEVS: You can see more at ireport.com/fixit. I meant to say we actually got lots of them.
VELSHI: Wait. You're going to cut out before we get the solution?
LEVS: Well, the solution takes another minute and a half.
VELSHI: Oh, OK.
LEVS: If you want to give me that much time on your show, I'll take it. But it is interesting to see. And one thing I do like about this, it's not a silver lining in this crisis, but it's a positive thing to note that there are a lot of kids getting science lessons right now.
VELSHI: Absolutely.
LEVS: It's amazing.
VELSHI: I don't know that this fourth and fifth grader are going to solve the problem, but the fact that we're all learning about this, this may create more engineers. It may mean that we actually learn how to solve this problem, and we can look back at 2010 as the year that we learned how to plug a well at the bottom of the ocean.
LEVS: And you're right about creating engineers. Some of these kids are going to grow up and become engineers because of what they're seeing.
All the links I've just show you right here, all the links are up at my Facebook page and the blog, if I can show you the graphic. I've linked everything for you so it's a one-stop shop.
Go to CNN.com/josh or CNN.com/Ali.
I tagged you on it.
VELSHI: Thank you.
LEVS: So CNN.com/Ali. Also, my Facebook and my Twitter have these, JoshLevsCNN.
So, you know, it's interesting to see. We're getting a lot of responses to our site here, and there's so many people out there with ideas. They just want to write it down.
VELSHI: Yes. And here's the thing -- I really can't get enough of having people send them in.
There's sort of a difference. There are some that are coming in, and we're putting them on TV, that are interesting. They've actually been in touch with BP, or we can try to get them in touch.
There are a lot of ones that are coming in that are really -- they are seeming as if no one's actually doing something. So, one of the things is, we had Brian Todd in the incident command center. It is important to realize they do have the world's best engineers on the story. They may be missing some ideas, but it's some of the most obvious ones, BP has hit.
LEVS: They're doing a lot. And a lot of what we've been seeing on the air, too, that's very visual and interesting is a new form of sorbent boom. Lots of companies out there making sorbent boom.
It's important to keep in mind, the government has said they've used a couple of million feet of sorbent boom, they've got a lot more, and they can use a lot more. And if there's something that's better and stronger, that's great. But the actual solution is going to come from finding a way to get all the way down there and make the oil stop.
VELSHI: Yes. But they're experimenting with a lot of newer solutions that may not be scalable yet, but they can say, hey, if this happens again, we've discovered through this incident that there are these chemicals or these solutions that will work, and we can start to deploy them, manufacture them, keep them in stock for next time.
LEVS: And this may not be the only time in history this ever happens. So, if in this process, we come up with actual solutions and cleanup efforts that are brand new, then we have something for another time.
VELSHI: Yes. All right. Good. I'm glad you're on this. Thanks very much.
LEVS: You got it. Thank you.
VELSHI: All right. Today is Election Day. Women are out in front. They're playing a big role in some key races across the country, primary races and one special election.
We're going to tell you about that when we come back. America votes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: It's our brand new studio, and there are a bunch of kids out here.
Hey, guys.
They're waving at me. You can come by when you do the CNN tour and you can see us anchoring in here.
Hi, kids.
It's an important day today. It's one of the biggest days on the 2010 election calendar before, of course, the November midterms.
Twelve states are holding elections, 10 of them are regular primaries, one is holding a run-off primary because somebody didn't get the percentage of votes that they needed to qualify. And one is holding a special election run0off that will fill a House seat.
Gloria Borger is in Washington for us.
Gloria, always -- boy, you know, we talk so much about politics, but this oil spill has sort of redirected a whole lot of people's attention even in Washington. What's the important thing that we who are not in the primary states need to be looking at in terms of the results that come out tonight?
GLORIA BORGER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, there are just a couple of really interesting things to be looking at tonight, Ali.
First of all, there's a lot of women candidates --
VELSHI: Yes.
BORGER: -- running, if you haven't noticed, particularly on the Republican side. Blanche Lincoln is running the race of her life in Arkansas.
But on the Republican side, we're seeing a lot of women, and it's interesting in this year in particular, when people want to throw out incumbents. And if you look back in history, kind of starting out in the '90s, actually, when we saw a lot of women candidates, it's because women are seen as outsiders generally.
VELSHI: Right.
BORGER: Even though they've made a lot of progress. And so when folks look to people to clean up a mess -- I know it works that way in my house -- they look at the women and they say, you know, maybe you're going to be the reformer, make you were not in that back room --
VELSHI: Right.
BORGER: -- the cigar-filled back room, and so they're looking at a lot at women.
VELSHI: So, let's look at the race involving Meg Whitman in California. Again --
BORGER: Right.
VELSHI: -- a lot of criticism because she's very wealthy and she put a lot of her own money in it. But bottom line is, this is an interesting race. This is for the Republican nomination for governor.
BORGER: For governor, right. And she's running as a conservative Republican. So is Carly Fiorina, who wants to go up against Senator Barbara Boxer in the state of California.
They're both running to their right. They're both really wealthy women.
Meg Whitman has spent millions and millions on her campaign. She's running against Steve Poizner there -- you have his picture up -- who is a former tech CEO. She's been talking about immigration. She's been talking about her fiscal conservatism.
But, Ali, I have to tell you, I have a favorite woman who's running in this.
VELSHI: Who is that?
BORGER: I have a favorite woman story in all of this. And that is in South Carolina.
VELSHI: This is scandal-ridden.
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: Tell me about this.
BORGER: Scandal. And usually the women who are the ones who are standing on the side for the scandal --
VELSHI: Yes, right
BORGER: -- while their husbands sexual infidelities or apologize.
This time, it's the woman who is denying infidelity. And we don't know how that's going to turn out.
She'll probably wind up in a run-off race. But I was calling around today to a lot of political folks, because I was scratching my head. And I was asking them, have you ever -- "Do you recall a woman ever having to fend off these kind of sexual charges?" And people said, no, actually --
VELSHI: Very unusual, yes.
BORGER: -- it's different this time because it's the woman who is the subject of the scandal. So, we'll have to see whether --
VELSHI: The sign of the times, right? Isn't that good, Gloria?
It's good. It's a great time for women, because in some instances, they'll be seen as an outsider to clean up the mess, not having been in the smoke-filled room.
BORGER: Right.
VELSHI: And in some cases they're being seen as exactly like the guys.
BORGER: Yes.
VELSHI: The interesting one is this whole thing is Arkansas, Blanche Lincoln, because she's not the outsider in this one. In fact, she's portraying herself as the moderate versus the candidate who is more liberal for her own Senate seat.
BORGER: Right. You know, she's being attacked from the right and from the left. And, you know, it's hard to believe that a moderate Democrat in the state of Arkansas could well lose to a more liberal Democrat, Bill Halter. You have his picture up there.
Her problem, though, is not whether she's a moderate or whether she's a liberal. Her problem is that she has served in Washington.
VELSHI: Right.
BORGER: And even though she's an important senator to that state, serving on the Agriculture Committee, et cetera, she is having a hard time convincing people that she's heard them.
She just went up with an ad saying, "I heard you, I hear you, I can still make a difference in Washington." Every incumbent is Washington is watching this race because it shows that no one is safe.
But, you know, actually, Ali, Harry Reid of all people may get some good news today.
VELSHI: Yes. What's that?
BORGER: Even though he's not on the ballot in Nevada. Well, the woman who wants to challenge him is a very conservative Republican, endorsed by the Tea Party, Sharon Angle. And, for example, she wants to do away with the Department of Education, she gradually wants to phase out Social Security.
If she wins -- and, again, she's a Tea Party candidate. If she wins, Harry Reid's folks believe they can get those Independent and moderate voters --
VELSHI: Right.
BORGER: -- and actually win the general election.
VELSHI: This will not be boring. There will not be a boring moment in this thing, but we'll be watching closely because today --
BORGER: No.
VELSHI: -- there will be a lot of outcomes tonight that will be important to the rest of us, even if you're not in a primary state.
Gloria, great to see you, as always, and we'll be watching closely tonight.
BORGER: Good to see you.
VELSHI: Gloria Borger.
OK. Double-dip recession. That would be a double dose of bad news for all of us.
Professor Robert Reich is a former labor secretary. He fears that we're falling into one. I'm going to ask him why and what we can do about it when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Are we in a recovery or are we in a recession? The recession isn't over until official people say it's over. They haven't said so yet.
Most people think we're in a recovery, but now there's this fear about a double-dip recession. Those fears have gotten a lot louder in the last week.
What does it mean? A double-dip recession, usually a recession means your economy's going down, you hit the bottom, and then you're done and you start coming up. And this is the fun part. We're supposed be in the fun part, things are getting better.
But what happens if the things get worse again? That's double- dip recession.
Are we barreling toward one? Some very smart people, economic experts, are split on this.
Let me weigh some of the stuff that we're seeing out there that can affect whether or not our economy is getting better. I've got good and I've got bad.
OK, on the good, interest rates remain low. That means companies can invest in expanding, it means people can buy houses, it means people can get loans for school, whatever they want.
Housing -- the housing market is stabilizing. In some places it's still going down, but in other places it's getting better. The inventory of unsold houses is disappearing.
And jobs are growing. I put that in the "sort of" column. I'm going to come back to that in a second. But jobs are growing, unemployment rate has started to come down. On the bad side, let's take a look at that, Dan.
Wow, Europe. That would be the top of the bad side. There are all sorts of problems going on in Europe. North Korea, Iran and Israel, the Middle East, those aren't really economic issues, but instability in the world causes people to get nervous about what's going on.
So, my next guest is -- really knows about this stuff. He was a former labor secretary of the United States. He is an economist. And he might take issue with my putting the jobs on the good side, because it was that jobs report, the unemployment report we got last week, that caused him to say he's worried about a double-dip recession.
Robert Reich is a name you are all very familiar with. He's a professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.
Bob, good to see you again.
Did you mean that, when you said you're really worried that we might get into a double-dip recession because of the jobs picture?
ROBERT REICH, FMR. LABOR SECRETARY: Ali, look, I hope we are not heading that way, obviously. You don't want to be a doomer-and- gloomer. But none of the indicators is powerful enough, positively, to get us out of the gravitational pull of this huge great recession. And that 41,000 private sector jobs we saw Friday, reported for May, just is so disappointing relative to what we expected, what we hoped for, you've got to wonder whether there's just enough energy, enough oomph in the economy to get us out.
VELSHI: OK. Let me ask you this -- you were the labor secretary of the United States of America. How much can the federal do with a bad report like this? Is this up to them or is this something else?
REICH: Well, the federal government can do two things.
Number one, the Fed can keep interest rates near zero, and I think Ben Bernanke is going to do that, although some of the members of the open market committee have expressed some doubts and some worries about inflation. But let's hope he does that.
Secondly, the government can make up for the lack of consumer buying power by, in the short term -- now, I'm not talking about the long term, I'm talking about in the very short term -- spending more money. Now, people I know don't like to hear this, but we have state and local governments now that are cutting back because their constitutions don't allow them to go into deficits even though their revenues are so down.
So, what the federal government could do right now, and I think it needs to do it, is to extend zero-interest loans to the state so they don't have to raise taxes and cut back on services until their revenues start going back and until the economy's out of the gravitational pull of this great recession. That's one thing.
VELSHI: OK. That's the short-term thing. Now give us the longer-term idea.
REICH: Well, longer term, look, we do have these large debts out there, mostly from health care costs increasing, even though we have a law that is going to take effect. We've got Medicare, that is going to be a huge institutional drain on the economy as baby boomers become older. That all needs to be taken care of.
We've got Europe. We've got North Korea. We've got a lot of problems.
But, look, if we get through the short term, in we just get out of the gravitational pull of this great recession, we will be in economic growth territory. And once we're in economic growth territory, then we can handle a lot of the other problems.
VELSHI: And you think it should -- you're talking about sort of a new New Deal, reframing Social Security.
REICH: Yes. It's got to be essentially kind of a new New Deal, not only for the states, but you've got to give people not only unemployment insurance, but earnings insurance. So, if somebody takes a new job that pays less than the old job that they lost, they get part of the difference for part -- for maybe up to a year or two so they can at least continue to pay the bills.
There are a lot of things that can be done, Ali, that should be done. It doesn't need be a gigantic government. A lot of people are worried about big government, but you need to have government at least be the spender of last resort when consumers can't do it, when their houses can't be used as ATMs any longer, when they've got to get out from under huge debts, when businesses are not going to invest until they have consumers out there.
VELSHI: How do you sell this? In California, where there's a primary today, where people are selling themselves as being more fiscally conservative, less government spending, how will this sell across this nation where there's this anti-government in my life feeling going on?
REICH: Well, people are not -- most of the public is not distinguishing between short-term deficits, which are necessary to get us out of this hole, and long-term deficits that we have to tackle. I mean, unless we get actually out of the hole and into economic growth -- and, again, the only way to do that is government is the spender of last resort -- we're not going to be able to tackle the long-term deficits.
So, you're absolutely right. A lot of people out there are worried about big government. They want to blame big government for all of this, but this was started by Wall Street.
It was started by government policies that did not work. It was started by deregulation. It was started by a lot of things that have got to be turned around.
My only point, Ali, is that the depth of this great recession is so much deeper than the other recessions we've had, that the economic kind of -- the gravitational pull is so much larger, that you need much greater, if you excuse my analogy, booster rockets to get us out.
VELSHI: Yes.
REICH: And we don't have those booster rockets right now.
VELSHI: Let me ask you one other question, different topic.
You commented on BP America and whether the United States should do something drastic to ensure that BP doesn't take the cash that it's got on hand -- and it's got a lot of it -- and somehow give it off to investors as dividends while we don't know how much they've got to pay to fix up this environmental mess that we're in. Tell me about this. Do you think the government should actually take control of BP, or at least that part of it that operates in the United States?
REICH: I do. I simply don't think it's appropriate, right, legal. I don't think we're going to get anywhere in trusting the rescue operation to the same company that created the problem to begin with, that has a terrible health and safety record going back years.
I mean, we need BP's expertise, certainly, but by taking over BP, by putting it under temporary receivership, at least the president is under direct -- has direct control. And unless he has direct control, we don't know the truth of what we're hearing, we don't know that all the necessary resources are going to be put, are being put to this. We don't know, in fact, whether the health and safety of the public is being properly balanced.
This is a company that reports to private shareholders. This is not a company that reports to the public.
VELSHI: Robert Reich, always a pleasure to talk to you.
Former labor secretary of the United States, professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. You can read his stuff, very interesting stuff, at RobertReich.org. And his latest book, "Supercapitalism," you can now buy in paperback.
Good to see you again. Thanks for joining us.
REICH: Thank you, Ali.
(NEWSBREAK)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. Chad comes up with some crazy stuff. OK? And we just let him be Chad, because that's what he is. But this one he's got me on.
He's telling me the sun is sleeping and is going to wake up.
Is this some kind of fairy tale? What is up with this?
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I hope it's a fairy tale. I hope it doesn't happen.
VELSHI: All right. Because the sun looks just fine to me.
MYERS: It does. Do you know what a CME is?
VELSHI: No.
MYERS: Come on. You know what CME is, Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
VELSHI: Oh, yes. Of course.
(CROSSTALK)
MYERS: Coronal Mass Ejection. Big solar storms.
Now, you have to realize that the sun is a big round ball, and you can get an ejection to go one way, completely nowhere near where the Earth is. The Earth is over here, the ejection goes that way. We don't even care about it.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: But the sun is about to wake up. According to scientists and according to NOAA --
VELSHI: Is this one of these ejections?
MYERS: That is one, the Coronal Mass Ejection going out, and the plasma and all those other things that are spitting out from the sun. The sun has not done a lot of ejecting the past couple of years.
VELSHI: OK. All right.
MYERS: But we could be in to a 100-year kind of storm, 100-year flood kind of cycle with these ejections coming out of the sun.
Now, why do we care?
VELSHI: Yes. Good question.
MYERS: Because we have thousands of satellites in space that are at risk of being literally overloaded with power, overloaded with energy by these --
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: But I was going to ask you, is this heat or is this energy? What is this?
MYERS: It's energy.
VELSHI: OK. All right.
MYERS: It's energy coming out, and we know it. And all the people around the world will know these CMEs as -- what do you see when you go up into northern Canada in the summertime?
VELSHI: The northern lights.
MYERS: Yes, exactly, the northern lights. But sometimes northern lights can make their way all the way down into the mid- latitudes.
VELSHI: That's right.
MYERS: When that's happening, there's energy coming in to the ionosphere. The ionosphere protects us.
VELSHI: Right. I see. OK.
MYERS: We're not going to know that CME occurred technically
VELSHI: So the idea is that there are going to be more-there's a concern among scientists that the sun is going to start
MYERS: :Yes
VELSHI: Spewing off more of these things.
MYERS: Yes ejecting these things out. Yes.
VELSHI: Is-do we, do we have a projections or is this-I mean are they just saying we're due for one.
MYERS: We're due. Within (ph) within there's a big meeting in Chicago about this. What's going to go on? How many of these are going to come and do they have the potential to affect the earth, absolutely they do. First you'll lose your satellite you may lose GPS. You'll probably lose satellite TV because they're going to have to start shutting the satellites down in safe mode before the CME's get here. So it's going to be--our whole world --
VELSHI: Do we have stuff that gauges these CME's? I mean we have technology that does that?
MYERS There is a new weather space weather agency, by NASA and the kind of-NASA and NOAA putting the space (INAUDBILE) --, they want to know before it gets here, is it on its way.?
(CROSSTALK)
Kind of like a hurricane.
VELSHI: I'm taking you can't do anything about this.
MYERS: No.
VELSHI: It's not sunscreen
MYERS: You know, Bruce Willis can do a lot of things, he can move asteroids, he should have been able to stop the oil leak.
But he can't stop.
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: This is--this is not related to global warming, this is an unrelated phenomenon entirely.
MYERS Correct. Except that the sun because the sun hasn't been shooting out energy pockets in different direction, has been a little but warmer that was just proved last week. But the sun has just a touch warmer the past couple of years so maybe that's why we're seeing our warmest years ever. We get some of these shooting out maybe toward Mars, maybe Mars will have some global warming.
VELSHI: If you weren't right as much as you are, you would be one crazy cat. You come up with crazy stuff. But I'm glad you tell us about this. This is what off the radar is. Chad knows crazy stuff. And he's right most of the time. Good to see you my friend.
MYERS: Good to see you. Good to be back.
VELSHI: OK, a storm of another sort by the way, North Korea. Who's going to take over when dear leader Kim Jong il-is no leader-- longer on the scene? We're going globe trekking to North Korea right after this. .
VELSHI: Time for globe trekking. we do it every single day. This is the North Korean flag. Let me take you over to North Korea and show you a few things right now. That's North Korea, that's South Korea. That's Beijing. This is Hong Kong over here, and there's Macau, why am I telling about this?
Well Macau is our first stop it's a tiny peninsula on China's southern coast, right next to Hong Kong, where the oldest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has been holed up since 2001.
Now, in a rare showing, the young guy whose name is Kim Jong Nam, that's him in the photo, spoke to reporters yesterday. He's decked out in a golf cap, striped shirt, jeans, and blue suede loafers we're told.
This Kim apparently fell out of favor when he was caught trying to enter Japan on a fake passport in order to visit - visit Tokyo's Disneyland. As a result his father exiled him to Macau where he fled there fearing for his life if he returned to the fatherland.
Now, what you see in this picture is a session of North Korea's parliament yesterday. Reflecting some apparent turmoil over who will succeed Kim Jong-il, who's believed to have suffered a stroke two years ago. The parliament promoted Kim's brother-in-law to the government's No. 2 post, as part of a sweeping reshuffle. Now, this is viewed as a key move, because the brother-in-law's believed to be a strong backer of Kim's younger souther (ph)-son as the successor not the older one, who we told you was in Macau, with the blue suede shoes. The whole story is very unusual.
All right now we're going to go to southern Mexico, at 55 bodies were recovered from an abandoned silver mine, this picture is where the bodies were recovered. This is Mexico city and this is Taxco officials announced the find yesterday, police warned that the number of dead could rise as they analyze other evidence found in the mine. Officials suspect that the bodies are linked to drug violence.
All right. We'll continue to follow that story, too.
Imagine you're a soccer player but you don't have a field to practice on. You've only got one ball for the entire time, but your dreams for the world cup are still coming true! Mission possible coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Let's update the latest developments in the Gulf oil disaster, we're at day 50, day 50, by the way, some confirmation today that huge undersea oil plumes do actually exist and did come from BP's busted well. Government and private scientists announced their result of the water test today, the chemical fingerprint of their samples match the gushing crude. As recently as last week BP executives were insisting there weren't any deepwater plumes.
Now everyday around this time, we have a segment called mission possible. Stories to inspire and motivate you, and as you know, I cannot get enough of playing with this world cup soccer ball. This is the ball that you'll use in the final.
There are two balls, one gets used for everything else and one gets used for the final. Not the actual ball, this is one, that's like it. Today I want to take you to West Africa where four of the six African teams headed to the world cup train, toil, sweat, with the hopes of becoming champions. They don't have grass fields. They don't have cool stadiums. All they've got is a ball, not even a fancy one like this, and a whole lot of dreams. Here's Christian Purefoy.
(BEIGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTIAN PUREFOY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPINDENT (voice over): Beside one of Lagos' busiest roads this makeshift football pitch is a long way from the World Cup in South Africa. Ill-fitting shoes, broken glass, and occasional police raids are among just a few of the challenges aspiring players like James Kenneth face.
JAMES KENNETH: This is third ball that we are buy now. The first ball, the second ball, those BRT are breaking it.
PUREFOY (on camera): What happens?
KENNETH: It is because of the people playing shots.
PUREFOY: It went into the traffic?
KENNETH: Yes.
PUREFOY: And that was the end of the ball?
KENNETH: That was the end of the ball.
PUREFOY (voice over) : James repairs car air conditioners his friends are cleaners, tailors and students . Such are humble origins of west African street football.
But this is where most of the continents' big players come from.
KENNETH: For example, Okocha, Kanu, every one of them have been playing here before they choose them for abroad. To go and start playing in national team, after national team going to the club side. This is this place that they start from.
PUREFOY: Nigeria and Cote d'ivoire, Ghana, and Cameroon have all qualified for the World Cup, making west Africa the powerhouse of African football. Carrying the hopes of a continent desperate for victory in the first World Cup to be held in Africa.
(on camera) No facilities, no professional training. Why is West Africa so good at football? Well, sometimes the answer is staring you in the face. It's the determination of these young men to make it big.
(voice over) A series of high-profile injuries, last-minute coach changes and some tough opposition mean West African teams will not have it easy. But these young men know their teams have already overcome all the odds to be playing out every street footballer's dream.
KENNEDY: To be a big player, millionaire player, I want to be star I want to be a star player. That is my dream.
PUREFOY (voice over) And the streets give west Africa's team another advantage in Africa's first world cup. This is home soil. Christian Purefoy, CNN, Lagos, Nigeria.
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VELSHI: And we are going to be bringing you lots of stuff about the World Cup. It gets started on Friday and goes for a month in South Africa.
Listen, you are going to -- this is unbelievable, Ed Henry, our Senior White House correspondent, in the stakeout very different today.
There are some people who were thinking that maybe I was trying to get Ed killed. Im going to tell you about this. He's safe and he's there. But he had quite an adventure this morning. We're going to show you what happened to Ed Henry early this morning.
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VELSHI: Time for the stakeout with Ed Henry, our senior White House correspondent. Boy, is he a sight for sore eyes. We have a story for you, a big, important story. I want you to hang on to that, Ed, because my heart is still beating very hard.
ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: All right.
VELSHI: We're still the news and you are our Senior White House correspondent and I'm anchoring this show, so we want to get people the news and as our senior White House correspondent, first of all, tell us.
President Obama held a town hall meeting today which was not nearly as eventful as your morning was, but tell us what the president is doing.
HENRY: The presidents' day is always more eventful than mine. But he was talking to senior citizens, the point here and I think the behind the-scenes story to keep an eye on is the fact that the president is out now again after taking a break on health care for weeks, he's out selling this again.
And it shows there are big primaries tonight, Arkansas, California, the president was out in Maryland today. No big primaries out there, but he was selling this health care reform law, talking about costs. Republicans are saying that it's going to turn out to be more than the president predicted.
But he's out there trying to say, look, I'm going to take this issue head-on. When you talk to his senior aides in private, they say in the weeks and months leading up to the midterm elections, he's not going to shy away from the controversy over the health care reform bill. He's going to go out and sell it today was day one.
VELSHI: All right, we'll keep an eye on that. Ed, I've been traveling a lot, lately, I'm going to be-- I was supposed to be in D.C. today as you know to go on this antique steer in (ph) plane flight.
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VELSHI: And I you know I've been planning it. I was so excited about it. I love planes. I learned how to fly. I used to be able to fly. I haven't done it in a long time, and I couldn't do it. So I, you and I were chatting the other day and I said, why don't you see if you can go on this flight and you agreed to do it. Tell us a bit about this.
HENRY: You said there were no strings, it was really easy, I' was going to be in this steerman which is you'll see there's two little open cockpits. It's sort of like the Snoopy plane, I guess the Red Baron almost, the World War ii training plane . And I don't know who I was in the Snoopy comparison, but in any event, I went out there with Ron Gore (ph), he's a retired U.S. air pilot, and you were supposed to be there, and Ron was great. He was the one actually flying it and we flew from Manassas, a regional airport in Virginia, to national airport.
Went over the Potomac river. Quite an interesting flight. We were only 1,000 feet above ground, and why were we doing this? It's because-you know President was out there last night in Michigan at this high school, talking about education and saying we've got to challenge our kids on science, engineering, things like that.
Otherwise we're going to fall behind to China, India other countries. Well the Smithsonian organized this with the plane flights because they are trying to promote a new IMAX film, "Legends of Flight" and they think these kind of films about aviation et cetera will encourage more kids to get into science, et cetera.
So everything was going well for me, but all of a sudden I heard my pilot behind me talking to the radio controller as we were coming into national airport, and he said we're going to land on runway one. They said, no, no, it's closed, go to runway three. I thought it was kind of abrupt, I thought maybe it was a problem but we landed very safely. Everything was calm and cool. It's a very small plane and the wind can whip you around. Well it turns out runway one was closed because the plane sort of just before me --
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VELSHI: Hold on. Hold on. There you go.
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HENRY: You got the footage?
VELSHI. That wasn't the plane you were on.
HENRY: I was not on that plane.
VELSHI: Oh! Ouch!
HENRY: : It went about 30 or 40 feet. Went down and flipped over. And now this is an open cockpit. So, there's nothing on top to keep you in there. Now thankfully the reporter and the pilot were seat belted in, as I was with my pilot and they held on. I just saw a fire engines and ambulances rushing to the scene.
Thankfully they were fine. There were a couple of tense moments, because some of my colleagues back at CNN, this was very kind of them, were worried about me because they thought look this plane went down and they knew I was doing this for you, I should point out, Ali, so is there something you want to tell me or --
VELSHI: I got a call from my--
HENRY: I thought this was a fun thing. (END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: I got call from my executive producer, in a very, sort of a solemn voice saying, one of these steerman planes has just flipped over. And I thought, oh, my God. I had Ed sub in for me on this ride. And then there was some questions, some investigators came to ask me about this insurance policy I took out on you yesterday. To see whether there was any connection.
HENRY: What was that? Were you taking on any insurance?
VELSHI: They deemed--it was one of those things at an airport you can take out an insurance policy at the last minute, they deemed there was no foul play involved. Great to see you, though, I am glad. I was worried, for a few minutes.
HENRY: Do you know what was funny, is right before we took off, the pilot who had been flying for over 35 years, took one look at me, and I guess he figures me, like you, are kind of these media guys who are not very tough.
And he said, are you going to need a barf bag up there? And I said oh no no I'll be fine. And I got to tell you, after about ten minutes of flying only 1,000 feet above the ground it was really cool.
And I had a camera in there were going to do a piece in a couple days to take you inside the cockpit and all that. But going down with the camera and looking down, I was starting to feel like I needed that bag, and I have to tell you I wasn't feeling so tough and I was basically like where is national airport?
I want this ride to end and, then of course, that was when the fun began. I had no idea what Ali Velshi had in store for me.
VELSHI: Good to hear, though, that the guys in the plane, because you just saw that video of them toppling over, good to hear they were safe.
HENRY: They are
VELSHI: They were buckled in. Because this is kind of like one of like you say, like a Snoopy plane if it lands and you're there, you kind of have to hold it up you know yourself, like there's no cockpit there's nothing there. But they were strapped in.
HENRY: : Wear your seat belts and sunscreen wear everything.
VELSHI: Wow what a thing. Ed I must say -- that's taking our friendship to a whole new level.
HENRY: Yeah and that, that thing the other thing you wanted me to fill in for you on, I can't do it. I've got a schedule.
VELSHI: We're canceling that space flight? Ed Henry, our Senior White House, on the stakeout on the ground and in the air today. Good to see you, Ed.
All right, you've seen one spill, you've seen them all. Not even close. All oil is not created equal. I'm going to have a word about that in wordplay . Coming up.
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VELSHI: We always, always want to know what we're talking about. We also want to know -- we want you to know what we're talking about. That's why we love wordplay, it's a chance to cut through the jargon and get to the news.
Today we've got a familiar word in a new context. Finger printing, decades after cops learned how to link crooks to crime scenes, scientists can now identify just about anything on a molecular level. Things can be traced or linked to other things including the oil spill.
We learned today from NOAA that three underwater plumes or clouds of oil have been confirmed in the Gulf of Mexico between the surface and 3,000 feet below the surface. Molecular analysis, or fingerprinting, proved two important things.
No. 1, the oil didn't just sink from the surface, and, No. 2, it didn't all come from the BP leak. Only one of the three plumes was a definitive match. One plume was ruled out as a match, tests on the third one were inconclusive. So what? so, the more we know about a disaster as big as this one, the better.
All this recession talk by the way that we've bombarded with over the last year has might have gotten you down. I've got to offer you an uplifting message in my XYZ coming up after this..
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VELSHI: Okay, time now for the XYZ of it. earlier I spoke with former Labor Secretary Robert Reich about his fears of a double-dip recession. Federal reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, said yesterday he didn't think our economy was about to take a second leg down, but he added, nothing is certain.
I want to switch hats now and talk to you as a business reporter for a minute. First, no matter what anybody says, the economy, at least here in the U.S., is improving.
GDP, gross domestic product is growing, interest rates remain low, home prices are stabilizing jobs are being created although last week's unemployment report shows that private sector jobs grew by a much smaller in May than we were hoping they would. And the market despite massive gyrations recently is still a lot higher than it was last March when it hit its lows. But unemployment, still 9.7 percent, and then there's the rest of the world. Asia is going strong, so is South America and India, but Europe is faltering, too much debt and not enough growth, it's causing the euro to drop, that's good for Americans traveling to Europe but it's bad for Europeans who want to buy foreign-made goods or services, bad for Europeans who want to travel to America, so a weak euro affects our industry.
While it may not feel like to some Americans most economist believe this recession is over and the end of recession should be a time of opportunity. Nothing stifles your hope more than someone telling you that things are going to get worse.
Your investments are going to suffer, your home value could -- could drop. I wish I could tell you those things won't happen, unfortunately I cant. But if you're getting confused about what to do, remember that you only have a limited effect on the larger economy.
If you're worried about a double-dip recession, make sure you're paying your debt down as aggressively as possible, saving if you can, keeping your work options open guiding your kids toward education in a growth industry, and I know it gets old hearing it, diversifying your investments.
Only you can control your own financial destiny. So while the gurus and pundits struggle with what's going in the larger world, make sure your little part is in order. That's my XYZ, here's Rick.
