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NEWS STREAM

U.S. Economy Adds 120,000 Jobs In November; Afghan Woman Refuses to Marry Rapist

Aired December 02, 2011 - 08:29   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(DUE TO POWER OUTAGE, THE FIRST PART OF THE TRANSCRIPT IS MISSING)

PAULINE CHIOU, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello. I'm Pauline Chiou in Hong Kong.

You're watching NEWS STREAM, and these are your world headlines.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton finished a landmark visit to Myanmar on Friday by seeing opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi a second time. The two met inside the house where Suu Kyi spent almost two decades under house arrest. They discussed the government's recent changes, as well as Suu Kyi's plans to run in upcoming parliamentary elections.

The U.S. officially handed over a key army base in Iraq to the Iraqi government earlier this Friday. U.S. and Iraqi officials held a ceremony at Camp Victory near Bagdad's international airport on Thursday. The site used to house the palaces of Saddam Hussein, but later became home to tens of thousands of U.S. troops. The handover is the latest step in the U.S.'s withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is in the Turkish capital of Ankara speaking with President Abdullah Gul. Biden is pledging America's support in helping Turkey fight the Kurdistan Workers Party. Also known as PKK, it's considered a common enemy of both countries. The situation in Syria, Turkey's newly sanctioned neighbor, will also be addressed.

Well, Greek prime minister Lucas Papademos has called for swift action at a meeting of European leaders in Brussels next week. Mr. Papademos says the EuroZone must deal more effectively with its growing debt crisis by strengthening economic governance in the region. The meeting will address proposed treaty changes for the EU.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says Europe is on the verge of launching a fiscal union to fix the region's debt crisis. Ms. Merkel addressed the German parliament earlier today and laid out her vision of a much more tightly integrated EuroZone. She said EU institutions should have the power to discipline member states on their economic policies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANGELA MERKEL, GERMAN CHANCELLOR (through translator): And both should be included as budgetary discipline of its members that has real power for decision and an effective instrument for cases crisis. There is no way to avoid to change the European treaties or the second best solution would be to draw up new treaties within the Euro group, but we -- and I want to stress this -- go to Brussels with a goal to push through treaty change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHIOU: Meantime, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron are holding talks in Paris. The two are expected to discuss proposed governance changes in the EuroZone. Now Britain is concerned the changes could lessen its influence in the EU. Both Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Cameron have said cooperation between Germany and France is crucial to the survival of the euro. The French president will speak with German chancellor Angela Merkel later on Monday in an emergency meeting.

And stay tuned to CNN for World Business Today in about 30 minutes from now where you can get much more on the latest developments in Paris. That's coming up at the top of the hour.

Now the U.S. Labor Department has just released about one minute ago its closely watched jobs report for November. The economy added 120,000 jobs. The unemployment rate fell to 8.6 percent from 9 percent, so that is very good news. It was expected to hold steady at 9 percent in October. 80,000 jobs were added then to payrolls.

Now we'll take a closer look at these critical figures for you in just a little bit.

To the U.S. now where the candidacy of presidential hopeful Herman Cain is looking less certain. Cain is still on the campaign trail asking people to support his bid for the Republican nomination, but allegations of an extramarital affair aren't going away. And the latest opinion polls suggest Cain has lost a wide margin of support.

Jim Acosta has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HERMAN CAIN, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hello New Hampshire.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was a question asked at a news conference in New Hampshire that opened up a window into Herman Cain's troubled world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whose the (inaudible) that you know?

CAIN: All right. Let me answer it this way, 999 is going to turn this economy around.

ACOSTA: 999, not the 411 on Ginger White, the woman who says she had a 13 year affair with Cain, an allegation he has denied.

Asked when he'll decide whether to continue his campaign, Cain said he had yet to discuss the matter in person with his wife of 43 years Gloria. His political fate, he added, hinges on her support.

CAIN: This is another reason why that I am not going to make a decision until after we talk face to face.

ACOSTA: In an interview with a New Hampshire Union Leader editorial board Cain said he was only offering White financial support.

CAIN: My wife did not know about it. And that was the revelation and the surprise that my wife found out about it when she went public with it.

ACOSTA: None of that is sitting well with many conservatives, including his close friend talk radio host Neal Boortz.

NEAL BOORTZ, TALK RADIO HOST: Do you think I'm going to get back to my wife and try to straighten this out? Am I going to wait two days, three days, five days? I'm chartering a jet.

ACOSTA: After allegations first surfaced last month that Cain had sexually harassed a handful of women back in the late 1990s Mrs. Cain stood by her husband's denials.

GLORIA CAIN, HERMAN CAIN'S WIFE: And I know that's not the person he is. He totally respects women.

ACOSTA: Earlier this year Cain was adamant on a conference call of conservative bloggers, that he had no skeletons in his closet. The conversation was recorded by the Daily Caller's Matt Lewis.

CAIN: I don't have any illegitimate babies. I don't have any mistresses.

ACOSTA: Polls show Republicans are starting to have their doubts. A new poll in Florida finds Cain's support has plummeted to 10 percent, down from 34 percent back in October.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's time for the truth.

ACOSTA: A political action committee backing Cain is running this ad in Iowa that suggests the conservative business man is innocent.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now that you know the truth, let's focus on what matters.

ACOSTA: But some Republicans say a different truth is emerging.

KENNETH BLACKWELL, FORMER OHIO SECRETARY OF STATE: He has to make a choice between his family and getting these issues behind him, or staying on the campaign stage and watch his campaign die a slow death.

ACOSTA: A Cain spokesman confirmed the campaign still plans to open up its new national headquarters in Atlanta this weekend. That could be a sign of life. But asked whether that opening might be postponed, a spokesman did not respond.

Jim Acosta, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHIOU: While much attention is on Cain's domestic life, the candidate is trying to put focus on his foreign policy strategy. And that is seen as Cain's weak point. On his web site, Cain gives his assessment of international relations.

Let's take a closer look at this map here. As you can see Canada is labeled friend and ally, Russia is a rival, while China is a competitor.

Now Pakistan is both dangerous and opportunity. Critics say Cain oversimplifies complex affairs.

And by the way, if this image looks a little familiar, yes it is a map of Facebook connections. Cain references that at the bottom of the page by saying it illustrates how entrepreneurship and freedom can light up the world with friendship.

Well, it seems everyone these days is weighing in on next year's U.S. presidential election, even Kermit the Frog. The famous Muppet talks with our own Wolf Blitzer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Who do you think would be a good counterpoint for you in this strategy session.

KERMIT: I do have to tell you that Newt is from the Swamp. There's other Newts in the swamp too.

BLITZER: The next time I interview him, maybe you'll join me in the question.

KERMIT: You bet I will.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHIOU: So there you have it, the opinion from Kermit the Frog.

Well, some people say there's a serious problem with Siri, Apple's new iPhone features seems to get stumped by one controversial question. Find out the topic that Siri won't touch.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHIOU: An Afghan woman who was imprisoned for adultery could be one step closer to freedom. The president of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai has ordered the release of the woman known as Gulnaz after authorities proposed a pardon for her on Thursday.

Now Gulnaz was convicted of adultery after being raped, because her attacker was married at the time. She is now refusing to marry that man which was once a condition for her release. Her attorney Kim Motley spoke earlier with CNN's Brooke Baldwin about what will happen if Gulnaz walks free.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIM MOTLEY, GULNAZ'S ATTORNEY: Gulnaz and I have talked about her being released and where she will go. And so there is a place that she is going to go. I know where that location is. We've talked about it. We are not going to share that with the public for her safety, but she does have a safe place to go. She has a safe place to be, to get here, so it's already and waiting for her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHIOU: This story caused a huge, global outcry. And nearly 5,000 people have signed a petition calling for Gulnaz to be released.

There's new information today on the case of former USAID worker who was kidnapped several months ago in Pakistan. Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri is now claiming responsibility for the kidnapping on a number of web sites known for carrying radical messages.

Gunman grabbed the 70 year old Warren Weinstein from this house in an upscale neighborhood of Lahore last August. Since then, police have been investigating.

In an audio message, a voice claiming to be al Zawahiri lists the various conditions for Weinstein's release. That includes ending U.S. air strikes in the region and releasing a number of prisoners.

Now how would you feel if your smartphone was spying on you? Well, millions of people around the world got a taste of that earlier this week. At the center of the privacy scare is a piece of analytic software called Carrier IQ. Video posted by security researcher says Carrier IQ can log nearly all of your phone activities, that includes your calls, messages, location, and even key strokes which means it may be able to record your passwords.

Well, Gizmoto says the software isn't part of any operating system such as Android or iOS, instead it reportedly is installed independently by a phone carrier or manufacturer. And what's worse is there's no way to opt out.

Now the exposure triggered havoc for the company. And it's currently facing a Senate investigation. But Carrier IQ denied all wrongdoing in a statement emphasizing privacy is protected.

So here's the question, who's actually using the software? Among major phone carriers Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile all confirmed limited usage citing network monitoring and maintenance as their main reasons. Now Verizon denied using Carrier IQ along with handset makers Research in Motion and Nokia. Samsung and HTC said their phones don't include the software unless U.S. carriers request for it.

Now as for Apple, the company says that it has, quote, stopped supporting Carrier IQ with iOS 5 in most of the products and will remove it completely in a future software update.

In other news now, thousands of people are also calling on Apple to fix a controversial problem with the new iPhone. It involves a virtual personal assistant called Siri. Now some activists say the feature promotes anti-abortion extremism. And nearly 29,000 people have signed a petition asking Apple to fix this.

Mary Snow explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Where can I find a supermarket?

It's one of the hottest functions of the new iPhone.

SIRI: I found a number of supermarkets.

SNOW: Siri, the virtual assistant. Ask it just about anything and it finds an answer. If it can't, it leads you to a search engine. But Apple is having to respond to questions about its new voice activated assistant. Those questions were first raised by bloggers asking why Siri can find anything from strip clubs to Viagra, but apparently draws a blank when asked about abortion and contraception.

We're standing outside a Planned Parenthood clinic here in New York. Where can I find an abortion clinic.

This is the latest iPhone with a Siri app.

SIRI: Sorry, I couldn't find any abortion clinics.

SNOW: Asked the same question in Washington, D.C. and the blog Raw Story says Siri comes up with an anti-abortion center in Virginia and one in Pennsylvania. A similar search on Google directs users to several clinics where abortions are performed.

The ACLU and abortion rights advocates raise concerns. But Apple is blaming it on a technical glitch, saying these are not intentional omissions meant to offend anyone. It simply means that as we bring Siri from beta to a final product we find places where we can do better and we will in the coming weeks.

Not everyone is buying it. Eli Pariser is the former executive director of MoveOn.org and the author of The Filter Bubble.

ELI PARISER, AUTHOR: I think it's a pretty thin answer. The fact is that for a long time media companies have you know made it more difficult for women to, you know, find family planning. This is not the first time that this has happened.

SNOW: One analyst who covers Apple says he doesn't believe there's a hidden agenda since Apple doesn't use its own database, but rather relies on information gathered from partners. But, he says, the company's culture of silence will likely only add to suspicions.

BAN BAKER, GARTNER: You see lots and lots of pretty wild theories and speculations about new products and services and, you know, hidden agendas and all those kinds of things with Apple more than you do with other companies because they tend to constrain the amount of information that they make available to the marketplace.

SNOW: Meantime, the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation posted an e-mail received from Apple's CEO after writing him. The group says it appreciates the prompt response and that it will continue to monitor Siri until Apple's efforts to work out the kinks are finished.

Mary Snow, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHIOU: Still ahead on News Stream, power is out, trees are down, the annual Santa Ana winds are battering southern California now. We'll get more on that and a full weather update from Mari Ramos at the world weather center. Stay with CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHIOU: We're about 40 minutes away from the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. And traders are digesting one of the most closely watched economic indicators on Wall Street, which of course is the monthly jobs report.

Now the unemployment rate has fallen to 8.6 percent, the lowest since March of 2009. Joya Dass joins us now live from the NASDAQ. And Joya, it looks like we've got some pretty encouraging jobs data today.

JOYA DASS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, at first blush the number looks great, right. It's dropped to 8.6 percent from 9 percent in the previous month, but when you take a look at the noise behind that number -- keep in mind that some 315,000 people have stopped looking for work so that means that they're no longer counted in the unemployment roles, so that's part of the reason why we've seen the decline.

On the flip side, there's some good news. The private sector has added 120,000 positions which is why we're seeing this number deteriorate as significantly as it has.

If you take a look at -- just go a little bit -- dig a little bit deeper, the retail sector in the United States has really been hiring at a robust clip, especially for this holiday season. And that's another area we saw some big gains. The leisure sector as well as health care also posting some big gains as well, Pauline.

CHIOU: All right. Thank you very much for putting that all into context for us Joya. And we'll see you again for the opening bell. Joya Dass there live at the NASDAQ.

Well, hundreds of thousands of California homes and businesses lost power on Thursday as Santa Ana winds swept through the southern part of the state. Mari Ramos is at the world weather center. And Mari, we seem to hear about the Santa Ana winds every once in awhile. And it seems like it's rearing its head once again.

MARI RAMOS, CNN WEATHER CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know what? We have still one more day of this very intense wind across California. Hopefully today is not as bad as the last two days, but it has been pretty intense. And for those of you that may not be familiar, this is a wind event that it tends to be seasonal. When we get an area of high pressure here to the north the winds tend to come out off the land and toward the water. This makes the temperatures warmer, because you don't have that onshore flow that normally happens here across southern California.

And the other thing is, you get some very strong winds. As the wind passes through the mountain ranges, it speeds up. It's almost like when you're downtown and you're in between various large buildings and then the wind, it gets very windy between the buildings almost a similar situation like that, but of course on a much larger scale. So the winds can really be -- in this case they're calling it a 10 year event, winds as high as 156 kilometers per hour and that's very significant.

Now I want to show you that it's not only southern California that's been affected, other areas across the southwest have had very strong winds -- Las Vegas, Salt Lake City over 100 kilometer per hour winds there, so that's very significant as well.

I want to show you some video. And this is from LAX. And this is pretty cool, because there's the tower cam. And of course it's all shaky, not an earthquake, it's the wind right? There go the towers -- and now they're gone, that's because they had a power outage there as well.

This, of course, affected hundreds and hundreds -- I should say thousands of travelers and hundreds of flights were affected. 20 were diverted on Thursday night. Situation returning to normal, but there have been some serious problems around the area because of the strong winds.

Let's go ahead and roll the other piece of video. This is the newest video that we have. And of course the clean-up is ongoing. The temperatures haven't been so warm, by the way, which is a little unusual with the Santa Ana winds. But there are downed trees, downed power lines. Pasadena called a state of emergency, the city of Pasadena. So this is pretty significant stuff. And like I said, they're calling it the worst damage in 10 years from these strong southern California winds. So it's a big deal. The situation should start to get a little bit better.

Come back over to the weather map, switch gears a little bit. And Pauline, you may be asking yourself when you see this picture where is that beautiful winter wonderland? Well, that's Beijing. First snowfall of the season. It looks absolutely beautiful, right? Only about a dusting of snow, .7 millimeters, almost couldn't even be measured. It melted fairly quickly, but the temperatures are cold. It did cause some problems with travel and roadways and railways and air traffic was delayed. And there's also a lot of snow north of Beijing in some of the northern provinces, so there are some wintry travel problems across these areas.

We should begin to see an improvement by the weekend, but this is after all some of the coldest air we've had so far this season. It is expected to continue. Back to you.

CHIOU: Yeah, it can be kind of messy when the snow hits a city with 14 million people there.

All right, thanks so much Mari.

Well, it's one of those stories you'd like to believe, a beer goes boldly where no beer has gone before, but was it the first beer in space or actually a hot air viral marketing hoax? Well, CNN's Jeanne Moos explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Forget 99 bottles of beer on the wall, how about one can of beer in space?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How you guys doing? We're going to shoot a beer into space today.

MOOS: Attached to a weather balloon? That at least is what Danny Burns and Rich Toma (ph) claim.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome to mission control aka my parent's garage.

MOOS: The two say they saw YouTube videos of people sending lame stuff up into space like an iPhone. So why not the first beer in space?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we happened to be drinking a couple of Natty Lights at the time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, definitely.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we were like, duh.

MOOS: Some say you'd have to be duh to believe this story. But we'll get to that.

The guys say they contacted the makers of Natty Light.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And they were like, hell yeah.

MOOS: Natty Light is not exactly known for being, shall we say, out of this world.

Beer advocate web site gives it a D minus. Review range from this is a great beer for the money to perfect to clean your toilet with.

Danny and Rich say they packed a can of Natty into a Styrofoam cooler along with a camera, positioning it to shoot the journey with an empty can of beer on the outside as a decoration.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let it go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: See you later buddy.

MOOS: Next come the lovely images of the beer going up, up and away, above the clouds to 90,000 feet, thin atmosphere. Peppy little subtitles and music added. The balloon seemingly pops and the cooler plummets down, slowed by a parachute until splashdown.

GPS on the cooler supposedly allows the guys to locate it.

Do I smell a rat, perhaps a guerrilla viral marketing campaign?

The date when the guys say the launch took place is wrong, Anheuser Busch now admits.

Further opening a can of worms we believe at least one of the guys has a marketing company and may have done some event planning for Anheuser Busch a few years back. Anheuser Busch assured CNN that the video is real, not computer generated, and that Danny and Rich approached the company to do this and were not paid.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That beer is intact.

MOOS: But is their story?

Someone posted, "one small step for man, one giant leap for alcoholics."

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHIOU: You decide for yourself.

In the meantime, we have some astronomical numbers for you. The former wife of a Hong Kong business tycoon has been awarded a whopping divorce settlement worth $154 million U.S. dollars. Now Hong Kong's high court ruled that Florence Tsang Chiu-wing right here was entitled to maintain her lifestyle. Her ex-husband is worth about $4.6 billion.

Now here's how that stacked up against some well known divorces. For example, Paul McCartney was ordered to pay Heather Mills nearly $49 million back in 2008. And more recently, the end of Tiger Woods' marriage is said to have cost him $100 million. But Michael Jordan may have the most expensive celebrity divorce ever, the basketball legend reportedly paid his ex-wife nearly $170 million.

So those are some hefty numbers that we're ending with.

And that is News Stream. But the news continues at CNN. World Business Today is coming up next with more analysis on those U.S. jobs numbers. Thank you.

END