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"Smoke Watch" Starts Tuesday; Al Qaeda "Consigliere" in New York; Wall Street Reacts to Jobs Report; Big Asteroid About to Buzz Earth; Dead Body Photos Posted Online; Lion Broke Free, Killed Intern in Cage; Singing Gets Woman Kicked Off Train; What's Hot in Music, Film and Technology

Aired March 08, 2013 - 14:00   ET

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


BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Moments ago, the men deciding the next pope finally revealed the big date. But what the heck have they been talking about behind closed doors? I'm Brooke Baldwin. The news is now.

A man who helped plan 9/11 is right now sitting in New York City. Not Gitmo. We'll debate the fate of Osama Bin Laden's son-in-law.

Plus, a medical examiner needs help identifying bodies. So he's posting their graphic pictures online.

And --

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did you say? What did you say?

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BALDWIN: Bieber drama, showing up late, collapsing, tweeting suggestive pics. Are we watching another star fall?

Happy Friday. Good to see all of you. I'm Brooke Baldwin. At the Vatican today, it was the vote to decide the vote. So now we have a date. It is March 12th that is next Tuesday. That is when those 115 cardinals will meet to choose Benedict's successor.

That's when we start the so-called smoke watch. Remember this from eight years ago? Here it was, when we saw the white smoke rising above the Vatican, from the chimney, there at the beautiful Sistine Chapel in Rome. That is when the world knows. That's a signal when we will have a new pope, the white smoke.

But until then, there is a lot to do. In fact, the chimney hasn't even been built yet. And as far as communications there has been a ban inside this hotel where the cardinals will be staying. Well, it turns out they still need to put in the cell phone jammers and the anti-bugging devices.

Ben Wedeman, our senior international correspondent in Rome for us right now. And as we mentioned, there is still a lot going on. Still a lot to do here before the conclave even begins to then decide who the next pope is. What is taking them so long?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly what we saw all week, Brooke, was some very intense discussions among the cardinals talking about issues of governance, some of the leaks that have taken place over the last few years with the Vatican, a lot to discuss, a lot to deal with before they finally got around, after five days of discussions, to deciding upon the date of the conclave.

And as you said, they still have a lot of work to do yet before they go Tuesday afternoon into the conclave. They'll just have one vote in the Sistine Chapel on Tuesday, followed by four a day until they finally come up with that white smoke declaring we have a pope -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Ben Wedeman, before we see that white smoke, though, I know there are people betting on this. We have talked about the sweet Sistine. Who are some of the favorites for the next pope?

BALDWIN: Brooke, the top two are Mark Oulette of Canada -- archbishop of Milan, both men obviously having obvious strength. Oulette would sort of represent the American block, the south and North American block.

Scola, more a favorite of the Vatican and of the European cardinals, but really it is wide open field, certainly compared to 2005, when Benedict was the fairly obvious candidate at the time.

This time there seems to be a much broader range of choice and a broader range of opinion when it comes to how the Vatican is run, which really seems to be the main concern here in Rome at the moment -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Still what an exciting time to be in Rome, greatest time, Ben Wedeman, we'll see you in the coming days and weeks. We appreciate it.

Now let's talk about Osama Bin Laden's son-in-law. Nabbed in Jordan in a cloak and dagger escapade, just appeared here in federal court in Manhattan. He is Suleman Abu Gaith. That is his name.

He pleaded not guilty to charges of trying to kill Americans and by all accounts here this terror merchant will be the highest ranking al Qaeda official to go on trial in New York since before 9/11.

On that account, some folks are getting all kinds of jumpy over the fact this will take place in Manhattan, Senator Lindsey Graham among them.

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SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: We believe firmly that Gitmo, there is no substitute for it. That Congress will agree upon, that it is the right place to put an enemy combatant for interrogation and at all possible trial.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: We're going to talk about a little of the politics of that a little later. But first, Suleman Abu Gaith, my friend, Tim Lister here, CNN executive editor, so he wasn't an operations guy, but clearly he was well connected. He is the son-in-law of Bin Laden. Here he is side by side with him. How did we get our hands on him?

TIM LISTER, CNN EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Well, it's so much like an episode out of "Homeland" to be honest with you. He was skulking around in Iran for about 10 years. He got there in 2002. He seems to have been very restless.

At some point the Iranians either pushed him or he decided to go. So he crosses the border into Turkey on a forged Saudi passport. The Turks horrified, this is the last thing they want. He's in Turkish custody for about four weeks. The CIA alerted the Turks for the fact that he was staying at this luxury hotel in Ankara.

BALDWIN: Luxury hotel.

LISTER: And then the Turks put him on a plane to Kuwait, which is his land of birth, but the plane stops in Jordan and the Jordanians, very close to the CIA, hand him over. That's what we are led to believe and a day later he's back in New York.

BALDWIN: I read that he's given someone a lengthy statement. What do we know about what he said?

LISTER: Not a lot. Apart from the fact it is a 22-page statement he gave after his arrest, after he was passed into the custody of U.S. authorities. They also are examining various audio recordings that he made presumably while still being interrogated by the Turks. Beyond that, we don't know what he said.

BALDWIN: You mentioned a moment ago that he was in Iran for a bit of time. He, other al Qaeda operatives, had been in there. Iran doesn't like them. They don't like Iran. What gives?

LISTER: Well, you remember immediately after 9/11, President G.W. Bush said you're with us or against us. Iran said a bit of both, actually. They did hand over a lot of al Qaeda operatives, sent them back to their lands of origin, immediately after 9/11, because so many al Qaeda people came into Iran, but they held on to some.

Perhaps because they wanted some sort of insurance in the future, in case al Qaeda should turn against Iran, one of them, very important operational planner behind the bombings of the U.S. Embassy in East Africa back in 1998, and quite a lot of Bin Laden family members. So they were stuck there.

Gradually Iran tired of al Qaeda, and they're on the other side of this historic spit, Sunni, Shia, and Iran really had no time for al Qaeda what it was doing in Iraq, what it is now doing in Syria. So they're on the opposite side of this titanic struggle.

And then there was this kidnapping of an Iranian diplomat in Pakistan and a year later this guy was freed, and the cost to al Qaeda got was, well, you're going to release some of our people. Addal, we think, fled to Pakistan from Iran and now Abu Gaith has left too.

BALDWIN: And again, the fact that Abu Gaith will be tried in Manhattan as opposed to taking him to Guantanamo clearly creating a lot of buzz. We're going to tackle that with our hot topics panel here in a couple of minutes. Tim Lister, thank you, sir. I appreciate it.

And now this, as we look at the big board here, the Dow after some pretty huge news this morning, let's look at the big board. The Dow, is it up? Let me see. Yes it is, 48 points up at 14,377. All of this reacting to a pretty positive jobs report out this morning.

But, Christine Romans, the real headline is what is inside February's numbers -- Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, this was a stronger than expected employment report, 236,000 jobs created, 7.7 percent unemployment rate. That jobless rate fell in part because 130,000 people dropped out of the labor market. They weren't finding the opportunity to keep looking.

This is how it breaks down between private sector job growth, 246,000 private sector job growth, the 36th month in a row the companies have been hiring. But the government, laying off 10,000 workers, economists telling us, Brooke, those were most likely school related jobs.

Let's look at where you can see other parts of job creation and job loss. Mostly retail jobs here, 24,000, wholesale trade, professional business services, anything that has to do with computer systems design, by the way, did well there.

Those are good paying jobs and construction, 48,000 jobs in construction. This is a Hurricane Sandy rebuilding story, but more than anything else, it is a housing recovery story there for those construction jobs.

I want to add one more number to sort of be, I guess, the dark cloud, around this silver lining. And that is the under employment rate, 14.3 percent. You'll hear from a lot of folks who say the jobless -- the jobless rate is not better for me.

Well, they're probably right, 14.3 percent is the unemployment rate, plus the number of people who have been sidelined by the economy. They're working part time, but would like to be working full time. Some people call this the real employment rate. That number, Brooke, is still too high.

BALDWIN: Christine Romans, thank you.

Now my space geeks and people who just care that there is a huge asteroid hurling our way here, if you're thinking, hang on, I heard this one before, well, you have. We told you about the one that buzzed past us earlier this year, a couple of weeks ago.

Also, you saw the video, that meteor exploded over Russia, a month ago. Let's talk about this one coming our way this weekend. Meteorologist Alexandra Steele to tell us how worried, if at all, we should be, or thinking this is pretty cool. Tell me about this asteroid.

ALEXANDRA STEELE, AMS METEOROLOGIST: The latter, OK. No fear, no threat. It is cool. It is called 2-2013 because of the year ET. There is no danger. It's just unsettling, Brooke, because as you just said. You know, we've mentioned this before, and the key to one just a few weeks ago as well as this one we'll see Saturday is they haven't been detected until days before. The one we'll see this weekend only detected nine days ago.

BALDWIN: That's the thing. That's the frightening part.

STEELE: And it is hot on the heels of, of course, the Russian meteor on February 15th that did do damage. That was a meteor this is an asteroid. An asteroid is a rocky object, millions of them in space. A meteor is an asteroid that burns up entering our atmosphere, think more shooting star.

So here is the deal with this. It's the size of a football field and aren't they all? Although the meteor in Russia was about six times smaller than this and it is quite far away, 2-1/2 times the distance between the earth and the moon.

And, again, no threat, no fear. It is too feint to see from your backyard telescope, recently discovered, and I think what happened, astronomers think there is a million out there. They've only discovered about 9,700 of them.

So more, I think there is a move afoot, Brooke, to do a little more in asteroid research in terms of detection, but interesting nonetheless.

BALDWIN: I think also you can hop online and you can watch it.

STEELE: That's right. You can. I was going to show it to you live, but it is raining, so you can't see it. So we're keeping an eye on that.

BALDWIN: We'll keep an eye. Alexandra, thank you very much.

And now this, unidentified bodies, filling up in this one Illinois morgue. Wait until you hear what they're doing to then get these men and women identified.

Plus, find out why this simple song got a woman kicked off the train. We're on the case.

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BALDWIN: How about this one? The Cook County morgue, this is in Chicago, has taken the unusual and perhaps controversial step of posting photos of unclaimed bodies on its web site, for anyone to see. A warning, the images, while blurred, that we're about to show you are graphic. So just heads up. This is what we're talking about. This is a man, white male, in his 50s with a couple of unique tattoos, which they also here show on the web site. Body brought into the morgue. But like thousands of Americans each and every year, no family, no friends ever showed up to claim the body.

So what's the medical examiner's office to do? Take a couple of pictures, upload the photographs to the web site. Victor Blackwell is here. I was in Detroit a couple of years ago. This was the beginning when the economy started taking a tumble. Family members who could recognize and identify a loved one in a morgue, they couldn't afford burial.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's the case for some of these people who have been unclaimed. There are two categories. There is unclaimed and unidentified. We checked with Cook County. This is the Chicago area.

They have 45 unclaimed persons, which means they know who they are, but no one has come, next of kin, to retrieve the bodies. There is also the unidentified. They have about 18 of those. They have no idea who these people are.

And imagine, you know, a daughter runs away, or an uncle who maybe has dementia wanders off one day and you never have any idea what happened to that person. This is their opportunity to, I remember a butterfly tattoo or a scar and pick that person out.

BALDWIN: But, not everyone in this world has, you know, benevolent motivations and there are people out there. How do they make sure someone who is maybe not a relative or not a friend comes and says, that's my brother with perhaps nefarious intentions for the body for who knows what?

BLACKWELL: Yes, you never know what people are searching for online, but there are two ways. First, dental records, if you can come in and say this is my brother, these are his dental records, you have to prove it or they hand it back over to the police department.

They will take a DNA sample from the body and the person who is coming forward to claim that body and match them up to decide if you have any relation at all and only after that is confirmed will you get that body.

BALDWIN: What if no one steps forward? How long does Cook County keep the bodies?

BLACKWELL: For Cook County specifically, it could take up to a year and then they'll bury that person. It goes over to the Board of Health and they have the custody of the body. It takes a year to get to the point where they'll bury this body.

But it varies from county to county, state to state. I mean, it starts in some jurisdictions in a few days. Some it takes years. I was talking to a federal official, a spokesperson, who says he's been to some jurisdictions, some counties, where he's seen skeletons in boxes.

BALDWIN: Skeletons.

BLACKWELL: Skeletons because --

BALDWIN: That's how long they have been sitting there.

BLACKWELL: Decades, decades.

BALDWIN: Wow. It's sad.

BLACKWELL: It is. But this is an opportunity to bring these people home.

BALDWIN: Yes. Victor Blackwell, thank you very much.

Coming up next, disturbing new information in the deadly lion attack, which left that young woman intern, 24 years of age, dead. Why investigators now believe the victim may have been blindsided.

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BALDWIN: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel right now in Afghanistan, making his first trip to the war zone since his confirmation. Hagel says he wants to thank troops and get a better understanding of what is happening there on the ground.

And some pretty stunning video, watch this with me. Out of Massachusetts, Plum Island, Massachusetts, this home here collapsing into the Atlantic Ocean. Thank goodness no one is living there. It was condemned a couple of years ago. Folks there on the coast being warned of more high tides as the flooding continues.

Blindsided by a 350 pound lion, that is apparently what happened to intern Dianna Hanson at Project Survival's Cat Haven in California. Officials are now saying this lion somehow escaped its feeding cage Wednesday, moved into this larger pen where Hanson was cleaning and quickly attacked her.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Quick suffocation and neck fracture. There was no blood and they think it was a quick death followed by just some injuries of the lion that was probably just playing too hard.

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BALDWIN: Dianna's family released a statement to us. They say they know in their hearts Dianna has no regret and would be upset to hear that the lion was shot.

There she goes. West Virginia, standing room only as this memorial bridge came crashing down. You hear the cheers, a lot of people standing by to watch. World War II veterans, some of the city's VIPs cheered as an explosion brought the aging bridge down, soon to be replaced by a brand-new one. That spiritual hymn got the 82-year-old woman dragged off, you see the surveillance video here, cell phone video, dragged off this Miami train by security, a passenger caught the whole thing on a cell phone last month. The security guard said Emma Anderson broke a no singing rule. Mayor Carlos Jimenez apologized to Anderson a day after the transit authority defended the guard. Anderson is now exploring legal options.

It is the conference that showcases what's hot in music and film and the digital world and today South by Southwest kicks off. Here's a taste.

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LAURIE SEGALL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Welcome to South by Southwest. Pitching, partying, it is all part of the South by Southwest culture and all kicking off here at Capital Factory in Austin, Texas, at the annual startup crawl.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The transporter is the world's first social storage drive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This produces 3D content as quickly and as easily as a camera.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have two dozen chats from all over the world that teach cooking classes using Google Plus Hangout.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you want to get noticed, it is really hard. It is hard to get noticed in all the crowd so for a startup, they can be part of this huge crawl, this huge party, and get some exposure and meet people and have a presence in South by Southwest.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is refreshing. I'm getting energized by being around people who are building really crazy things. There is something happening here you can't ignore. When you have 2,000 people here, you know, going around town, looking at startups, there is something going on here.

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BALDWIN: And there she is. In the middle of it all, Laurie Segall. I'm jealous. I was there this time last year. This is the technology portion of South By. What's hot right now?

SEGALL: Sure, well, I will say right now, Brooke, we're at the Capital Factory. It's an incubator with all sorts of entrepreneurs, building out great products. That's really the spirit of South By. Bring entrepreneurs to Austin, bring great new technologies and show what's hot.

So you know, I've been asking around and usually there is a hot app and people are talking about what's next. And I hadn't really heard, you know, no one is saying this is the next big thing. What a lot of people are talking about are technology that is expanding beyond your smartphone. So where as it used to have Twitter and Four Square that were hot here, now we're seeing people who have different arm bands that help you -- you can feel your heart beat using your smartphone and that kind of thing. We're seeing this extension of technology. It is moving beyond the smartphone.

I sat down with Bill Gates the other day and he told me robotics were the next big way. We're really seeing this move, beyond this smartphone and into the real world. I can imagine we might see people wearing those Google glasses out.

We're going to a drone expo tomorrow. People are programming different types of drones so lots of cool things happening here and just the beginning because it is starting today -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: So just quickly so you can make me more jealous, are you staying for the music portion?

SEGALL: I wish. Might overlap a little bit, but that's the great part of Austin, there is such a good music scene. If I can catch some live music, you better bet I will try.

BALDWIN: Laurie Segall in Austin, Texas. Laurie, thank you. We'll be looking for your reporting from South By Southwest.

From Reverend Jesse Jackson now to actor, Sean Penn, thousands gather for Hugo Chavez's funeral today. Just ahead, we'll tell you the unique way that Chavez will be memorialized forever.

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