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Around the World

American Memorial Cemeteries Close Around the World Due to Shutdown; Kerry Makes Surprise Afghan Trip; Human Rights Watch Claims Opposition Abuses in Syria; Food Producers Also Affected by Shutdown; Top European Award; House GOP Offer Wouldn't End Shutdown

Aired October 11, 2013 - 12:30   ET

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

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And when they see things in Washington impacting the stock market, it certainly worries them, certainly the people here in this Lauderdale West community.

And one woman told us, one of the problems -- and a lot of the people are telling us one thing they don't like to hear is when those programs like Social Security and Medicare are called entitlements because they'll tell you they worked hard for a lot of years to benefit from those benefits, so that rubs them the wrong way.

Suzanne, Michael?

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CO-ANCHOR: All right, thank you.

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Good to see, John. John Zarrella down there.

MALVEAUX: And that's one of the things Republicans are talking about, though, they want to reform entitlement programs, that includes in their view, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.

HOLMES: But to a lot of those people, as John was saying, entitlement is a dirty word. They're saying it's not entitlement, per se.

MALVEAUX: The partial government shutdown is also preventing folks from visiting some of American war memorials overseas.

This is the American Memorial Cemetery. This is near the Normandy landing beaches in France. Well, it is closed.

HOLMES: You see there the gates are locked. A message of the bar says the cemetery is closed until the shutdown ends.

You see this message actually at every U.S. memorial cemetery and monument overseas today and that is a lot of places.

MALVEAUX: American burial grounds are located in 10 countries. They are the final resting place for about 125,000 U.S. servicemen and women.

HOLMES: The shutdown has wide-ranging effects all over the country, of course, but it is especially hurting food producers.

MALVEAUX: How the fishing industry and citrus growers are feeling about that. And how they're feeling it, up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: The secretary of state headed off to Afghanistan today, one of those unannounced visits, landing in Kabul a few hours ago now, on a short visit, one that, as we say, his office didn't announce.

What he's trying to do is make progress on a stalled security deal that would leave some U.S. forces in-country beyond the scheduled pull out date, which is, of course, the end of next year.

MALVEAUX: So you're seeing pictures of Kerry meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. U.S. officials describe the deal as 95 percent complete, but there are some significant sticking points, not the least to mention that Hamid Karzai is not happy with what he is seeing as U.S. NATO U.S. not respecting Afghan sovereignty, going in there and acting on their own.

HOLMES: Yeah, and going after villages and that.

But the U.S. wants to be able to do special forces actions against, say, al Qaeda elements in the country, and Karzai is saying you can't do it without us involved. And so that is a sticking point at the moment.

Meanwhile, this is a very disturbing story for people keeping an eye on what's happening in Syria. Human Rights Watch came out with of report today that says Syrian opposition fighters, many of them the Islamic groups that we have talked about, al Qaeda linked, al-Nusra, committed what they call "serious abuses" in a string of Alawite villages.

This happened back in August, and you will remember that Bashar al- Assad, he himself, is an Alawite.

The rights group say that rebel fighters overran government army positions then occupied ten villages. This happened in the coastal province of Latakia. At least 190 civilians were killed. There some people with Human Rights Watch calling it war crimes.

MALVEAUX: War crimes.

And, in Libya today, a car bomb exploded. This is in Benghazi. Now this happened outside the Swedish consulate.

Surveillance video shows a driver parking the car, walking away before that explosion there. Amazingly, no one was hurt.

Also right now we have waiting to hear from Libya's prime minister, Ali Zeidan. He is speaking to reporters about the ordeal that he went through. This just happened yesterday.

He was abducted at gun point by militia members who let him go after a few hours. Just underscores how unstable and weak that government is.

HOLMES: Yeah, he's meant to speak this hour. We're keeping an eye on it, not sure what he's going to say. But, yeah, as you said, it's just a disturbingly insecure situation in Libya.

Now, as Americans wait for a deal to end a partial government shutdown, we are seeing wide-ranging effects across the nation.

MALVEAUX: One of those effects, food producers, they're not working. Craft beer-makers also suffering as well.

HOLMES: Beer, don't mess with the beer.

MALVEAUX: Don't mess with people's beer.

Erin McPike, she's got that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ERIN MCPIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: From south Florida to the last frontier, the shutdown is hitting food producers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These guys just need to set these quotas so the guys can get out fishing.

MCPIKE: "The Deadliest Catch" crew and their fellow Alaska crabbers, grounded. With no federal quotas issued, they can't get a permit to start the crabbing season.

Also a concern for restaurants like Tracy's king crab shack.

What do you think is the worst case scenario for you in this shutdown?

TRACY LABARGE, ALASKA CRAB SHACK OWNER: They don't get crabbing. The crab prices go so high that I am priced out of the market.

Since it is my only thing that I sell, you know, I'll be priced out, and I don't know that people would be willing to pay that price.

So it could potentially, worst case scenario, put me out of business.

MCPIKE: Down south, citrus growers usually consult the Department of Agriculture's citrus forecast, but the agency's entire Web site shut down.

And the craft beer movement bubbling up all over America is running into problems getting new beers on tap.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can't, one, put our formula in for the approval or, two, even get a label so we can register it with the state so we can sell it to our distributor.

So we're completely prevented from brewing this next beer because of the government shutdown.

MCPIKE: In Utah and elsewhere, shuttering of national parks has locked out hikers and park-goers and hurt local economies.

But now some hope. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell will, quote, "consider agreements with governors who indicate an interest and ability to fully fund national park service personnel to reopen national parks in their states."

Still no luck for this little guy. His picture outside Washington's National Zoo has gone viral, labeled by one tweeter, the absolute saddest shutdown photo you will see.

Erin McPike, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: Yeah, a lot of people being impacted by this shutdown.

HOLMES: Don't mess with the beer, really. Because they can't get the labels approved they can't get their seasonal beers out there.

MALVEAUX: And they're losing money, small businesses losing money here, obviously.

The partial government shutdown, of course, or not, Utah's five national parks, they are actually reopening. That's going to happen on Saturday because the Obama administration is allowing states to use their own money to reopen some of the national parks.

So Utah is going to pay the national park service $166,000 a day for up to 10 days.

HOLMES: Yeah, Erin McPike touching on that in that previous story. If the shutdown does end before then the state will get a refund of the money.

But, I mean, yeah, states having to cough it up now if they want the parks to open.

MALVEAUX: This is a tough way to go.

This very serious but, again, she triumphed. This is a young woman. Of course, you might recall, she was shot by the Taliban a year ago.

That did not silence her as an advocate for girls' education. Well, now, 16-year-old, she has even bigger dreams.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MALALA YOUSAFZAI, GIRL SHOT BY TALIBAN: I want to become a prime minister of Pakistan and I think it's really good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: For more than a decade, an international group has worked to rid the world of chemical weapons. Well, today, they were awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.

HOLMES: We're talking about the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons who are now this year's peace prize winner. The second year in a row that it's gone to an organization, not an individual.

Inspectors for the group, of course, have been in the news because they're in Syria at the moment, attempting to dismantle the Assad regime's chemical weapons stockpiles.

MALVEAUX: This week, they oversaw the first direction of chemical weapons equipment in Syria.

So many thought that the Peace Prize would go to Malala Yousafzai. She's the Pakistani teenager who shot by the Taliban. She was working to promote education for girls.

But she is still a winner, of course. She won another award, a different award this week.

HOLMES: Yeah, Thursday, she won the European parliament prestigious Sakharov Prize which honors freedom of thought.

This comes a year after she was shot in the head, almost killed on her school bus, some of her schoolmates also injured.

Despite that, though, she continues to share her story around the world.

MALVEAUX: Our own Christiane Amanpour hosted a meeting with Malala. This was in New York last night.

Christiane, good to see you, as always. So we have heard about the attack. We've read about the attack. But when you sat down with her and she described it to you, a very, very different kind of emotional thing that unfolded.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It was really amazing.

I spoke with her and her father who raised her to be this outspoken girl, you know, really fighting for the rights of girls and everybody to have peace through education.

And I asked her whether she remembered what happened to her that fateful day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YOUSAFZAI: He asked, who is Malala? He did not give me time to answer his question. And my friend told me, my best friend, (inaudible), that at that time we just squeezed my hand, you just pushed it with force. And you do not say anything.

And then in the next few seconds, he fired two bullets. One bullet hit me on the left side of my forehead, just above here, and it went down through my neck and into my shoulder. And I think I was hit by only one bullet. And it also affected my eardrum. So now I have problem in listening as well. It also cut down my facial (INAUDIBLE). But, still, if I look at it, it's a miracle. My brain is saved (ph). My spinal cord is safe. Everything is fine. I am alive. And I still can talk. I can smile. So I thank God for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: She is a remarkable person.

I must say, there are a lot of people who are questioning the Nobel decision. Not that the OPCW is not an incredibly worthy group and is doing incredibly worthy work, but as many now are saying, it will be at least another year to know whether actually they succeed in Syria, whereas Malala herself has put herself on the line, has nearly died for the cause of peace through education. So she is an amazing person. She said that actually she would like to go into politics and maybe even be a female prime minister of Pakistan one day.

HOLMES: Yes.

AMANPOUR: And a hero (ph) -

HOLMES: Well, between you and me, I couldn't agree more. I mean, in many ways an odd decision given Malala being on the list and heading the betting (ph). I think a lot of people lost money with the bookies on this, too.

You know, one thing that's, you know, so tragic is that even after she's, you know, won this prize and all the rest of it, the Taliban in Pakistan came out and they said she didn't deserve the prize because she got it for hurting Islam, that they would still target her and kill her even if they could do so in the United Kingdom. Just unbelievable.

AMANPOUR: Well, Michael, precisely. And as always, the Taliban are distorting it. You know, what's going on. They are now trying to spin the fact that it's not that they're anti-education. They didn't attack her because she was lobbying for education, they say, but because she was lobbying for anti-Islamic western ideals. And, of course, that's not what was going on. She was lobbying for education and she continues to do so.

HOLMES: Yes, absolutely. Terrific stuff. She is amazing. I can't get enough of Malala myself.

MALVEAUX: It is incredible. She's a hero.

HOLMES: I think it's wonderful.

Christiane, great interview, as always. Christiane Amanpour there.

AMANPOUR: Thank you.

MALVEAUX: You don't want to miss Christiane's special program. This is "The Bravest Girl in the World." And she certainly is. This is Sunday, 7:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN. Really just an incredible, incredible young woman.

HOLMES: Amazing.

MALVEAUX: Senator Ted Cruz, is he the new face of the Republican Party or the symbol of his party's divide?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: It is because of you that the House of Representatives has been standing strong, because the House has been listening to the people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: All right. We understand that the House Republicans have offered a deal with the president with the White House, of course, raising the debt ceiling for six weeks, but it does not offer a potential way out for the government to reopen.

HOLMES: Open.

MALVEAUX: And that really is the sticking point for the president. They're talking about negotiations over a six-week period, but there is not a resolution when it comes to reopening the government.

HOLMES: During that period.

MALVEAUX: During that period.

HOLMES: Exactly. So it's going to be interesting to see what the White House says about that.

Well, just a couple of hours ago, Senator Ted Cruz, who really got this whole thing started, got a bit of a greeting from a heckler or two as he spoke at the conservative Values Voter Summit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: It seems that President Obama's paid political operatives are out in force today. I'm curious, is anybody left at the Organizing for America headquarters? I'm actually glad that the president's whole political staff is here instead of actually doing mischief in the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: His fellow conservatives at the D.C. meeting praised him widely for his views and he has sparked the controversial fight to defund Obamacare or shut down the government. So the question, of course, is Cruz is new face of the Republican Party, is it a fringe element, is he gaining some traction here? I want to bring in our CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein to talk about it.

And, Ron, you wrote this very provocative op-ed here, this piece, and it kind of harkens back to what Republicans and Democrats were debating before about what President Obama represents here. Does he represent a real change in this country, the face of the country, and who has power? Can you explain that? RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. Yes, and that's why I think it's so fascinating that Cruz was heckled today on the issue of immigration, because Cruz really is at the fulcrum of an important shift in Republican thinking just since the election.

You know, President Obama won re-election by 5 million votes last November and yet he lost white voters by a larger margin than Jimmy Carter did against Ronald Reagan. And after that, the dominant view of the Republican Party was, look, we've kind of hit a demographic dead end here. We have to reach out to other groups that have not been voting for us, particularly Hispanics and Asian American. And the - and kind of the operative impulse of that was the push for immigration reform that Marco Rubio led and that Cruz opposed.

But really what's happened this year, Suzanne, is you're seeing the balance of power and the party move away from that view toward an argument that really - the problem for Republicans isn't so much to expand their base, as to mobilize their base, turn out more of their core supporters through an uncompromising conservative agenda and a kind of a confrontational approach. That's what we're seeing, I think, play out ultimately here in this government shutdown and the debt ceiling fight.

HOLMES: Got -- just got a few seconds, but, Ron, I wanted to put to you and get your thoughts about, is this -- the Ted Cruz faction, if you like, is that potentially something that could split the Republican Party? Is it perhaps the genesis of a third party?

BROWNSTEIN: You know, I don't know if they will split off into a third party, but there's no question that it is splitting the party as we're watching. Not so much over ends, but means. Broad opposition to Obamacare in the Republican Party, broad demand for smaller government. But how far do you push it? And the question of whether this is a winning strategy. So far the poll's pretty overwhelmingly say, no, the party - GOP is looking at some of its lowest numbers ever in both Gallop and NBC/"Wall Street Journal" polling out in the last few days.

MALVEAUX: And, Ron, real quick here. You write something that is really not conventional wisdom. You say this is not a fight over the role of government and how big the government is -

BROWNSTEIN: Right.

MALVEAUX: But rather who gets the benefits from the government, right?

BROWNSTEIN: Right. Absolutely. Look, I think what really -- the driving force that is the real passion and energy in the Republican base is much more about transfer payments, things that - payments that they view as going to the voters they view as kind of, you know, not supporting themselves -- food stamps, welfare, the Obama health care plan is seen in that light. There is much more resistance, Suzanne, than is commonly understood among core Republican voters to reducing Social Security and Medicare, which are a much -- Medicare in particular, a much bigger driver of the overall federal deficit. When you look at those blue collar and older whites, who are now the foundation of the Republican coalition, they're not so enthusiastic about going down that road.

MALVEAUX: We've got to - we've got to leave it there. We could talk to you for much longer.

HOLMES: We'll have to get - we'll have to get you back, Ron.

MALVEAUX: We'll get you back to talk about this more.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

MALVEAUX: We appreciate it. Thank you.

BROWNSTEIN: All right.

MALVEAUX: Marilyn Monroe's x-rays being auctioned off. Details they expose, kind of surprising, actually.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Today there is proof that the obsession over Marilyn Monroe still alive and well because we're talking about her facial x-rays that are being auctioned more than 50 years after her death.

HOLMES: Really? Really? According to "Vanity Fair," six x-rays have surfaced. They date back as far as 1962. And Monroe reportedly got a little work done. She had the x-rays done after complaining of some tenderness in her nose. Now, other details, and this is the juicy stuff, revealed points perhaps to plastic surgery.

MALVEAUX: Oh, OK. Well -

HOLMES: I whispered that.

MALVEAUX: No. Whatever.

HOLMES: Yes.

MALVEAUX: People bidding on the x-rays at Julian's Auction, they're expected to sell for anywhere between $20,000 to and $30,000.

HOLMES: They're x-rays.

MALVEAUX: Yes, I know.

HOLMES: Not even in color.

MALVEAUX: Some people love -- they love this stuff. They love this stuff.

HOLMES: All right, thanks for watching AROUND THE WORLD.

MALVEAUX: CNN NEWSROOM with Wolf Blitzer starts right now.

HOLMES: Have a good weekend.