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Obama Cancels Travel to Poland due to Icelandic Volcanic Ash; Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network Convention in New York;

Aired April 17, 2010 - 15:30   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Fredricka Whitfield in Atlanta. This breaking story, President Barack Obama has scrapped plans to travel to Poland for the funeral of the polish president because of the vast volcanic ash cloud over much of Europe. The White House announcement came within this hour, just about six hours before Mr. Obama was expected to leave. He joins a growing list of world leaders and dignitaries taking the same sort of decision.

The ash cloud makes flying hazardous and has all but shut down flights in most of Europe since Thursday. Here is a look at the volcano from space. The ash cloud is already huge and believe it or not, it is still growing. Right now it has affected airports in about two dozen countries and no travel relief expected for at least another day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just wait. We are pawns. We are nature's pawns at this point. There is nothing anyone can do. (INAUDIBLE) and everyone just accepts this is an act of god and there's nothing we can do about it and we should just sit back and relax.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: OK, not everyone is ready to just sit back and relax just yet.

CNN's Jim Boulden reports from London, now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM BOULDEN, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On day three of the travel chaos, some would-be passengers took to sleeping in Heathrow's terminal three ignoring airline advice to stay away from U.K. airports. There were no flights leaving on Saturday.

(on camera): The airlines here at Heathrow Airport are passing out these leaflets to passengers who show up at the terminal advising them to call their reservation line saying you cannot change your reservations at the airline desk.

(voice-over): Problem is, it can take up to an hour to get through to an airline. And some tourists are finding it impossible to get a hotel room or they don't want to pay for one. The problem for the airlines, they can't tell passengers when they will be able to fly again. In London, one Russian carrier Aeroflot helped find accommodation for some 200 of its 1,200 stranded passengers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a lot number of passengers for transit passengers, especially for the China and especially for the south Asia like Japan or the South Korea. And of course, passengers doesn't have proper information.

BOULDEN: Another challenge for stranded passengers, different rules for different airlines.

If you are traveling on an EU-registered airline then that airline has a duty of care legally to look after you. If you are traveling on an airline that is not based in the EU, then that airline does not have to adhere to the same legal requirement.

BOULDEN: With Europe based carriers able to operate only 10,000 flights out of a normal 28,000 on Friday and even fewer on Saturday, passengers are stuck all over the world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was coming from Italy. I had to fly back on Friday. You see I am here. So, I got to (INAUDIBLE) to take the Eurostar, and now I am driving to Paris. But, in Paris there are no train to Italy. Everything is booked for two days, at least.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We should come back tomorrow, but there aren't flights and trains, so I think that we will wait here until Monday to see if the situation change.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe I will rent a private car and they will pay, I don't know how much. This is the story. Train, I think is full. Bus full. Red car is impossible, 3,000 euro.

BOULDEN: Some passengers are setting up for a long stay in terminals. Others headed for trains or ferries, some reportedly even paying thousands for taxis. But with the volcanic cloud on the move, what air space is open and for how long, changes seemingly by the hour.

Jim Boulden, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Wow, pretty extraordinary. And that ash spread is spreading even further. Jacqui Jeras in the Weather Center. And that's mostly in part because of wind is simply caring it, right?

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: That's right. Wind will carry that ash hundreds or thousands of miles. And it could go over to Asia, believe it or not before all is said and done. The ash plume itself vertically it goes about 4.5 to five miles into the air. So you go up into those jet stream winds and it can go a very long way.

And one of the other concerns we have high pressure in control across parts of Europe. So it's kind of sitting there over some of these areas, too. This is the latest showing you what the air traffic is looking like in the air across parts of Europe. And all these little blue little areas is where we should be seeing the yellow airplanes, but we are not. They are only down here across Spain, through the Mediterranean, into Italy and then over here into Turkey. So, for now. So, they were able to go across southern Europe but certainly not across parts of the north.

And those jet stream winds you were talking about, Fredricka, this is what we're kind of estimating what they are doing today. So, here's the volcano over Iceland. Here's what those upper level winds are, and so it's going across Europe, it's going into Russia.

Now, we are going to see a little bit of a change in the weather pattern. Maybe by the middle of the week or so we'll see more of this type of a pattern, so it could go up and over Europe. So, improvements are expected, but the biggest problem is that that volcano is continuing to erupt. So, unless it stops erupting, we are not going to get rid of this all together. And so literally, this could go on for months and there is another volcano nearby that historically erupts every time this one does. So, we're going to have to watch for that potentially, down the line.

WHITFIELD: So, we know hazardous for airplanes that's why so many people are grounded, but health-wise you wonder how hazardous this is too, to ingest this amount of ash.

JERAS: Yes, if you've been on Twitter there are all kinds of tweets today about being -- people concerned about kind of health hazards there are involved. We got some good video we can show you. When you think about it -- I mean, just looking at that, you say to yourself, I don't want to breathe that, right? So, there are all kinds of particles in the air that are falling down and we're getting ash fall reports across much of the U.K.. not in London, but just to the west of there and up to the north of there.

And there are all kinds of gasses that volcanoes also emit, things like carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide, carbon , hydrogen fluoride. The No. 1 gas that's emitted, by the way, is water vapor, so you know, that's not harmful, but things like the carbon dioxide can concentrate in low-lying areas, because it's a dense gas, and that can actually be lethal. So, you don't want to be close to it if you don't have to.

And then fluoride, as well, hydrogen fluoride is like this pale yellow gas and it attaches to the fine ash particles and then it collects on vegetation, so, any animals that were to eat that could potentially be poisoned as a result of that and a kinds of irritants, so a lot of people with respiratory problems and you know, your mucous membranes as well as your skin can get irritated.

WHITFIELD: Wow. So, potentially, you know, far reaching affects.

JERAS: Oh yes.

WHITFIELD: All right, Jacqui thanks so much, we'll check back with you later on. All right, now here in this country, this has been a focus in this country, drafting an action plan for the African-American community. That is the focus of Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network convention taking place in New York. Our own Roland Martin, a CNN contributor, was a moderator for the engagement earlier today. And I spoke with Roland just last hour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROLAND MARTIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: The whole point there was we wanted to not just to talk about these particular issues, not talk about what President Barack Obama should be doing or (INAUDIBLE) should be doing, but also getting commitments from people when it comes to a particular agenda. And opposed to having a discussion where you talk about 50 million different things, we really broke it down to three distinct areas, politics, economics and socio-cultural. And so, that's really what we dealt with, I was really getting people to commit to what are they going to do in terms of organizations over the next 365 days, but also people the people who were watching at home, online and in the audience. And so that's really what the challenge was, because we had lots of these conversations. (INAUDIBLE) black America, this and that, events before, and as I've always said, that's been about meet, talk, disperse as opposed to this was about meet, mobilize, act.

WHITFIELD: OK, so a lot of recognizable folks there. I see Tom Joyner, he was helping to moderate along with you. There are authors, there are professors of HBCUs, congressmen.

MARTIN: Yes, members of Congress, NAACP, Urban League, people who run organizations. It's easy to have people who are in academics and who are activists, but you've got to have infrastructure. And so by having the Urban League and NAACP and having those kind of groups, they have staff, they have people, they have members, they have chapters, 100 black men. That it's difference because it's easier to say, hey folks do something, but then they say OK, where do I go?

WHITFIELD: Yes, well you know, you talk about the political economic and socio-cultural kind of avenues here. These are things that Marc Morial with the Urban League, Ben Jealous, NAACP have been tackling and continue to tackle on a regular basis. Why this conglomeration today, for example, over the course of four days, why is this particularly important and pivotal and how might this help set or reset an agenda for the next coming months?

MARTIN: Because this was specifically about give me one thing that you are going to work on and that you want people to work with you. And so thousands of folks watching on television, commenting online. I have been hearing since the election folks saying, hey, I want to do something. Of course the president's slogan was "yes we can," it was about hope, it was about change. As I travel across the country, people always said I want to do something, but I don't know where to start. So, here is an opportunity to say OK, what do you care about? Do you care about mentoring? Do you care about jobs for ex-felons? Do you care about education? Do you care about rebuilding the family? Do you care about, frankly, black men not taking care of their children?

And so, here's an opportunity for leaders to say this is what we are going to do. Not grandiose five-year plans, but here's what we're going to focus on over the next 12 months. And then now, our job is to hold them accountable. I made it clear on the (INAUDIBLE) morning show, on BlackAmericaWeb.com, on my show on "Washington Watch" on TV- 1, we are going to come back every 90 days and ask the people who made commitments what did you do? Where are you going?

WHITFIELD: So, who is keeping track of the commitments made today...

MARTIN: We are.

WHITFIELD: ...we were to go back in 90 days and say this is what you promised, this is what you proposed to do, how are you coming along?

MARTIN: That's what I'm just saying. We are. We are. So the point there is, folks that made the commitment, so, we are, right now. already compiling what these people said they are going to do and so, on the...

WHITFIELD: Example on what some of those are?

MARTIN: All of them.

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: Can you give me an example of what...

MARTIN: Yes, first of all, when you had congressman James Clyburn said the $1 billion settlement for black farmers, he believed that's going to be approved by Congress in the next 30 days. Mark Morial said that they are going to be opening opportunity centers to retrain ex-felons. Then you had the NAACP made it clear they're going to working in terms of criminal justice. Reverend Al Sharpton said they are going to target six states to mobilize voters to vote when it comes to the midterm elections.

Jeff Johnson of BET talked about using his non-profit to really deal with education. And we -- Albert Dotson of 100 Black Men, they're going to expand their mentoring program to reach one million mentors for young black men. He said they have 500,000, they want to half a million more.

So, those were the kind of things people were talking about. Now, what my job is, Tom Joyner's job is, I'm also on his show, we're going to use our platforms and bring them back every 90 days and say OK, where are you with this? How many folks have you signed up? What are you doing? Because, at the end of a year, at the end of a year, if the people who came to this forum, who made a public announcement as to what they want to do, if we look back a year from and they've done nothing, well, then they are going to be exposed as hypocrites and as people who all simply want to talk. And so now they have to be held accountable by the people. And so my job in media is to hold them accountable, but also, Fredricka, the people at home. The people can't sit back and say let President Barack Obama do it, let Congress do it, let organizations do it. They have to change their communities, themselves, their houses, their streets, their block, their neighborhood, the city, state, then the country. It's not going happen top down, it happens absolutely bottom up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: All right, CNN contributor, our own, Roland Martin along with Tom Joyner, radio host. All of them say they are going to check back with many of the leaders today who made those commitments in 90 days to kind of do a progress report and we'll try to bring you the results of that progress report.

All right, meantime, legal limbo. Conflicting reports on the fate of nine American missionaries facing charges in Haiti. They're accused of trying to kidnap children after the country's earthquake back in January. And update right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: A look at our top stories at this hour. President Obama has had to cancel his trip to the memorial service in Poland for the 96 victims of last weekend's plane crash. The crash killed the polish president, the first lady and top military and civilian leaders.

And in Haiti, the attorney general is denying reports that charges have been dropped against nine U.S. missionaries accused of trying to kidnap children after the country's earthquake back in January. This week a U.S. senator said kidnap charges had been dropped against all the missionaries except the group's leader Laura Silsby, who remains in jail in Haiti.

And new problems for Toyota. The Japanese automaker is recalling about 600,000 Sienna minivans sold in the U.S. because of possible corrosion problems. Toyota says exposure to road salt may cause the cable holding the spare tire to break allowing the spare to fall off and create a safety hazard. The recall covers1998 to 2010 model year Siannas with two wheel drive sold or registered in 20 cold climate states and the District of Columbia.

All right, April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. And this week's CNN's hero is drawing on her own childhood experiences to save others. Wynonna Ward is a trucker turned lawyer who reaches out to battered women and children in rural Vermont. Her motto, "have justice, will travel."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WYNONA WARD, CNN HERO: When I was growing up on a rural back road, family violence was an accepted way of life.

This is my mother, and I'm the baby here, and my father and my brother Richard and my sister Colleen (ph). My father would commonly abuse all of us. He raped me and beat my mother and my other siblings. When the neighbors heard screaming coming from our home, they just turned their heads.

For domestic violence victims in rural areas, they can be very devastated. They're out there on these back roads with no access to in-town services. Many of them do not have telephones. Some of them do not have a driver's license for an automobile, so we go to them.

My name is Wynona Ward.

The turning point for me was when a child in my family revealed that she had been abused by my father and my brother. I just said, "This has to stop."

When I graduated from law school, I was 48 years old.

Good morning, my dear.

I go to people's homes, give them in-home consultation, provide them with free legal services and transportation to and from courtrooms. I don't want children to have to go through what I did as a child. I want to see my clients become empowered. I can understand them, and they know that I will be there to protect them.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Wynona Ward estimates she drives 30,000 miles a year and helped almost 10,000 victims of domestic violence.

To nominate someone you think is changing the world go to CNN.com/heroes.

All right, Web sites today come and go, but it looks like Twitter is here forever. Find out why from our Josh Levs.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: OK, if you tweet, you need to know. Your words may go down in history. The Library of Congress is archiving all public postings from Twitter, the popular social networking site. And Josh Levs explained earlier how it all works.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH LEVS, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Here's the deal. So, the Library of Congress, esteemed institution, obviously, holds on to all sorts of important documents and books, now they are holding on to every public tweet ever from the very beginning going back to May 2006. And it's a statement; it means that they believe this is one way of tracing history. And let me show you some of the big ones that they are highlighting. This is the first tweet of all times, Jack Dorsey, who created, who tweeted "just setting up my twitter." The first tweet of all time. also, Barack Obama, before he was president, "We just made history," this is right after the election, "all of this happened because you gave your time, talent and passion. All of this happened because of you. Thanks."

WHITFIELD: So wait a minute, but really only the impactful stuff, or we mean everything, even those tweets when you're like, I'm about to make coffee? Oh, I'm not changing my shoes, I'm tying them now. Thank kind of stuff, too?

LEVS: There's a lot of useless stuff on Twitter and if the person has chosen to make his or her Twitter account public, then yes, every single tweet. But it kind of ends up being what you're saying, there is a lot that's useless, but there are also diamonds in the rough. Let me show you one more that's really good story.

You might have heard about this. There was a journalist in Egypt who was arrested and he tweeted one word as he was being arrested, he tweeted the word "arrested." That set off a whole chain of events which ultimately led to his being freed the next day and he tweeted he was free and that's how people found out. So, amid all the other random things that you find on Twitter, Fred, there are the also these cases in which you see the relevance of Twitter and you see history being made and history being recorded. So, that's why the Library of Congress is jumping in there.

WHITFIELD: And I guess, that's the beauty of it, that there is a variety, stuff that's very nebulous and stuff that's very impactful and important, and everyone should know about.

LEVS: And hey, if you want to look up in 80 years was your grandmother having coffee one day at 2:00 in the afternoon, you can.

WHITFIELD: And what was she brewing?

LEVS: Well, it's probably on Twitter.

WHITFIELD: Right. OK, thank you so much, Josh.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: All right, the Library of Congress appropriately announced this project first on its Twitter account, of course and followed it up with a Facebook message before issuing the official press release.

All right, a close look at what happens to airplanes flying in a volcanic ash cloud like the one that is being experienced throughout Europe. We'll take you inside for a ride.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: So what happens when an airplane flies through a volcanic ash? It is what many of you are asking now that air travel around the world has actually been crippled by a giant ash cloud over much of Europe. Adrienne Arsenault has answers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ADRIENNE ARSENAULT, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You know the wait is long when it means doing laundry in the airport. This is Frankfurt, but it could be anywhere in northern Europe or Scandinavia, right now. Accommodation is unavailable as information. Schedules changing fast.

Clarity depends on the stubborn Eyjafjallajoekull volcano which at one point erupted with even more strength. Winds still carrying ash towards Europe. Scientists eager to sample it, pilots review how to cope with it just in case.

(on camera): As of right now there isn't a single flight simulator in the world that can accurately replicate all of the effects of flying through an ash cloud, but because so many planes have gone through them over the years, engineers now know enough about what is likely to happen in what order to a plane that goes through a plume that whenever possible pilots are forced to rehearse what may happen, some in simulators like this one, one of the most advanced in the world.

(voice-over): The simulation starts with clear skies at 35,000 feet that inexplicably get cloudy. Then a telltale smell.

MIKE REDRUPP, CREW TRAINING CENTRE: A sort of sulfurous, sulfuric, acidy smell. It makes your eyes smart because of the acidity of it. So, now the smoke has come into the cabin, the pilots now are reading the standard checklist.

ARSENAULT: At this point in the ash cloud, engines would start to fail as the particles got sucked into them.

(on camera): Would the passengers be aware of that?

REDRUPP: Passengers would now be hearing this, they would see the glow of the flames coming out of the back of engines and this would -- a crucial point in the concern for the passengers, now.

ARSENAULT (voice-over): Why not, some are asking now, keep air space open during the day when perhaps the cloud could be seen and maybe avoided? It's not that simple.

REDRUPP: When you think that that all these aircraft up there are flying on defined with defined separation, it will be impossible to route them around ash clouds and what a ridiculous risk.

(END VIDEOTAPE)