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Plane Breaks Into Pieces, 1 Killed; Gulf Shrimp Season Begins

Aired August 16, 2010 - 13:00   ET

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

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Tony, you have yourself a fantastic afternoon. Always great to see you.

I'm going to be in New York today and for the rest of the week. But I'll be with you today for the next two hours. Here's where we are headed.

China overtaking Japan as the world's No. 2 economic power in the latest quarter. Is this a red flag for the U.S. economy? Or could this be good for American business? We'll find out.

In Jerusalem, scientists taking a breathtaking new way to diagnose cancer in its earliest stages. All the patient has to do is exhale. An electronic sensor does the rest. I will tell you about this in great detail.

And a new shrimping season kicks off today off the Louisiana coast with plenty of hope and fear over what might turn up in those fishing nests. We'll go there and find out.

First I want to tell you about something that happened overnight. A Colombian jet liner crashed on approach to an airport in San Andreas as it was coming in, splitting into three different pieces. You can see it there. The miracle is that it appears only one person has died. That person might have actually died of a heart attack. A hundred and twenty-seven people were on board that plane.

It came down 260 feet short of the runway. It had taken off from Bogata shortly after midnight local time, and the crash happened about an hour and 45 minutes later. Karl Penhall on the phone with us now from Bogata, Colombia.

Karl, what have you got on this?

KARL PENHALL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ali, crash investigators are now at that scene, as you might expect, trying to find out exactly what caused this plane to crash. But some of the early theories are centering around the possibility that it could have been a lightning strike on the plane.

Now, civil aviation says it was raining at that airport in San Andreas at the time of the accident. There were storms in the vicinity. But they haven't yet confirmed whether this was indeed a lightning strike.

But as you see, and as you say, that plane broke into three separate sections, and according to the police, passengers were scattered across the runway as this plane broke apart.

Now, there were 125 passengers on board, six crew members. And of those passengers, there were also six U.S. citizens. Now, we understand that most of the passengers are out of danger, that there are two that have suffered serious head injuries. We believe they're probably Colombian passengers. We haven't had their identity confirmed yet. They will probably be evacuated off the island for treatment on the Colombian mainland later on in the day, Ali.

VELSHI: Karl, very unusual on a large jet liner like this to have survivors on a plane crash, if the plane is in the shape we're looking at right now on the TV screen. This probably has to do with the fact that this plane was on approach, it was very low altitude, probably coming in at a reduced speed, and into the airport. Do we know anything about why we've got this many survivors?

PENHAUL: Well, again, that was something I put to both a senior officer in the air force on San Andreas island, and also the civil officials in civil aviation. And asking them, was this plane a few feet off the ground, almost landing, or had it actually touched down at that point? And they said that, quite frankly, right now, we do not know if that plane had wheels on ground at the time. That is something that they will be looking at.

But certainly, as you say, remarkable. And also, considering that the passengers did scatter out of the plane and were spread across the runway. You would expect more serious injuries there, things like broken arms, broken limbs, and head injuries, as well. But as far as the authorities are telling us, there are two people with serious head injuries. And the remainder of the passengers really aren't that seriously injured, Ali.

VELSHI: What a remarkable story. Karl, thanks very much for joining us. Karl Penhall in Bogata, Colombia. We'll get you more information as we get it on what brought that plane down.

Cars, cries, and then chaos. The moments before and after this weekend's off-road racing tragedy. It's our "Sound Effect" this hour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, everybody off the track!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get down! Get down! Get down!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't go down there.

Don't go down there. It's not good.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Someone just crashed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Someone just crashed. (EXPLETIVE DELETED)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is he all right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Someone just flipped. (END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Eight people were killed, four others seriously injured when that truck lost control, flipped and rolled right into the crowd. The driver, unharmed. He's posted a message online, saying he is devastated over the accident.

He's not facing any charges, because according to police, fans were much too close to the action. This was an amateur 200-mile race through the Mojave Desert in Southern California. A very "Mad Max" atmosphere, some critics say. No guard rails or barriers around the course, and no real enforced rules.

Louisiana shrimp boats are back in the Gulf Coast today, but shrimpers are still worried about their future. And we're going to tell you why when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Louisiana's fall in-shore shrimp season began this morning. The question is, will the shrimp industry in Louisiana, a very important industry in that state, bounce back from the Gulf oil disaster?

Louisiana is the nation's No. 1 producer of shrimp. 100 million pounds of it were landed in Louisiana last year. The dock side value is $118 million. The retail value is a lot more.

I want to introduce you to Dean Blanchard, joining us by phone. He's the president of Dean Blanchard Seafood in Grand Isle, Louisiana. You've heard a lot about Grand Isle.

Dean is a guy I would consider a friend, because he gave us shelter during a hurricane, Hurricane Gustav a couple years back. We stayed in his home, a couple of us from CNN, and Dean took care of us. And we ate some of that Gulf shrimp that he is a master at. What happens, the shrimpers come in. They sell their shrimp to Dean. Dean packages it and distributes it to -- to other people.

Dean, good to talk to you again.

DEAN BLANCHARD, DEAN BLANCHARD SEAFOOD (via phone): Hey, how are you doing, Ali?

VELSHI: I'm good. What have you seen so far? The shrimping season starts. I guess it's too early for you to have any sense of how it's going.

BLANCHARD: I've been on at phone all morning with the shrimpers. Some are doing well, and some are running into a little bit of oil and they're moving out, you know. We told our shrimpers that if they get in any oil, you know, we won't accept any product with any oil in it. So they're looking for cleaner waters.

VELSHI: So what do you do? They're going to come in, and I guess you've got to keep -- normally you're looking at that shrimp as it comes off the boat. I've seen how you do it You're going to be looking, I guess, a little more carefully this time to make sure that no oiled shrimp gets mixed in.

BLANCHARD: Well, I took a course on how to smell oil a week ago. And, you know, we're going to -- the last thing we want to do is put anything tainted into the marketplace. So we're going to make sure that doesn't happen.

VELSHI: Dean, when you and I last talked, you were saying that there's this -- you know, a lot of the people you sell shrimp to have had to move on and find other suppliers, I guess in other parts of the world, to supply their shrimp, because they've got to keep it going. Do you think you're going to have buyers for all that shrimp that comes in?

BLANCHARD: Well, that's what we're looking at. We're looking at two problems. We're looking at we're not sure what it's going to do to our natural resources and our shrimp crop. And then, you know, we've got to fight the perception of the American public, you know. So we've got a long road to travel, I believe, Ali.

VELSHI: Dean, is there some way to know, if somebody wants to be supportive of Gulf Coast fisheries and Gulf Coast shrimp, is there some way to know where that -- where the shrimp comes from that we eat when we buy it?

BLANCHARD: Well, most of the stores are required, through the regulations, to identify where the product comes from. And, you know, I've been eating -- steadily eating Gulf shrimp, and I haven't had any problems.

You know, we have oil in the water here all of the time, Ali. You know, maybe not this much, but we've got natural seepage in the Gulf of Mexico. And the shrimp, some don't absorb the oil, you know.

VELSHI: Yes. Let me ask you this, Dean. Even before this happened, there was sort of an issue with respect to the price of shrimp. A lot of Americans felt that other countries have been coming in and selling their shrimp in the U.S. For lower than usual prices. So the shrimp industries faced some challenges already.

BLANCHARD: Well, we were pretty much straightening it out. We did ten years of lobbying. Our prices was on the way up. I think the American public had learned to realize that the pond shrimp from the Asian countries actually got more chemicals in it than I believe with the oil and the Corexit in it. I feel more safe eating the shrimp with the oil and the Corexit than I would eating shrimp out of these Asian countries with antibiotics and cancer-causing agents in them.

VELSHI: Do we -- what do you think this year is going to look like for prices? When you get shrimp in there are you going to be able to sell it for as much or more or less than last year?

BLANCHARD: We -- we're about 70 percent above last year. But we was expecting to be 300 percent above last year on prices. Our prices started going up in November of last year. And a lot of the Asian countries are having trouble with their ponds. The disease has caught up with their antibiotics they're using, so they're having the white- spotted virus. And we knew their production was going to be low this year. And we were expecting, you know, a bumper crop of shrimp and prices we haven't seen in ten years.

VELSHI: All right. So if you can get that this shrimp -- these shrimpers come in that's not oiled and you're going to test to see that's the case, if you get shrimp, you think you're going to be able to sell every last bit of shrimp that you can get?

BLANCHARD: I'll tell you what. Our shrimp is so much better than the other shrimp. I'm looking forward to just eating pure ground shrimp again. You know, I won't sell nothing I won't eat myself, Ali.

VELSHI: I hear you. And I've got to tell you, I never had shrimp like I at your house during the hurricane. So maybe one day we'll be able to share that again.

BLANCHARD: Any time. Any time.

VELSHI: All right. Dean, good to talk to you, as always. We'll keep checking in with you to see how the shrimping season is going. Dean Blanchard is the president of Dean Blanchard Seafood, joining from us Grand Isle, Louisiana, where the shrimping season has begun.

China's rise as an economic power is being enforced by some new data that is out today. The question is, is this good news or bad news or neutral news for you and your money? I'm going to break it down for you, tell you what to expect from China when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Well, China is on track this year to overtake Japan as the world's second largest economy. The world's largest economy, by the way, continues to be the U.S. and by a very wide margin.

Let's have a look for comparison. I want to show you. This is the GDP, the gross domestic product of these three countries. I'm going to talk about GDP later on and what it means. But basically, it's the size of an economy.

Look at the U.S. on the left. Look at Japan in the middle, China on the right. According to new figures put out by the International Monetary Fund, China is set to surpass Japan for good in 2010.

With gross domestic product, which is the measure of all the goods and services produced by a country, predicted to hit $5.4 trillion for the year. That's a bit higher than Japan's estimates for this year.

China has continued to steam ahead at a remarkably high rate of growth since the communist-run nation first adopted some market reforms starting about 30 years ago. GDP back then, 1980, was less than $200 billion. That's on the left side of your screen. But that skyrocketed to today's estimate, as I said, about $5.5 trillion. So why does any of this matter to you? You've seen the numbers. First off, lower labor costs in China. That means cheaper consumer goods made here in the -- bought here in the United States. Anything with that "made in China" label tends to be cheaper than its equivalent product in the United States. But that has come at a cost of at least some U.S. manufacturing jobs.

Now, some predictions are that China could overtake the U.S. economy sometime in the next two decades, maybe as early as ten years from now, maybe 20 years from now.

Now, that means some challenges for Americans. It also could mean more opportunities for Americans and American companies looking for a very big and prosperous market into which to sell American goods and services.

The fact that China's economy could surpass Japan for all time is a true milestone. China has got that moment to bask. But we need to find out what we can do about it here in the United States.

I'm going to talk more about that later on in the show. And this weekend on "YOUR $$$$$," Saturdays at 1 p.m. Eastern, Sundays at 3 p.m. Eastern. How to look at China as an opportunity, not just a threat.

All right. Checking top stories that we're following here at CNN.

An autopsy expected today on Phillip Markoff, the alleged Craigslist killer. The 24-year-old medical student was found dead in his Boston jail cell, an apparent suicide, police say. Markoff was charged with the murder of a masseuse last year in an upscale Boston hotel.

Some career changes ahead for Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his ousted Afghan commander. In an interview, Gates says he'd like to leave the Pentagon by the end of next year. Meantime, retired General Stanley McChrystal is going to Yale. He's been appointed a senior fellow and will lecture on global affairs.

The president is talking about the economy today, but his comments on a proposal to build an Islamic center and mosque two blocks from New York's Ground Zero seem to be taking center stage. We'll hear from the president right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Controversy continues over a proposed Islamic center and mosque, which is planned to go up near Ground Zero. President Obama made some comments over the weekend about the mosque that has both Democrats and Republicans up in arms.

It all started Friday with comments the president made at a White House dinner, a regular thing that happens at the White House to mark the start of Ramadan. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground. But let me be clear. As a citizen and as president, I believe that Muslims have the right to practice their religion, as everyone else in this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Doesn't strike me that he said anything all that controversial. But apparently, I was wrong, because by Saturday morning, it was all over the air waves, all over the newspapers, what the president had said.

Now, he was in the Gulf Coast, our White House -- senior White House correspondent, Ed Henry, whom you well know, caught up with the president to ask him about his comments that he made on Friday night. President Obama then said this to Ed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: I was not commenting, and I will not comment on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right that people have, that dates back to our founding.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Let's go live to Menomonie Falls, Wisconsin, where our senior White House correspondent, Ed Henry is covering the president.

I hope I said that right, Ed.

ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think you did. That was pretty good.

VELSHI: Not the Ed Henry part, the Menominee falls. Ed, you were there. You're all over the place with the president, and let's -- just tell me a little bit about this.

He made these comments, which seemed in context to make sense on Friday night. And by Saturday morning, I don't know if he didn't tell his aides he was going to say this, or they just weren't prepared for the backlash they were going to get. But he was backpedaling by Saturday morning.

HENRY: Well, yes. I mean, his staff knew that he was going to weigh in on Friday night. For a couple weeks, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs had been saying this is a local issue and we're not going to weigh in. But then once plans started moving forward and Mayor Bloomberg got behind it, they felt like the locality issue had sort of been dealt with.

And as you said, this was a traditional event at the White House, celebrating Ramadan. So they thought it was a perfect forum for him to finally weigh in, in context, as you noted. But it kicked up a firestorm. This is an issue, obviously, in New York City that has been explosive. But all around the country, there are people with strong views about this. Many, according to our polling, who do not want this mosque and Muslim community center built in New York City.

I think it was just off-the-cuff on Saturday when I spoke to the president. He wasn't planning to talk about it. And I think he was trying to make a distinction there that he was not endorsing the specific project, but, in fact, when you go back to the full context of what he said Friday night, he was saying not just the broad principle of religious freedom, but saying that extends even to a project in Lower Manhattan, near Ground Zero, built on private property. He was clearly referring to

So when he made that distinction Saturday, I think his critics thought he was trying to be a little cute and make back-pedal a little bit. And his supporters were a little baffled, because there were Democrats who were wondering why, after weeks of saying this was a local issue, did he finally weigh in and add yet another issue to the mix in November that Democrats don't really want to talk about. They want to get back talking about what he wants to talk about today in Wisconsin, which is jobs and the economy. Instead they're pulled off on yet another controversy.

VELSHI: Let's talk about the economy for a second. A new CNN -- brand-new CNN/Opinion Research poll out now that asks, again, how important to your vote is the economy. And I have to tell you, Ed, this gives me a little job security, that the economy -- 56 percent put the economy at the top, 36 percent say it's very important. 7 percent say it's moderately important, 1 percent say it's not important. So clearly, everybody thinks the economy is important.

Second part of that poll -- there were lots of questions in here. Second part, how important to your vote is unemployment. And, again, 48 percent say extremely important; 36 percent say very important. So I guess it may have less to do with mosques and what you think of them and more to do with the air time required to talk about the economy, where the Democrats think they might have a fighting chance.

HENRY: Yes. Absolutely. I mean, I think it's hard to craft a scenario where this mosque controversy, as important a debate as it is, becomes a central issue in November mid terms.

Clearly, this is going to be about jobs and the economy. You see that again in that poll. But I think that there are Democrats, some of the president's own supporters, who were concerned that -- it seems like week after week, he's polled at least part of the week off message on these other distractions, when they just want him out here like he is now.

He's doing three days, five states, doing fund-raising, but also talking about jobs, the economy. Today he's talking about at alternative energy here in Wisconsin. They want him talking about that basket of issues and less about sort of the side issues so that they can really zero in on the issue that they hope will help them in November.

But, of course, with the unemployment high, even as the president talks about jobs and the economy, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to win on that issue. People are frustrated.

VELSHI: Yes, that's tricky. Right.

HENRY: Well over 9 percent.

VELSHI: This is an administration that has not been able to tackle the unemployment rate, which continues to be high, has not been able to see a good straight line of growth in terms of jobs. So I wonder whether sometimes mosques and other things might be a better distraction than a straight discussion about economics and unemployment, because this -- it's not clear where that would go if that's what the Democrats decide to make central.

HENRY: Yes. Well, and you look at this -- the company here, where I'm at, ZBB Energy Corp., doing renewable energy. They got some stimulus money, a stimulus loan. And they say that because of that, they saved about a dozen jobs, and they hope over the next few months or so to add new jobs, about 80 or so new jobs.

Well, that's not a lot, when you think about the big picture. But the administration is trying to make the case that, when you look at these individually, they add up to something real that's actually affecting people out in the heartland.

But you're right. It's a hard case to make when people are not looking at that number of 12 jobs saved. They're looking at the big number of unemployment about 9.5 percent. So it's hard to break through.

VELSHI: Ed, what did you wear this weekend?

HENRY: I wasn't wearing Versace in Florida. I can tell you that. It is...

VELSHI: But there was some talk on Friday about...

HENRY: And I did not wear a Speedo.

VELSHI: OK. I didn't say it, man. You brought it up.

HENRY: It was cloudy, and there wasn't a lot of swimming going on. So that's really why.

VELSHI: Can't be wearing Speedos when it's cloudy. Ed Henry, we will talk to you again on the stakeout about an hour and 15 minutes from now, as we always do.

Ed Henry in Menomonie, I think -- he's not even going to say it.

HENRY: It's getting worse now.

VELSHI: All right. We'll see you in a while, Ed. All right. We're going to -- from Ed to outer space. When we come back, space-walking astronauts had a critical repair job to do at the space station, International Space Station today. Let's take a look at how it went when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: I tell you, when this whole space walk at the International Space Station is done, I'm going to be a little sad, because I won't get a chance to talk to Leroy Chiao about it. He's been sort of guiding us through it.

Leroy Chiao, you've got to -- you've got to meet this guy, if you haven't met him yet. He is a former commander. He's a former astronaut. He was a commander on the International Space Station. He's done space walks himself.

And we're -- as you know on this show, we like talking about space and understanding what's going on out there, because what happens out in space is very important to what happens down on earth. They come up with inventions and discoveries out there that serve us here on earth. Leroy joins me again, this time from Mountain View, California. I think this guy just travels between places. Every time I talk to you, Leroy, you're in a different place.

This was a space walk that was supposed to take two walks to get this done; it ended up taking three because the first one didn't go as planned. The issue was that -- sort of a heating/cooling pump. A heating/cooling component, had broken down. And they needed to repair it. What's the latest?

LEROY CHIAO, FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT: Well, great to be back, first of all. Always happy to be on CNN. And you're right. These EVAs turned out to be more complex than expected. It wasn't totally unexpected to me, having developed these EVAs, specifically working with these big ammonia lines and changing out pump modules.

It was a critical EVA because as you were saying, it counted on half of the U.S. cooling of the U.S. segment. So, with that one cooling loop down, basically about half the equipment had to be turned off, because we couldn't reject that heat. So, it was critical we got this pump module changed out and got all the lines reconnected.

VELSHI: Leroy, for those of us down here on earth who aren't as fascinated by space as perhaps we are on this show, but they might be watching us, because they watch CNN to get the news, tell me why I need to care -- we need to care, because there was some safety of some people, possibly involved, that might have had to come back to earth if they didn't get this fixed. But they did, and you thought they would get it fixed. Why else should I be caring about what is going on on the international space station?

CHIAO: The international space station is the premier -- the world's premier micro-gravity laboratory. And now that we have construction -- major construction -- complete and we've got a six- person crew on board, this is the chance now to exploit all the money and effort that's gone into building it. And so now we're beginning the research phase in earnest. That is, we're really concentrating on the experiments.

Now, of course, just like any other laboratory or any home, you're going to have maintenance issues, and this kind of a failure was not unexpected. This is something that we planned for. You can see we had spare four pump modules on board. And these EVAs have been planned many years ago. And as I said, I helped develop these EVAs and am really happy to see they went well.

This is something -- we can't know what's going to come out of the research that comes out of the ISS. You have your detractors saying it's not worth the money. But frankly, I think it's human nature to want to go farther out to see what's out there.

Another part of the ISS is very important. I was a member of the Augustine Committee last summer that reviewed NASA's space plans for human space flight, as well as prepared options for the new administration. One of the things we found -- one of the most important things that came out of the USS is this framework of how all these nations worked together, including former Cold War enemies.

VELSHI: Everybody seems to get along better in space than they do even on earth. There seems to be less politics when there's six of you in space and you've got to make it all work.

CHIAO: That's absolutely true. You know, I flew with a Russian Air Force colonel, as you know, and he became a lifelong good friend of mine, and I made several such friendships in Russia. And that's the way we fliers think of each other. We don't really think of each other as you're on this side and I'm on that side. There is a common bond of being a flyer, especially a space flyer, and I felt the same bond when I met some of the Chinese astronauts over the last few years.

VELSHI: It's a little Star Trekky, but we'd be happy to take it if space discoveries can lead to better understandings of each other. But it does actually lead to a lot of scientific discoveries. You said micro-gravity environment. You mean an environment where you can do experiments which require an absence of gravity?

CHIAO: That's correct. Zero G is kind of a misnomer. Because you never get a perfectly zero-G environment aboard a spacecraft in orbit. Because what you've got -- you've got thrusters firing, you've got only at one exact point on the spacecraft that is the center of mass is where you're going to have exactly zero G theoretically.

But you've got vibrations of people, astronauts moving around and pumps turning, things like that. You can isolate vibrations using passive and active dampers, but it's never perfect. So you have to talk about micro G when you're 10 to the minus 6 G. That's why we always say micro-gravity, just to be technically correct.

VELSHI: Leroy, you keep referring to EVA. What does that mean?

CHIAO: Oh, I'm sorry. EVA is extra-vehicular activity, and of course, in NASA, we've got to have an acronym for just about everything. And that just means space walk.

VELSHI: Space walk. All right, Leroy, great to talk to you , as always. Thank for being with us. We'll find some good excuse to have you back.

CHIAO: OK. Great to talk to you again. Thanks.

VELSHI: Leroy Chiao, former NASA astronaut, former commander on the international space station, joining us from Mountain View, California to report that eporting have gone well with the EVA, the space walk.

All right. Afghan President Karzai tells private security companies they've got four months to stop all operations in Afghanistan. Is that a good thing? We're going "Globe Trekking" to Kabul for details on the impact this may have on the U.S. war effort there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right. Some big developments in Afghanistan. I want to start our "Globe Trek" with that today.

President Hamid Karzai has given private security companies, these contractors, four months to stop all operations. Just like they have been in Iraq, private security firms have been a source of a lot of the friction in Afghanistan, and there are some who work for -- with the U.S. military, some who work for other companies. But the bottom line is, he said in four months, he wants them all out of Afghanistan.

Let's go live to Jill Dougherty in Kabul for more on what this means. Jill, first of all, is this a surprise, and what's the impact of it?

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, in a way, it's not a surprise, because the president has been talking about doing something like this for quite a long time. But the announcement that all of a sudden, by a spokesman today, that they will be shut down, or at least it appears that way, within four months, is pretty much a surprise. And he did not give any details, but Ali, we're expecting that tomorrow morning, Tuesday morning, we're going to get that official announcement. And the spokesman is simply saying these companies -- and there are really a lot of them, you know -- 23,700 private security contractors under U.S. contract in Afghanistan, according to the war time commission on contracting in Afghanistan.

So, he said that they have become kind of this independent entity in themselves. We asked the U.S. embassy if they had response. They said, we can't comment directly, because we haven't seen exactly what he is talking about. But we do support President Karzai's intent. And that intent is to turn ultimately the responsibility for security over to the Afghan forces.

But you know, on background -- another source with knowledge of this, but who did not want to speak on the record because of the sensitivity, said there are a lot of questions. It's not clear what is being announced. Is this international companies? Is this Afghan companies? Or is it both? And do they have to be shut down within four months, or does the process begin within four months?

But just finally, Ali, one other thing is that realistically, when you talk to people from the international community here, there are very few people who believe that in four months, the Afghan security forces would be able to take over and provide the security that's necessary.

VELSHI: Jill, a month and a half ago or so, there was a meeting in Afghanistan. Hillary Clinton was there. Hamid Karzai said something else about setting a deadline for all non-Afghan forces out to take full control over Afghan security. And, again, the feeling was, while everybody supports that intent -- that would be the best situation for everybody -- it is not realistically on the horizon.

Given that the U.S. has had some setbacks, and the international forces have had some setbacks in Afghanistan over the past several months, is this at all realistic that they can be doing this?

DOUGHERTY: It would appear not. And that's the concern. I mean, everybody, from the United States; ICEF has said this. I was at a news conference just the other day where they were saying ultimately that's the whole object, is to get the security turned over to the Afghan security forces.

But realistically, they are not there. And it may take a very long time. And when you look at the numbers of private security people here, it's mind boggling.

Now, that said, ICEF does say there have been problems. They have been on the radar for quite awhile. They have made suggestions. But their suggestions were more let's get these guys registered, under control, under supervision. But it wasn't that all of a sudden you would pull the plug and within four months, they would have to shut down.

VELSHI: Right. If it you're leaving in four months, you've got to be wrapping things up right now.

Let me ask you about another thing. It's been almost ten years since the Taliban has exercised control over all of Afghanistan, but if you need a reminder as to what the Taliban is all about, we have reports they have stoned a man and woman to death allegedly for -- allegedly having an affair?

DOUGHERTY: Yes. It was a pretty horrendous report today coming out of Kunduz. Kunduz is in the north. It's up kind of on the border of Tajikistan. And that area normally has been relatively quiet, although there are certain areas that are controlled by the Taliban.

And these were two people, a woman, young woman, about 20 years old, and a man, 27, 28 years old. She was engaged to someone else. He was married to someone else. And they had an affair. And what happened was, the Taliban accused them of illicit sexual relations. They apparently admitted that they did it, and they were taken into a field and stoned to death. A number -- quite a number of supporters of the Taliban went out and stoned them to death. It's an example, a pretty horrendous example, of some of the "justice" that -- and that's in quotes, of course, that the Taliban are meading out, according to their rules.

VELSHI: Jill, good to see you, thank you very much. Jill Dougherty in Kabul with our continuing coverage there.

I want to take you to Pakistan for a moment. We have been covering the floods in Pakistan for a few weeks. Let me tell you now the latest we have got.

As of today, nearly 20 million people have been affected. Twenty million people have been affected by the worst flooding in 80 years. An urgent call for help as the death toll is rising, now stands at 1,400. The government says about about a fifth of the country is under water. Can you believe that? Some 900,000 homes have been damaged.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon toured some hard-hit areas yesterday and said thousands of towns and villages have been washed away. Thousands of people remain cut off. Floodwaters all around them. Waterboard diseases like dysentery and cholera are now a major, major problem. Up to 3.5 million children are at risk. And there is an increasingly urgent need for food, clean water and shelter.

This situation just keeps getting worse. We'll continue to keep you posted on it in our "Globe Trek."

To get more information on ways you can make a difference -- people have been asking me that -- and to help provide relief for the flood victims in Pakistan, visit our Impact Your World page at CNN.com/impact. On that page, you will find links to various agencies and charities doing work in Pakistan. And elsewhere in the world, by the way.

Four people are dead; a killer is still on the loose after police arrest the wrong man in a Buffalo, New York shooting.

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VELSHI: If you don't mind, I would like to bring you up to speed with some of the top stories we're following here on CNN.

China has apparently passed Japan to become the world's second biggest economy. Annual figures won't come until next year, but China says it had a $1.34 trillion gross domestic product during the spring and quarter. That's the size of its economy. Everything it made and produced versus only $1.29 trillion for Japan. So, it's just edged down a little bit. Both China and Japan still lag far behind U.S., which is in the number one spot, but that could be changing. We'll talk more about that this show.

More tough talk from North Korea, as the U.S. and South Korea kick off 11 days of joint military exercises. The North says it will deal a merciless counter blow to what it calls "U.S. imperialists and to South Korean traitors." The U.S. military says it is fully prepared to respond to any potential provocation.

The husband and wife who crashed a White House party last November, the Salahis, are in the news again. They're now on a TV reality show. This week's episode showed them inexplicably getting a police escort. Producers now say the episode incorrectly showed a Washington metro police car. They say it was actually the U.S. park police who provided the escort. No comment yet from the park police on exactly what was going on.

A day after they arrested him, authorities in Buffalo, New York dropped quadruple homicide charges against a local man. "Crime and Consequence" today. The gunman who killed four people outside a restaurant early Saturday remains on the loose. The shooting broke out after an argument inside the cafe grill in Buffalo, the same day a S.W.A.T. team raided the home of this man, Keith Johnson. Again, he has been released, but remains in jail on unrelated charges. Reaction now from his family and police.

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JACKIE GREEN, CHARGES DROPPED AGAISNT SON: He just said over and over, I never shot anyone. I'm telling you guys, I didn't do anything. These are my family and friends that are dead.

DAN DERENDA, COMMISSIONER, BUFFALO, N.Y. POLICE: We did have identification. We had other witness statements saying that it was Keith who just got paroled. And then we also obtained blood evidence, and to say the least, the then-defendant was less than truthful about what was -- what took place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Police are asking for the public to provide information on the real shooter. Meantime, the city says it will accept offers of assistance from the U.S. attorney's office, the DEA and the FBI.

All right. An electronic nose that tests for cancer by sniffing your breath. Yes, I'm not making this up. We'll have details about it in our "Big I" segment after the break.

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VELSHI: Time for the "Big I" today. We do it everyday. It's a big idea that could change the world, and boy, if this one turns out to be true, what a big deal it could be. It's a breath test for cancer.

Let me show you how it works. We've got some graphics here. You basically breathe into a bag. You breathe out. The bag is taken to a lab. It's tested, and look what it theoretically can detect -- lung cancer, breast cancer, bowel cancer and prostate cancer.

Preliminary results for this were published in the British Journal of Cancer. Basically -- I'm not going to explain it to you. I'm going to bring in somebody who really knows more about this. He's the co-author of the study. Abraham Kuten is the professor at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology joining me from Jerusalem.

Pardon me, Abaraham, if I'm fascinated by this because if it's true, early detection of cancers is really one of the best tools we have in fighting them. So, tell me a little bit about how this would work.

ABRAHAM KUTEN, PROFESSOR, TECHNION ISRAEL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: That's correct. There is a set or area of detectors, sensors that are sensitive to certain molecules that are produced by malignant processes. The different cancers can produce different molecules. And with the nanotechnolotechnology developed (INAUDIBLE) by Dr. Heicht (ph), we were able to distinguish between normal persons to persons with cancer -- prostate cancer, breast cancer, bowel cancer and lung cancer. We were also about to find differences between the different types of cancers, but this is the next step. All together, this will allow early detection and follow-up.

VELSHI: OK, what degree of accuracy have you seen in your testing so far? In other words, you have this first round of testing with blowing into this thing and then do subsequent testing -- does subsequent finding find there are a lot of false positives, or is it fairly accurate?

KUTEN: All right. These are preliminary results obtained on 177 persons. Before, we tested the system on (INAUDIBLE) of patients. Now, we could separate between the normal and the diseased persons.

This is a spread of results. I mean, we expect it to improve and with the big number of candidates that were checked currently, that are in the process, involved in the study, we hope to get bigger numbers and more accuracy. But so far, we were really able to distinguish.

VELSHI: Right. And it's hopeful. OK, tell me what has to happen before the day we might be able to see this test available and provided? In other words, what does the next few rounds of testing -- how much time before this might be available?

KUTEN: I believe that for monitoring the pathway of the disease, we'll need another two years. We need more numbers. We're currently checking more patients. We'll have to check hundreds of patients to validate the initial results. But the initial results look promising, really promising.

VELSHI: Yes. They certainly do. Boy, if we can get to things where we really understand how to detect these things early and inexpensively, it could make a big difference to us. We'd like to keep in touch with you and follow what you're doing.

Abraham Kuten, thank you very much for joining us. He's the co- author of the study in the British Journal of Cancer, joining us from the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Jerusalem. Thanks for joining us. That's exactly the kind of "Big I" that we like on this show, something that tells us about a big change that could happen in the future.

OK. Changing gears I guess, just a little bit -- take a look at this little fellow. Take a look at this. This is crazy. Cute little bear cub with a jar stuck on his head. I hope the story has a happy ending. We'll find out on the other side of the break.

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VELSHI: Now for a few odds and ends. Look at this fellow. He's a six-month-old black bear cub. His siblings and his mom were sifting through the trash in Florida National Forest when this jar got stuck on his head. If it had stayed on, he would have died from dehydration or starvation. The Florida Fish and Wildlife conservation Commission tried to catch him for ten days. Bear response agents actually started calling him Jarhead.

After ten days, they were finally able to tranquilize his mother and subdue the little guy long enough to get the jar off his head. They released the family later together in a nearby, less populated area. This is a scary message about what happens when wildlife gets into the trash. Luckily, that story had a happy ending.