Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
South Korea Promises Retaliation; The Not-So-Secret Nuke Lab; Hit Man Plot from Catholic Priest; Taliban Imposter - Negotiations with a Shopkeeper; Loaded Gun Magazine Found on Plane; Progress in Combating AIDS; Haitians Protesting U.N. Workers; Cargo Building at Logan Airport Evacuated; Storm Chasers in the Name of Science; Logan Airport Security Scare; Combat Explosion Helmets
Aired November 23, 2010 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, thank you, Tony. As he said I'm Kate Bolduan in for Ali Velshi with you for the next two hours. So stick with me, and here is what is on the rundown right now: A deadly confrontation between two bitter enemies raises tensions around the world.
And Haiti's misery, first the earthquake, then the cholera, and now violence. We'll have an eyewitness report. You'll want to see that. And thousands of U.S. Troops are coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan with traumatic brain injuries. We talk about this a lot, but could a new kind of helmet help?
First, the big story we are watching and we want to begin with right now; the shocking reminder of the forgotten war. Fifty seven years after North and South Korea reached an uneasy armistice, but never an outright peace. The world is watching a return to deadly hostilities.
It centers on a disputed island just two miles from a disputed border in the yellow sea. The South had been holding military drills there to which the North fiercely objected. When the South started firing artillery into the sea but away from North Korea, the North unleashed a barrage, killing two South Korean marines and wounding at least 15 soldiers and 3 civilians.
The South responded in kind and also scrambled fighter jets. But the toll they inflicted on the North isn't yet known. These pictures are all from North Korea's attack on the island - pretty startling. This island is home to South Korean military garrison and roughly 1,600 civilians.
It was just last week that North Korea stunned a U.S. scientist by giving him a tour of a uranium enrichment lab at a nuclear research site. This made some pretty big headlines and you'll probably remember South Korea's -- North Korea's sinking of a South Korean warship in these same troubled waters back in March.
That attack killed 46 South Korean sailors. So time now for the two at the top. International security expert Jim Walsh is joining me; excuse me, joining me to talk about the fallout from this Korean fighting. Sorry. Jim, I understand, President Obama plans to reach out to South Korean President Lee. What do you hope comes from that conversation?
JIM WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EXPERT: Well, Kate, it's going to be a difficult conversation because on the one hand U.S. policy, as one official described it, is alliance centric. Our top goal is to reassure our ally, to tell them we got your back and to stay with them. So, he's going to want to reassure President Lee. On the other hand, he doesn't want to encourage Lee to overreact, feel like he has a cart blanche and for this crisis to escalate.
Because that's a danger here. Not that North Korea is going to attack us or attack the U.S., but that somehow in tit for tat, response for response, we end up escalating and ending up someplace we don't want to be.
BOLDUAN: It seems obviously like a matter that has to be handled delicately. But remind our viewers about why this area, why this ratcheting up of tensions is significant to our viewers, to Americans. Tell me about the U.S. presence there.
WALSH: We have thousands of American troops there. South Korea is one of our main treaty allies. Oh, and by the way, North Korea has nuclear weapons and, oh, by the way, even perhaps more importantly, North Korea is undergoing a political transition. Kim Jong-Il is dying. He's being replaced by his youngest son. And political transitions can be delicate and dangerous, particularly in the context where no one's talking to one another.
They're not talking to us; we're not talking to them. So mistakes and miscalculations, that's what happens under these circumstances. And that's what we have to guard against.
BOLDUAN: How do you see this going forward? Is this a new level of tension -- the new normal -- or is this kind of a one-off, a one- type deal? North Korea trying to flex its muscle or say kind of, pay attention to us over here?
WALSH: That's a good point, Kate, to call this the new normal. Because frankly, Korean -- North Korean/American relations have been characterized by these incidents and crises and problems going back to the pueblo so many decades ago. You know, it depends on what North Korea's motivation is.
If they're doing this deliberately, all these different things are part of some master plan to improve leverage or get back to the six-party talks, then we might see more them. They may be unrelated though, we have a tendency to sort of see them all as a part of one thing, they may be different events. It depends on what is in their minds and frankly right now no one really knows.
BOLDUAN: Alright, Jim, thank you so much. Thanks for joining us. International security expert. Thanks so much.
We have a bit of breaking news we want to tell you. We'll come back to that in a little bit. We're going to work out a few little things. But first, let's get to today's "Sound Effect", we're hearing directly from the U.S. scientist who got an astounding tour of a Korean nuke lab earlier this month. Siegfried Hecker of Stanford University talked about his findings this morning in Washington. Listen here -
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SIEGFRIED HECKER, STANFORD UNIVERSITY: This is what we saw when we looked in. Now they didn't let us take any photos. And they took no photos, so I had to doctor up a photo. My jaw just dropped. I was stunned to see what looked like hundreds and hundreds of centrifuges lined up, two each at three different locations. It was just stunning. In a clean facility, modern facility, looking down I said, oh my god, they actually did what they said they were going to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: The warheads north Korea tested in 2006 and 2009 were plutonium based in which uranium is generally considered the nuclear fuel of choice. For what it's worth, A U.S. special envoy says Washington is not surprised by these revelations.
Now to some news we've been waiting for out in Aruba. The jawbone that we've been talking about, we were talking about it a lot yesterday, it is not Natalee Holloway's. Dutch forensic experts have been examining the bone after a tourist found it on an Aruba beach this month. Holloway disappeared from the area in 2005 on a senior class trip.
Her family sent dental records for comparison with the jawbone, but today Aruban authorities said it belongs to a Jane Doe. Natalee's father, Dave Holloway issues a statement soon after saying, quote, we appreciate everyone's thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.
We remain hopeful that someday we will find the answer to the whereabouts of our daughter, Natalee Holloway. Again, we want to thank everyone for their support in our efforts to find justice, we ask that you continue to remember Natalee in your thoughts and prayers. That's from Natalee Holloway's father.
And also, some other news to get to today and that you should know about. A former Catholic priest in Texas already charged with sexually abusing a teenager has been arrested again for allegedly seeking a hit-man to kill that accuser. A neighbor of John Fiala tipped off police earlier this month. The neighbor says Fiala offered him $5,000 to "take care of" the boy who's now 18 years old.
There are some red faces in Washington and Kabul over reports a senior Taliban commander involved in secret government talks was an imposter. Afghan officials tell the "Washington Post" he may have been a humble Pakistani shop keeper if you can believe it. The man was reportedly flown to Kabul by NATO for negotiations, and a western diplomat says the imposter was paid a lot of money is what we're told to convince him to take part in those talks. That is pretty fascinating.
And also, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating rental car company repair records and NHTSA wants to know if the agencies are following through on safety recalls before renting or leasing out their cars. NHTSA says it's gotten reports of injuries and deaths caused by failure to meet federal safety standards. That's pretty horrible.
New hope in a major fight; a possible new treatment that could prevent HIV infection. Stick around, you'll want to see that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOLDUAN: We have breaking news that we want to get to right now. A loaded magazine found on a plane. CNN photographer Gregg Canes he is joining us on the phone with more. Greg, are you there?
GREG CANES, CNN PHOTOGRAPHER (via telephone): Yes, Kate, hi.
BOLDUAN: Tell me, please, tell me what's going on? What do you guys know?
CANES (via telephone): My producer, Sara Weisfeldt, and I flew from Burbank this morning, here to CNN because we're covering the Sarah Palin book signing this afternoon. And the plane landed and we were sitting in the second row from the back of the plane and there was a family of three sitting right behind us.
The mother had a young kid on her lap and the kid was kind of, you know, happy not to be restrained - the plane was already on the ground, so the kid was climbing over the seats toward the window where his brothers were sitting and his foot knocked something on to the floor. And we all sort of looked down, the air hostess I believe picked up what it was. And I looked over and saw there was a -- it looked like the magazine from a semiautomatic pistol. And you know we were just taken by surprise --
BOLDUAN: Absolutely.
CANES (via telephone): To see something like that, and it was actually almost funny given the amount of scrutiny that we've been paying to TSA and personal security, that it seemed almost funny to see a magazine with bullets in just sort of lying on the floor of a commercial jetliner.
BOLDUAN: So what's happening now, are you guys still on the plane? What's going on now?
CANES (via telephone): No, thankfully this happened once the plane had landed. We're on such a tight deadline that I think if it had happened at Burbank before takeoff they would have scrubbed the flight, we would have missed our live-shot window. The air hostess took the magazine. I held it, I just looked at it a little bit, handed it back to her. Wanted to take a picture of it, but she refused, obviously.
And we deplaned. I assume they're turning it in and somewhere down the line I'm guessing there's a bureaucrat who's feeling very uncomfortable right now.
BOLDUAN: And so this happened when you landed into Phoenix, correct?
CANES (via telephone): That is correct. Yeah. The plane had already come to a full stop, and you know, everybody was getting up and trying to get their baggage and everything to get off the plane.
BOLDUAN: Just astonishing. To catch people up if they're joining us right now, this is CNN photographer Gregg Canes he's on phone with us where a magazine weapon was found. They think it is a magazine for what looked like a semiautomatic weapon found on a plane from Burbank to Phoenix. Clearly, Gregg, thank you so much for joining us. We're going to check more on this, obviously check with the airline and check with TSA and federal officials and see what we can learn about that. But fortunately it was just found and handed off to the appropriate authorities. Gregg, thanks so much for joining us.
Alright, so moving on to some other news that we're following. The United Nations says the global AIDS epidemic is slowing down and actually beginning to reverse. New HIV infections worldwide have decreased, listen to this, almost 20 percent in the last decade. Let's map out these numbers, they're pretty interesting, you'll want to know about it.
In 2009 an estimated 2.6 million people became newly infected with HIV. That's compared with the estimated 3.1 million and who they infected 1999, 10 years earlier. Also in 2009, approximately 1.8 million people died from aids-related illnesses, compare that with about 2.1 million deaths in 2004.
And there's even more encouraging news. I found this pretty astonishing. When you zero in on the aids crisis in the 15 most severely affected countries. The rate of new HIV infections among young people has fallen by more than 25 percent. That's because the U.N. says young people are adopting safer sex practices. The report, though, is not all good news that we should tell you about.
For every one person starting HIV treatment two people are newly affected. Clearly, it's a problem we're all fighting. But the U.N. says overall the investments in combating aids are paying off but the challenge is now to of course speed up the progress. And there could be a breakthrough in the battle against aids using drugs to prevent HIV. Researchers have found a combination of drugs reduces the risk of infection by almost 44 percent in men.
The drugs are two widely used HIV medicines taken daily. Researchers tell CNN they need to do more investigating, obviously, but the drug combination could make, in their words, a significant impact in the fight against HIV.
***15
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Researchers have found a combination of drugs reduces the risk of infection by almost 44 percent in men. The drugs are two widely used HIV medicines taken daily. And researchers tell CNN they need to do more investigating, obviously, but the drug combination could make, in their words, a significant impact in the fight against HIV. Pretty astonishing.
Coming up, markets are moving. A major country's parliament may dissolve thanks to bank bailouts.
And keeping your wallet safe this holiday season. It's a big day for "Your Money." Christine Romans will be joining me on the other side.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOLDUAN: This just in. We've got another possible security situation to actually tell you about. This is a possible cargo security situation at Logan Airport. We're hearing from our affiliate there, WCVB. They are reporting that a cargo area at Logan Airport in Boston is being evacuated, involving, as I said, possibly some type of cargo situation. We know that has been raising -- that, of course, immediately raises eyebrows these days. Clearly new information coming in, developing. I want to get to Chad, though, and see if we -- what's going on in the situation in the air there, Chad?
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, I'm looking at airplanes and they're still leaving. A couple of planes here. Here's the Cape, obviously, Cape Cod. There's Boston, Logan Airport. Plans still leaving at the time. And so if it's a cargo situation, it may actually be in a cargo area, like a UPS, like a DHL, like a Federal Express.
BOLDUAN: Can be very separate from the actual --
MYERS: It could be completely -- completely different.
BOLDUAN: Commercial airport.
MYERS: But now cargo does go on to real airplanes, too.
BOLDUAN: Yes.
MYERS: And so what we will watch to see, where all the ground stops, if there are anything. If anything else develops here, we'll know it.
Here's Logan. Many airplanes, many runways to come and to go and so far so good. I don't see anything on the FAA website that says, you know, everything's stopped.
BOLDUAN: Anything's stopped.
MYERS: We will get that immediately, though, because not only are they sending it to us, the website that we monitor, they're sending it to every other airport in the country. This is air traffic control. That's why we get to look at it and we will tell you --
BOLDUAN: (INAUDIBLE).
MYERS: Soon I will be running back out here as soon as I get something.
BOLDUAN: OK. Let's just recap real quick as we're going over this. We're looking at Boston's Logan Airport. Why? Because we're hearing that there's a possible security situation, possibly involving a cargo area at Logan Airport being evacuated. We're getting that from our affiliate there. We have crews on the way, as you can imagine, and we will update you on that as that comes in.
MYERS: OK.
BOLDUAN: A lot of news going on. So I think we're going to move on, right, guys?
All right. Here we go. Moving on to other stuff. We're watching all of this breaking news. It's now time for "Your Money." Time for "Your Money." And that means it's time for Christine Romans. A look first at the markets after North Korea's deadly confrontation with South Korea. Christine Romans, co-host of CNN's "Your Money" joins me from New York.
Christine, we're talking about the markets, but we're talking about North and South Korea. What are you seeing and why am I talking about these two events?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CO-HOST "YOUR MONEY": You're talking about it because it really rattled Asian stocks overnight and that's something that reminded people that there are what we call geopolitical risks in the market. Even though the Dow has gotten above 11,000, there are a variety of things happening out there that remind people before a holiday weekend that they want to be careful about uncertainties and North Korea and South Korea and the tensions there are certainly one of them. It's one of the reasons why gold is up, the dollar is up and stocks are down.
BOLDUAN: Very interesting.
But let's move on to another big money story that we've been talking about for a while now, Ireland's big bailout. Probably not a moniker that Ireland is looking for right now. Let's take a listen to something real quick and then we'll talk about it.
(VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: That's protesters in Ireland after news that the government would accept bailouts from the IMF and European Union up to $100 billion. These three big factors have put Ireland in this bad situation. One, when the markets tanked back in 2008, it made banks less able to lend, which meant less money circulating in the economy. Two, less money out there meant less money in government revenues, which really hurt Ireland's budget. And also because the economy wasn't doing so great and people didn't trust bonds, the banks and government had to raise the bond payouts to encourage people who buy them. This was good for people who cashed in on their bonds, but meant more money lost for banks and the government.
Christine, the prime minister is now talking about dissolving the government until the budgets -- involving all the budgets and everything like this. Explain what is going on here?
ROMANS: Well, the interesting thing is that a lot of economists here tell me that American banks exposure to Ireland's problems is pretty minimal. They don't expect any kind of direct knock-on effect. But when you're talking about European banks and European stock market averages, there are some concerns there. Why? Because it raises and reminds us that we have long-term debt concerns in some of these countries. And it feels like we're almost back where we were six months ago when we were talking about Greece, right, and Portugal. And so it shows you that those concerns about governments that can't afford to pay their bills, those concerns are still there and that we haven't fully put this crisis behind us. And that's why a lot of people here are watching this.
So you take North Korea and South Korea, you take what's happening in Ireland together, it's one of the reasons why you have the Dow down triple digits today.
BOLDUAN: And Ireland's big bailout there. Ireland is now joining a group that -- a not good group to be involved with, joining Greece.
ROMANS: Dubious honor. A dubious honor. And there was -- the arguing over whether we want them to take the bailout. No, they won't take the bailout. They need to take the bailout. There was all this sort of handwringing about what was the best thing for Ireland, the best thing for investors who had, you know, exposure to Ireland and the best thing for the global markets. And this is how we're seeing it play out. You can see what the people think clearly about the bailout scenario.
BOLDUAN: Exactly.
ROMANS: But -- right.
BOLDUAN: All right, Christine Romans, thanks so much.
"Your Money," you want to watch it, Saturdays at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, Sunday at 3:00. Christine Romans is also the author of the very great book, you should pick it up, "Smart Is The New Rich." It's on bookshelves right now.
Got a lot going on today. Let's take a look at some of the top stories that we are following.
South Korea is threatening enormous retaliation after North Korea's deadly artillery attacks today. Two South Korean marines were hurt and many others were injured. The United States has more than 28,000 troops deployed there in South Korea.
And that bone that we talked a lot about yesterday and have for about a week now, that bone on a beach in Aruba, is not Natalee Holloway's. The jawbone was found earlier this month but tests have confirmed it isn't the Alabama teenager's. Natalee Holloway went missing in May 2005 on a graduation trip to the island.
And David Plouffe, the architect behind President Obama's 2008 campaign, will join the White House staff come January. He'll be working alongside David Axelrod, the president's senior adviser, before Axelrod moves on to gear up for the 2012 election because that's already starting to gear up anyway.
And also, the commander in chief is paying a little visit to my hometown, my home state, the Hoosier state, right now. So how is it there? How is good news in that town with 12 percent unemployment? How is that good news? I'll tell you after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOLDUAN: Going to give you a quick update on the situation at Logan Airport in Boston that we talked about just a few minutes ago. What we're hearing now from authorities there is that a cargo building at Logan Airport in Boston has been evacuated. They've been investigating a suspicious package there. They're not giving us much more information on why they -- what's so suspicious about it, but we're checking on that. Good news in this situation at the moment is that air operations out of Logan Airport, they're not being affected. So flights are not being affected at this time. That's the good news. But we'll stay on top of it and bring you updates as we get that.
But now we've got a little bit of fun to have. CNN's senior White House correspondent, Ed Henry, is joining me with the stakeout.
Hey there, Ed.
ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kate. How are you?
BOLDUAN: Nice to see you, too. So you broke a little news last night about a shakeup in the White House staff. Tell me about this.
HENRY: Well, you know you were just talking about David Plouffe is going it be coming here. A lot of people thought that would happen. But this is -- what we reported was that he's going to come a lot sooner. He's going to come at the beginning of January, work as a senior adviser here and that David Axelrod, who many people thought would be leaving in March or April, is actually going to be leaving after the president's State of the Union late January, early February.
Why is that significant when you get behind the headline? It's because it really gives us a window on what this president is thinking coming out of the election. There were a lot of people wondering, even before the election, you know, is he going to maybe shake things up in the sense of bringing in some new blood?
When Rahm Emanuel left, what did they do? They brought in Pete Rouse, who was already here as a senior adviser, moved up to chief of staff. You know, General Jones left as the national security advisor. They promoted his deputy, Tom Donilon. And now you see David Axelrod leaving a little earlier than expected. Well, David Plouffe, the old campaign manager from 2008, he's coming in. There's talk that Carol Browner, the energy czar, is going to be maybe a deputy chief of staff or a senior adviser.
When you put all this together, what it means is this is a president who is very comfortable with the people he has. And while he may be getting some pressure from even some in his own party to maybe bring in some new faces, some new blood, he really kind of wants to stick with the people that are around (ph) him, if you will. And he doesn't look like, you know while people use the phrase, shakeup, it doesn't really look like a major shakeup. It looks like kind of a reshuffling.
BOLDUAN: And bringing people back that were very integral in getting him into that building behind you.
HENRY: Absolutely.
BOLDUAN: All right, so let's talk about, if we could, my home state. Not just because I'm from there and I'm anchoring this show today, but the president going to Kokomo, Indiana, today with the vice president. What -- it's part of this -- the White House -- I always screw up the name -- the White House -- the main street tour, what have you. Why is this significant? Are they just trying to kind of talk about some good news?
HENRY: Well, first of all, the Beach Boys, of course, did the Kokomo song, so that gives us a chance to talk about that, you know.
BOLDUAN: That is significant, yes.
HENRY: I'm sure they weren't talking about Kokomo, Indiana, as wonderful a state as it is, and we know it's your home state. But, you know, seriously, what he wants to talk about is trying to get the economy rebounded and you mentioned before the break that unemployment there is about 13, 14 percent.
Why is that good news? Well, look at where it was a year ago in Kokomo. It was around 23, 24 percent unemployment. Much, much worse. Because Chrysler was in deep trouble. There's a Chrysler plant there. The president, in just a few minutes, will be speaking from there. We heard him last week here at the White House promoting the GM IPO and how the government bailout actually helped GM get back on its feet. He's going to try to make the same point about Chrysler.
But, you know, as you've suggested, it's still a tough sell because unemployment of 13 or 14 percent, while that's an improvement of where it was, it's
***30
HENRY: -- the GM IPO and how the government bailout actually helped GM get back on its feet. He's going to try to make the same point about Chrysler.
But, as you suggested, it's still a tough sell because unemployment of 13 percent or 14 percent, while that's an improvement of where it was, it's not still not exactly something to celebrate. So he's walking that fine line. You have to wonder why Oprah didn't give out Chryslers, by the way. Why was she giving out Volkswagens? She should have given out GM or Chrysler.
BOLDUAN: I don't know how you do it, with all you have to do with your actual job, you know every pop culture, what's going on reference in town.
HENRY: You got to stay on top of that. And normally get a chance to compliment Ali, or actually most of the time I trash his neckties, but I'm going to say, you look great today.
BOLDUAN: Thank you. I don't think we want to go there. Don't start making fun of my clothes.
HENRY: I won't make fun of you. I promise.
BOLDUAN: CNN's White House correspondent Ed Henry. I'll see you back in Washington, Ed.
HENRY: Good seeing you, Kate.
BOLDUAN: All right. This is what else we're watching today. Today on Edge of Discovery, CNN's Gary Tuchman, he finds a group of people who chase violent storms all in the name of science.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A hundred mile per hour winds. Flying debris. And hail, bigger than golf balls. Just some of the everyday dangers of storm chasing.
REED TIMMER, METEOROLOGIST: We've been hit with trees, debris. We've also had our window get blown out.
TUCHMAN: But for Reid Timmer and his team, it's all done in the name of science.
GEOFF CARTER, HYPERION TECHNOLOGY: We're looking at new and different ways of using radar technology to track these storms and get data that's never been acquired before.
TUCHMAN: In hopes of betting understanding how storms form and move, the team uses these radar probes. They're equipped with GPS and collect measurements of temperatures, moisture, and pressure from inside the storm.
TIMMER: We get in the path of the tornado, drop the vehicle to the ground, and then let the funnel move directly overhead.
TUCHMAN: With wind speeds over 100 miles per hour, most cars would get crushed by any flying debris. That's why Timmer and team travel in a specially-designed vehicle that's built more like a tank. It's called the Dominator and comes with equipped with HD recording devices, Plexiglas windows, and a protective shell.
TIMMER: The whole goal from this research is to save lives.
TUCHMAN: Standing up to Mother Nature's fury, it's Timmer's hope we can learn to protect ourselves in the future.
Gary Tuchman, CNN.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOLDUAN: It's half past the hour and we want to get to your headlines.
Here's one of them that's developing now. You're looking at live pictures of Logan Airport in Boston. As we were just reporting a short time ago, a cargo building there has been evacuated. You're seeing crews of some sort obviously working in this cargo area. Why? Because there are reports of a suspicious package found there in the cargo area. We're not getting a lot of details at this moment. But, that cargo area has been evacuated. The good news of this situation right now, this is not affecting air traffic, not affecting flights. But, we're watching that and we'll bring more to you as it comes.
Other headlines that we're watching. South Korea is promising enormous retaliation and its military has gone to crisis status after North Korea shelled southern territory killing two soldiers. The U.S. Special Envoy to Korea and other foreign diplomats are urging restraint from Seoul.
Still also, no answers for the family of Natalee Holloway. Forensic results came back today on a jawbone found on an Aruba beach recently. The bone does not belong to the teenager who disappeared during a senior class trip to Aruba back in 2005, five years ago. She's presumed dead, but no remains have been found.
And not exactly what you expect to find stowed under your airline seat. Listen to this. A loaded gun magazine turned up today on a Southwest flight from Burbank, California, to Phoenix. Turned out a child was kicking something around under his seat. A flight attendant picked it up but didn't know what it was. A CNN crew onboard did know and told the flight attendant who took it to the cockpit. We're working on more information of what's going on with that. We'll have more as that comes in.
And you may want to save the date, my friends. The Royal wedding day and place are set. Prince William and Kate Middleton will get married this coming April 29th at where? Well where else? Westminster Abbey in London. How seriously are Brits taking this? Well, the happy couple's wedding date will be a national holiday.
There was no national holiday when I was married, just in case you were wondering.
The thousand-year-old church has a long history with the Royal Family. It was the site of Queen Elizabeth's wedding and site of Princess Diana's funeral. The Royal Family will pay for the wedding while the government covers security and transportation.
So he used to strum the bass for the Black Crowes and now he's a one-man band for CNN. Johnny Colt takes us deep into Haiti to show the violent protests staged against the United Nations. He'll join us live to talk about it coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
You're looking again at live pictures of Logan Airport from one of our affiliates. A cargo building there -- just to give you an update -- has been evacuated. There are reports of a suspicious package being found there. Trying to get more information on it. But we do know that state police, Boston fire, the bomb squad, the airport fire department; they are all on the scene working this.
One good thing, though, is that right now we're told and we're looking for an update, flights are not being affected. But that cargo area is definitely being looked at, and a suspicious package that they're looking at. We'll keep you updated as we always do.
But now it's time for a little Globe Trekking. We've been telling you about the cholera outbreak in Haiti. Pretty devastating. Well now there's a huge problem with anti-United Nations protests.
Let me break it down for you a little bit first. The first confirmed case of cholera in Haiti was in late October. So far 1,344 people are dead; another 57,000 people have been treated for cholera. International health officials are expecting that number to rise into the hundreds of thousands. And the United Nations has criticized the international response to the Haiti cholera outbreak. It says donors have only pledged about 10 percent, 10 percent of the money needed to curb the disease. We're talking about doctors, nurses, water purification systems, chlorine tables, soap, tents, et cetera; all of that stuff.
But now, let's talk about the Haitians, themselves. Check this out. There are people in Haiti who blame the very organization that's trying to help them, the United Nations. They accuse Nepali soldiers serving as U.N. peacekeepers of bringing cholera in from their homeland. The U.N. and Nepalese officials deny the charge. Protests against the United Nations and Nepal turned violent last week in Port- au-Prince and the northern port city of Cap Haitien.
CNN iReporter Johnny Colt traveled to Haiti and talked to a man who says the U.N. -- saw the U.N. taking bodies away after clashes.
Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNNY COLT, CNN IREPORTER: What about the clashes with the U.N.?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): He say he can't really tell you because yesterday they killed so many of them. When they put them in bags for them to go throw them away.
COLT: Did he see that? Did he see that?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: Pretty amazing stuff. So Johnny Colt is here with us now. You also may know Johnny Colt. He's a pretty well-known bassist playing for Black Crowes and Train, everything.
Johnny, I was watching some of your iReports. In another part of that video, you described the situation as a pressure cooker or a powder keg.
Why are they so frustrated?
COLT: I think the frustration comes from the totality of their problem.
BOLDUAN: Yes.
COLT: I mean, there is no infrastructure. The water's toxic. And the water there in the northern part of the country they use for everything. They bathe, they drink. It's not like bottled water is everywhere. These are rural people who have no money. The young men, 18 to 20 have no prospect for jobs. They've got a lot of times on their hands. When people do get cholera they have no support. So they're unempowered to help their sick family members, unempowered to find a job, unempowered to defend themselves. And they're scared.
BOLDUAN: In where you traveled did you see U.N. workers, did you see people trying to help? Did you see any kind of infrastructure trying to be put into place to curb this very easily cured disease?
COLT: Well, let me take the U.N. question in two parts. In Port-au-Prince, I've seen the U.N. driving around a lot. I see them on the streets. They're in armored vehicles.
Over the three months that I've been reporting from there, I've never seen the U.N. actually engage with anyone. In Cap Haitien, the U.N. had disappeared. A gentleman named Mr. Luven (ph), who was the director of the airport there, civil aviation had told me that the Haitians in Cap Haitien had overrun the U.N. compound. Even though that the U.N. was shooting at them, this is next to the airport, they because they were next to the airport, they overran them and the U.N. fled the camp. And the only time I saw U.N. troops when I there in Cap Haitien for a few days was once I saw them drive across the airport.
BOLDUAN: I think we have time. I hope we do. I want to play another one of your iReports where you spoke to a man who didn't want his face shown, really describing his frustration with the situation.
Do we have that?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been living like -- we've been suffering. The United Nations come (INAUDIBLE). I don't see nothing they do for us. They came to help us, now they're destroying us. It don't make no sense for you to come into our country and do this. OK, we throwing bottles, we throwing rocks. Why is you shooting at us? What did we do to you? This is our country. Let us go through our thing together, you know? You came to give peace. OK, there's no war in this country no more. Get the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) out. Go home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: You can really sense that man's frustration.
I mean, you were there. You were the eyes on the ground. People sometimes seem like they get desensitized because they see so much of these images and this kind of frustration on TV so much.
Tell me about your experience, what you saw and what you think really needs to happen.
COLT: You know, the locals call the U.N. "goat stealers." They consider the U.N. -- they'll steal their food, they'll go into the grocery store and buy up the vegetables, they steal their goats off the field. They just feel like they're in occupied territory, especially in the north.
BOLDUAN: Helpless.
COLT: Helpless.
So mainly, there's no opportunity. And one thing that's hard to understand when you're here in the States looking at it on television is the scale. You have 9 million people in Haiti, most of them don't have a job. A bar of soap goes a long ways. You're in rural villages.
I'll give you an example. I was in a village so far out that people got their first electric light three months ago. Those people don't understand cholera. They don't know the hygiene rules. They don't have access to that. They don't have a radio. It's hard to think, an hour and a half from Miami, you feel like you're in west Africa basically.
BOLDUAN: So amazing. So much work to be done and what you're doing is bringing attention to it, though, which is fabulous.
Johnny Colt, thank you so much for joining us.
COLT: Thanks for having me.
BOLDUAN: I want to give you an update on the breaking news story of the suspicious package out of Logan Airport in Boston.
This is in a cargo area and we now are learning they know of the suspicious package because of two hits by canines -- canines -- on two duffle bags. So it seems it is zeroing in on two duffel bags. We're told it's in the cargo area. That cargo building has been evacuated. Still, we're trying to see if this is going to affect any air travel. I think we actually have Allan Chernoff in New York who can give us a little bit of an update -- Allen. ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, no impact thus far on air travel because this is a separate area of Logan Airport. It is a cargo building that has been evacuated, as you said.
It was a canine unit that, according to Logan Airport spokesman Phil Orlandella, actually hit on a couple of duffel bags. So they're going to check those duffel bags out. Apparently, the bomb squad is there from the fire department and also state bomb squad as well. They'll be looking on to this.
According to the airport spokesperson these bags had not been loaded on to an airplane. So they were just sitting in the cargo area. I asked whether these were bound for cargo planes or passenger planes, the spokesperson wouldn't share that information. Perhaps he didn't know yet. He said he's just worried about making sure there's no bomb there.
BOLDUAN: Of course.
CHERNOFF: And that's the situation. Obviously, given what's happened over the past few weeks, airport officials are exceedingly cautious. We've had a number of these incidents over the past few weeks.
BOLDUAN: All right, Allan, we'll check back with you. Obviously, lots of moving parts, lots of developments. Stay with us and we'll check back with you, Allan, when things pop up.
All right, I think we have live pictures of the presidential podium there in Kokomo, Indiana. Why are we talking about Kokomo, Indiana? Well, the president and the vice president are there today going to tour and talk at a Chrysler plant. They say good news, they've done a lot. Federal government's done a lot for that town.
We'll talk about that and much more coming up after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOLDUAN: All right, our two big stories that we're watching right now. First, we've got breaking news out of Logan Airport in Boston. We've been tracking that for a little while now. A cargo area, a cargo building separate from the main kind of commercial building where you would probably be, the cargo area was evacuated. Why? Because of a suspicious package. And we've now learned there have been two K-9 hits on the two duffel bags that they seem to be zeroing in on that. Got some more information on that coming up, we'll update you as it comes.
We're also looking at the live pictures of Kokomo, Indiana, where the president and the vice president will be speaking very soon. They're at a Chrysler plant there. We'll go to them when they take to the podium. Lots going on.
Take a look at this movie clip and I'll tell you why we're looking at it on the other side.
(VIDEO CLIP, " HURT LOCKER" VOLTAGE PICTURES)
BOLDUAN: That was a clip from the Oscar-winning movie "Hurt Locker" where a bomb specialist is blown away trying to disarm an IED. It's also a reminder of the men and women injured every day fighting for this country.
Check out these numbers: 130,000 U.S. service members deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered traumatic brain injuries from an explosion ranging from concussions to long-term brain damage and death.
Experts at MIT have been working on a solution, and that is "The Big I." Associate professor Raul Radovitsky, is joining us from the MIT campus in Cambridge.
Raul, thank you so much for joining us.
Tell me about this. We're talking about a helmet, a modification to the helmet that we know so well. What is it about this helmet that could help with traumatic brain injury?
ASSOC. PROF. RAUL RADOVITSKY, MIT AERONAUTICS & ASTRONAUTICS: Good afternoon, Kate. I'm very pleased to be here.
The first thing I want to say make sure I get the message across correctly about the existing advanced combat helmet. I have the version of it that we use for our research right here. It's a device that has served our military really well. It has saved many lives and it has been designed for ballistic protection, that means for stopping bullets and fragments.
The first thing -- you know, the first finding in our paper is that this device is safe for blast IED scenarios. It does not amplify the intensity of the shockwave, as it has been previously suggested. And that's one of the key results of our paper.
BOLDUAN: So you're talking about a shield -- a shield to cover the face, kind of a modification to this helmet.
Tell me about what you guys have researched and what you guys have.
RADOVITSKY: Exactly. What we've seen, based on our simulations -- in the case of the unprotected head and the head with the existing helmet is that, you know, if you want to really protect against the shockwave, we need to cover the face.
You know, for a front blast, we have the energy of the blast that's going to be transmitted through the face and the soft tissues of the face into the brain tissue. So one possible solution to prevent that from happening is to add some kind of face cover, and that's what we've studied in our research.
BOLDUAN: I see the plasma screen behind you. What is that? Tell me about that. RADOVITSKY: So I can explain here. We have three simulations. We have created a very sophisticated model of the human head. In a collaboration with the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Dr. David Moore, a neurologist, together we built this model of the human head and we have some expertise in blast physics.
So what we see here on the left is a simulation of the blast wave impinging on the human head and we can see what I said before. There is a cut -- actual cut on the throat that shows stress waves and pressure, high intensity pressures, inside the human head, the brain tissue.
When we had the second simulation in the center we had the helmet, the existing HCH, we can see it somewhat delays the propagation of these stress waves inside the head, but since we are not protecting the head, there is still propagation of that blast injury into the brain tissue. We don't really expect this situation, you know, the helmet to help much in these conditions because it was not designed for that. It will still be very effective at stopping fragments and bullets.
In the third simulation what we do is create a computational model of the face cover, of a face shield. And what we see is that at the same time under the same conditions, we essentially and effectively prevent that energy of the blast from being transmitted directly into the brain tissue.
BOLDUAN: Very interesting, some very promising research coming out of MIT. Fabulous work, Professor Radovitsky. Anything we can do to better protect men and women in the field is something that we should definitely look at. Thank you so much for your time.
RADOVITSKY: You're welcome. Thank you very much.
BOLDUAN: Coming up next in the next hour here on the show, we're going to tell you about football helmets and how one young man went from a high school football player to a home for brain damaged adults. That's coming up at 2:45 Eastern.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
