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New Shocks, New Fears; Nuclear Crisis Deepens; Robots To The Rescue In Japan; Robots To The Rescue; Keeping U.S. Troops Safe in Japan; Examining the Radiation Risk in Japan; The Buzz at 'SXSW' Festival in Austin; Breaking Down the Brackets in the NCAA Tournament
Aired March 15, 2011 - 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: It has been, as Suzanne's been telling you, four and a half days since the biggest earthquake in recorded Japanese history and merciless tsunami. And, still, every hour seems to bring new fears. Aftershocks are a given, but the latest big jolt with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4 was centered west, southwest of Tokyo and apparently not an aftershock at all but a new earthquake in its own right.
The quake on Friday and most of the tremors since have been northeast of the capital. That's where the loss, the devastation, well, they're simply too much to bear.
The official death toll stands at 3,373 with more than twice that number officially listed as missing. The real numbers are unknown but certainly much higher.
Here's a more solid number for you, ninety-one, that's the latest count of countries big and small offering some kind of help, according to Japan's foreign ministry.
Through it all, the most pressing, immediate crisis remains the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. All three of the reactors that were online at the time of the quake have now endured explosions in the building that houses them.
Earlier today, a fire broke out in a building that houses a fourth reactor and that radiation went into the atmosphere. The fire is out now. The government says radiation levels at the plant are no longer harmful to human health. That was not the case earlier which is why Japan imposed a no-fly zone around the plant and the prime minister made this request on live TV.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NAOTO KAN, JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER (through translator): We would like to ask to you remain indoors at home or in your offices. We would like to ask to you remain indoors and avoid going outside.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Now, I mentioned help from other countries, the United States is helping in many ways with the nuclear and natural disasters. A team from Virginia is helping with search and rescue. And earlier today, CNN's Brian Todd showed us just what they are up against.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're here in the town of Ofunato which was devastated by the earthquake and tsunami. You see some of the rescue workers there going into that very unstable house. These guy are very courageous. They go into these structures all the time knowing that they could come down at any minute. The devastation here is really kind of hard to put into words, but you can see just endless whole blocks of nothing but rubble. And this is what these guys have to come and try to sift through to find people alive.
I'm going to show you one stark contrast, you can see up that hill, that's what high ground down in a tsunami, it can save those structures, save the people in them. But of course, down here they just almost didn't have a chance.
Just on the other side of these buildings is an inlet that comes in from the ocean so it kind of funneled the tsunami waters in here. And rescue workers tell us that it made the waters even stronger, just incredible force that game through that funnel, through that inlet and just swept over this entire area.
I'm here with Chief Chris Schaff of Virginia Task Force One. Chris, when you come upon a scene like this how do you guys even get started. How do you not get overwhelmed with all of this?
CHIEF CHRIS SCHAFF, VIRGINIA TASK FORCE ONE: You know, if you look at it in the big picture, it is easy to get overwhelmed the way that we break it out by sticking with search teams, group and breaking it down into small coordinates and small grids it makes it easier for the guys and girls to focus on their jobs while they're here so we can move from grid to grid instead of city to city, that would be too much and too much to process.
TODD: And you have other teams here helping you. And you're kind of cordoning off parts of the city, right?
SCHAFF: We do. It's been cordoned off this particular location between us, L.A. And the UK are here. We've divided into coordinates or seven quadrants. And we're working in the lower three here. And then we've broken that down further by search groups and rescue teams that are working here.
TODD: All right, well chief good luck. Thanks for doing this. Thank you.
Well, Karen and Christine (ph), one thing that Chief Schaff has told us is that what they count on in a lot of these situations not only for the canine teams that are just over there -- they're swarming around here also by the way. The dog teams are very impressive. They can find people alive in the rubble, but they also count on friends, relatives, kind of waving at them, pointing to people who may be inside these structures, maybe under these rubble piles.
But Chief Schaff told me something that was pretty daunting a moment ago. In a situation like this, he said, there may be whole families that have gone missing. So of course no one is looking for them.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: Brian Todd, he's embedded with the rescue team.
I want to talk about the plant, the nuclear plant, this is a big issue. Chad's been following this for us, because all around the world, in addition to this disaster, people are very curious as to how these nuclear generators -- nuclear reactors work.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: There are reactors literally everywhere.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: OK, one pound of fuel in a nuclear submarine or an aircraft carrier whatever it may -- is equal to about one million gallons of gasoline.
VELSHI: Right, this is why it is so popular.
MYERS: That's how amazing this little cube of one pound of uranium is.
VELSHI: But that'll tell you how much energy is stored in there and why we're concerned about it.
MYERS: It's what boils the steam into pressure that pressures the turbines that makes the power.
VELSHI: Right, right.
MYERS: You could put a giant bowl of coal down here and do the same thing and, you know, just run it forever, but this control rod, fuel rod, steam line makes an awful lot of power in a very small space.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: So, here we go, let's go. The pressure vessel, the control rods, the fuel rods, zoom right in. The fuel rods made of uranium 235 go into the water here, the water steams and makes a lot of pressure. When you don't -- when you want to cool down your pressure, cool it down, you put these control rods that absorb some of the neutrons that are going around, it slows down the process. That's why you're always at the switch, right? You're -- somebody is always there watching the pressure. The pressure goes through the steam --
VELSHI: As steam, right.
MYERS: -- goes through the steam, goes through the turbines, and then what happens -- stop it right here, this is important. Water comes from somewhere else, the ocean, in fact, of Japan, comes through here as a condenser, kind of like the air conditioning in your car, it changes the steam back to water that goes through and does the same thing again. We lost this water because the pump died, not because of the earthquake, because of the tsunami flooded the back-up generators.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: The pumps were running on its own power. Well, this whole thing shut down because of the earthquake. The earthquake didn't hurt it, what hurt it was that the pump shut down because the tsunami swamped the 13 generators -
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: -- that were the backup to keep this running. When this stopped, they had to put some water in it, something, because all the water steamed out.
(CROSSTALK)
MYERS: They started dumping ocean water in it, that's going to wreck.
(CROSSTALK)
MYERS: Oh, it's wrecked it.
VELSHI: That's done, good thing it's an old generator. So, the problem is it's keeping it cool, keeping those rods cool.
MYERS: And the new generators, the new power plants going on line would never do this.
VELSHI: They do don't this.
MYERS: They can shut down, you can walk away, they'll shut down by themselves. This would not happen now to a now non-40-year old generator.
VELSHI: All right, thanks, Chad, for that.
CNN's Stan Grant has been following the Fukushima nightmare from what we thought was a safe distance all the way in Tokyo.
Stan, it's good to see you. Where are you now and are you a safe distance from this?
STAN GRANT, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. In Tokyo, yes, we are a safe distance, Ali. There has been a spike measurement in the radiation level here in Tokyo over the past 12 hours or so. It was 22 times higher than normal, and that sounds alarming but it shouldn't be because they are still very, very low levels, and certainly not enough to create any physical harm where the high levels were within the plant itself.
Now, there's been a lot of talk about this fire in reactor number four. Now, in listening to officials in the past few hours, from the Tokyo electric company, they are not resulting out the possibility of a hydrogen explosion that could have sparked that fire, and of course, they are concerned about the spent fuel rods -- you were just discussing that, the spent fuel rods in the core there, whether they are caught up in the fire, and whether that led to that really quite dramatic jump in the level of radiation to the point that would have been potentially dangerous to people.
Now, what they are going to do tomorrow, what they are planning on doing here is to fly a helicopter over that reactor number four, dump water into that pool to try to negate that problem there.
Also questions about the integrity of the -- the structural integrity of this plant. You know, ultimately it's going to come down -- I think you were just discussing a moment ago with Chad, it's going to come down to whether these containment vessels hold, whether the structures hold, whether the safeguards hold. If that's the case, then they can contain a lot of that radioactivity, that radiation and not have it disperse into the atmosphere. But the international atomic energy agency and the officials here are still concerned about what happened in reactor number two with that explosion there. Still concerned that it could have damaged the containment vessel. They're not going to know, Ali, until they can get in there and have a closer look.
VELSHI: Stan, I want to ask you something. Given all the issues going on in Tokyo itself, with the aftershocks, shortages of food we're hearing about, rolling power outages, and now this nuclear issue, what's the feeling on the street? Is there any sense of business as usual or are people panicked? Are they staying inside? What's happening there?
GRANT: It's slower than usual. The time to have been here, I think would have seen it a little bit more bustling. You still see people going about their business. You see people going to work. The mood, from what I've seen, seems to be a little more somber. You certainly -- you know, you're not seeing a lot of boisterous activity or anything like that, but people are going about their business.
You go into the -- into the shops, the corner shops, and so on, some of the convenience stores, and yes, the shelves are not as full as they would ordinarily be. You know, the likes (ph) of McDonalds and Starbucks are still open, and people can go into those sort of places and get their coffee or grab something to eat if they're passing by.
And then, most of the things that are seen as normal -- but you've touched on a really interesting point here, Ali. This country has been through a lot. And, you know, you follow the financial news, in the past ten years, of course, has been a tough time in the financial doldrums. Now you get this, it is going to cost an enormous lot (ph) to recover and relieve the damage here.
We've got this human loss of life and what that does to the psyche of the country. You've got the enormous cost because of the nuclear damage and then the knockdown effects to the power generation of the country. There's going to be rolling power outages at least for the next month effecting 45 million people. All of that just piles one thing on top of another with a country that is grieving and you can see the damage that it does to morale, to self-esteem, as well as the economic damage -- Ali.
VELSHI: Yes, and we think of Japan as a fully developed country with people who have it altogether, but the reality is that there's no amount of being together that prepares you for this kind of devastation that we've seen.
Stan, thanks for your coverage. Stay safe, I'll talk to you soon. Stan Grant joining us from Tokyo.
The search and rescue teams spreading across the miles of devastation, well some of them are sending in robots to reach the most desperate survivors. These robots are amazing. I'm going to show you a couple of them after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rescuers found this woman in the middle of the debris. They carried her into the school infirmary.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (translator): I stayed outside the whole night. The water gushed in when I opened my door. I was washed away but I held on to a floating tree that came my way. I struggled hard to cling to it, to stop myself from going under, but I did go under. During my struggle, a totami mat came floating towards me. I jumped on and stayed there. I was washed away circling around some houses. My daughter was also swept away. I still don't know where she is.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: Thousands upon thousands of people are missing right now in Japan. Help from around the world is pouring in to help find those missing people and to recover the bodies of the dead. We've seen crews of people on land and in the water. We've seen packs of search and rescue dogs, all the stuff you normally see. And now we've received words of search and rescue robots being deployed in Japan.
Here to walk us through the specifics is robotics expert Dr. Henrik Christensen. He's the director of the center for robotics and intelligent machines at Georgia Tech here in Atlanta. Dr. Christianson, thank you for being with us.
DR. HENRIK CHRISTENSEN, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR ROBOTICS AND INTELLIGENT MACHINES: Sure.
VELSHI: Let's talk about the robots. We know of certain different kinds of robots that already on the ground in Japan, I want to ask you about one called the active scope camera. It's a camera that sort of snakes around and can get places where people can't get.
CHRISTENSEN: It's a snake like robot. It's about an inch thick.
VELSHI: Yes.
CHRISTENSEN: It's about 27 feet long.
VELSHI: Wow.
CHRISTENSEN: It can crawl. So just like a snake, it can crawl through debris. So even if you had very dense degree, it with actually be able to crawl through those structures.
VELSHI: And the idea is, it's looking for whatever you want to see.
CHRISTENSEN: It's looking for --
VELSHI: Whether people or --
CHRISTENSEN: It's looking for people. It's looking for debris. It's maintaining, is it safe to go there? Can we send in other first responders. But primarily, in very dense ruble that you saw early on in the footage, it can actually go in and give you a sense for, are there people in there.
VELSHI: This kind of thing been used before?
CHRISTENSEN: It's been used. It was used in Florida when we have a collapsed garage.
VELSHI: Right.
CHRISTENSEN: It's been used at 9/11. So it's been used in a number of cases. The Army Corps of Engineers also went to Haiti with that kind of technology.
VELSHI: Yes.
CHRISTENSEN: So it's been used.
VELSHI: OK. So that's one of the things you can use if there's a collapse of some sort. The other thing you can use is when you have terrain or a collapse that you can't easily get over, there's something called a quince robot.
CHRISTENSEN: Right.
VELSHI: Tell me about that. That's sort of like a 4X4.
CHRISTENSEN: It's like a tract vehicle.
VELSHI: Yes.
CHRISTENSEN: Small tract vehicle with a pair of flippers --
VELSHI: Right.
CHRISTENSEN: That will allow you to go up and down staircases. It will allow you to traverse. It's relatively large. It can go up big staircases.
VELSHI: Yes.
CHRISTENSEN: So if you want to go to a second or a third floor, here you can see it go up a staircase.
VELSHI: Wow.
CHRISTENSEN: And it's being remotely operated. So somebody's sitting at a safe distance --
VELSHI: Yes.
CHRISTENSEN: Basically using a joystick or a game pad, driving it around to get a sense for what's in there.
VELSHI: So where -- this might be used in a place where you're not sure of the stability of what you would be climbing up.
CHRISTENSEN: Exactly.
VELSHI: If you put humans there and something collapses, you've got a problem.
The other thing you mentioned, especially with the growing nuclear threat, is that there's a danger to humans inspecting these areas.
CHRISTENSEN: Right.
VELSHI: In fact, this nuclear power plant, they've pretty much evacuated everybody now because of unsafe radiation levels.
CHRISTENSEN: Exactly.
VELSHI: With robots, you can get them in there to inspect it.
CHRISTENSEN: Exactly. So if you would send in humans, they would typically only be able to stay there for something like 20 minutes. They don't really know what it looks like. We can deploy a remotely operated vehicle that will go in --
VELSHI: And then you've got a camera so you can see.
CHRISTENSEN: It will give you imagery. It will give you a very good sense of, what is the status of this before you do this.
Another area where we're seeing this deployed is using underwater vehicles to go in and inspect pillars on bridges --
VELSHI: Right.
CHRISTENSEN: So that you can actually go in, like a diver, inspect it, make sure you have structural stability. And we're also seeing unmanned (ph) aerial vehicles being flown in across the buildings to get a sense for, is it stable on the fifth floor? Do we want to send in first responders before? So it's a -- so you get a pretty good sense for stability and what's the state of this.
The other thing you can do is you can have an IR camera.
VELSHI: Yes.
CHRISTENSEN: So it can -- relatively quick, it will fly over one area, get a sense for, is there body heat down there --
VELSHI: Right. Oh, that's smart.
CHRISTENSEN: So that you can pinpoint where should you go and look for --
VELSHI: Now these robots don't go out on their own. They go with trained teams that are deployed. You said there was one team that was actually just getting it all ready in Texas and when the earthquake happened, so they deployed straight to Japan.
CHRISTENSEN: So the team that is doing this is Professor Takadori (ph) from Sendai. He's actually from Sendai.
VELSHI: Wow.
CHRISTENSEN: He lives in Sendai.
VELSHI: OK.
CHRISTENSEN: He was at Disaster (ph) City (ph) in Texas training with the team at Texas University, Texas A&M. And on Friday they were getting ready to fly home.
VELSHI: Wow.
CHRISTENSEN: And then they heard about it. The good news is that, because of this, their robots were safe. They were ready to get packed and fly out directly.
VELSHI: All right. We will be talking to you more about this next hour. Remarkable that they're able to get these robots in, particularly -- a lot of people say, well, why don't you just use people? But you can send these robots into more dangerous situations and that nuclear plant is definitely a dangerous situation for responders.
CHRISTENSEN: Absolutely.
VELSHI: All right. Very good. Dr. Henrik Christiansen is a director of the Center for Robotics and Intelligent Machines at Georgia Tech. We'll be speaking to him in the next hour.
Beyond the human tragedy in Japan, the quake, the tsunami and nuclear crisis, well, there's spreading fear throughout the financial world. How is the panic in Tokyo playing out on Wall Street? I'll have that for you when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) VELSHI: Japan is one of the world's biggest economies. So when things happen in Japan, it effects all of us. Take a look at what's happening on the Dow right now, down about 200 points. The S&P is down a similar percentage loss, about 1.7 percent. And the Nasdaq, we're erasing a lot of the gains that we've had on a particularly strong market so far this year since the beginning of this earthquake. But it's not just the U.S. This is worldwide, because, as I said, Japan is a very, very important economy.
Take a look at the Japanese stock market first. The Nikkei. Second day in a row of heavy losses. Down 10.6 percent overnight. And what typically happens is, it starts in the east and starts moving west. So Hong Kong, not nearly the effect. Down only about 3 percent. Though on a normal day, that's a big drop in the stock market.
In Frankfurt, the DAX down 3.4 percent. The CAC 40 in Paris, down 2.3 percent. And London's FTSE 100, 1.3. So you can see, as we sort of went west, things started to calm down on markets.
The bottom line in the United States is that Japan is -- it's a big trading partner, but it's not as crucial as a lot of other countries like China, for instance. One of the things you'll see in the United States is there will be some effect on supplies of electronics, technology equipment, computers and, of course, automobiles. In fact, the biggest export that Japan has to the U.S. is automobiles. And a lot of them are auto parts. So that's where you'll see some of the biggest effect.
As for Japan itself, well, typically after a big disaster, you see some economic slowdown. Then you see a build up because of the fact that there's reconstruction. So, at the moment, no major effect on world economies, long-term or, for that matter, on Japan's economy. The most important thing right now still is the safety of the Japanese people. The rescue and recovery efforts that are going on right now. But we'll keep you posted if there's anything that you need to worry about. For now, these numbers look serious. Nothing serious to worry about.
Well, the U.S. military is constantly faced with dangers on the ground, but the radiation concerns in Japan are presenting new and fairly specific challenges for the Obama administration. I'll have that story with our guy at the White House, Ed Henry standing by, right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Let's go to Washington. The president is losing popularity, according to a new poll, among low income Americans. That's probably the least of his concerns immediately. He's trying to help Japan recover, while keeping American troops in the disaster area safe. Ed Henry has got the details. He's staking out the White House this afternoon.
Ed, what is the president doing right now? What's he thinking about troops in -- there are a lot of -- a very big American presence in Japan. ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, there is. And, you know, he's been getting briefed on the situation, obviously. And U.S. officials are now telling us that this is becoming one of the most complicated humanitarian missions in history, frankly. There was -- already dealing with the devastation was complicated enough, but now the nuclear reactor situation.
Navy officials are saying that some of their crews, helicopter crews for example, have been exposed to low-level radiation. They think everybody is OK, at least so far, but they've given some of these air crews potassium iodine just to be sure that they're safe and they're not being harmed. Some of the U.S. Navy ships that were going to be in the area are being moved to different locations because of the atmospheric conditions.
And then look at the financial side, which you know better than anyone. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was on The Hill earlier today and was being asked by some senators about the fact that with the Asian markets just plummeting now, and so many Asian companies suffering, what kind of impact will that have on U.S. securities? Specifically American pensions that may be tied in to some of these Asian securities?
Now, the Treasury secretary assured the Senate that he believes the situation is under control. There should not be some great fear right now among Americans about their pensions. But, nonetheless, this gives you a sense from the military, all the way to the financial aspects, that this is still having ramifications that we just do not fully know yet.
VELSHI: All right, Ed, I'm going to stick with the topic and avoid the fact that there's another beeping truck moving around behind you and in front of you.
HENRY: Yes.
VELSHI: Energy secretary talking about -- I mean, look, it's probably been the most talked about issue around, not only about what's going on in Japan with its nuclear safety, but there are nuclear plants all over the world. The energy secretary sort of tackled whether America's nuclear plants are safe from what happened in Japan.
HENRY: That's right. And the U.S. Department of Energy has this nuclear incident team that can react to any situation, not just here in the U.S., but they study what happens around the world. And they're doing that. And, in fact, what was interesting is that today the energy secretary, Steven Chu, who's not your ordinary energy secretary. Let's remind everyone, he's a Nobel Prize-winning scientist. He revealed to Congress that he was up until 2:30 in the morning this morning looking at some of these models that the nuclear incident team is putting together about the atmospheric conditions in Japan and just how it's playing out. This comes as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission here in the U.S. just revealed a couple hours ago they've sent nine more technical experts to Japan to try to help with the situation. So, when you've got the energy secretary in the Obama cabinet up until 2:30 in the morning studying some of the models that are being drawn up, you've got the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sending, you know, nine technical experts on top of the people that are already there on the ground, it gives you a sense that there is a creeping bit of concern, obviously, to say the least, within the U.S. government about exactly what is happening on the ground.
VELSHI: Ed, good to see you. You'll stay on top of that for us.
Ed Henry our senior White House correspondent at the White House.
Japan's nuclear crisis has rattled the financial world. The Nikkei sees its biggest losses in years and other world markets drop like dominos. I'll have details plus a look at "Your Money" straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: It's nearly 2:30 a.m. Wednesday in Japan, where the ground is still rumbling beneath quake survivors feet. Moderate to strong aftershocks making for a nervous night.
Plus, we had an entirely separate earthquake strike Japan's main island a couple hundred miles south of Sendai. Preliminary magnitude on that one 6.4. It hit Shizuoka Prefecture, home to the Mount Fuji volcano. No tsunami threat fortunately, a nearby nuclear plant has been given the all-clear.
The nuclear crisis in Fukushima, however, has got the country, and the world really, on edge.
Today, the Nikkei dropped 11 percent, that's the biggest percentage drop since the thick of the global financial crisis in 2008. Factor in yesterday's losses, it's down 17 percent in two days.
And that, of course, has been dragging down world markets. The Dow plunged this morning in early trading. Right now it's recovered a little bit, it's down 1.6 percent. It was down about 2.2 percent. Still, big losses across the U.S. markets.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has just met with Japan's foreign minister at G-8 talks in Paris. He briefed her on the latest developments in the nuclear crisis and she again pledged Washington's full support.
Now from Paris, Secretary Clinton has flown on to Cairo to meet with Egypt's new foreign minister. She was hoping to meet with members of the pro-democracy movement that helped toppled Hosni Mubarak, but a coalition of several youth groups is refusing to sit down with her. Members say she and the United States didn't lend enough support as they worked to oust Mubarak.
America's last surviving World War I veteran, Frank Buckles, is being laid to rest today with full military honors. He passed away last month at 110 years old. Buckles burial is at Arlington National Cemetary.
Well the steam coming from a Japanese nuclear plant contains radiation, but not all radiation is the same. We're going to give you a detailed explanation on the other side.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: For the first time today, radiation at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant reached levels that could impact human health. The levels later declined, but there's still worry about it. We've all seen the picture of steam being vented from the plants.
CNN's senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins me now.
We knows that there is radiation in that steam, but what we're learning and what I heard you say is that all radiation is not the same.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It isn't all the same. You want to know what's in there and how much of that is in there. And so, we don't know exactly what's in the steam, Ali.
But what we do know is that in the plant we're told there's cesium, iodine and uranium. And so, conceivably, that would what would be in the steam.
VELSHI: All right. What are the effects of those elements that you mentioned?
COHEN: All three can have long-term cancer effects in different parts of the body, because each of those different radioactive materials gets kind of attracted, as it were, to different parts of the body.
And so it's -- in large amounts, large exposures, I mean, that's a real worry about kidney cancer, thyroid cancer, all sorts of different kinds of cancers.
VELSHI: Now, the level of exposure, I guess it's got to do with how much of it is and how exposed you are to it. What is the current level of danger, as far as we can tell?
COHEN: You know how in real estate they talk about location, location, location?
VELSHI: Right.
COHEN: OK, here we are talking about dosage, dosage, dosage. And dosage relies upon what is in that plume and how much; where are you standing, are you in the plant or are you a mile away,10 miles away; what's the wind doing; and how much time are you spending there, spending five minutes a mile away from the plant is very different from spending an hour five minutes away from the plant.
So it's -- it really -- there's just so many different factors that go into it. VELSHI: This is entirely different, though, from a meltdown.
COHEN: It is entirely different from a meltdown. I want to try to put this into perspective with the help of my colleague, Sanjay Gupta. Gupta, he is there and he answered that very question today. So let's take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: These levels, as they stand now, are not particularly problematic. Even the highest levels that were reported, 400 millisieverts, people don't need to remember the term, but 400 millisieverts was the highest reading that was given today inside the plant. Once that radiation starts to leave the plant, leaves the gates, starts to decay, the levels will be much, much lower.
So as things stand now, these levels are much higher than what they usually are, but as far as impact on human health, physical health, there's not a lot, I think, probably to be concerned about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: You heard Sanjay mention 400 millisieverts. The experts we talked to said you start worry being acute radiation sickness at like a thousand or more.
VELSHI: OK.
COHEN: So it's not that this is good. You don't want this to happen, but you're not seeing people with acute radiation sickness in large numbers in the communities surrounding the nuclear plant.
VELSHI: The issue is that every time we think it's over, some -- there's some new development. So I think the concern is have they stabilized this thing, are we going to hear about any more explosions?
COHEN: And speaking of stabilizing it, the concern is obviously the radiation is highest inside that plant. And if it gets to be too high for people to be there and they evacuate them, how are you going to cool it down? How are you going to cool it down? So that seems to be a very big concern right now.
VELSHI: OK. Thank you, Elizabeth.
COHEN: Thanks, Ali.
VELSHI: Good to see you.
Senior U.S. official in Cairo this hour, the first big name to visit since protesters took down the government last month. Who is it? More importantly who are they talking to? I'll have that for you next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) VELSHI: We're going to continue to bring you the latest developments in Japan, but there's an important story out of Egypt this hour. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is there. She is the most senior U.S. official to visit the country since massive protests led to President Hosni Mubarak leaving office last month.
CNN's Wolf Blitzer is traveling with Secretary Clinton. He joins me now on the phone from Cairo.
Wolf, the president -- or Secretary Clinton is planning to meet with her counterpart there, the foreign minister, Nabil Elaraby. He's only been in office for a couple of weeks, tell us about him. He's a veteran diplomat.
WOLF BLITZER, HOST, "THE SITUATION ROOM" (via telephone): Yes. And the secretary of state clearly has an agenda here to try to promote the democratic movement.
By the way, Ali, right now, even as we're speaking, I'm driving through Tahrir Square in Cairo. And I got to tell you, it's dark, there are not a lot of demonstrators here. Life seems to be going back to normal in Cairo now after the tumultuous developments over the past several weeks, and the f course, removal of President Hosni Mubarak as president.
But there's a lot of work that remains to be done. Egypt is a work in progress. They have elections scheduled for later this year. There's a military regime under General (INAUDIBLE) that's not only in charge right now but there's a lot of work has to be done, and there's no guarantee this will be a successful outcome.
So the secretary of state is trying to do whatever she can to promote the good guys, if you will, and the democratic movement, and that's not an easy agenda here in Egypt.
From here, by the way, she will go to Tunisia, where the revolution sweeping the North African areas and the Middle East started about three months ago. So it's -- she's got a big agenda and on top of everything else, Libya and Gadhafi is also on the agenda and everything else, Ali, as you well know.
VELSHI: That's less clear cut. At least in Egypt, there is a leadership there. In Libya, you have got France -- I mean, I know you were with the secretary in Paris where the French government has recognized the opposition as being in power. The U.S. government hasn't, and Secretary Clinton had a meeting with a key Libyan opposition leader. What came out of that?
BLITZER: I don't think much came out of it, because I don't think there's any heart, any great desire on the part of the Obama administration to engage in a no-fly zone.
The Arab League has come out unanimously in favor of a no-fly zone, but they also say there shouldn't be air strikes against any targets in Libya. And the U.S. certainly is not engage in a no-fly zone unless it takes out the air defense system of the Libyan military, which would mean aerial assault, bombardment of these targets.
And I think there's also a desire on the part of top U.S. officials that if the Arab League wants a no-fly zone, there are several countries in the Arab League that have robust air forces, that they should engage in the no-fly zone and not the U.S. or the NATO allies. So I don't think much is happening on that front.
And in the meantime, Gadhafi seems to have a dramatic military offensive underway and is rolling back the opposition. So from the U.S. perspective, the U.S. wants Gadhafi out, but it doesn't look like he's taken those steps, as you well know.
And don't forget, Bahrain, what is going on in Bahrain right now is a real, real crisis. Not only for the country, but for the U.S., which has Bahrain as the home of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf. So there's a lot at stake there as well.
VELSHI: Yes, like Egypt. More like Egypt, a place where U.S. interests are important.
Let's take it back to Tunisia where this all started. The secretary is going there tomorrow, I believe you're going with her. What is on the agenda there?
BLITZER: She is going to meet with the new leadership in Tunisia and reaffirm the U.S. support for democracy and the freedom movement in Tunisia. She's going to be meeting with young students, young people, some of the bloggers who started this process in Tunisia. So she is going forward, full speed ahead with that entire initiative.
But she wants to just make sure that U.S./Tunisian relationships under the new government there is strong and the relationship is strong and robust. So she's got -- it is mostly solidarity with the pro-democracy movement in Tunisia.
And from there, she will be going home. And yes, I will be travelling with her to Tunisia tomorrow.
VELSHI: All right, and you'll be doing your show from there. Wolf, thanks very much for joining us to tell us a bit about it.
You are not going to want to miss "THE SITUATION ROOM" today. Wolf is going to anchor his show live from Cairo. He's going to have much more behind the scenes on secretary of state Hillary Clinton's trip to Egypt, 5:00 p.m. Eastern today only on CNN.
All right, Let me bring you up to speed with the latest in our top stories.
It's 2:45 a.m. in Japan, Wednesday morning. The death toll has surged past 3,700 people; more than 6,700 are missing.
In the meantime, the latest nuclear danger. An explosion and fire today at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. More than 200,000 people have evacuated the area. NASA is investigating how more than four grams of cocaine ended up inside the Kennedy Space Center last week. No word on exactly where it was found. NASA says it has a zero drug tolerance policy and that all employees may be randomly tested.
A count of 33 U.S. states found there are 38.7 million Hispanics living here. That's according to the U.S. Census. The Pew Hispanic Center says that figure is 590,000 more than pre-Census estimates, and that a rebounding economy may be a factor for the unexpected increase.
All right, there's music, there's movies, but what has become a huge draw at the annual South By Southwest Festival is its interactive conference. I just flew back from there today. Let me tell you, the event is truly an incubator for innovators, something we talk about here on the show in our "Big I." And frankly it was a treasure trove of people for the "Big I."
Poppy Harlow, my colleague from CNNMoney, is still there at South By Southwest in Austin, Texas.
Lots of buzz, Poppy. Really, while it's a fun festival because they did something smart by tying this interactive festival to a great music festival, there's a lot of business being done there.
POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM: Right, a lot of business.
And I have to tell you, Ali, this morning, everybody was asking where you were. I said you had a show to anchor, so you had to head back. But you were here, you saw it on the ground for yourself.
You know, when I think of South By Southwest and this interactive week, it has grown exponentially. Literally, tens of thousands of people descending on Austin and these are the innovators and the influencers of industry.
Yes, there are folks from big tech companies like Google, like Microsoft here. But the real key here, Ali, is those people from the companies you never heard of but you are going to hear from. This is the place -- and you see some of these men and women that are doing this work behind me. This is the place where Twitter was launched five years ago. And five years ago, frankly, most people here thought it was crazy when they heard about it for the first time. Now we all use it.
This is where foursquare, that location-based social media network was launched just two years ago. You know, and it makes me think, Ali, a lot about what President Obama said in his State of the Union. That we have to, America has to out-innovate others to succeed. This is the place, Ali, where those people are really brewing their companies, getting the funding they need for their companies. This is the place where the incubation of ideas is really happening, Ali.
VELSHI: And we see that sign behind you, the CNN grill, CNN, CNN.com and CNNMoney have a big presence there because we like to report on this stuff. We want to see where the innovation is coming from .
Exciting conference, but the pall of what is going on in Japan was hanging over it. Inside the grill there, there are these massive TV walls, right behind you there are some monitors or maybe they're next to you, and people were watching what's going on in Japan. It's played a part in some of the things that are going on there.
HARLOW: It's played a really big part. And I think that's great point, Ali, because this is a lively festival, the energy, the air here is good, but it has really been -- the focus has been talking about Japan and the role that social media can play.
Look, when I got here a few days ago, the goal here at South By Southwest -- and we're going to put up the banner so you can see how you can donate through South By Southwest -- was to raise $10,000. What we heard this morning, Ali, is the head of the interactive festival says they've raised $42,000 here at South By Southwest alone in the past few days for Japan.
You can to go to South By Southwest website. What you want to do, SXSW4Japan.org. You can also you can text in your donation to 90999. Their goal now is 50,000, and by the tone , the talk here, Ali, I think they're going to top that by quite a lot.
So yes, of course it's social media, the influence it can have on Japan. I do want to say, I interviewed Dennis Crowley, he's the head of a company you may know called foursquare, location-based social media. And what he said is one of the problems that these tech companies have in places like Japan in helping out is that one of the first things to go there is connectivity and mobile service. So that's been a problem for them on the ground trying to help in Japan.
VELSHI: Poppy, have a good conference. Meet some interesting people, and we'll talk more about technology and innovation in the coming days.
Poppy Harlow, CNNMoney, at South By Southwest in Austin.
Well, if you haven't filled out your March Madness brackets yet, you are in luck. B.J. Schecter, the managing editor of SI.com, joins us next for advice and insight that may put you ahead of your competition. He's got predictions that may surprise even the biggest sports fan among you.
We'll be right back.
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VELSHI: We're not going to get very far from the crisis in Japan, and as new information comes in, we'll bring it to you as soon as we have it.
We did want to take a few minutes, however, to chat about something millions of Americans talk about this time of year, March Madness. You only have a few hours left to get those college basketball brackets filled in. It turns out my producer, Kelly (ph), cheated when she put Ohio State in every column in my bracket. It's an old joke and Kelly's always going to get Ohio State in.
But the field is set for 2011. The tournament kicks off tonight at 6:30 Eastern when UNC-Ashville takes on Arkansas-Little Rock in our sister -- on our sister network, truTV. This year is the first time 68 teams instead of 64 will compete for the NCAA men's championship.
So who is going all the way? Well, B.J. Schecter, the managing editor of SI.com, joins us live from Turner's Bracket Lounge in New York to break it down for us.
B.J., thanks for joining us. Who's winning in tonight's first two games?
B.J. SCHECTER, MANAGING EDITOR, SI.COM: Well, I think the first game is really a tossup. I like Arkansas-Little Rock. I like Clemson in the second game, but in reality, I think these two -- these two winners are going to have a tough road moving on.
VELSHI: All right, who do you think is going all the way? As I mentioned to you, I'm not really very good at this, so my producer takes over, my executive producer, whenever there's sports involved. And she has Ohio going all the way, Ohio State.
SCHECTER: Well, you know, I think, Ali, I think you should put in two brackets, because you'll probably win. But I think there really are two elite teams in this field. Ohio State is one of them. I like Ohio State to get to the championship game. I think Kansas is another elite team. I actually have Kansas winning in my bracket, but I think Ohio State and Kansas are two of the elite teams. There's a big drop-off after that, even with Duke.
VELSHI: You know, there's politics involved with me changing my bracket. I've got to keep on saying it going to be Ohio State.
Tell me about this. You talk about elite teams, do you expect any of the great teams fall early? Is there an underdog in the competition that you like?
SCHECTER: I like a lot of underdogs. One thing about the NCAA tournament is there's always, always upsets, every single year. And I don't think there are a lot of great teams, there are one or two great teams.
So one thing you have to look at when you're filling out your bracket is picking upsets. You have to take chances if you're going to win. And every year, historically a 12 has always beaten a five seed.
So I like a few of these. I like Richmond to beat Vanderbilt in the first round. I also like Utah State to beat Kansas State in the first round. So you always have to look at those five-twelves.
I also look at -- I like Gonzaga to upset St. John's, another double-digit seed. I like San Diego State, which is a two seed, not a traditional power, to go all the way to the Elite Eight, where they could face Arizona, potentially even Duke.
VELSHI: I got San Diego State going all the way to the Final Four. I do have St. John's, though.
And, Kelly, do I have Utah or Kansas?
I've got Kansas State over Utah. So you and I are going to have very different brackets. One of us can by each other a drink. Something's going to go very differently for us.
Tell me, as somebody, as you know, doesn't know a lot about this, the decision to have 68 teams instead of 64, how does it change the tournament?
SCHECTER: Well, it's actually -- it was 65 before, because we had a play-in game or a first round game, a preliminary game. What this means is on Tuesdays and Wednesday night now we're going to have a double-header. Really, we're going to kick of the tournament with a great atmosphere in Dayton, Ohio. And you're going to see teams that were on the bubble, Clemson and UAB and USC, actually have to play a first round game early.
So these teams are playing for their tournament lives. I think you're going see exciting games, very close games, and it's a great way to start the tournament. And for a very quick turnaround for these teams to then play again Thursday and Friday for the winners.
VELSHI: B.J., good to talk to you. I might have to have a little conversation with Kelly and look at my brackets again. But great to get your take on it. We'll talk to you again soon.
B.J. Schecter is managing editor of SI.com.
Our news continues, including our coverage of the developments in Japan. We'll be right back after this break.
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