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CNN Live Saturday

What Are Going To Be The Stories Of 2004?

Aired January 04, 2004 - 18:19   ET

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

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


SOPHIA CHOI, CNN ANCHOR: Well, with the coming of a new year there is always new hope and expectations for the days ahead. So what will be the big stories to watch for this year? Well, we in the news business don't consult crystal balls, tarot cards or a magic eight ball, but we talk with experts. Brian Kelly is the managing editor of "US News and World Report.' Thank you so much for joining us.
BRIAN KELLY, MANAGING EDITOR, "US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT": Happy to be here, Sophia.

CHOI: So, what international stories are you looking at for the year 2004?

KELLY: Well, fortunately, we finished 2003 on the upswing. It was a pretty good year on some of the international fronts that have been a problem. But moving into the next year, there is some problems that aren't going to go away. I think North Korea really strikes us as the one area where the US is really got to figure out a new strategy for dealing with a very dangerous country.

CHOI: Will we reach an agreement with North Korea do you think?

KELLY: Well, we've got to be very hopeful there. There is some reasonable developments. The Chinese seem to be helping a little bit in that score, the Russians have gotten involved, the South Koreans, the Japanese. I think we have done a better job of sort of pulling together more international force. But is a very strange place. You are dealing with Kim Il-Sung who is sort of very eccentric leader of a country which in many ways is living 50 years ago. What exactly does he want? How can we find the soft spot? How can we find a way to make a deal with him, on the one hand, or as we did with Gadhafi, which was a very promising sign. On the other hand, do we have to use force. That is really going to be one of the big issues on the State Department, the White House plate for the next year.

CHOI: Well, how long do you think that the war on terror will continue to make headlines in the year 2004?

KELLY: well, it certainly is going to be with us for the whole year. Again I think you have seen some progress there but it is not going away. As we see, with all of these flight delays. This is going to be a fact of life for a number of years. You look at places like Pakistan, which in some ways may be a bigger problem going into next year than it was this year. As I said, Libya was a positive development. Is that a trend? Do we have three there? Does Iran maybe move in the same direction, or Syria, some for these other key countries? If you look at Gadhafi, managing to keep some of his power, versus Saddam Hussein being pulled out of a hole, you would think from the standpoint of some of these dictators a pretty clear choice has been laid in front of them. But it is not at all clear how we are going to work that out in the next few months.

CHOI: What about Afghanistan, is that becoming the forgotten war?

KELLY: People talk about it that way. we still have a lot of resources there. And there are some key things that have to happen there. They are moving toward pulling together a constitution and a more coherent government. But, again, you are talking about a nation that for 100 years plus have barely existed as a nation. The notion that we are going to come in and in a few short years or even months pull this together and create a sound working democracy is just not plausible. So I think you have to give the president credit, he has been very good about trying to keep people thinking realistically about the task that is faced here. But this is years, and years and years of work. And we are only going to see one more notch in that in 2004.

CHOI: And speaking of the president, he has got an election coming up. What political stories are leading up to the 2004 election?

KELLY: Well, before we get to the president we get to the Democrats. And I think the next six weeks are going to the story of the future of the Democratic party for the next little while. They have got quite an interesting battle on their hands there with Howard Dean coming out of nowhere now suddenly getting a lot of criticism. Ironically, I think you look at Dean who has been an angry, negative candidate and has succeeded. And now his opponents are becoming angry and negative as a way of trying to turn voter sentiment against him. A lot of surprises I think might happen in that race in the next six weeks.

CHOI: Well, we've just a few seconds left, but I wanted to touch on any health developments that we should be watching out for.

KELLY: Well, it's funny, we focus on the economy and some other things, but I think, you know, one of the great areas where we are seeing things like cancer cures. We've got an interesting story in the magazine this week about someone who is working on slowing the aging process. The great hope, I think, in 2004 will in some of these sort of medical areas that really affect people's lives and a lot of positive developments are on the horizon.

CHOI: Brian Kelly, managing editor of "US News and World Report," we thank you for your time.

KELLY: Thank you, Sophia.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired January 4, 2004 - 18:19   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOPHIA CHOI, CNN ANCHOR: Well, with the coming of a new year there is always new hope and expectations for the days ahead. So what will be the big stories to watch for this year? Well, we in the news business don't consult crystal balls, tarot cards or a magic eight ball, but we talk with experts. Brian Kelly is the managing editor of "US News and World Report.' Thank you so much for joining us.
BRIAN KELLY, MANAGING EDITOR, "US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT": Happy to be here, Sophia.

CHOI: So, what international stories are you looking at for the year 2004?

KELLY: Well, fortunately, we finished 2003 on the upswing. It was a pretty good year on some of the international fronts that have been a problem. But moving into the next year, there is some problems that aren't going to go away. I think North Korea really strikes us as the one area where the US is really got to figure out a new strategy for dealing with a very dangerous country.

CHOI: Will we reach an agreement with North Korea do you think?

KELLY: Well, we've got to be very hopeful there. There is some reasonable developments. The Chinese seem to be helping a little bit in that score, the Russians have gotten involved, the South Koreans, the Japanese. I think we have done a better job of sort of pulling together more international force. But is a very strange place. You are dealing with Kim Il-Sung who is sort of very eccentric leader of a country which in many ways is living 50 years ago. What exactly does he want? How can we find the soft spot? How can we find a way to make a deal with him, on the one hand, or as we did with Gadhafi, which was a very promising sign. On the other hand, do we have to use force. That is really going to be one of the big issues on the State Department, the White House plate for the next year.

CHOI: Well, how long do you think that the war on terror will continue to make headlines in the year 2004?

KELLY: well, it certainly is going to be with us for the whole year. Again I think you have seen some progress there but it is not going away. As we see, with all of these flight delays. This is going to be a fact of life for a number of years. You look at places like Pakistan, which in some ways may be a bigger problem going into next year than it was this year. As I said, Libya was a positive development. Is that a trend? Do we have three there? Does Iran maybe move in the same direction, or Syria, some for these other key countries? If you look at Gadhafi, managing to keep some of his power, versus Saddam Hussein being pulled out of a hole, you would think from the standpoint of some of these dictators a pretty clear choice has been laid in front of them. But it is not at all clear how we are going to work that out in the next few months.

CHOI: What about Afghanistan, is that becoming the forgotten war?

KELLY: People talk about it that way. we still have a lot of resources there. And there are some key things that have to happen there. They are moving toward pulling together a constitution and a more coherent government. But, again, you are talking about a nation that for 100 years plus have barely existed as a nation. The notion that we are going to come in and in a few short years or even months pull this together and create a sound working democracy is just not plausible. So I think you have to give the president credit, he has been very good about trying to keep people thinking realistically about the task that is faced here. But this is years, and years and years of work. And we are only going to see one more notch in that in 2004.

CHOI: And speaking of the president, he has got an election coming up. What political stories are leading up to the 2004 election?

KELLY: Well, before we get to the president we get to the Democrats. And I think the next six weeks are going to the story of the future of the Democratic party for the next little while. They have got quite an interesting battle on their hands there with Howard Dean coming out of nowhere now suddenly getting a lot of criticism. Ironically, I think you look at Dean who has been an angry, negative candidate and has succeeded. And now his opponents are becoming angry and negative as a way of trying to turn voter sentiment against him. A lot of surprises I think might happen in that race in the next six weeks.

CHOI: Well, we've just a few seconds left, but I wanted to touch on any health developments that we should be watching out for.

KELLY: Well, it's funny, we focus on the economy and some other things, but I think, you know, one of the great areas where we are seeing things like cancer cures. We've got an interesting story in the magazine this week about someone who is working on slowing the aging process. The great hope, I think, in 2004 will in some of these sort of medical areas that really affect people's lives and a lot of positive developments are on the horizon.

CHOI: Brian Kelly, managing editor of "US News and World Report," we thank you for your time.

KELLY: Thank you, Sophia.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com