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CNN Live At Daybreak

Morning Conference Call: Kim Jong Il in Russia; Immigration Rate Increasing in Mexico

Aired July 27, 2001 - 08:44   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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: As we do every day, CNN takes you around the world, giving you an insight as to what stories are coming up, how we cover them, which sometimes gets a little weird. In fact, this morning, checking in with us -- you know, we take you to ends of Earth. And today we're going to go to Siberia. Allina Gracheva on the telephone right now.

Allina, I've heard some producers get some weird assignments but this has to top them all.

ALLINA GRACHEVA, CNN PRODUCER: Yes, well, I've been awake for about 50 hours now, chasing the Northern Korean leader Kim Jong Il across the Russian Far East. He was here in the state visit, which was kept a secret and was not known. It was not announced until hours before his armor train crossed the border into Russia.

Now, as soon as we found out that he was coming, I jumped on a plane and flew across seven time zones from Moscow to the other end of Russia just to learn that his train passed five minutes before. So I hoped in a taxi and raced him straight to the next stop, Trans-Siberia Railway, about 500 miles on the road that occasionally ceased to exist. And luckily, at midnight, we made it there, talked our way through security lines and joined the other journalists who were expecting to see Kim Jong Il.

All of our cameras are rolling now and are set up and all of a sudden, the lights all around the train station go off. And Kim's train pulls into complete darkness and silence, loads on sacks of cabbage and potatoes and takes off again. So, we never actually got to see the North Korean leader.

LIN: But you're bound to catch up with him, Allina.

GRACHEVA: Yes.

LIN: Thanks so much. All right, Allina reporting in 15 time zones away.

Harris Whitbeck now reporting in from Mexico City.

What are you working on Harris?

HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN MEXICO CITY BUREAU CHIEF: Carol, well, my assignment is not as exotic as Allina's. But we've heard the number of non-Latin Americans that are attempting to illegally enter Mexico to eventually get to the United States has increased in the last several months. Recently -- apparently, a large group of Chinese, Eastern Europeans and even Iraqis have been caught by Mexican immigration authorities down at the southern border with Belize.

We're working on the story. We're planning on going down to the border with Belize next week to check out the conditions there and hopefully to find some of these new illegal migrants as they're trying to cross over and talk to them and try to figure out why they're using Mexico as a bridge or as an entry point to the United States. We are also planning on talking to officials at the Department of Immigration about the numbers of non-Latin American illegals and what happens to them after they are caught.

So, this story caught our eye because it's another dimension to the Mexico immigration story. Few realize that like the United States, Mexico, too, has to deal with illegal immigration on its southern borders and how those illegal migrants are treated is coming into question.

LIN: All right, Harris Whitbeck, buena suerte. Good luck on that assignment.

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