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Nuclear Diplomacy; Weather or Not

Aired October 27, 2004 - 13:36   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.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Taking a look at some stories now in the news. A change in assignment for some troops in Iraq. British forces redeploying north from Basra to an area near Baghdad. The move intended to free up U.S. troops for a possible offensive in Falluja. Much more from Baghdad next hour.
Americans are getting a little taller and a lot wider. A government study finds adults close to an inch taller than they were in the '80s, almost 25 pounds heavier.

An astonishing discovery in the Pacific Islands. Scientists say they've found bones of a prehistoric human dwarf species. The brains of these Hobbit-sized creatures, about a quarter of the size of homosapiens. Researchers believe these people lived even as modern men thrived on the rest of the planet.

More trouble for Florida Congresswoman Katherine Harris. The former Florida secretary of state, who made headlines last election as you'll recall, was almost run over by a car while campaigning in Sarasota yesterday. She wasn't hurt. The driver told police Harris supporters were impeding traffic. He has been charged with aggravated assault.

Now, putting Iran's nuclear genie back in the bottle. When Iran resumed its uranium-enrichment program, some expressed concerns that meant nuclear weapons were in the works.

And with more on this, let's go to Fred.

KATAYAMA: Well, Iran has insisted its nukes are for civilian purposes and has resisted pressure to suspend its program. But today, amid talks with Iranian officials, the British Foreign Office is expressing optimism.

CNN's Andrea Koppel is at the State Department with more on that -- Andrea.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, there was some optimism expressed, but little evidence that that optimism is warranted, after a day of meetings today in Vienna, between British, France and Germany and Iran. These talks are designed to try to persuade Iran to abandon its program to enrich uranium. That's a process that can be used to develop nuclear energy, but also a process that can be used to develop nuclear weapons.

Iran, for its part, said it was willing to continue talking, but made very clear that it has no intention of freezing its enrichment program.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIRUS NASERI, IRANIAN DELEGATE (through translator): It was a good meeting. We shall continue, but total suspension will not be accepted under any circumstances. We are looking forward to more negotiations at the next IAEA meeting on the 25th of November.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: No surprise here in Washington. The United States has refused to sign on to the European so-called "carrot and sticks" approach, and its reaction today at the State Department was to say what it's been saying all along, that the matter needs to be referred to the United Nations Security Council.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD BOUCHER, STATE DEPT. SPOKESMAN: Our view has been that Iran's enrichment programs, its past activities, justified a referral to the United Nations. That remains our position. At this point, we've not seen anything different.

But in terms of Iranian commitments or behavior, and we'll have to see how the meeting went today. But I think it's a little too early to start making judgments based on this particular meeting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: Now the door is still open to diplomacy. But as things stand right now, Fredricka, it appears the United States and Iran have taken a step closer to a possible showdown -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: And so, Andrea, how far along is it suspected that Iran is to actually developing a nuclear weapon?

KOPPEL: Well, that depends upon who you ask. There are some U.S. officials who fear that Iran could begin to produce nuclear weapons as soon as this next summer of 2005. But most experts believe that it's still anywhere between two and five years away. Of course, that depends upon whether or not it agrees to temporarily suspend certain aspects of its program. One worrying sign is that Iran recently said that it was going ahead with developing what's known as centrifuges, that are key elements in developing nuclear weapon -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: So can it be forced to freeze its uranium-enrichment program?

KOPPEL: That's what the U.S. is hoping. And if it is referred to the U.N. Security Council, which you heard Richard Boucher elude to there, then there is the possibility that more sanctions could be in place, put in place, international sanctions, but the U.S. already has Iran sanctioned up to the gills. It would really -- what would really matter is whether or not the Europeans, China, Russia, other countries, agree to sign on to that, and there's no indication that they are leaning in that direction right now.

WHITFIELD: All right, Andrea Koppel, at the State Department, thanks so much -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Love it or hate it. The wolves ad is generating an awful lot of buzz, from wolves, even. Meet the creator of "The Wolves for Truth," as the kings of the forest bite back. Jeanne Moos with that one.

Howling at the moon tonight? The lunar eclipse is almost upon us. Find out if you'll be able to see the darn thing where you are, up next on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: In the great tradition of the "Mars Minute," "Saturn Seconds," and more recently, the "Miles' Magma Minute," we proudly bring you -- do we have a drumroll? No, we do not -- thank you. "Titan Time." It's Titan time, folks. While you were sleeping, as we start the clock on our 60-second jaunt through the universe. While you were sleeping folks, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, we're seeing some cool pictures from the second largest moon in our solar system, and by far the most mysterious place left. It's covered in haze. It's the moon of Titan, which orbits, of course, Saturn.

Get off of me; let's get to the pictures. Look at this movie. Isn't this cool? This is as the Cassini spacecraft, flown by NASA and the Europeans, zoomed on in, got within 745 miles of the planet, actually skimmed through that hazy surface, took a little taste of the atmosphere and brought back some of these cool pictures. Let's look at the next picture and we'll give you an idea of what we're seeing down there. First of all, if you want, we could go to Titan -- you know what the first rule is, right?

WHITFIELD: What's the first rule?

O'BRIEN: No smoking. It's a methane environment.

WHITFIELD: Good advice.

O'BRIEN: That would be a bad thing. So it's a nonsmoking moon. Check out these dark features there. It's good chance that might be liquid methane or ethane. And look at that, talk about a purple haze here, with all great respect to late, great Jimi Hendrix, the purple haze surrounding it, and these dark features are what is really interesting. It's going so fast I can't tell -- but that could be liquid, that could be continent-sized things. There's a continent- sized feature called Zanadu in the center there. We don't know how idyllic it would be to be on Titan, however, because it is, well, 300 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. And we're going to know more at the end of the year, when the Huygens (ph) probe -- I'll give you the spelling on that later, drops down to the surface. It's got a 30- minute battery, and it's going to send back picture from the surface. Could land in that liquid methane. Fortunately, it will float, we hope. WHITFIELD: Well, you know what's so weird, if all these components are so different from Earth, why is it some scientists are saying this is the great imitator of Earth?

O'BRIEN: Glad you asked that question.

WHITFIELD: Oh, really?

O'BRIEN: It would be like if you took Earth before life took hold here. In other words, just kind of a soup of amino acid waiting for a lightning bolt to come down and create life. It would be like if you took that Earth and put it in a deep freeze, and then came back, opened up the deep freeze and take a look. This is what it was like prior. The one key difference here, of course, is the temperature. A lot of people will tell you, a lot of scientists would say, that life took hold in sort of a warm pool of water, where these organics and amino acids were all kind of there waiting for that energy.

Nevertheless, taking away the temperature this is probably the chemistry of very early Earth, right there. So it should be kind of interesting, and it will be interesting to see what happens at the end of the year.

Now let's move on. You won't need a telescope to enjoy a little cosmic event a little closer to home. Tonight's total lunar eclipse is -- well, it's sure to be a stunner, assuming you don't have cloud cover where you are. This kind of eclipse only happens when the earth gets between the sun and the moon, when it is full, and the result often turns the moon kind of red. We're going to explain that in just a sec.

But of course like snowflakes, no two lunar eclipses are ever alike. So we invite you to check them out. Now theoretically, half the globe will be able to see this eclipse anywhere that it happens to be dark at that moment. Of course, there's always that weather wild card.

Orelon Sidney, who is a big eclipse fan. Hey, should we do a quick explainer real quick before I send it up to you, Orelon? You know how this works, real quick. We've got a model here. I'm going to show how it works. That's the sun. This is Venus or Mercury, one of those. People don't pay any attention to it. That's Earth, and there's the moon. And what happens is as the -- we're all rotating around the sun, of course. The moon rotating around Earth, and it gets to point where it's lined up perfectly, the sun hits the earth and the moon is in that shadow, and we're explain why it turns red later, but that's basically the drill.

Now Orelon, having said all that, we've got those meddlesome clouds which can ruin the fun for a lot of people, right?

ORELON SIDNEY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, don't you know I'm going to throw a fly in the ointment? I'm going to throw a wrench in the machinery? It just doesn't look that good really in most of the locations in the country tonight. I'll show you why. In the West, there's a big storm system that's rolling into the coast. We've already seen clouds today and heavy rain across California. Look at all the clouds, though. They cover most of the Rocky Mountain stats except for the extreme southern portion of New Mexico and Arizona.

Here now is a stationary front. South of this, we've got lots of moisture in the atmosphere, but I think a lot of the south is going to manage to see some partly cloudy to mostly fair skies. So that's a pretty good spot. The Northeast, another trough rolling through. You're going to see some cloudy skies. You might manage to get a little bit of clearing by later on tonight. But the first bite that you see, about 9:14 p.m. Eastern Time, it becomes pretty visible. And then we get into the almost totality here from 10:30 on to about 11:15. So I'd say the Gulf Coast states, it's going to be hit or miss from El Paso right up to Kansas City. Looks like it might be pretty good if the system moves out fast enough in the Northeast. And then some isolated parts of the northwest will probably have clear to partly cloudy skies. So it's kind catch if catch can.

O'BRIEN: All right. I've got to put you on the spot, Orelon.

SIDNEY: You love to do that.

O'BRIEN: Cloud tops, what are the cloud tops going to be, if I got in my little plane and flew up above, would I see it?

SIDNEY: Well, I think just about any place that you're going to fly up, you're going to be 30,000, 35,000 feet if you're in a major plane.

O'BRIEN: Oh, I can't go that high. I can't go that high.

SIDNEY: Oh, what are you going to fly, what are you flying, a little plane?

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: ... about 9,000 feet. Will I still be in the soup?

SIDNEY: Yes, I think in most locations you will. Not looking at thunderstorms. But the cloud cover in the Southeast could be a little bit lower. Out here in the West, it's going to be more turbulent. You wouldn't want to be up in a plane in that kind of stuff.

O'BRIEN: All right. Orelon Sidney, thank you very much, appreciate it.

Even more eclipse ephemera is coming up in our next hour. Jack Horkheimer, stargazer extraodinaire, will pay us a call to preview tonight's big show in the sky and share some loony facts about lunar events. Make sure you don't miss it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MARKET REPORT)

WHITFIELD: Coming up in our second hour of LIVE FROM, more lunar eclipse madness.

O'BRIEN: The man who can possibly be America's favorite good- time astronomer join us to talk about the big show tonight. LIVE FROM's hour of power begins after this.

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 October 27, 2004 - 13:36   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Taking a look at some stories now in the news. A change in assignment for some troops in Iraq. British forces redeploying north from Basra to an area near Baghdad. The move intended to free up U.S. troops for a possible offensive in Falluja. Much more from Baghdad next hour.
Americans are getting a little taller and a lot wider. A government study finds adults close to an inch taller than they were in the '80s, almost 25 pounds heavier.

An astonishing discovery in the Pacific Islands. Scientists say they've found bones of a prehistoric human dwarf species. The brains of these Hobbit-sized creatures, about a quarter of the size of homosapiens. Researchers believe these people lived even as modern men thrived on the rest of the planet.

More trouble for Florida Congresswoman Katherine Harris. The former Florida secretary of state, who made headlines last election as you'll recall, was almost run over by a car while campaigning in Sarasota yesterday. She wasn't hurt. The driver told police Harris supporters were impeding traffic. He has been charged with aggravated assault.

Now, putting Iran's nuclear genie back in the bottle. When Iran resumed its uranium-enrichment program, some expressed concerns that meant nuclear weapons were in the works.

And with more on this, let's go to Fred.

KATAYAMA: Well, Iran has insisted its nukes are for civilian purposes and has resisted pressure to suspend its program. But today, amid talks with Iranian officials, the British Foreign Office is expressing optimism.

CNN's Andrea Koppel is at the State Department with more on that -- Andrea.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, there was some optimism expressed, but little evidence that that optimism is warranted, after a day of meetings today in Vienna, between British, France and Germany and Iran. These talks are designed to try to persuade Iran to abandon its program to enrich uranium. That's a process that can be used to develop nuclear energy, but also a process that can be used to develop nuclear weapons.

Iran, for its part, said it was willing to continue talking, but made very clear that it has no intention of freezing its enrichment program.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIRUS NASERI, IRANIAN DELEGATE (through translator): It was a good meeting. We shall continue, but total suspension will not be accepted under any circumstances. We are looking forward to more negotiations at the next IAEA meeting on the 25th of November.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: No surprise here in Washington. The United States has refused to sign on to the European so-called "carrot and sticks" approach, and its reaction today at the State Department was to say what it's been saying all along, that the matter needs to be referred to the United Nations Security Council.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD BOUCHER, STATE DEPT. SPOKESMAN: Our view has been that Iran's enrichment programs, its past activities, justified a referral to the United Nations. That remains our position. At this point, we've not seen anything different.

But in terms of Iranian commitments or behavior, and we'll have to see how the meeting went today. But I think it's a little too early to start making judgments based on this particular meeting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: Now the door is still open to diplomacy. But as things stand right now, Fredricka, it appears the United States and Iran have taken a step closer to a possible showdown -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: And so, Andrea, how far along is it suspected that Iran is to actually developing a nuclear weapon?

KOPPEL: Well, that depends upon who you ask. There are some U.S. officials who fear that Iran could begin to produce nuclear weapons as soon as this next summer of 2005. But most experts believe that it's still anywhere between two and five years away. Of course, that depends upon whether or not it agrees to temporarily suspend certain aspects of its program. One worrying sign is that Iran recently said that it was going ahead with developing what's known as centrifuges, that are key elements in developing nuclear weapon -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: So can it be forced to freeze its uranium-enrichment program?

KOPPEL: That's what the U.S. is hoping. And if it is referred to the U.N. Security Council, which you heard Richard Boucher elude to there, then there is the possibility that more sanctions could be in place, put in place, international sanctions, but the U.S. already has Iran sanctioned up to the gills. It would really -- what would really matter is whether or not the Europeans, China, Russia, other countries, agree to sign on to that, and there's no indication that they are leaning in that direction right now.

WHITFIELD: All right, Andrea Koppel, at the State Department, thanks so much -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Love it or hate it. The wolves ad is generating an awful lot of buzz, from wolves, even. Meet the creator of "The Wolves for Truth," as the kings of the forest bite back. Jeanne Moos with that one.

Howling at the moon tonight? The lunar eclipse is almost upon us. Find out if you'll be able to see the darn thing where you are, up next on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: In the great tradition of the "Mars Minute," "Saturn Seconds," and more recently, the "Miles' Magma Minute," we proudly bring you -- do we have a drumroll? No, we do not -- thank you. "Titan Time." It's Titan time, folks. While you were sleeping, as we start the clock on our 60-second jaunt through the universe. While you were sleeping folks, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, we're seeing some cool pictures from the second largest moon in our solar system, and by far the most mysterious place left. It's covered in haze. It's the moon of Titan, which orbits, of course, Saturn.

Get off of me; let's get to the pictures. Look at this movie. Isn't this cool? This is as the Cassini spacecraft, flown by NASA and the Europeans, zoomed on in, got within 745 miles of the planet, actually skimmed through that hazy surface, took a little taste of the atmosphere and brought back some of these cool pictures. Let's look at the next picture and we'll give you an idea of what we're seeing down there. First of all, if you want, we could go to Titan -- you know what the first rule is, right?

WHITFIELD: What's the first rule?

O'BRIEN: No smoking. It's a methane environment.

WHITFIELD: Good advice.

O'BRIEN: That would be a bad thing. So it's a nonsmoking moon. Check out these dark features there. It's good chance that might be liquid methane or ethane. And look at that, talk about a purple haze here, with all great respect to late, great Jimi Hendrix, the purple haze surrounding it, and these dark features are what is really interesting. It's going so fast I can't tell -- but that could be liquid, that could be continent-sized things. There's a continent- sized feature called Zanadu in the center there. We don't know how idyllic it would be to be on Titan, however, because it is, well, 300 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. And we're going to know more at the end of the year, when the Huygens (ph) probe -- I'll give you the spelling on that later, drops down to the surface. It's got a 30- minute battery, and it's going to send back picture from the surface. Could land in that liquid methane. Fortunately, it will float, we hope. WHITFIELD: Well, you know what's so weird, if all these components are so different from Earth, why is it some scientists are saying this is the great imitator of Earth?

O'BRIEN: Glad you asked that question.

WHITFIELD: Oh, really?

O'BRIEN: It would be like if you took Earth before life took hold here. In other words, just kind of a soup of amino acid waiting for a lightning bolt to come down and create life. It would be like if you took that Earth and put it in a deep freeze, and then came back, opened up the deep freeze and take a look. This is what it was like prior. The one key difference here, of course, is the temperature. A lot of people will tell you, a lot of scientists would say, that life took hold in sort of a warm pool of water, where these organics and amino acids were all kind of there waiting for that energy.

Nevertheless, taking away the temperature this is probably the chemistry of very early Earth, right there. So it should be kind of interesting, and it will be interesting to see what happens at the end of the year.

Now let's move on. You won't need a telescope to enjoy a little cosmic event a little closer to home. Tonight's total lunar eclipse is -- well, it's sure to be a stunner, assuming you don't have cloud cover where you are. This kind of eclipse only happens when the earth gets between the sun and the moon, when it is full, and the result often turns the moon kind of red. We're going to explain that in just a sec.

But of course like snowflakes, no two lunar eclipses are ever alike. So we invite you to check them out. Now theoretically, half the globe will be able to see this eclipse anywhere that it happens to be dark at that moment. Of course, there's always that weather wild card.

Orelon Sidney, who is a big eclipse fan. Hey, should we do a quick explainer real quick before I send it up to you, Orelon? You know how this works, real quick. We've got a model here. I'm going to show how it works. That's the sun. This is Venus or Mercury, one of those. People don't pay any attention to it. That's Earth, and there's the moon. And what happens is as the -- we're all rotating around the sun, of course. The moon rotating around Earth, and it gets to point where it's lined up perfectly, the sun hits the earth and the moon is in that shadow, and we're explain why it turns red later, but that's basically the drill.

Now Orelon, having said all that, we've got those meddlesome clouds which can ruin the fun for a lot of people, right?

ORELON SIDNEY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, don't you know I'm going to throw a fly in the ointment? I'm going to throw a wrench in the machinery? It just doesn't look that good really in most of the locations in the country tonight. I'll show you why. In the West, there's a big storm system that's rolling into the coast. We've already seen clouds today and heavy rain across California. Look at all the clouds, though. They cover most of the Rocky Mountain stats except for the extreme southern portion of New Mexico and Arizona.

Here now is a stationary front. South of this, we've got lots of moisture in the atmosphere, but I think a lot of the south is going to manage to see some partly cloudy to mostly fair skies. So that's a pretty good spot. The Northeast, another trough rolling through. You're going to see some cloudy skies. You might manage to get a little bit of clearing by later on tonight. But the first bite that you see, about 9:14 p.m. Eastern Time, it becomes pretty visible. And then we get into the almost totality here from 10:30 on to about 11:15. So I'd say the Gulf Coast states, it's going to be hit or miss from El Paso right up to Kansas City. Looks like it might be pretty good if the system moves out fast enough in the Northeast. And then some isolated parts of the northwest will probably have clear to partly cloudy skies. So it's kind catch if catch can.

O'BRIEN: All right. I've got to put you on the spot, Orelon.

SIDNEY: You love to do that.

O'BRIEN: Cloud tops, what are the cloud tops going to be, if I got in my little plane and flew up above, would I see it?

SIDNEY: Well, I think just about any place that you're going to fly up, you're going to be 30,000, 35,000 feet if you're in a major plane.

O'BRIEN: Oh, I can't go that high. I can't go that high.

SIDNEY: Oh, what are you going to fly, what are you flying, a little plane?

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: ... about 9,000 feet. Will I still be in the soup?

SIDNEY: Yes, I think in most locations you will. Not looking at thunderstorms. But the cloud cover in the Southeast could be a little bit lower. Out here in the West, it's going to be more turbulent. You wouldn't want to be up in a plane in that kind of stuff.

O'BRIEN: All right. Orelon Sidney, thank you very much, appreciate it.

Even more eclipse ephemera is coming up in our next hour. Jack Horkheimer, stargazer extraodinaire, will pay us a call to preview tonight's big show in the sky and share some loony facts about lunar events. Make sure you don't miss it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MARKET REPORT)

WHITFIELD: Coming up in our second hour of LIVE FROM, more lunar eclipse madness.

O'BRIEN: The man who can possibly be America's favorite good- time astronomer join us to talk about the big show tonight. LIVE FROM's hour of power begins after this.

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