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Chewing the Fat Over Fat; Ancient City of Bam, Iran Will Mark One-Year Anniversary of Devastating Earthquake

Aired December 23, 2004 - 13:30   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: The Transportation Security Administration has gotten something off its chest, actually something off the female passengers' chests, as in their grubby mitts. After getting hundreds of complaints, the TSA is modifying pat-down procedures at airports.
Late yesterday, the TSA announced its new guidelines would prohibit screeners from patting down a passenger's breast area unless the handheld metal detector goes off. Or if there's an irregularity in the passenger's clothing outline. People in wheelchairs won't have to get out of their chairs any more, but others who can't go through metal detectors, like those who use walkers, will still have to undergo the full body pat-down. You follow all that?

All right, in order security watch news, a Virginia man in trouble after an X-ray screener at an airport in Hawaii spotted something suspicious in one of his shoes. Now when the shoe was examined, agents found a four-inch metal box-cutter blade that had been glued to the inner sole. Randall Rustic (ph) was traveling with his wife and four children, was taken into custody, but was released after an initial court appearance. He still faces federal charges. Rustic's (ph) lawyer says he didn't realize the blade was hidden in one of his shoes. Anybody buying that one? The TSA agent on the scene doesn't see how there could be a mistake.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNEY HAVAKAWA, TSA: I think just the mere concealment of the dangerous weapon itself shows an intent. A normal person, if they forgot a razor blade, or a box cutter, would keep it in a normal place, your pocket or your suitcase, but something like this is a no- no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: I don't think you have to be a Sherlock Holmes on that one. CNN is committed to providing the most reliable coverage of new affects your security. Stay tuned for CNN for the latest information day and night.

In medical news today, chewing the fat over fat. And if you get a fair amount of exercise, does it still matter what number shows up on that scale?

CNN's Elizabeth Cohen now with more on the fit but fat controversy, and news that nobody really wants to think about, especially during this time of year, but we have to, right?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right, I know some people think, bummer, but we've got to talk about this. There's been this theory out there, Kyra, that it was OK to be overweight as long as you were fit, in other words as long as you exercised several time as week, you went out and played tennis, you went out and ran, it really wasn't important how much you weighed.

Well, now a new study coming out of the Harvard Medical School, being published in "The New England Journal of Medicine" says may not be true. What they did is they took a look at women, and there's no reason to think this wouldn't apply to men, too, but they look at women who were overweight -- unlike her -- but were overweight and exercising and compared them to thin women who were exercising to see what their life expectancy might be.

So again, they compared obese active women to thin active women, and what they found is that the obese women were twice as likely to die during the course of the study. So for the authors of the study, they say that this is some evidence that it doesn't -- it's important to exercise, but what really matters is you need get the weight off. Exercising is not enough. You need lose those pounds, too.

PHILLIPS: You can't completely give up exercising if you're obese, that's what some people might think, right, after hearing this?

COHEN: Right, there was definitely concern that when you hear about this study, if you're overweight, you're going to think, well, gosh, why in the world would I exercise, then? It doesn't help. Well, it actually does help, because the study shows that if you're overweight, you're still better off exercising than not exercising.

What we've done, since this gets confusing is, is we took the four groups of people they looked at in the study, and we sort of ranked them by the statistics in the study for how healthy they were. The ideal, the healthiest ideal, is to be thin and active. Those the people who seemed to live the longest. The second choice would be people who are thin and couch potatoes; they lived the second longest. The third choice, the third healthiest choice, would be to be fat and active, and the fourth choice, the people who have the highest death rates were fat and couch potatoes.

So I guess it probably doesn't -- Miles says it doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes; it probably doesn't take an M.D. to know that you're best off to be thin and exercising; you're worst off to be heavy and exercising -- not exercising.

PHILLIPS: Easier said than done.

(CROSSTALK)

COHEN: You were not included in the study.

O'BRIEN: Three works on the astronaut diet -- hey, hey, hey!

PHILLIPS: Thank you, Miles Albert. O'BRIEN: All right, we've got to shift gears her. The numbers are hard to grasp, 26,000 people killed when an earthquake struck Iran. One year later, we walked through the devastation and talked to those still struggling in the wake of tragedy.

And that daring bank heist isn't Ireland that netted thieves more than $40 million. We're learning about how the crooks pulled that thing off, makes for a Hollywood treatment. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Sunday, the ancient city of Bam, Iran will mark the one-year anniversary of a devastating earthquake. In the predawn hours of December 26th, a 6.6 magnitude quake struck this ancient oasis, a town almost completely leveled because of its mud and brick homes and buildings. An estimated 26,000 people died in that initial quake, but those who survived faced dire circumstances. Most buildings were gone or unsafe. Food, water and medical supplies were in desperately short supply, and many thousands of children were orphaned.

Where does the ancient city and its people stand now? CNN Headline News correspondent Asieh Namdar has been following developments, joins me now to talk about how the town is coping one year later, and it's very difficult, especially when you look at the before and after pictures.

ASIEH NAMDAR, CNN HEADLINE NEWS CORRESPONDENT: The pictures of incredible, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Tell us about it, and the reconstruction.

NAMDAR: OK, well, first of all, the quake you may not remember. For those of you who don't remember, it was 12 seconds long. But if you think about it, one, two, three -- 12 seconds is a really long time if you've ever been in an earthquake. A powerful earthquake. It destroyed the ancient city of Bam. 80 percent of structures were pretty much leveled and the majority of the population became homeless.

Now, this is the citadel. The Bam citadel, an ancient structure made of mud, a huge part of Iranian heritage and history. Now, these are the pictures before and this is the same shot after the earthquake. You can't even distinguish -- you can't even really see what it is. Another shot of the citadel before, and once again, after. Completely leveled, and part of the problem was, it was made of mud, and when you build something out of mud, which they used to do thousands of years ago, the effect is ten times more powerful when there's an earthquake. Because it sort of turns into sand and...

PHILLIPS: Just collapses.

NAMDAR: Right. Just collapses.

PHILLIPS: So you had thousands of people living in Bam, and now, you actually made a personal trip there. We'll talk about that in a minute, but -- because this, of course, is your background, your heritage. You're Iranian. But tell me about what they do now? You were telling me, basically, the main thing people of Bam do now is...

NAMDAR: OK, I talked to a number of relief agencies who have been very much involved in the reconstruction effort, and they told me that one of the things people in Bam nowadays do is visit the cemetery. There is not a whole lot to do, although the shops have reopened and the devastation has been kind of cleared up.

The devastation is still in their minds, the grief is in their minds. And to sort of come to terms with it, they go to the cemetery and sit by the grave of their loved ones. Every single person in Bam has either lost a sister, a brother, a mother, a child, a sibling, a neighbor or a friend. I'm getting upset even talking about it.

PHILLIPS: I know. I know that it moved you tremendously when you were there because you met the people, you met the families and I know you shot a lot of home video, too. I mean, just to put it in perspective, I mean, it's a tent city right now?

NAMDAR: It was a tent city when I was there. This is the pictures I shot with my own camera. That's the citadel, again, the same exact pictures we saw moments ago, I was just standing a few feet from that. It was a very emotional trip for me, it was a personal journey. I did not go as a correspondent, I did not go as a journalist, I went to help my fellow countrymen. For the first time in 25 years, I went back home.

And these are some of the people we met. This little boy was saying -- took me to his tent to show me where he's living now. He lost a mother, he lost a father. He's living with his grandmother. And that's his little friend. They were all very, friendly and very sweet, considering what they'd gone through. There you see me handing out lollipops. I mean, what can you do? What do you say to these people? Who've lost everything?

PHILLIPS: You did a lot of listening.

NAMDAR: How do you comfort them?

PHILLIPS: You did a lot of listening.

NAMDAR: Well, obviously, I speak the language. And we listened. And some were reluctant to talk. This is the International Federation of Red Cross delivering bottles of water and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) again.

PHILLIPS: What's the biggest struggle? It's not necessarily how they're living, but more of the emotional side of things?

NAMDAR: And that's what they said, again, the relief agency, the International Federation of Red Cross, pointed out two major problems. Emotional trauma and drug addiction.

PHILLIPS: Hmm.

NAMDAR: Opium is a major problem. Bam is on a major route from Afghanistan and Pakistan. You know, people do a lot drugs and considering what they've gone through, the problem has been aggravated.

PHILLIPS: Well, it seems like it would be an easy place to deal drugs. It's a devastated city. So it's sort of -- the wrong type of people infiltrated an area, already desperate for help?

NAMDAR: That's exactly right. In fact, when we were handing out blankets, the Red Crescent guys came up and said let us guide you, because they were afraid some people may be too high on drugs and may actually try to take things from us. We did not encounter that. There's me sitting on the floor trying to talk to a woman who's lost everything.

PHILLIPS: Speaking of losing everything, I think what moved me the most, seeing this video here of the orphanages and how these children -- I mean, they're precious and they have no idea that they lost both parents.

NAMDAR: There is good news, Kyra, on that end. I called a lady we met when I was there, the head up this orphanage. And she said, the majority of the orphans are now in families.

PHILLIPS: Wow.

NAMDAR: The majority of them have been adopted. But keep in mind, she works for the government. This was a phone conversation. So you always have to keep that in mind. Sometimes what they tell you may not necessarily always be the case. When I was there in March, the adoptions had not really taken place.

These were the little kids we saw, and not all of them lost their parents in the earthquake. Some of the parents are just drug addicts who simply can no longer take care of their children. But the lady told us most of the Bam children are now either living with other relatives or have been adopted, and the adoption process is very difficult in Iran.

PHILLIPS: Well, and I had asked you about that.

NAMDAR: Right.

PHILLIPS: And there's a really strict regulation about that.

NAMDAR: Very strict. You can't -- you know, as an American, you can't go there, adopt. Again, on the phone, I asked this lady, I said, you know, if I wanted to come -- she goes well, you're Iranian and if you're a devout Muslim and you promise to raise your children as Muslim -- there are very bureaucratic and stringent rules that are involved in adoption.

PHILLIPS: Well, here are, one year later. It was a devastating story when we covered it a year ago. At least there is a glimmer of hope and there's some progress.

NAMDAR: There is a glimmer of hope. Absolutely. There are some -- some reconstruction has started, but people are still complaining that the pace of reconstruction has been slow. Look at those little faces.

PHILLIPS: I know. Breaks your heart. Asieh Namdar, so thank you so much. You'll come back to continue to update us.

NAMDAR: I would love to do that.

PHILLIPS: Great.

NAMDAR: Thanks, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Thank you so much.

O'BRIEN: It reads like the script of a Hollywood thriller, and don't be surprised to hear it's coming soon to a theater near you. But for now, it's an all-too-real case of kidnapping an enormous staff, and Belfast police may be hard-pressed to crack it. Reporter Geraint Vincent is in Ireland and he has the story of one heck of a heist.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GERAINT VINCENT, REPORTER (voice-over): This gang of robbers knows a lot about how to avoid capture. So the search for forensic evidence in West Belfast today was yielding meager results. The police say they could well be chasing a paramilitary group, something the ruthlessness of this crime would tend to suggest.

SAM KINKAID, POLICE SERVICE OF N. IRELAND: This was a carefully planned operation by professional criminals who obviously have done their homework. There is clear evidence that the individuals who took over the heists were forensically aware and that they took precautions not to leave any trace.

VINCENT: The heist was meticulously planned. On Sunday evening, in Donemurry (ph) on the outskirts of Belfast and Loughinisland (ph), a small village in County Down, arms men got into the homes of two bank managers. The families were held hostage and one of the manager was driven to his colleague's home. The next morning, the two employees were ordered to drive into work as usual at the Northern Bank.

That afternoon, one of them left the bank after being ordered to take one million pounds to a man waiting outside. And to close his business at half past 4:00, the managers told the security staff to go home. The gang members arrived at around 6:00. The operation to empty the vaults swung into action.

It took two and a half hours to shift the cash from below ground. Outside on Wellington Street, a white van was waiting for the robbers' haul. It loaded up with cash and driven off into the night. At 10:00, the managers were freed and reunited with their loved ones. The police were eventually alerted. They arrived at the scene at around quarter to 12:00. (on camera): This crime unfolded at several different locations across Northern Ireland. Shortly after the robbers made their getaway, one ever the women who had been held hostage was abandoned here, in Drum Keira (ph) Forest. She made her way, barefoot, to the nearest house she could find and was later admitted to hospital, suffering from exposure.

(voice-over): The police aren't revealing all the leads they've got, but they're desperate for more. The robbers used trolleys and boxes like this to carry the cash out of the bank, 22 million pounds worth of it, most of which was in Northern Irish notes. Tracing the money will be a difficult job, and if the gang who took it are as smart as the police say they are, finding them won't be easy, either.

Geraint Vincent, ITV news, Belfast.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Now, today the Irish Republican Army has denied involvement in the heist, but that and other paramilitary groups remain under investigation and red faces got even redder after it was disclosed. A traffic cop had reported a suspicious white van parked outside the bank during the apparent middle of the heist. When police responded to the call, the van wasn't there.

PHILLIPS: The bosses challenged Miles to eat like an astronaut. But does he have the right stuff? He can eat, that's for sure. Find out just ahead on LIVE FROM.

JENNIFER WESTHOVEN, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: And I'm Jennifer Westhoven of the New York Stock Exchange. Coming up, consumers stay cheery, but the housing market looks a little sad. I'll have all the latest numbers on the economy and a live check on the financial market. Don't go away. LIVE FROM continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, you can have a merry Christmas or a hairy Christmas. No, I'm not talking about Miles' back; I'm talking about Sydney, Australia's Toronga (ph) Zoo. The goats faces were wreathed in grins as they nibbled on edible wreaths, and the chimps pulled apart pine cones stuffed with yogurt, and hibiscus chunks, while the lions batted around ornaments and deconstructed the tree just like your cats do at home, but the main, main attraction? The boxes of fresh meat. Thank you, Santa.

O'BRIEN: I had the mangora (ph) lasered out, all right. I resemble that.

All right, all they want for Christmas is some space food sticks and Tang. The two-man crew of the International Space Station expected, or hopes to get an unmanned freighter full of food on Christmas Day. The launch set for about four hours from now. We'll be watching it. It's an urgent delivery because they're running low on chow, and for the past few weeks, they've been on reduced rations.

Now, the bosses here thought I should try to match their diet, and I soon learned, reduced is a relative term.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN (voice-over): The cupboards are going bare up there. So when I spoke to the station keepers yesterday, I was expecting them to look a little gaunt.

(on camera): But you guys look healthy, shall we say.

LEROY CHIAO, SPACE STATION COMMANDER: We've been keeping up with the calories. You know, they're not necessarily the things that we normally choose to eat.

M. O'BRIEN (voice-over): It turns out they're filling the calorie gap with a lot of sweets.

(on camera): In other words, this is the perfect diet for my 12- year-old son.

CHIAO: There's certainly a lot of kids down there that would love to be on the diet that we've been on.

M. O'BRIEN (voice-over): But would I love it?

(on camera): All right, kids. Let's go get some space station food, shall we?

(voice-over): With the space station menu in hand, the fam and I hit the supermarket.

(on camera): Let's get some soups. Come on.

(voice-over): It was a lot of food.

(on camera): So can you imagine trying to stock it in for six months or a year at a time? And then -- and then you have to jam it all in a spacecraft and send it up.

(voice-over): A freighter full of food is slated to arrive Christmas Day. They're drooling up there. And I know why. This diet is brutal. Too many calories, too many sweets.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You'd have to eat three of these, which is still pretty gross. Would you like M&Ms for dessert?

M. O'BRIEN: How did she know?

(on camera): Food glorious food...

(voice-over): Lunch was a challenge, too. My daily salad morphed into a carbonanza.

(on camera): There's a space station lunch there gobbed on. That's creamy dressing, tons of pasta.

(voice-over): And up there, with all that floating around, you would think Leroy wouldn't need so much chow.

CHIAO: But it takes a lot of energy to operate in space.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: And then there's this. Station keepers also exercise two hour a day, Kyra, to keep the bones strong and the muscles from atrophying, and that was the part of the diet where I had a little problem. I failed miserably trying to carve out the two hours.

PHILLIPS: What type of exercises do they do?

O'BRIEN: They do two things. They do essentially weight lifting. Of course they don't have any weights. Isometric kind of, you know, resistance stuff, and then exer-cycle stuff, aerobic stuff, half and half. But I mean, basically it's pretty hard to do the space station thing with the workouts and have a day job, which is what I discovered. So I did the eating part, and you know, I'm -- like I say -- Fat Albert in space -- Hey, hey, hey! But it is serious business. If that freighter does not dock on Christmas day, they will turn out the lights, get in the lifeboat and come home.

PHILLIPS: Wow. Just because of the food?

O'BRIEN: Yes. Without food they're not going to last long.

PHILLIPS: Not going to work very well.

O'BRIEN: No, no, there's no dominoes up there.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

O'BRIEN: Coming up in our second hour of LIVE FROM, we'll talk about loving your pet, a women's cat of 17 years passes away. Thanks to science, she now has an exact duplicate. A lot of emotions running through this story, if anybody has a pet, had a pet.

PHILLIPS: Miles, get to the headline -- it's only costs $50,000.

O'BRIEN: Yes, all right, $50,000. There's all kinds of emotions that come to mind, And this is what we call on television a good reason to stay tuned. So please stay with us at the hour of power continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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 December 23, 2004 - 13:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The Transportation Security Administration has gotten something off its chest, actually something off the female passengers' chests, as in their grubby mitts. After getting hundreds of complaints, the TSA is modifying pat-down procedures at airports.
Late yesterday, the TSA announced its new guidelines would prohibit screeners from patting down a passenger's breast area unless the handheld metal detector goes off. Or if there's an irregularity in the passenger's clothing outline. People in wheelchairs won't have to get out of their chairs any more, but others who can't go through metal detectors, like those who use walkers, will still have to undergo the full body pat-down. You follow all that?

All right, in order security watch news, a Virginia man in trouble after an X-ray screener at an airport in Hawaii spotted something suspicious in one of his shoes. Now when the shoe was examined, agents found a four-inch metal box-cutter blade that had been glued to the inner sole. Randall Rustic (ph) was traveling with his wife and four children, was taken into custody, but was released after an initial court appearance. He still faces federal charges. Rustic's (ph) lawyer says he didn't realize the blade was hidden in one of his shoes. Anybody buying that one? The TSA agent on the scene doesn't see how there could be a mistake.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNEY HAVAKAWA, TSA: I think just the mere concealment of the dangerous weapon itself shows an intent. A normal person, if they forgot a razor blade, or a box cutter, would keep it in a normal place, your pocket or your suitcase, but something like this is a no- no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: I don't think you have to be a Sherlock Holmes on that one. CNN is committed to providing the most reliable coverage of new affects your security. Stay tuned for CNN for the latest information day and night.

In medical news today, chewing the fat over fat. And if you get a fair amount of exercise, does it still matter what number shows up on that scale?

CNN's Elizabeth Cohen now with more on the fit but fat controversy, and news that nobody really wants to think about, especially during this time of year, but we have to, right?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right, I know some people think, bummer, but we've got to talk about this. There's been this theory out there, Kyra, that it was OK to be overweight as long as you were fit, in other words as long as you exercised several time as week, you went out and played tennis, you went out and ran, it really wasn't important how much you weighed.

Well, now a new study coming out of the Harvard Medical School, being published in "The New England Journal of Medicine" says may not be true. What they did is they took a look at women, and there's no reason to think this wouldn't apply to men, too, but they look at women who were overweight -- unlike her -- but were overweight and exercising and compared them to thin women who were exercising to see what their life expectancy might be.

So again, they compared obese active women to thin active women, and what they found is that the obese women were twice as likely to die during the course of the study. So for the authors of the study, they say that this is some evidence that it doesn't -- it's important to exercise, but what really matters is you need get the weight off. Exercising is not enough. You need lose those pounds, too.

PHILLIPS: You can't completely give up exercising if you're obese, that's what some people might think, right, after hearing this?

COHEN: Right, there was definitely concern that when you hear about this study, if you're overweight, you're going to think, well, gosh, why in the world would I exercise, then? It doesn't help. Well, it actually does help, because the study shows that if you're overweight, you're still better off exercising than not exercising.

What we've done, since this gets confusing is, is we took the four groups of people they looked at in the study, and we sort of ranked them by the statistics in the study for how healthy they were. The ideal, the healthiest ideal, is to be thin and active. Those the people who seemed to live the longest. The second choice would be people who are thin and couch potatoes; they lived the second longest. The third choice, the third healthiest choice, would be to be fat and active, and the fourth choice, the people who have the highest death rates were fat and couch potatoes.

So I guess it probably doesn't -- Miles says it doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes; it probably doesn't take an M.D. to know that you're best off to be thin and exercising; you're worst off to be heavy and exercising -- not exercising.

PHILLIPS: Easier said than done.

(CROSSTALK)

COHEN: You were not included in the study.

O'BRIEN: Three works on the astronaut diet -- hey, hey, hey!

PHILLIPS: Thank you, Miles Albert. O'BRIEN: All right, we've got to shift gears her. The numbers are hard to grasp, 26,000 people killed when an earthquake struck Iran. One year later, we walked through the devastation and talked to those still struggling in the wake of tragedy.

And that daring bank heist isn't Ireland that netted thieves more than $40 million. We're learning about how the crooks pulled that thing off, makes for a Hollywood treatment. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Sunday, the ancient city of Bam, Iran will mark the one-year anniversary of a devastating earthquake. In the predawn hours of December 26th, a 6.6 magnitude quake struck this ancient oasis, a town almost completely leveled because of its mud and brick homes and buildings. An estimated 26,000 people died in that initial quake, but those who survived faced dire circumstances. Most buildings were gone or unsafe. Food, water and medical supplies were in desperately short supply, and many thousands of children were orphaned.

Where does the ancient city and its people stand now? CNN Headline News correspondent Asieh Namdar has been following developments, joins me now to talk about how the town is coping one year later, and it's very difficult, especially when you look at the before and after pictures.

ASIEH NAMDAR, CNN HEADLINE NEWS CORRESPONDENT: The pictures of incredible, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Tell us about it, and the reconstruction.

NAMDAR: OK, well, first of all, the quake you may not remember. For those of you who don't remember, it was 12 seconds long. But if you think about it, one, two, three -- 12 seconds is a really long time if you've ever been in an earthquake. A powerful earthquake. It destroyed the ancient city of Bam. 80 percent of structures were pretty much leveled and the majority of the population became homeless.

Now, this is the citadel. The Bam citadel, an ancient structure made of mud, a huge part of Iranian heritage and history. Now, these are the pictures before and this is the same shot after the earthquake. You can't even distinguish -- you can't even really see what it is. Another shot of the citadel before, and once again, after. Completely leveled, and part of the problem was, it was made of mud, and when you build something out of mud, which they used to do thousands of years ago, the effect is ten times more powerful when there's an earthquake. Because it sort of turns into sand and...

PHILLIPS: Just collapses.

NAMDAR: Right. Just collapses.

PHILLIPS: So you had thousands of people living in Bam, and now, you actually made a personal trip there. We'll talk about that in a minute, but -- because this, of course, is your background, your heritage. You're Iranian. But tell me about what they do now? You were telling me, basically, the main thing people of Bam do now is...

NAMDAR: OK, I talked to a number of relief agencies who have been very much involved in the reconstruction effort, and they told me that one of the things people in Bam nowadays do is visit the cemetery. There is not a whole lot to do, although the shops have reopened and the devastation has been kind of cleared up.

The devastation is still in their minds, the grief is in their minds. And to sort of come to terms with it, they go to the cemetery and sit by the grave of their loved ones. Every single person in Bam has either lost a sister, a brother, a mother, a child, a sibling, a neighbor or a friend. I'm getting upset even talking about it.

PHILLIPS: I know. I know that it moved you tremendously when you were there because you met the people, you met the families and I know you shot a lot of home video, too. I mean, just to put it in perspective, I mean, it's a tent city right now?

NAMDAR: It was a tent city when I was there. This is the pictures I shot with my own camera. That's the citadel, again, the same exact pictures we saw moments ago, I was just standing a few feet from that. It was a very emotional trip for me, it was a personal journey. I did not go as a correspondent, I did not go as a journalist, I went to help my fellow countrymen. For the first time in 25 years, I went back home.

And these are some of the people we met. This little boy was saying -- took me to his tent to show me where he's living now. He lost a mother, he lost a father. He's living with his grandmother. And that's his little friend. They were all very, friendly and very sweet, considering what they'd gone through. There you see me handing out lollipops. I mean, what can you do? What do you say to these people? Who've lost everything?

PHILLIPS: You did a lot of listening.

NAMDAR: How do you comfort them?

PHILLIPS: You did a lot of listening.

NAMDAR: Well, obviously, I speak the language. And we listened. And some were reluctant to talk. This is the International Federation of Red Cross delivering bottles of water and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) again.

PHILLIPS: What's the biggest struggle? It's not necessarily how they're living, but more of the emotional side of things?

NAMDAR: And that's what they said, again, the relief agency, the International Federation of Red Cross, pointed out two major problems. Emotional trauma and drug addiction.

PHILLIPS: Hmm.

NAMDAR: Opium is a major problem. Bam is on a major route from Afghanistan and Pakistan. You know, people do a lot drugs and considering what they've gone through, the problem has been aggravated.

PHILLIPS: Well, it seems like it would be an easy place to deal drugs. It's a devastated city. So it's sort of -- the wrong type of people infiltrated an area, already desperate for help?

NAMDAR: That's exactly right. In fact, when we were handing out blankets, the Red Crescent guys came up and said let us guide you, because they were afraid some people may be too high on drugs and may actually try to take things from us. We did not encounter that. There's me sitting on the floor trying to talk to a woman who's lost everything.

PHILLIPS: Speaking of losing everything, I think what moved me the most, seeing this video here of the orphanages and how these children -- I mean, they're precious and they have no idea that they lost both parents.

NAMDAR: There is good news, Kyra, on that end. I called a lady we met when I was there, the head up this orphanage. And she said, the majority of the orphans are now in families.

PHILLIPS: Wow.

NAMDAR: The majority of them have been adopted. But keep in mind, she works for the government. This was a phone conversation. So you always have to keep that in mind. Sometimes what they tell you may not necessarily always be the case. When I was there in March, the adoptions had not really taken place.

These were the little kids we saw, and not all of them lost their parents in the earthquake. Some of the parents are just drug addicts who simply can no longer take care of their children. But the lady told us most of the Bam children are now either living with other relatives or have been adopted, and the adoption process is very difficult in Iran.

PHILLIPS: Well, and I had asked you about that.

NAMDAR: Right.

PHILLIPS: And there's a really strict regulation about that.

NAMDAR: Very strict. You can't -- you know, as an American, you can't go there, adopt. Again, on the phone, I asked this lady, I said, you know, if I wanted to come -- she goes well, you're Iranian and if you're a devout Muslim and you promise to raise your children as Muslim -- there are very bureaucratic and stringent rules that are involved in adoption.

PHILLIPS: Well, here are, one year later. It was a devastating story when we covered it a year ago. At least there is a glimmer of hope and there's some progress.

NAMDAR: There is a glimmer of hope. Absolutely. There are some -- some reconstruction has started, but people are still complaining that the pace of reconstruction has been slow. Look at those little faces.

PHILLIPS: I know. Breaks your heart. Asieh Namdar, so thank you so much. You'll come back to continue to update us.

NAMDAR: I would love to do that.

PHILLIPS: Great.

NAMDAR: Thanks, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Thank you so much.

O'BRIEN: It reads like the script of a Hollywood thriller, and don't be surprised to hear it's coming soon to a theater near you. But for now, it's an all-too-real case of kidnapping an enormous staff, and Belfast police may be hard-pressed to crack it. Reporter Geraint Vincent is in Ireland and he has the story of one heck of a heist.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GERAINT VINCENT, REPORTER (voice-over): This gang of robbers knows a lot about how to avoid capture. So the search for forensic evidence in West Belfast today was yielding meager results. The police say they could well be chasing a paramilitary group, something the ruthlessness of this crime would tend to suggest.

SAM KINKAID, POLICE SERVICE OF N. IRELAND: This was a carefully planned operation by professional criminals who obviously have done their homework. There is clear evidence that the individuals who took over the heists were forensically aware and that they took precautions not to leave any trace.

VINCENT: The heist was meticulously planned. On Sunday evening, in Donemurry (ph) on the outskirts of Belfast and Loughinisland (ph), a small village in County Down, arms men got into the homes of two bank managers. The families were held hostage and one of the manager was driven to his colleague's home. The next morning, the two employees were ordered to drive into work as usual at the Northern Bank.

That afternoon, one of them left the bank after being ordered to take one million pounds to a man waiting outside. And to close his business at half past 4:00, the managers told the security staff to go home. The gang members arrived at around 6:00. The operation to empty the vaults swung into action.

It took two and a half hours to shift the cash from below ground. Outside on Wellington Street, a white van was waiting for the robbers' haul. It loaded up with cash and driven off into the night. At 10:00, the managers were freed and reunited with their loved ones. The police were eventually alerted. They arrived at the scene at around quarter to 12:00. (on camera): This crime unfolded at several different locations across Northern Ireland. Shortly after the robbers made their getaway, one ever the women who had been held hostage was abandoned here, in Drum Keira (ph) Forest. She made her way, barefoot, to the nearest house she could find and was later admitted to hospital, suffering from exposure.

(voice-over): The police aren't revealing all the leads they've got, but they're desperate for more. The robbers used trolleys and boxes like this to carry the cash out of the bank, 22 million pounds worth of it, most of which was in Northern Irish notes. Tracing the money will be a difficult job, and if the gang who took it are as smart as the police say they are, finding them won't be easy, either.

Geraint Vincent, ITV news, Belfast.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Now, today the Irish Republican Army has denied involvement in the heist, but that and other paramilitary groups remain under investigation and red faces got even redder after it was disclosed. A traffic cop had reported a suspicious white van parked outside the bank during the apparent middle of the heist. When police responded to the call, the van wasn't there.

PHILLIPS: The bosses challenged Miles to eat like an astronaut. But does he have the right stuff? He can eat, that's for sure. Find out just ahead on LIVE FROM.

JENNIFER WESTHOVEN, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: And I'm Jennifer Westhoven of the New York Stock Exchange. Coming up, consumers stay cheery, but the housing market looks a little sad. I'll have all the latest numbers on the economy and a live check on the financial market. Don't go away. LIVE FROM continues in a moment.

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PHILLIPS: Well, you can have a merry Christmas or a hairy Christmas. No, I'm not talking about Miles' back; I'm talking about Sydney, Australia's Toronga (ph) Zoo. The goats faces were wreathed in grins as they nibbled on edible wreaths, and the chimps pulled apart pine cones stuffed with yogurt, and hibiscus chunks, while the lions batted around ornaments and deconstructed the tree just like your cats do at home, but the main, main attraction? The boxes of fresh meat. Thank you, Santa.

O'BRIEN: I had the mangora (ph) lasered out, all right. I resemble that.

All right, all they want for Christmas is some space food sticks and Tang. The two-man crew of the International Space Station expected, or hopes to get an unmanned freighter full of food on Christmas Day. The launch set for about four hours from now. We'll be watching it. It's an urgent delivery because they're running low on chow, and for the past few weeks, they've been on reduced rations.

Now, the bosses here thought I should try to match their diet, and I soon learned, reduced is a relative term.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN (voice-over): The cupboards are going bare up there. So when I spoke to the station keepers yesterday, I was expecting them to look a little gaunt.

(on camera): But you guys look healthy, shall we say.

LEROY CHIAO, SPACE STATION COMMANDER: We've been keeping up with the calories. You know, they're not necessarily the things that we normally choose to eat.

M. O'BRIEN (voice-over): It turns out they're filling the calorie gap with a lot of sweets.

(on camera): In other words, this is the perfect diet for my 12- year-old son.

CHIAO: There's certainly a lot of kids down there that would love to be on the diet that we've been on.

M. O'BRIEN (voice-over): But would I love it?

(on camera): All right, kids. Let's go get some space station food, shall we?

(voice-over): With the space station menu in hand, the fam and I hit the supermarket.

(on camera): Let's get some soups. Come on.

(voice-over): It was a lot of food.

(on camera): So can you imagine trying to stock it in for six months or a year at a time? And then -- and then you have to jam it all in a spacecraft and send it up.

(voice-over): A freighter full of food is slated to arrive Christmas Day. They're drooling up there. And I know why. This diet is brutal. Too many calories, too many sweets.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You'd have to eat three of these, which is still pretty gross. Would you like M&Ms for dessert?

M. O'BRIEN: How did she know?

(on camera): Food glorious food...

(voice-over): Lunch was a challenge, too. My daily salad morphed into a carbonanza.

(on camera): There's a space station lunch there gobbed on. That's creamy dressing, tons of pasta.

(voice-over): And up there, with all that floating around, you would think Leroy wouldn't need so much chow.

CHIAO: But it takes a lot of energy to operate in space.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: And then there's this. Station keepers also exercise two hour a day, Kyra, to keep the bones strong and the muscles from atrophying, and that was the part of the diet where I had a little problem. I failed miserably trying to carve out the two hours.

PHILLIPS: What type of exercises do they do?

O'BRIEN: They do two things. They do essentially weight lifting. Of course they don't have any weights. Isometric kind of, you know, resistance stuff, and then exer-cycle stuff, aerobic stuff, half and half. But I mean, basically it's pretty hard to do the space station thing with the workouts and have a day job, which is what I discovered. So I did the eating part, and you know, I'm -- like I say -- Fat Albert in space -- Hey, hey, hey! But it is serious business. If that freighter does not dock on Christmas day, they will turn out the lights, get in the lifeboat and come home.

PHILLIPS: Wow. Just because of the food?

O'BRIEN: Yes. Without food they're not going to last long.

PHILLIPS: Not going to work very well.

O'BRIEN: No, no, there's no dominoes up there.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

O'BRIEN: Coming up in our second hour of LIVE FROM, we'll talk about loving your pet, a women's cat of 17 years passes away. Thanks to science, she now has an exact duplicate. A lot of emotions running through this story, if anybody has a pet, had a pet.

PHILLIPS: Miles, get to the headline -- it's only costs $50,000.

O'BRIEN: Yes, all right, $50,000. There's all kinds of emotions that come to mind, And this is what we call on television a good reason to stay tuned. So please stay with us at the hour of power continues.

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