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Data Debacle; Buried Alive; Arab World Reaction
Aired May 23, 2005 - 14:00 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: Debt and deception. A scheme to steal information on half a million bank customers uncovered. So what can you do to protect yourself?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And as I continued looking down, you know, there's -- there's what I believed to be a small hand and a small foot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Dumpster discovery. Police show us how they found an abducted 8-year-old buried alive.
O'BRIEN: Defending America from below. CNN takes you on patrol with the divers securing ports from terror attacks.
NGUYEN: What movies deserve to be on the all-time best list? You can compare your own list to the new ones that are out this week.
From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Betty Nguyen, in for Kyra Phillips today.
O'BRIEN: And I'm Miles O'Brien. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.
NGUYEN: If you're old enough to remember Karl Malden fretting over the loss or theft of traveler's checks, imagine what he would say about this. Employees, now former employees at some of the biggest banks in America allegedly selling customers' personal information, which are the virtual keys to their wealth and credit, to a middleman for lawyers and collection agencies.
An estimated half a million account holders at 10 banks in seven states are potentially affected, including 48,000 at Charlotte-based Wachovia and 60,000 at Bank of America. So far, 10 suspected data traffickers have been arrested.
Now, if you get or got one of those dreaded letters from a bank VP saying your I.D. is now in the public domain, what will you do? Can you prevent your most valuable data from being stolen in the first place?
Well, CNN's Gerri Willis has a 411 on information protection.
And I think the first thing people do when they hear this is panic.
GERRI WILLIS, CNN PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: That's right. Exactly, Betty. They do panic. But you can't start there. You've got to do some planning first.
Look, most likely, you are not a victim of this fraud. But if you are, you want to start by putting a fraud alert on your credit report. You do that by contacting the credit bureaus.
The main ones are Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. They all have Web sites. It's pretty easy to do.
Secondly, you want to make sure you're looking at that credit report and examining it for information that will tell you that someone's taking credit out in your name. Just putting that fraud alert on, Betty, will help, though, because it will alert you if anybody's trying to get information on you that you don't want.
NGUYEN: OK. But if you're not sure if you're one of the ones affected by this, what do you do? Do you call the bank? Do you wait for them to contact you? What should you do?
WILLIS: Well, typically what happens is you get a letter from the bank or whoever's having the problem telling you that you could be a victim. So, I mean, the problem here is, I don't know about you, Betty, but every time I get a letter from my bank, I mean, half of them, it's junk mail. You're really going to have to scrutinize those letters and make sure you're looking at them carefully so that you get the information you need.
Now, also, as I said before, keep looking at those credit reports over time, because what happened here is this crime ring stole this information and then passed it on, sold it to other people. So you don't know when they might be taking advantage of that information. You're really going to have to be looking at your credit reports for some time.
I'm not talking one month. I'm talking years.
NGUYEN: And it seems almost hard to avoid, because everything you do, every account you open, any kind of account, you have to give them your name, your address and your Social Security number. So what do you do about that?
WILLIS: Well, you don't always have to give your Social Security number. People give it out too readily. For example, at your doctor's office you don't need to give out the Social Security number.
NGUYEN: So you don't have to. If it's on the form don't do it?
WILLIS: You don't -- at the doctor's office you don't always have to give it out.
NGUYEN: OK.
WILLIS: And, you know, look, if they say they need it, you can hand it over. But don't give it out without asking first. That's the big thing.
Here's why. Your Social Security number is the single most important number that you can give out. With it, and with your name, somebody can take out a mortgage using your identity. And you certainly don't want to have that happen.
NGUYEN: All right. Let's talk worse case scenario. If you do get that letter, you're one of the ones whose information has been stolen, what do you do?
WILLIS: Well, now, here's where it really counts to be someone who can take a lot of notes and log everything going on. If you get hit, you will ultimately contact the police, maybe even federal officials, to tell them that you were a victim of fraud. And you're going to have to keep notes on everything you do, from calling the credit bureaus, to logging what they have to say, so you understand exactly what's going on. And also, so you can present that information in a court of law.
In fact, one of the organizations that we contacted for this report said, you want to log everything in one of those bound books, so that in a courtroom, they can see that you haven't been ripping out pages, that it stands up as a legal document. This is tricky stuff. And I've got to tell you, Betty, I know people out there are scared, but just go out and make sure that the information on record about you is correct and that people aren't taking out credit in your name. That's the big thing.
NGUYEN: Stay proactive and protect yourself.
WILLIS: You got it.
NGUYEN: Gerri Willis, thank you.
WILLIS: You're welcome.
NGUYEN: Miles.
O'BRIEN: A Florida family is celebrating a true miracle. An 8- year-old girl abducted from her family is found buried alive under rocks in a dumpster. Police say a 17-year-old sexually assaulted the girl and then left her for dead.
CNN's Susan Candiotti has this story of survival from Lake Worth, Florida.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We're back at the landfall which, as you can see from all those signs behind me, is closed to the public. And here at CNN's request, the officer who found the 8-year-old little girl buried alive under a pile of heavy rocks showed us a dumpster way off in the distance where he found her. And then he called in a colleague who saw her move a finger.
SGT. MIKE HALL, LAKE WORTH, FLORIDA, POLICE: I walked up to the dumpster, stepped up here, and within arm's reach there was a yellow recycling bin with the lid closed on it. I reached over, flipped the lid open, started looking in.
You see behind you -- I had seen those large concrete boulders about halfway filled up. And as I continued looking down, you know, there's -- there's what I believed to be a small hand and a small foot.
I started shaking, started shaking the recycling bin, you know, looking for movement, you know, crying out to her, "Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Are you OK?" I get no verbal response.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I looked -- I actually pulled myself up and looked down into the -- into the recycling bin and saw her hand. And I was there probably two seconds or so and then I saw her finger move.
CANDIOTTI: You saw her finger move?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I did. And that's the first thing I -- you know, the first thing that came out of my mouth, "Her finger just moved." And also thinking that these guys are going to think I'm nuts. But it moved again.
CANDIOTTI: Officers said their hearts were pounding as they saw the little girl move. They immediately pulled away the rocks from her, and they said they were able to start asking her questions immediately. Police say she was able to identify her attacker. Suffering apparently, they said, only from bruises from the rocks, she was somehow able to breathe through pockets of air through those boulders.
The teenage suspect is 17-year-old Milagro Cunningham, scheduled to make his first court appearance this day. He is charged with attempted murder, sexual battery and false imprisonment.
Authorities say he has confessed to the crime. The state attorney's office tells CNN he will be charged as an adult.
And Sergeant Mike Hall refuses to call himself a hero for finding this little girl. Instead, he says she is the heroine for surviving such a harrowing ordeal.
Susan Candiotti, CNN, Lake Worth, Florida.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: The girl is in the hospital today. She is listed in good condition -- Betty.
NGUYEN: Also in Florida, two little girls become prey to a suspected rapist. Port Charlotte authorities say the suspect confessed to kidnapping two girls from their homes and raping them. They say he broke into a 13-year-old girl's home last week and then assaulted the girl in another home. During the investigation, a 7-year-old girl came forward with a similar story. The suspect faces kidnapping, armed burglary and sexual battery charges.
Police say the father of those two missing Idaho children is not a suspect in their disappearance. They say a polygraph given to Steve Groene isn't significant because he is distraught. They say in a news conference just a short time ago there's no evidence Groene is involved.
Eight-year-old Shasta Groene, seen in this home video, and her brother Dylan disappeared a week ago. Three people were found murdered in the children's home. Police in Coeur d'Alene say they've received nearly 900 tips, but so far, no firm leads.
O'BRIEN: Well, it's one of the hottest growth industries in Iraq, kidnapping. One man shares his personal experiences after paying a high price for his own freedom.
First lady Laura Bush, yesterday she faced hostile protesters. Today she's met by muppets. It's quite a trip. Is her tour to the Middle East helping America's image there?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(WEATHER REPORT)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Diplomacy under pressure. First lady Laura Bush downplaying demonstrations that greeted some stops of her goodwill tour in the Middle East.
On Sunday, Mrs. Bush had some tense moments while visiting the holy sites of Jerusalem. But she says they weren't unexpected and she never felt in any danger.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAURA BUSH, FIRST LADY: We know, we knew when we came here, that these are places of great emotion. The holy land is the birthplace of three different great religions.
There are wonderful Christian sites there, obviously the sites that mean the most to the Jewish people. And then of the Dome of the Rock, which is very important to Muslims. But of course there are tensions there. But that's part of the purpose of the trip, and part of the purpose of working for peace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Today the first lady joined her Egyptian counterpart in Cairo for a special taping of Egypt's version of "Sesame Street." One of the puppets called Mrs. Bush "Auntie Laura."
Two presidents, one message. U.S. President George Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai discussed a number of issues at the White House today. They agreed to a long-term strategic partnership to help rid Afghanistan of a number of ills, including insurgents and threats to its fledgling democracy.
Karzai also expressed concern about allegations of the mistreatment of detainees in U.S. custody. Sunday he was quoted in "The New York Times" as seeking justice, but today he sounded a little more conciliatory.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HAMID KARZAI, AFGHAN PRESIDENT: The prisoner abuse thing is not at all a thing that we attribute to -- to anybody else but those individuals. The Afghan people are grateful very, very much to the American people, and recognize that individual acts do not reflect either on governments or on societies.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Karzai also vowed to battle the rampant opium production in his country. He hopes Afghanistan will be free of poppy plants in five or six years.
NGUYEN: Allegations of abuse and a flawed "Newsweek" report that U.S. guards desecrated a copy of the Quran were thought to have triggered violent demonstrations in Afghanistan, including one recently that killed 15 people. But today Karzai rejected those theories.
Here to sort all that out and other issues in the Arab world, our senior editor of Arab Affairs, Octavia Nasr.
Thanks for being with us.
All right. So Karzai says that the "Newsweek" article didn't spark those demonstrations that we saw. You just got back from a trip to the Middle East. How is this playing out in the Arab media? Is that the case in the Arab media?
OCTAVIA NASR, CNN SR. EDITOR, ARAB AFFAIRS: Well, the story is still alive and well on Arab media. It seems that maybe not the "Newsweek" article that sparked the demonstrations, because this story of desecrating the Quran, the story of abusing prisoners, eyewitness accounts from Guantanamo and Kandahar, there were stories of desecration of the Quran, not necessarily this last one from "Newsweek."
So he could be right about that. But on Arab media this is a big story. It's still playing out.
They do not believe that the retraction was because "Newsweek" does believe that they made a mistake, the Arab media. And Arab -- ordinary Arabs believe that the U.S. government pressured "Newsweek" into retracting the story. So it's a story that's not going anywhere anytime soon. It just adds to the suspicions that Arab media and the -- many on the Arab street show towards the U.S. government. NGUYEN: The Arab media is also talking about holding people accountable for many of these different scenarios and the actions that were created in those scenarios. Tell me about that.
NASR: Well, here's -- here's an example. I'm glad you asked this question, because I picked this example from today's "Al-Hayat" newspaper, a major leading Arab newspaper.
This is what Abdel Wahhab Badrakhan writes. He says, "From the Quran desecration at Guantanamo Bay, to the story of beating prisoners to death in Afghanistan, to the pictures of the former Iraqi president in his jail cell, investigations, investigations, investigations The word suggests accountability, but the result is further disappointment. Those who are really responsible remain free instead of being held accountable."
So basically the premise is that those who are really responsible, you know, the big heads, the big guns, are not being removed from their positions, they're not resigning from their positions. On the contrary, they remain in their place.
And the Arab street, and especially the Arab media, are being very skeptical about this policy of the U.S. government of starting investigations, but not ending them, not bringing people to justice.
NGUYEN: All right. Speaking of investigations, there's one that is under way in the pictures of Saddam Hussein in his underwear. What does the Arab media say about these pictures? Because to begin with, they really didn't give them much play at all.
NASR: They didn't. They didn't show the pictures. And when we talk about Arab media in this case, we're talking about the big networks, we're talking about the local networks as well, the newspapers.
They did not shot it. They thought it was out of taste. Everyone I spoke with said that there is no news in Saddam Hussein in underwear, it's just is insulting. It insults the person...
NGUYEN: But is that the issue, though, that these pictures were taken as a way to insult prisoners?
NASR: Well, in a way, the idea is that, what you hear a lot on Arab street, and in Arab media, if you read papers and watch television, is that there is the belief, again, that conspiracy theory, that the U.S. leaked those pictures to insult Saddam Hussein. And that creates a lot of outrage on the street. Also, it adds to the demonstrations and the outrage on the street, and also in the media.
Now, the major networks chose not to show those pictures. And as you see here, for example, said that they refused to show these pictures for professional and ethical reasons. And someone I talked to...
NGUYEN: OK. Yes, on the flip side, if it wasn't Saddam Hussein, if it was, say, an American, a leader, an American leader in a situation like that, would they have shown it?
NASR: And I asked that same question. And the answer was that this situation is not the same, that they deal with stories on a, you know, case-by-case basis. You cannot really compare, they said.
But basically, the idea -- someone sort of yelled at me, jumped at me, he said -- you know, CNN, for example, in our case, and other western networks, he said, did worse than "The Sun" n this case, because we took their pictures and put it on our air. He said, "If you had gotten the pictures first, would you have shown them?" But instead, what you did, you took 'The Suns' pictures and showed them on your air."
So they do have a point. And again, this is a perfect example of how things are different between the western media and the Arab media. Our ethics and standards and practices are totally different from theirs. And this is a perfect example of how they differ.
NGUYEN: Quickly, let's shift to Muqtada al-Sadr, because today we're learning that he wants to put aside the battles and work politically for peace. How is that being played out in Arab media?
NASR: That's playing well. You have to understand, Muqtada al- Sadr is a very popular figure. He's a cleric, he's an important Shiite cleric in Iraq. He plays a major role.
One thing that we have to keep in mind is that when we talk about the Shia in Iraq or we talk about the Sunni in Iraq, we're not talking about one big lump of people. The Shia, for example, you have the fundamentalists, you have the moderates, you have the liberals, you have the Kurds, you have the Arabs. So many groups under Shia.
And Muqtada al-Sadr represents one part of that. It's an important part.
Everyone I spoke with said that he's not to be discounted. Any attempt -- someone, an expert I spoke with today said that any person who attempts to bring in peace to Iraq should be applauded. And Muqtada al-Sadr is one of them. If he has a change of heart, that person said, so be it. He should be accepted in, not alienated at this point.
NGUYEN: Octavia Nasr back from your trip. We appreciate your insight. Thanks -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Well, it's hard enough guarding against terror attacks on land or in the air, but what about securing America's waterways? You ever thought about this one? Ahead on LIVE FROM, we will go under the sea with divers on patrol.
Also ahead, Trump you? Billionaire Donald Trump wants to take you to school.
SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Susan Lisovicz at the New York Stock Exchange. It's not what you make, it's where you live. I'll tell you about the 10 most affordable cities in the U.S. next on LIVE FROM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: A little piece of news coming in to CNN right now to tell you about. A 68-year-old man has been arrested for apparently trying to build a bomb and sell it to an affiliate of the al Qaeda terror group.
Ronald Allen Grecula, who hails from Bangor, Pennsylvania, arrested Friday in Houston after meeting with undercover FBI agents. And apparently during that meeting, Mr. Grecula, according to the agents, indicated a willingness to sell and build an explosive device that could be used in terror attacks against Americans.
He is supposed to make an initial court appearance today. We'll keep you posted on that. Once again, Ronald Allen Grecula of Bangor, Pennsylvania, arrested and charged with offering to build and sell bombs to an affiliate group of al Qaeda -- Betty.
NGUYEN: We're going to shift gears now and talk about another business venture. Just what the Donald needs, a new enterprise. Some are already calling it Trump U.
The online university will offer specialties of The Donald: business courses, CD-ROMs, consulting services and seminars. But no traditional grades or degrees will be offered. Of course the bottom line is about raking in the green. Trump expects to run his new educational venture for a profit.
Making ends meet is not just about how much you make. Where you live is a big part of that equation, too. And for a look at the most affordable cities, Susan Lisovicz joins us live from the New York Stock Exchange.
(STOCK MARKET REPORT)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired May 23, 2005 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Debt and deception. A scheme to steal information on half a million bank customers uncovered. So what can you do to protect yourself?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And as I continued looking down, you know, there's -- there's what I believed to be a small hand and a small foot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Dumpster discovery. Police show us how they found an abducted 8-year-old buried alive.
O'BRIEN: Defending America from below. CNN takes you on patrol with the divers securing ports from terror attacks.
NGUYEN: What movies deserve to be on the all-time best list? You can compare your own list to the new ones that are out this week.
From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Betty Nguyen, in for Kyra Phillips today.
O'BRIEN: And I'm Miles O'Brien. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.
NGUYEN: If you're old enough to remember Karl Malden fretting over the loss or theft of traveler's checks, imagine what he would say about this. Employees, now former employees at some of the biggest banks in America allegedly selling customers' personal information, which are the virtual keys to their wealth and credit, to a middleman for lawyers and collection agencies.
An estimated half a million account holders at 10 banks in seven states are potentially affected, including 48,000 at Charlotte-based Wachovia and 60,000 at Bank of America. So far, 10 suspected data traffickers have been arrested.
Now, if you get or got one of those dreaded letters from a bank VP saying your I.D. is now in the public domain, what will you do? Can you prevent your most valuable data from being stolen in the first place?
Well, CNN's Gerri Willis has a 411 on information protection.
And I think the first thing people do when they hear this is panic.
GERRI WILLIS, CNN PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: That's right. Exactly, Betty. They do panic. But you can't start there. You've got to do some planning first.
Look, most likely, you are not a victim of this fraud. But if you are, you want to start by putting a fraud alert on your credit report. You do that by contacting the credit bureaus.
The main ones are Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. They all have Web sites. It's pretty easy to do.
Secondly, you want to make sure you're looking at that credit report and examining it for information that will tell you that someone's taking credit out in your name. Just putting that fraud alert on, Betty, will help, though, because it will alert you if anybody's trying to get information on you that you don't want.
NGUYEN: OK. But if you're not sure if you're one of the ones affected by this, what do you do? Do you call the bank? Do you wait for them to contact you? What should you do?
WILLIS: Well, typically what happens is you get a letter from the bank or whoever's having the problem telling you that you could be a victim. So, I mean, the problem here is, I don't know about you, Betty, but every time I get a letter from my bank, I mean, half of them, it's junk mail. You're really going to have to scrutinize those letters and make sure you're looking at them carefully so that you get the information you need.
Now, also, as I said before, keep looking at those credit reports over time, because what happened here is this crime ring stole this information and then passed it on, sold it to other people. So you don't know when they might be taking advantage of that information. You're really going to have to be looking at your credit reports for some time.
I'm not talking one month. I'm talking years.
NGUYEN: And it seems almost hard to avoid, because everything you do, every account you open, any kind of account, you have to give them your name, your address and your Social Security number. So what do you do about that?
WILLIS: Well, you don't always have to give your Social Security number. People give it out too readily. For example, at your doctor's office you don't need to give out the Social Security number.
NGUYEN: So you don't have to. If it's on the form don't do it?
WILLIS: You don't -- at the doctor's office you don't always have to give it out.
NGUYEN: OK.
WILLIS: And, you know, look, if they say they need it, you can hand it over. But don't give it out without asking first. That's the big thing.
Here's why. Your Social Security number is the single most important number that you can give out. With it, and with your name, somebody can take out a mortgage using your identity. And you certainly don't want to have that happen.
NGUYEN: All right. Let's talk worse case scenario. If you do get that letter, you're one of the ones whose information has been stolen, what do you do?
WILLIS: Well, now, here's where it really counts to be someone who can take a lot of notes and log everything going on. If you get hit, you will ultimately contact the police, maybe even federal officials, to tell them that you were a victim of fraud. And you're going to have to keep notes on everything you do, from calling the credit bureaus, to logging what they have to say, so you understand exactly what's going on. And also, so you can present that information in a court of law.
In fact, one of the organizations that we contacted for this report said, you want to log everything in one of those bound books, so that in a courtroom, they can see that you haven't been ripping out pages, that it stands up as a legal document. This is tricky stuff. And I've got to tell you, Betty, I know people out there are scared, but just go out and make sure that the information on record about you is correct and that people aren't taking out credit in your name. That's the big thing.
NGUYEN: Stay proactive and protect yourself.
WILLIS: You got it.
NGUYEN: Gerri Willis, thank you.
WILLIS: You're welcome.
NGUYEN: Miles.
O'BRIEN: A Florida family is celebrating a true miracle. An 8- year-old girl abducted from her family is found buried alive under rocks in a dumpster. Police say a 17-year-old sexually assaulted the girl and then left her for dead.
CNN's Susan Candiotti has this story of survival from Lake Worth, Florida.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We're back at the landfall which, as you can see from all those signs behind me, is closed to the public. And here at CNN's request, the officer who found the 8-year-old little girl buried alive under a pile of heavy rocks showed us a dumpster way off in the distance where he found her. And then he called in a colleague who saw her move a finger.
SGT. MIKE HALL, LAKE WORTH, FLORIDA, POLICE: I walked up to the dumpster, stepped up here, and within arm's reach there was a yellow recycling bin with the lid closed on it. I reached over, flipped the lid open, started looking in.
You see behind you -- I had seen those large concrete boulders about halfway filled up. And as I continued looking down, you know, there's -- there's what I believed to be a small hand and a small foot.
I started shaking, started shaking the recycling bin, you know, looking for movement, you know, crying out to her, "Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Are you OK?" I get no verbal response.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I looked -- I actually pulled myself up and looked down into the -- into the recycling bin and saw her hand. And I was there probably two seconds or so and then I saw her finger move.
CANDIOTTI: You saw her finger move?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I did. And that's the first thing I -- you know, the first thing that came out of my mouth, "Her finger just moved." And also thinking that these guys are going to think I'm nuts. But it moved again.
CANDIOTTI: Officers said their hearts were pounding as they saw the little girl move. They immediately pulled away the rocks from her, and they said they were able to start asking her questions immediately. Police say she was able to identify her attacker. Suffering apparently, they said, only from bruises from the rocks, she was somehow able to breathe through pockets of air through those boulders.
The teenage suspect is 17-year-old Milagro Cunningham, scheduled to make his first court appearance this day. He is charged with attempted murder, sexual battery and false imprisonment.
Authorities say he has confessed to the crime. The state attorney's office tells CNN he will be charged as an adult.
And Sergeant Mike Hall refuses to call himself a hero for finding this little girl. Instead, he says she is the heroine for surviving such a harrowing ordeal.
Susan Candiotti, CNN, Lake Worth, Florida.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: The girl is in the hospital today. She is listed in good condition -- Betty.
NGUYEN: Also in Florida, two little girls become prey to a suspected rapist. Port Charlotte authorities say the suspect confessed to kidnapping two girls from their homes and raping them. They say he broke into a 13-year-old girl's home last week and then assaulted the girl in another home. During the investigation, a 7-year-old girl came forward with a similar story. The suspect faces kidnapping, armed burglary and sexual battery charges.
Police say the father of those two missing Idaho children is not a suspect in their disappearance. They say a polygraph given to Steve Groene isn't significant because he is distraught. They say in a news conference just a short time ago there's no evidence Groene is involved.
Eight-year-old Shasta Groene, seen in this home video, and her brother Dylan disappeared a week ago. Three people were found murdered in the children's home. Police in Coeur d'Alene say they've received nearly 900 tips, but so far, no firm leads.
O'BRIEN: Well, it's one of the hottest growth industries in Iraq, kidnapping. One man shares his personal experiences after paying a high price for his own freedom.
First lady Laura Bush, yesterday she faced hostile protesters. Today she's met by muppets. It's quite a trip. Is her tour to the Middle East helping America's image there?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(WEATHER REPORT)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Diplomacy under pressure. First lady Laura Bush downplaying demonstrations that greeted some stops of her goodwill tour in the Middle East.
On Sunday, Mrs. Bush had some tense moments while visiting the holy sites of Jerusalem. But she says they weren't unexpected and she never felt in any danger.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAURA BUSH, FIRST LADY: We know, we knew when we came here, that these are places of great emotion. The holy land is the birthplace of three different great religions.
There are wonderful Christian sites there, obviously the sites that mean the most to the Jewish people. And then of the Dome of the Rock, which is very important to Muslims. But of course there are tensions there. But that's part of the purpose of the trip, and part of the purpose of working for peace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Today the first lady joined her Egyptian counterpart in Cairo for a special taping of Egypt's version of "Sesame Street." One of the puppets called Mrs. Bush "Auntie Laura."
Two presidents, one message. U.S. President George Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai discussed a number of issues at the White House today. They agreed to a long-term strategic partnership to help rid Afghanistan of a number of ills, including insurgents and threats to its fledgling democracy.
Karzai also expressed concern about allegations of the mistreatment of detainees in U.S. custody. Sunday he was quoted in "The New York Times" as seeking justice, but today he sounded a little more conciliatory.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HAMID KARZAI, AFGHAN PRESIDENT: The prisoner abuse thing is not at all a thing that we attribute to -- to anybody else but those individuals. The Afghan people are grateful very, very much to the American people, and recognize that individual acts do not reflect either on governments or on societies.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Karzai also vowed to battle the rampant opium production in his country. He hopes Afghanistan will be free of poppy plants in five or six years.
NGUYEN: Allegations of abuse and a flawed "Newsweek" report that U.S. guards desecrated a copy of the Quran were thought to have triggered violent demonstrations in Afghanistan, including one recently that killed 15 people. But today Karzai rejected those theories.
Here to sort all that out and other issues in the Arab world, our senior editor of Arab Affairs, Octavia Nasr.
Thanks for being with us.
All right. So Karzai says that the "Newsweek" article didn't spark those demonstrations that we saw. You just got back from a trip to the Middle East. How is this playing out in the Arab media? Is that the case in the Arab media?
OCTAVIA NASR, CNN SR. EDITOR, ARAB AFFAIRS: Well, the story is still alive and well on Arab media. It seems that maybe not the "Newsweek" article that sparked the demonstrations, because this story of desecrating the Quran, the story of abusing prisoners, eyewitness accounts from Guantanamo and Kandahar, there were stories of desecration of the Quran, not necessarily this last one from "Newsweek."
So he could be right about that. But on Arab media this is a big story. It's still playing out.
They do not believe that the retraction was because "Newsweek" does believe that they made a mistake, the Arab media. And Arab -- ordinary Arabs believe that the U.S. government pressured "Newsweek" into retracting the story. So it's a story that's not going anywhere anytime soon. It just adds to the suspicions that Arab media and the -- many on the Arab street show towards the U.S. government. NGUYEN: The Arab media is also talking about holding people accountable for many of these different scenarios and the actions that were created in those scenarios. Tell me about that.
NASR: Well, here's -- here's an example. I'm glad you asked this question, because I picked this example from today's "Al-Hayat" newspaper, a major leading Arab newspaper.
This is what Abdel Wahhab Badrakhan writes. He says, "From the Quran desecration at Guantanamo Bay, to the story of beating prisoners to death in Afghanistan, to the pictures of the former Iraqi president in his jail cell, investigations, investigations, investigations The word suggests accountability, but the result is further disappointment. Those who are really responsible remain free instead of being held accountable."
So basically the premise is that those who are really responsible, you know, the big heads, the big guns, are not being removed from their positions, they're not resigning from their positions. On the contrary, they remain in their place.
And the Arab street, and especially the Arab media, are being very skeptical about this policy of the U.S. government of starting investigations, but not ending them, not bringing people to justice.
NGUYEN: All right. Speaking of investigations, there's one that is under way in the pictures of Saddam Hussein in his underwear. What does the Arab media say about these pictures? Because to begin with, they really didn't give them much play at all.
NASR: They didn't. They didn't show the pictures. And when we talk about Arab media in this case, we're talking about the big networks, we're talking about the local networks as well, the newspapers.
They did not shot it. They thought it was out of taste. Everyone I spoke with said that there is no news in Saddam Hussein in underwear, it's just is insulting. It insults the person...
NGUYEN: But is that the issue, though, that these pictures were taken as a way to insult prisoners?
NASR: Well, in a way, the idea is that, what you hear a lot on Arab street, and in Arab media, if you read papers and watch television, is that there is the belief, again, that conspiracy theory, that the U.S. leaked those pictures to insult Saddam Hussein. And that creates a lot of outrage on the street. Also, it adds to the demonstrations and the outrage on the street, and also in the media.
Now, the major networks chose not to show those pictures. And as you see here, for example, said that they refused to show these pictures for professional and ethical reasons. And someone I talked to...
NGUYEN: OK. Yes, on the flip side, if it wasn't Saddam Hussein, if it was, say, an American, a leader, an American leader in a situation like that, would they have shown it?
NASR: And I asked that same question. And the answer was that this situation is not the same, that they deal with stories on a, you know, case-by-case basis. You cannot really compare, they said.
But basically, the idea -- someone sort of yelled at me, jumped at me, he said -- you know, CNN, for example, in our case, and other western networks, he said, did worse than "The Sun" n this case, because we took their pictures and put it on our air. He said, "If you had gotten the pictures first, would you have shown them?" But instead, what you did, you took 'The Suns' pictures and showed them on your air."
So they do have a point. And again, this is a perfect example of how things are different between the western media and the Arab media. Our ethics and standards and practices are totally different from theirs. And this is a perfect example of how they differ.
NGUYEN: Quickly, let's shift to Muqtada al-Sadr, because today we're learning that he wants to put aside the battles and work politically for peace. How is that being played out in Arab media?
NASR: That's playing well. You have to understand, Muqtada al- Sadr is a very popular figure. He's a cleric, he's an important Shiite cleric in Iraq. He plays a major role.
One thing that we have to keep in mind is that when we talk about the Shia in Iraq or we talk about the Sunni in Iraq, we're not talking about one big lump of people. The Shia, for example, you have the fundamentalists, you have the moderates, you have the liberals, you have the Kurds, you have the Arabs. So many groups under Shia.
And Muqtada al-Sadr represents one part of that. It's an important part.
Everyone I spoke with said that he's not to be discounted. Any attempt -- someone, an expert I spoke with today said that any person who attempts to bring in peace to Iraq should be applauded. And Muqtada al-Sadr is one of them. If he has a change of heart, that person said, so be it. He should be accepted in, not alienated at this point.
NGUYEN: Octavia Nasr back from your trip. We appreciate your insight. Thanks -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Well, it's hard enough guarding against terror attacks on land or in the air, but what about securing America's waterways? You ever thought about this one? Ahead on LIVE FROM, we will go under the sea with divers on patrol.
Also ahead, Trump you? Billionaire Donald Trump wants to take you to school.
SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Susan Lisovicz at the New York Stock Exchange. It's not what you make, it's where you live. I'll tell you about the 10 most affordable cities in the U.S. next on LIVE FROM.
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O'BRIEN: A little piece of news coming in to CNN right now to tell you about. A 68-year-old man has been arrested for apparently trying to build a bomb and sell it to an affiliate of the al Qaeda terror group.
Ronald Allen Grecula, who hails from Bangor, Pennsylvania, arrested Friday in Houston after meeting with undercover FBI agents. And apparently during that meeting, Mr. Grecula, according to the agents, indicated a willingness to sell and build an explosive device that could be used in terror attacks against Americans.
He is supposed to make an initial court appearance today. We'll keep you posted on that. Once again, Ronald Allen Grecula of Bangor, Pennsylvania, arrested and charged with offering to build and sell bombs to an affiliate group of al Qaeda -- Betty.
NGUYEN: We're going to shift gears now and talk about another business venture. Just what the Donald needs, a new enterprise. Some are already calling it Trump U.
The online university will offer specialties of The Donald: business courses, CD-ROMs, consulting services and seminars. But no traditional grades or degrees will be offered. Of course the bottom line is about raking in the green. Trump expects to run his new educational venture for a profit.
Making ends meet is not just about how much you make. Where you live is a big part of that equation, too. And for a look at the most affordable cities, Susan Lisovicz joins us live from the New York Stock Exchange.
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