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Rebuilding New Orleans; EU Calls Bird Flu "Global Threat"

Aired October 18, 2005 - 14:30   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Now, call it a dangerous dozen. Wilma is now the 12th hurricane of this year's Atlantic season. That ties the record set in 1969. Wilma is spinning in the Caribbean right now, but forecasters say it might threaten South Florida this weekend.
Watching and waiting in Taunton, Massachusetts. A dam holding back the rain-swollen Mill River is in danger of breaching and flooding that city. Water began seeping through the dam early this morning, and the mayor is urging residents along that river to leave.

It's a 16-year-old questionnaire, but its shedding new light on Harriet Miers' stance on abortion. The form shows the Supreme Court nominee pledged to support for a constitutional amendment banning most abortions. Miers filled out that questionnaire in 1989, when she was a city council candidate in Dallas,Texas.

Adopting a multifaceted approach, the recovery efforts to get New Orleans back on its feet is moving forward and a House committee is looking at the options today. And yesterday, a Louisiana governor, Kathleen Blanco, named a new advisory panel to develop a game plan.

The vice chairman of that panel is with us today in Washington. Walter Isaacson is a familiar face to us here at CNN. He's our former chairman and CEO. He's now head of the Apsen Instiute.

Walter, great to see you.

WALTER ISAACSON, ASPEN INSTITUTE: It's great to be back with you, Kyra. It's great to see you. And I know your affection for New Orleans and Dr. Francis and everybody else.

PHILLIPS: I tell you what, it's been difficult for me. You know that. You and I both worked and lived there. Dr. Francis, of course, the other one heading this committee with you, president of Xavier University. He had to get on a flight back to New Orleans for something. I'm a little worried about him, but we'll catch up with him later, that's for sure.

ISAACSON: I'll talk to him this afternoon.

PHILLIPS: Good. Then I'm planning on you letting me know. Walter, as you look at the list of everything the two of you and this committee will have to deal with -- I mean, disaster loans being backlogged, questionable contracting practices, price gouging, housing, job, hospitals -- where the heck do you begin?

ISAACSON: Well, first of all, you begin with certain principles. I think people expect if money's going to be spent that it be spent honestly. And we are going to make this, despite some of the reputation that Louisiana's had over the years, the most honest expenditure of money you can imagine with big three accounting firms and everybody auditing it and totally open and bid contracts, so that there is no corruption. We are going to be squeaky clean and no tolerance for any corruption or anything like that. And we're going to be audited and open.

Secondly, you got to spend it wisely, and you also you have to spend it fairly. By wisely, you can't be asking for everything and the kitchen sink. You got to set some priorities. You got to realize that there's certain things that southern Louisiana, Louisiana in general, does for this -- you know, needs to come back on its feet to make the entire country stronger and have a good economy. And then we got to do a lot to get ourselves on our feet.

So we're not going to be asking for everything. We're going to be setting priorities. Those priorities now are housing, because people's jobs are ready. Tulane University wants to come back and open jobs. Xavier University, which Dr. Francis leads, wants to open up and come jobs. Lots of businesses in southern Louisiana, from the agriculture businesses to shipping, ready to open up.

But we need some temporary housing. We need to get FEMA trailers there, that sort of thing. So housing is one, levee protection is another. Getting the world's best education system. Because not only do we have to rebuild southern Louisiana and New Orleans, we actually have to make it better. We have an opportunity to say there was some real problems there, especially in education and stuff, and we're going to show what can be done when you try to do it right.

PHILLIPS: Now, Walter, you hit on a very important point. And I want to talk about this, because were you a reporter and a columnist for the "Times-Picayune." You're from New Orleans. And you know the corruption goes back to the days of Huey Long. When I was reporter there, I had a field day with investigations. How do you know -- there is so much money coming in there, and already there are so many complaints about corruption. -- whether it's the contracts or the police force. I mean, there were some serious issues to tackle. So -- you mentioned bringing in other types of business leaders and such. How can you make sure that corruption is not going to plague this situation, when we're already seeing a lot of it?

ISAACSON: Well, you're not seeing a lot, I don't think, in the state expenditures of money. Secondly, you got to just have a no- tolerance policy. As you know, Louisiana had kind of a wink, wink, nudge, nudge policy where a lot of people had fun and, you know, got contracts, whatever. We're making it clear there's nobody with a greater reputation for integrity than I've met in the my life than Dr. Norman Francis.

And we're going to make it clear from the top -- and the governor, who's a very honest person; Mayor Nagin, very honest person -- make clear that there is no tolerance for corruption. Otherwise, we squander the goodwill of the country that's saying, we hope you get back on your feet. And then you got to put some practical procedures in place. You make sure you have very good accounting firms and all of the auditing is open. You make sure everything is there. You make sure you obey the open meetings law. Not only do that, you go more than anybody's ever done before to prove how squeaky clean you can be.

PHILLIPS: All right, let's talk about the Lower Ninth Ward. You and I well know what we saw after Hurricane Katrina really -- I mean, we saw that poverty is just not dealt with, and specifically this area. Should the Lower Ninth Ward, this low-lying area, very poor area, be rebuilt? Is that fair to rebuild that? Should it be rebuilt? And then what do you do about all the people that did live there, and they lost everything, and now they're in shelters and they're dispersed across the country?

ISAACSON: You want to build a city that wants everybody back. We want to attract everybody back, wherever they live in that city, and we want to make a city with a very good social fabric, a very good education system. I've lived in many cities in my lifetime, you know, whether it be Washington or New York and Boston, all of which are segregated cities, by neighborhoods. I grew up, as you know, in the Broadmoor region in New Orleans, which is a very integrated neighborhood.

We can have a social fabric in which everybody feels welcome back to the city, and they get to the come back to a good city with safe neighborhoods, good job opportunities and a better education system. You just can't do the same pathologies that were afflicting the poverty in some parts of New Orleans. So I don't know how many people will come back, but we're going to try to make it so everybody wants to come back to the city of New Orleans.

PHILLIPS: HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson said I don't think it will ever be as black as it was. It may never be that way again. You think that's too strong of a statement?

ISAACSON: Absolutely. I don't think we should play race on this, one way or the other. I down yesterday, down with Donna Brazile, whose family lives in the Lower Ninth Ward, as you know. She's been on CNN quite a bit.

PHILLIPS: Sure. Political analyst.

ISAACSON: One of our people at CNN. So Donna and I are wandering around together, flying back together. She's showing me the pictures and stuff. Donna had to evacuate a lot of her family from the Lower Ninth Ward and stuff. She's absolutely sure we can build the city, and she's going to come back to the city. I'll have to come back and -- and come back and build the city where you're not replicating just neighborhoods that won't working very well, but you're making sure that everybody in those neighborhoods has better places to come back to.

Are you going to rebuild it in the exact same way? With, you know, Lake Vista, Lakeview, which are all white? Lower Ninth Ward? Do you want to rebuild it exactly? No. We want to build a better city, but in doing so, we want everybody to feel they should come back. And Donna Brazile and I and Mary Matalin (ph), another person who's worked on CNN, she's on our commission as well.

We're all going to try to get people not only to New Orleans, by the way -- this is southern Louisiana. This is all -- you know, the parishes all the way through from you know, Calcasieu to Acadia, all the way down to Lafayette and Lake Charles. We got to make people feel they can come back to a great state.

PHILLIPS: Final question, Walter. I want to know like right now, right this minute, what are you working on? What is the committee working on? What's going to be that first thing you're going to accomplish? That we can report on, say, in the next week or two?

ISAACSON: We are going to work with Scott Cowan (ph), who is running the mayor's commission on education, Mayor Nagin's commission. And we have a subcommittee of our group on education to make absolutely sure we're ready to come back with a school system that serves everybody.

And then, even though you just asked for one, I'm going to be like any other CNN guest -- we're going make sure there's a right amount of housing to get the businesses back in shape, and we're going make sure that the levees get back up so people feel safe coming home to the great state of Louisiana.

PHILLIPS: Walter Isaacson with the Louisiana Recovery Authority, along with Dr. Norman Francis, who we know and love very much. You're right, he's a terrific individual. You know we're going to be on top of this and we're going to be checking everything that you're doing, so...

ISAACSON: Meet me down in New Orleans next week, Kyra. We should get your show broadcasted from there, you and Anderson.

PHILLIPS: Now you're talking. That's a deal. I'll be in touch, Walter. Thank you.

ISAACSON: Thank you for having me.

PHILLIPS: My pleasure.

Still ahead on LIVE FROM, flu fears, here at home and around the world. European Union leaders now calling it a global threat. We'll have that story, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: A global threat. That's what's the European Union is calling the spread of the bird flu. The most dangerous strain of the virus has now traveled from Asia to Romania and Turkey. There's also a suspected case in Greece.

ITN's Lawrence McGinty reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAWRENCE MCGINTY, ITN REPORTER (voice-over): Despite Romania's best efforts to contain the two bird flu outbreaks there, today sees new reports of further suspected cases, this time, close to the border with the Ukraine.

They occurred in swans and wild ducks, but so far there's no confirmation they are of the deadly strain H5N1.

Also, the tiny Greek island of Chios reported what could be the first case of bird flu in a members state of the European Union. Further tests are being carried out in samples from a turkey.

In Luxembourg, European foreign ministers held emergency talks to discuss the crisis. Jack Straw said Europe and Britain has to be prepared for more cases.

JACK STRAW, BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: Reassurance for citizens across Europe that the European commission and member states really are coordinating very effectively indeed, first to ensure that any outbreaks of avian flu, amongst poultry or other bird stocks, are dealt with very swiftly, very efficiently and the outbreaks are contained; secondly, and above all, to ensure that they are the most adequate contingency plans across Europe to deal with any transfer of the avian flu virus to human beings.

MCGINTY: Across Europe, there's been a frantic dash to buy stocks of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu. Supplies are running low and the drug's Swiss maker, Roche, today said it would consider giving other firms licenses to increase production.

Lawrence McGinty, ITN News.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Other news around the world now.

The Swiss maker of Tamiflu is ramping up production. The company is so overtaxed trying to keep up with demand for the anti-viral drug that it plans to build a new plant in the United States. Tamiflu is the only available drug affective in treating bird flu.

Hoping to strengthen military ties with China, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld making his first visit to Beijing. In a June speech in Singapore, Rumsfeld accused China of upsetting the balance of power in Asia by building up its military arsenal. He's adopted a more diplomatic tone on this trip.

And growing concerns for the survivors of the massive South Asia quake: the World Food Program fears that up to half a million of them have yet to receive desperately needed help. May are in areas so remote that they can only be reached on foot. Authorities warn that exposure to the looming, harsh Himalayan winter in Pakistan could push that death toll up from 54,000.

Now, among the survivors of the South Asia earthquake, the story of one schoolboy and his remarkable desire to carry on amid unbelievable death and destruction.

CNN's senior international correspondent Matthew Chance brings us his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Imagine being the only kid in class to survive -- friends, teachers, all buried beneath the rubble.

MOHAMMAD WASEEM, QUAKE SURVIVOR (through translator): We were taking our exams when the wall of the building starting to shake and collapsed. I think I fell on the ground floor, scrambled out, but the students on the upper floors all died.

CHANCE: Crushed in a school turned concrete tomb, for hundreds of its children, all that remains are painful reminders of what could have been, a drum kit from the music class, a young scientist's microscope.

In a few violent minutes, he told me the earthquake shattered far more than just walls.

WASEEM (through translator): We were all hoping to be engineers or doctors but now we can't even think about our futures. We have nothing left.

CHANCE: Children like Waseem are among the few who escaped this destruction. All over this area, hundreds of crowded schools like this have been laid to waste. Across this disaster zone, it seems almost an entire generation has been lost.

And survivors face daunting prospects. Rebuilding not just homes and shattered families but institutions like schools is essential for the future.

Back in his village, Waseem is weighing options. He says he'll have to leave his family to attend school elsewhere. Abandoning education, he told me, is not an option.

WASEEM (through translator): I have to complete my education, whatever it takes. Even if I have to go to every corner of the earth, but I can only speak for myself. Not everyone can just go.

CHANCE: Helping the children of south Asia's disaster regain their futures is a major challenge. Waseem's is just one determined voice amid the devastation.

Matthew Chance, CNN, Musaffrabad, in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, some of musical biggest names are teaming up to help raise money for the victims of Katrina.

Brooke Anderson, for a preview of what's ahead in today's entertainment report.

Hi, Brooke.

BROOKE ANDERSON, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra. That's right. I'll tell you who's landing their voices for that all- star double album.

Plus, will Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie kick off the Jimmy Choo shoes for more of the simple life?

And Chewbacca joins a galaxy very, very close. I'll have the details when LIVE FROM continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, "Simple Life" news, healing tunes and a really tall resident alien gets citizenship. It must be time for our dose of entertainment headlines. Brooke Anderson in our Los Angeles bureau -- Hi, Brooke.

ANDERSON: Hi, Kyra. Time for that daily dose of entertainment. We'll start with celebutante turned reality TV star Paris Hilton. She isn't giving up on "The Simple Life" just yet. Fox announced last week it was axing the reality show, but Hilton told the Associated Press plans are moving forward to begin filming the fourth season with Nicole Richie on November 1st.

Hilton claims all the networks are fighting over it. 20th Century Fox Television, which produces the show, told CNN it hopes to find another home for the series, that it believes "The Simple Life" is still a dynamic and valuable franchise.

You may remember earlier this year, rumors were rampant that Rod Stewart's daughter, Kimberly, would replace Nicole Richie on the show due to feuding between Paris and Nicole. But now it seems the original pair, Paris and Nicole, are hoping to continue their small screen success together with "The Simple Life 4." Of course, we'll keep you updated on that.

Aaron Neville and John Mayer performing "Hearts So Heavy." The song is one more than 20 tracks on a new all-star double album benefiting hurricane relief. It's called "Hurricane Relief Come Together Now." More than 30 musicians from all genres of music are featured on the double disk, including this lady, Barbara Streisand, Elton John, Bonnie Raitt, and Coldplay. All proceeds to go hurricane relief charities. The CD set will hit stores in about a month.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES EARL JONES (playing "Darth Vader"): We would be honored.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Oh, you heard him. The lovable, furry Chewbacca from the "Star Wars" films is now a U.S. citizen. Well, officially, it's the actor who played Chewy who's now the American citizen. British actor Peter Mayhew, who's a really tall guy at 7'3", was among more than 450 people from 56 countries who became naturalized citizens in a ceremony in Arlington, Texas yesterday. 60-year-old Mayhew is married to a Texas woman. They live in Granbury, Texas. And, Kyra, Mayhew joked that he has a British passport, an American passport and a Wookie passport.

PHILLIPS: We've got a lot of Wookie fans on our team -- believe it or not, Lisa Clark (ph), our writer. All right, Brooke, thanks so much.

All right. We are going to check in with Wolf? Is that right? All right. Wolf Blitzer, what's happening in "THE SITUATION ROOM"?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, Kyra. Thanks. Lots happening over the next three hours. An unspecified threat, as you've been reporting, closing a Baltimore tunnel. Authorities may be looking for six individuals right now. We'll bring you the latest developments.

And up in Taunton, Massachusetts there's a city on edge waiting and watching whether a 100-year-old dam will hold.

Plus, much more coming up on the trial of Saddam Hussein. It's only hours away. We'll go live to Baghdad and our chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour for a preview.

All that, lots more coming up on right here in "THE SITUATION ROOM" -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Wolf. Well, could inflation soon deflate the economy? The increase last quarter, was a 15-year high. That and a check of the markets just ahead. More LIVE FROM right after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: New report raising a red flags about inflation. Kathleen Hayes live in the New York Stock Exchange with that story -- Kathleen.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

PHILLIPS: All right, Kathleen. Thanks so much. And that wraps up this Tuesday edition of LIVE FROM. I'm Kyra Phillips at the CNN Center in Atlanta. We'll see you tomorrow. Now Wolf Blitzer, live in "THE SITUATION ROOM."

BLITZER: I'm Wolf Blitzer, and you're in THE SITUATION ROOM, where new pictures and information are arriving all the time. Happening now, it's 3:00 p.m. in Baltimore's Harbor, where the daily commute turned into a very big commotion. There was a security threat involving two tunnels under the harbor. Traffic is now flowing again. An investigation is also underway.

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