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Hamas in Charge; Last-Ditch Call to Reject Samuel Alito; Stressed Out in Iraq

Aired January 27, 2006 - 13:59   ET

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

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: The White House says, "We will not deal with Hamas." The European Union is in wait-and-see mode. And Israel?
CNN's Guy Raz reports now from Jerusalem.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUY RAZ, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): There's an old adage in Israel: While moderates can make war, only hard-liners can make peace. And some Israelis are wondering if that might apply to Hamas as well.

ELIEZER HOLLAND, SUICIDE BOMB SURVIVOR: I think we should give them a chance because everyone wants to live in peace and quiet without suicide bombings and all this and dying on the street.

RAZ: An opinion poll in Israel shows nearly 48 percent of the public wants their government to continue negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, even one dominated by Hamas.

RA'ANAN GISSIN, SR. ISRAELI GOVERNMENT ADVISER: I don't think Israel is quite ready to admit right now and to say, listen, everything is lost, we don't have a partner on the other side, we go for unilateral steps.

RAZ: For now, the Israeli government is playing it cautiously, waiting to see the makeup of the next Palestinian government.

(on camera): But there are existential concerns as well here over a group like Hamas taking over. And it's not just because of the suicide bombs or the group's refusal to recognize Israel.

(voice over): Hamas' charter is filled with disturbing conspiracy theories not just about Israel, but Jews. Article 22 of the Hamas charter, for example, states...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as the Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, and the Lions."

RAZ: Article 32 of the Hamas charter states...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "The Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion.'"

RAZ: The last line is a reference to the 19th century anti- Jewish polemic that influenced early European fascists. It's that kind of language that Israel says must be excised from the group's platform before negotiations are considered.

ALVARO DE SOTO, U.N. SPECIAL ENVOY: Hamas has a past that is condemnable, and they have a covenant which is from 1988 which is also condemnable. And what we hope is that, whatever government emerges, however it is confirmed, it will reflect that wish of the Palestinians to make peace.

RAZ: But if Hamas doesn't soften its ideology, the next Israeli government may not hesitate to secure its borders, even over the objection of Palestinians.

Guy Raz, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: The son of an assassinated Lebanese statesman appeals to President Bush. Saad Hariri, head of the majority bloc in Lebanon's parliament, called on Mr. Bush today for support in dealing with its threatening neighbor, Syria. Hariri's father, former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, was killed by a bomb last year apparently because he opposed Syria's occupation of Lebanon.

Mr. Bush says nothing should stand in the way of a U.N. investigation into allegations that Syria carried out Hariri's murder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It is very important for the investigation into your dad's death to go forward. We expect there to be a full and firm investigation, and the people who are responsible for your dad's death need to be held to account.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: Under U.N. pressure, Syria pulled its troops out of Lebanon last year, but its influence remains strong.

Well, a passionate speech on Samuel Alito, a last-ditch call to reject his Supreme Court nomination. It happened on the Senate floor just a short while ago. We brought that to you.

CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider is in Washington watching it all.

And Bill, we just heard from Senator John Kerry speaking on the Senate floor. Let's take a listen at what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: I know this is flying against some of the sort of political punditry of Washington. I understand that. But this is a fight worth making, because it's a fight for the lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court of the United States with a series of decisions that suggest a view, however brilliant a legal mind -- he has a brilliant legal mind.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: He says it's a fight worth making, but is it a fight that a filibuster can win?

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: That's doubtful. Right now there are a number of leading Democrats who do support the filibuster. Kerry, his colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, Hillary Clinton recently announced that she would support a filibuster, and so will the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid, the senator from Nevada. A number of other Democrats undoubtedly will support a filibuster, but they need at least 40 votes for the filibuster in order to be able to sustain it. And there's a real question.

Remember, republicans start out with very -- with over 50 votes right there. So they just need a few Democrats to vote along with the Republicans, and the filibuster will be broken.

There are already three Democrats who are known, who have announced that they will support the nomination of judge -- the confirmation of Judge Alito -- Tim Johnson of South Dakota; Ben Nelson of Nebraska; Robert Byrd of West Virginia. So it is very likely -- I mean, it's virtually certain they will not support a filibuster.

There are probably only one or two votes away from enough votes to shut off the debate and end it. And then the question will be, what did Kerry accomplish?

NGUYEN: Yes, that's the question today, because it seems like it's all in the numbers. But let's take a listen now to what Republican Senator Jeff Sessions had to say about this possible filibuster.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS (R), JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Now we're looking at a filibuster. I kid you not. I thought we had settled that issue, but now we are having a filibuster.

They have put it in their news releases, Democratic senators have. Apparently the former presidential candidate for the Democratic Party in the last section who obviously did not win called back from Davos to say that we ought to filibuster here, count him in. He urged a filibuster.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: So, Bill, if the numbers aren't there, at least at this point that's what it appears to be, a lot of people are scratching their heads about this. With Kerry's push for it, some even -- right here, a White House spokesman says it may just be a boost for Kerry if he does want to make a bid in 2008.

What do you think about that?

SCHNEIDER: Well, that's the conventional wisdom. You heard Senator Kerry talk about the Washington pundit class. I suppose that's us. And what he said was that, you know, they are saying it is all a political strategy to boost his prospects, to be re-nominated by the Democratic Party in 2008.

And an argument can be made there are a lot of angry Democrats out there who want to do everything possible to prevent Alito from going on to the Supreme Court even if it looks apparently right now hopeless. They believe the Democrats at least have to stand up for what they believe in, make a stand, and that is what Senator Kerry says he's doing.

The question that's raised, however, is this, if Alito survives the filibuster, if in fact the debate is cut off and there is an up- or-down vote, which he will almost certainly win, then what will have been accomplished? Alito may look stronger rather than weaker for having survived a filibuster vote, because then his supporters can say not only did he get confirmed by a majority of the senators, but he got -- he broke off a filibuster with more than 60 senators.

So it could make Alito look like a stronger justice than a weaker justice.

NGUYEN: Wow, that is an interesting point. Bill Schneider, as always, thank you.

SCHNEIDER: Sure.

NGUYEN: Two more hostages in Iraq, one new video on Al-Jazeera. The clip shows a pair of German engineers asking the German government to intervene with their captors, though so far there have been no demands for their release. The men were heading to work in Baji (ph), northwest of Baghdad, on Tuesday when gunmen dressed as Iraqi soldiers took them.

Well, this may be stating the obvious and a bit of generality, but people in Iraq are stressed out. Stressed out, burned out, worn out, you name it. And more and more are turning to psychiatrists for help.

CNN's Michael Holmes reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The waiting room at Dr. Al Harith Abdul Hamid's psychiatry practice is never empty these days. Young and old they come, stressed out, depressed, desperately unhappy with their lives in the new Iraq.

AL HARITH ABDUL HAMID, PSYCHIATRIST: They had sort of hope that things are going to be better. Unfortunately, over the last three years, since the changes, things went bad, and it's getting more and more bad.

HOLMES: Dr. Hamid says security is key to good mental health. It's a commodity in short supply, however, in Baghdad.

HAMID: The main thing, they feel that they are not secure in their houses, not secure while they are walking in the streets, they are not secure even in their work.

HOLMES: A view reflected on the streets.

ASHRAF RAHIM, PATIENT (through translator): It's constant fear from the unknown, because when you wake up in the morning, you don't know what will happen or what you are going to face.

FALAH DHABIT, HEALTH MINISTRY EMPLOYEE (through translator): There have been many psychological changes, the gasoline, the power crisis. They affect the psychology of people in particular.

HOLMES: Back at Dr. Hamid's office, an elderly patient is checked out.

"Your blood pressure is too high with your anxiety," says the doctor. "Keep taking your medicine."

In the corridor waiting his turn, a depressed 25-year-old, Haider Abed Ali.

HAIDER ABED ALI, PATIENT (through translator): My psychological state is very bad. I'm very tense because of the current situation.

HOLMES: According to Dr. Hamid, his diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is at an all-time high. Even in a place that's meant to be an escape from the pressures, the electricity flickers.

He writes many prescriptions for medication, but disturbingly sees illegal drugs being sought out as a refuge from the violence.

HAMID: Starting from the beginning of 2004, we started to see patients suffering from addiction, from independence on hashish, heroin, morphine, things like that.

HOLMES: He says even under Saddam people here had a nightlife, restaurants, visiting friends. In much of Iraq, however, no more. Not even for a doctor who used to make house calls in the middle of the night.

HAMID: Now, if you'll give me two million dinars to go to see someone after 6:00 in the evening, I do not go because it's dangerous.

HOLMES: Dr. Hamid sees as many patients as time allows. He's booked solid for the next month and hasn't even started looking at the month after.

Sadly, he says, business is booming.

HAMID: People feel anxious, feel distressed. They see the future as a dilemma (ph), as very gloomy, if you like.

HOLMES: Michael Holmes, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: Straight ahead: magic bullet or just a promising first step? We're going to talk with infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci about that experiment that some are calling a breakthrough in medical technology.

But first, what a difference a couple of centuries makes. Salzburg, Austria, pulls out all the stops today to celebrate the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Just listen.

Ah, the sound of it. Mozart was born 250 years ago. These are live pictures right now. As part of a year-long celebration, the city of his birth is holding a concert inspired by the prodigy who grew into a genius, then a legend, as we all know.

At the minute of his birth, bells were ringing in three of the churches where his music was played while he was alive. It's very different than the Salzburg of Mozart's time, no doubt. He felt the city cramped his style and left when he was just 25.

We are going to have more on LIVE FROM.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: You still need to break a few eggs to make an omelet, but you may not need them to build a better vaccine. That is the claim from scientists at the University of Pittsburgh, who say they developed a bird flu vaccine from scratch in only 36 days.

Instead of growing the culture in chicken eggs, they used artificially engineered DNA, a common cold bug, and a petrie dish. Now, is this the magic bullet that could slay a bird flu pandemic? That's the question, but not so fast, say many experts.

Dr. Anthony Fauci is an infectious disease expert with the National Institutes of Health. He joins me now from Davos, Switzerland, to talk about today's news.

You know, on paper this looks quite remarkable. How does it work?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: Well, what -- what the investigators have done is a practice that actually has been done with other viruses where you take a common cold type virus, an adnil (ph) virus, and you insert the genes of the bird flu virus into that, and you are allowed to grow it up in cell-based cultures rather rapidly and efficiently. So from a technological standpoint, getting away from egg based and getting to cell based and recombinant DNA technology the way we have in this study is the way of the future and the way to go.

We've got to be careful, though, that based on the study as it is reported, we don't get the impression that we have now solved the problem of a vaccine for bird flu, because it's a big leap to go from effectiveness in an animal model to an effectiveness in humans. And we have a lot of experience where you have animal models that look good, but the proof of the pudding is in humans.

So, technologically, this is important and interesting in the way to the future, but I don't think we can say it is the answer to the problems right now.

NGUYEN: But looking at the test in both mice and chickens, this vaccine proves to be very effective, and quickly.

FAUCI: Right. And that's true. And that's good. So have other vaccines that have been given to mice and then the mice have been challenged. Ferrets have been challenged, and ducks.

So I don't want to play down the potential importance of this, but this is not the first time that animals have been protected by a bird flu vaccine and been challenged with the actual virus.

The important component of this study -- and it is a good study -- is that they have used the technology that if it is used and successful is clearly a much more efficient way and a much more flexible way to make vaccines. So in that respect it is a promising study.

NGUYEN: Yes, and efficiency is key, because should there be a pandemic, you need to get your hands on that just as soon as possible.

But let me ask you this -- you are the doctor here, you are in the know. When they say it's a live virus, which means that it can allow more immune-activating systems, which means if the bird flu mutates, can this go with it so that it's still effective in a mutation as well?

FAUCI: I don't think you can make that assumption. When you have multiple types of immunity, you can generally do better as the virus tends to drift, change a little bit.

When they have used this particular vaccine approach, you have both an antibody immunity and what we call celmeated (ph) immunity. In layman's terms, it means it has multiple arms of the immune response. That's usually associated with a greater cross reactivity, but not necessarily so.

So, here again, I think it is too premature to make the statement that if you use this kind of vaccine and the virus continues to mutate and change, that this particular vaccine would be effective against that. I think that's a statement that is not warranted at this point by the data.

NGUYEN: Boy, that would be a magic bullet if that was the case.

Well, let me ask you about the side-effects so far. What have you heard about the side-effects caused by this vaccine?

FAUCI: Well, others have used an adnil virus vector and the side-effects really are minimum. We would not expect there to be significant side-effects, but you always have to be very careful when you are vaccinating people.

Now, remember, this was a study that was done in mice and chickens. So certainly there were no detectable or important side- effects in the chickens or in the mice. The investigators have indicated that they are going to go in early what we call phase one trials in humans. And that's safety trials.

The main question you ask in a phase one trial, is it safe? And then if it is in small numbers of people, you graduate to larger numbers of individuals.

So I don't think we can say anyone about the safety in humans now, but others have used this type of a recombinant adnil virus-type of a vaccine, and there doesn't seem to be any inordinate toxicities with it.

NGUYEN: Look at the test, the results, what does this tell you? Because the vaccine was very effective when it was given in shot form, but when it was given in a nasal spray form, it wasn't as effective.

Does that tell you anything? Is that problematic? Why do you think that happened?

FAUCI: Well -- well, actually, the investigators themselves admit they are not really quite sure. It was very effective in the mice when they gave it intranasally. When they gave to it the chickens, the subcutaneous administration seemed to be better than the intranasal.

To me, there are a number of possibilities for that. That clearly can be sorted out. Likely because of the ability of the nasal mucosa to be able to stimulate the kind of response in the chickens. Certainly giving it beneath the skin in the chicken seems to work.

NGUYEN: And quickly, I know there are human trials that still have to be done. But any idea, any forecast when this could be on the market?

FAUCI: I think you can't even begin to imagine if it -- when it's going to be on the market or if it ever will be on the market. When you are dealing with a mouse and chicken study, what you have to go through to show safety and efficacy in a human before you can actually have an approved vaccine is a long road, so it would be folly to predict if or when this will ever get on the market for people.

NGUYEN: Well, no doubt it's still a first step.

Anthony Fauci, we thank you for your time today.

Straight ahead, remember the robot dog? You know. Seven years later, it looks like Sony was barking up the wrong tree after all. We are going to tell you all about that robot dog coming up on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: I feel like I should be doing the robot right about now.

Here's a reminder for you, that not every technological innovation is an improvement. AIBO, an electronic robotic dog developed by Sony, is about to roll over and play dead.

Yes, he was quite the little celebrity when he was introduced, able to speak, whimper and play with no risk of messes or vet bills. That's always good. But here's a catch. He costs about $2,000 which apparently made owners of real dogs reluctant to upgrade.

Sony shuts down the line, having sold only 150,000 AIBOs in seven years. That's 49 dog years, by the way, just incase you were counting, which makes the sales rate even worse.

All right. Some parents are saying, if you can't beat them, just join them. A new survey shows kids aren't the only ones in the house playing video games.

Susan Lisovicz joins us from the New York Stock Exchange for that story.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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