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American Journalist Jill Carroll Released by Captors
Aired March 30, 2006 - 13:31 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Jordanian-American journalist Natasha Tynes is a close friend of American journalist Jill Carroll, who was freed today in Baghdad after being held hostage for nearly three months. Now earlier today, I asked her how she got the news of Carroll's release.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NATASHA TYNES, FRIEND OF JILL CARROLL: My contact in the Middle East, who's a journalist, called me this morning at 6:00 a.m. And she works in newsroom, and she saw the news alert and newswires, so called me at 6:00 a.m. and she told me. And the first thing I did was I called Jill's sister, Katie, and I told her. And I wanted to get confirmation from her, and she didn't know, so...
LIN: Oh, my gosh. So you were the first to tell her sister, who just went on Arab television yesterday making a plea for Jill.
TYNES: Yes, I think so. Because I just called her to tell her, you know, congrats, I'm so happy, and so...
LIN: Oh, that's amazing.
TYNES: Yes.
LIN: Well, I want to share with you and also our audience what Jill had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JILL CARROLL, FORMER AMERICAN HOSTAGE: Very good treatment. Very good treatment. I was kept in very good, small, safe place, a safe room. Nice furniture. They gave me clothing, plenty of food. I was allowed to take showers, go to the bathroom when I wanted. Very good. Never hit me. Never even threatened to hit me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: That has to be such a relief to you to hear that she was treated well, because all we heard on this end was the death threats and that two deadlines had passed.
TYNES: Yes, I mean, of course, I'm relieved to hear she was treated well. I mean, even in the video, she looked very composed and she looked in good health. I'm really happy that she was treated well. And I just can't wait to see her. LIN: How much of the public appeal yesterday by her sister Katie, and you, yourself, had gone on television to plea for your friend's life -- how big a difference do you think that made?
TYNES: I'm sure it made a huge difference, especially that her family appeared on the Arabic satellite TV stations, including Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. And I'm sure this made a huge impact. And plus, as well, as you know, lots of Arab organizations and Muslim organizations condemned this and asked for her immediate release. And all of this helped definitely in her release.
LIN: And what really struck me in seeing Jill talk this morning out of Baghdad was her demeanor. She was so amazingly calm. I want to share also how she got the news that she was going to be set free.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARROLL: They just came to me and said, OK, we're letting me go now. They didn't tell me what was going on. They would come, bring me my food. I would eat. It was fine. I would go to the bathroom. But I was not allowed to, you know...
QUESTION: Do you feel that you are (INAUDIBLE)?
CARROLL: I really don't know where I was. The room had a window, but the glass was -- you can't see. It's curtains. And you couldn't hear any sounds.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: And despite her circumstances, Natasha, look at how calm she is. What does that say about your friend?
TYNES: Well, you know, Jill is -- she knew what she was doing in Iraq, and she was very focused, and she believed in her mission as a journalist. And I knew she was prepared for, you know, maybe difficult circumstances, and because she was very well aware of the culture, and plus she was very well aware of the situation there.
LIN: And you played a part in that, Natasha. Didn't you help her refine her Arabic skills, her language skills?
TYNES: Well, I mean, not really. I mean, she used to speak with me in Arabic, and I used to correct her.
LIN: That might have saved her life. Do you ever think about that, the fact your friendship may have played a part in helping her communicate with her captors?
TYNES: Well, I hope so. But she was taking private classes all the time.
LIN: All right, you're being modest. You're being modest and a good friend.
TYNES: Well, I mean, like I correct like two or three words. LIN: Yes, OK.
Natasha, we are starting to hear a little bit from Jill Carroll's family. Her father has spoke very briefly with reporters, but is refusing to say much more. Can you explain the caution that they are taking in not making any public statements right now, what their greatest concern might be?
TYNES: Oh, well, I can't really speak for the family, but I believe they just want to have like an organized media appearance. And I mean her family has been really very smart in handling the media and how they approach this. And I'm sure they have a reason behind this, and I'm sure they just want to make sure to have her with them before they start giving public appearances.
LIN: Right.
And What are you going to say to Jill when you get to see her?
TYNES: Well, I'm going to hug her, and I'm going to tell her that I'm really proud of her, and I believe in what she did, and I just -- I want to tell her that we have all been praying for her, and we're really happy that our prayers have been answered.
LIN: Great picture of the two of you, by the way, we're sharing with the audience, you with a lollipop in the mouth.
TYNES: Yes.
LIN: All right, Natasha. I know you're going to be thrilled to see her. Thanks so much for sharing this moment with us.
TYNES: You're welcome.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(NEWSBREAK)
LIN: The news keeps coming. We're going to bring it to you. More LIVE FROM next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: Anger on a North Carolina campus today from students who say they don't feel safe. At Duke University, the sixth demonstration in five days against athletes accused of rape, and a school administration accused of not taking it seriously enough.
And there's a racial overtone. The alleged victim is black and her alleged attackers white. And members of Duke's nationally ranked lacrosse team, now suspended. The university president hasn't said much, apart from urging students to be patient while the charges are investigated.
And more help is being offered in the search for two Milwaukee boys. An anonymous donor in Pennsylvania has pledged $30,000, in effect doubling the reward fund. Plus, pizza parlors are putting pictures of Quadrevion Henning and Purvis Parker on their boxes. The boys vanished almost two weeks ago while heading to play basketball. And now police have no sign of them and no sign of a crime. They're going over Henning's computer to see fit holds any clues.
(WEATHER REPORT)
LIN: Well, it could eliminate the guesswork in the race to reproduce. Up next, should you have children now? Do you have time to wait? A blood test in Britain promises to make that decision a whole lot easier. We're going to tell you how it works, straight ahead on LIVE FROM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: An apple a day may keep the doctor away, but in England, they're using oranges to get ready for a possible bird flu pandemic. At this arena in Manchester, a huge mock vaccination drill to see how fast health workers could screen and inject people if they had to. It's easy to get volunteers, obviously, to stand in line and tell screeners about pretend medical issues, but who wants to get an unnecessary shot in the arm? That's where the oranges come in, taking a needle full of water to help workers practice in realtime. Some volunteers also pretend to faint or have bad reactions to help workers deal with possible scenarios.
So is it possible for women to beat their biological clock? Well, a simple blood test on the market in Britain promises to predict a woman's future fertility. One user calls it the biggest advance since the pill.
CNN's Paula Newton has that story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): For every woman ever told you can't have it all, there are millions still trying. And Georgina Wickenden is one of them. She has a great family, a 1-year- old son, and a thriving pool business in England.
At 34, it seems a cruel irony that just as her career picks up so does her biological clock.
GEORGINA WICKENDEN, SMALL BUSINESS OWNER: Most women want to have children, most women want to have a career. If you're going to decide between the two and get the best out of life, then you need some tools to make you -- to help you decide what you're going to do.
NEWTON: One of those tools, a new fertility test developed in Britain. The Plan Ahead test measures your ovarian reserve, literally how many eggs a woman has. Its results are valid for two years.
DR. BILL LEDGER, INVENTOR, "PLAN AHEAD": And what the test can do is give early warning to people whose biological clock might be ticking quicker or possibly reassurance to people whose biological clock is going along at a slower rate. WICKENDEN: It's not going to answer all questions about fertility. And they never did promise me that that would be the case. But at least now I know that my ovarian reserve is OK.
NEWTON: It's the kind of reassurance women are willing to pay for. The mail order test costs about $320. When you receive the kit, you take a simple blood test, mail it in, a lab measures three hormone levels, and then in a matter of weeks...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That is my result.
NEWTON: Dominique Edwards (ph) had the answer she was looking for, an above-average egg count.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is one of the biggest advancement since the pill. Sort of the unknown. You don't know if you can or not. And the test, the Plan Ahead test takes all the guesswork out of it, really.
NEWTON (on camera): Predictably, the idea of all this has really taken off, but it's also opened up a minefield of ethical questions.
(voice over): Dr. Patricia Mcshane is a practicing fertility specialist in the U.S. who worries some women will be falsely reassured.
DR. PATRICIA MCSHANE, FERTILITY SPECIALIST: I would be very reluctant for people to just try to rely upon this as a predictor of their fertility.
LEDGER: It is better to know the truth and have an understanding of what your own body's biology is doing than live on in blissful ignorance.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good afternoon, (INAUDIBLE).
NEWTON: The Plan Ahead test could be available in the U.S. as early as this year. Its inventors hope it will, in fact, lower the rate of infertility by telling women exactly when their biological clock is about to stop.
Paula Newton, CNN, Chippenham, England.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: And there's been a big jump in elective C-sections in this country. Experts aren't ready to say whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. A panel assembled by the National Institutes of Health says elective cesarean births should not be encouraged, actually, but they should not be discouraged either.
The key factor, they say, should be family size. Women who plan to have more than one or two children should avoid C-sections if possible. That's because a C-section increases the risk of complications in future pregnancies. Coming up, advice to frazzled parents. Take enough quarters to the arcade or your kids might take desperate measures to get that elusive prize. LIVE FROM gets an attack of claw-strophobia, next. Yes, he's inside.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: Well, now is your chance to own a genuine piece of American history. They were a perfect illustration of the New Orleans state of emergency, row upon row of yellow school buses, swallowed by Hurricane Katrina. Well do you want one? It's on eBay.
You can buy it or you can pick it up, whatever you do is your business. But if it sells, the city will auction off the rest, 259 in all. The New Orleans city school system needs the money and, at this point, a bake sale just ain't going to help.
All right. You don't need sight to be a visionary or to be a hero like Jim Sherman. Imagine going into this. Though blind, Sherman did, to save his 84-year-old legally blind neighbor.
He set up a baby monitor to keep track of her after she suffered stroke. Well, this week he heard something strange over that baby monitor while she was taking care of three newborn kittens in her bathroom.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM SHERMAN, RESCUED NEIGHBOR: She sounds a little funny coming out of that bathroom. And then I heard a sudden abrupt noise or two, and she didn't -- all of a sudden she called "Jim, Jim, Jim," and I said uh-oh, and I thought something had happened and she said the house is on fire.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: Well firefighters couldn't save the woman's house, but they did rescue those kittens.
Well kids don't only say the darndest things. They also do the darndest things the second your back is turned. Tom Murray reports from Austin, Minnesota and our affiliate KAAL on a child willing to go to the extreme for a new toy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HEIDI HASKIN, MOTHER: I turned my back for, like, three seconds just to grab my pop off the counter and he had turned around and he was inside the machine.
TOM MURRAY, KAAL REPORTER (voice-over): That's Heidi Haskin, describing how her 3-year-old son Devin ended up like this, stuck inside a toy machine. It happened during an afternoon birthday party at this Godfather's Pizza in Austin. It surprised big brother Tyler.
TYLER HASKIN, BROTHER: I'm, like, how could he fit in that? It's so tiny.
MURRAY: Devin proved just how agile he is. He slipped into our camera bag while we were visiting with the family. Godfather's had no key to the machine in the store.
T. HASKIN: I was like, is he getting oxygen?
MURRAY: Devin seemed to have plenty of oxygen. Heidi said he was playing with toys while they waiting for the fire department to get there and get him out. But mom was not having fun.
H. HASKIN: I had tears in my eyes, because I was like, how are you going to get this open without breaking it and maybe hurting him or something?
MURRAY: And for the ordeal, Devin got this Batman toy. Heidi says she wants Godfather's to childproof the door.
H. HASKIN: You'd never think that a 3-year-old body could actually slide right in the little door that is probably this big.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: All right. Fire Chief Dan Wilson says that Devin got into the machine through a space of about seven by nine inches. How do you squeeze through a space like this? That's smaller than this sheet of paper. Now, the company says -- that owns the restaurant says that the machine is out of there until they talk to the manufacturer. In the meantime, the moms on the pod suggest a closer look at the big brother.
Stay with us. A second hour of LIVE FROM starts right now.
It is a dangerous situation out there in the Midwest. We're keeping our eyes on the skies on several parts of the country today, especially tornado alley. So let's go to a CNN meteorologist right now, Bonnie Schneider.
(WEATHER REPORT)
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