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Insurgents Have Targeted Day Laborers in Iraq; Rolling Thunder in Long Island; MTV Turns 25
Aired August 01, 2006 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BUSINESS HEADLINES)
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, in Iraq, a trio of car bombs this morning, at least 39 people dead. This one north of Baghdad targeted a police patrol, killing six and wounding nine others; 23 Iraqi soldiers died when their bus was hit by a roadside bomb and at least 10 were killed in a suicide car bombing near an Iraqi army convoy in Baghdad. An American soldier was killed yesterday in a bomb blast just south of Baghdad.
Well,working in Iraq can be deadly. Militants threaten some workers and kidnap or kill others. But people are willing, even anxious to work. Our Harris Whitbeck looks at the risks that they take.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They gather in small groups on Baghdad streets, tools in hand to wait for jobs that rarely materialize. They're day laborers, willing to be hired for as little as $7 a day to help build a wall, or tend to a garden.
Hussein Khalak (ph) is 53-years-old. He's the only support for his wife and five children. Work, he says, is hard to come by.
"I find work one day out of every 10," he says. "No one else can help me in this life." Like thousands more like him, Hussein puts his life at risk every time he goes looking for work. Car bombing are indiscriminate and recently insurgents have targeted day labors.
In bombings like this, in the town of Khoufa (ph) last July 18th, in which several workers were lured into a van only to have it explode. Mohamed Khadim (ph) is one of those who still dare to venture out looking for work despite the bombings. He's 27, married and has a young son. He has already endured bombing and drive-by shootings while waiting for someone to come by and hire him.
"We expect violence, but what can we do," he asks. "Although we are scared, we have no other choice but to come to this place looking for work."
(on camera): The Iraqi government says more than half the population is unemployed. That's over 11 million people looking for work in a country where just standing on the street being in the wrong place at the wrong time can kill you.
(voice-over): Iraqi officials say they are in the process of addressing unemployment
"We are adopting a long-term agenda to develop Iraq economically and politically in a way we can address fortunes for the benefit of all Iraqis," he says. But to people like the day laborers, personal safety is a concern at least as elusive as economic security. Harris Whitbeck, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Well, is this the beginning of the end for Castro's regime? Political insight on Cuba and late developments. Stay with CNN, the most trusted name in news.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Israel steps up its ground operations in southern Lebanon. Here's what we know about the conflict in the Middle East. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says an immediate cease-fire is not in his country's interest because Hezbollah's strength erodes with each passing day. He spoke a day after Israel's security cabinet decided to widen the offensive.
Three Israeli soldiers were killed today in clashes in southern Lebanon. A United Nations convoy reached Qana today bringing badly- needed aid. Dozens of civilians died Sunday when Israel bombed the Lebanese town. Aid workers are describing the situation there as dire. And there have been fewer Hezbollah rocket attacks in Israel in the past two days, but Israel's justice minister says rocket launches have increased in an area 20 miles north of the border. The Israeli military is urging residents in that area to leave.
Well things are moving quickly in the Middle East. So it's sometimes easy to miss the full scale of the conflict. But photos capture images frozen in time and they fully reveal the heart- wrenching moments of a region in crisis.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS (voice-over): New pictures that tell a story as old as civilization, a story of anger, of sadness, of fear. Photos of armed conflict in a region that has seen little peace. It started in the sky. Bombs and rockets raining down on both sides of the Israeli- Lebanese border, bringing death, injury and destruction. Those who could get out, did.
Foreign nationals evacuated in ships, sometimes on helicopters, any way that worked. Those left behind did the best they could with nervous glances at the sky dangerous trips over treacherous road hoping to find a place, some place, at least a little bit safer than the place left behind. There were refugees in Lebanon. There were refugees in Israel. Diplomats talked about peace.
But the air war was unrelenting and then the ground fighting began. Troops spilled over the Israeli-Lebanese boarder. There was more destruction, more death, more anger, more refugees, and new images. Photos that will survive the current conflict and illustrate tomorrow's history books, which raises a question -- when future generations see these pictures, will they say, that's what wars were like? That's what bombs did? That's what it was like to live in a refugee camp all those years ago? Or will future generations simply look at these photos, sigh and say, some things never change.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: State, federal and local cops wanted to clean up the worst of the worse: fugitives wanted for rape, robbery, arson and other crimes in New York's Nassau County. Law enforcement teams fanned out, and late last month, targeting hundreds of suspected felons.
Our Deborah Feyerick went along.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If I'm showing you guys any photos of the people you recognize, then you got to tell me.
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The sun is rising, and we're on a fugitive hunt, riding with U.S. Marshall Bud Spellman (ph.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Try to hit as many early as we can.
FEYERICK: We jump out at Terrence Avenue (ph) in Hempstead, Long Island.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police. Just want to talk to you.
FEYERICK: The banging wakes curious neighbors. Shouting comes from inside the apartment. After a few minutes, police walk out with a 21-year-old suspect, wanted on an outstanding warrant and about to face drug charges.
DEP. LENNY DEPAUL, U.S. MARSHALL, FUGITIVE TASK FORCE: A lot of drugs, a lot of narcotics. A lot of guns around here. When streetlights come on around here, you got to really be careful.
FEYERICK: Deputy Commander Lenny DePaul heads the New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force. It's his operation. Over five days, 15 teams...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Watch your back!
FEYERICK: ... with investigators from federal, state and local agencies, fan out across Nassau County, Long Island. They're targeting 500 felons in a sweep called Rolling Thunder. The most dangerous are wanted for rape, assault, robbery.
We're on the front line. (on camera): This guy's a runner?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, he's a runner. So if he's there...
FEYERICK: You think it's going to...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is what it is. Yes.
FEYERICK (voice-over): One of the fugitive is a suspected gang member, wanted on assault and drug charges. The ten-man team knows he's inside. A dog barks wildly. Someone opens the door.
(on camera): The agents have gone inside the house. They were concerned that the person they wanted would try to round once they got to the door. A lot them set up the perimeter out back. The others inside -- we're hearing a lot of noise. We don't know exactly what's going on. We're waiting to see whether, in fact, they are going to bring this guy out.
(voice-over): And they do; a 16-year-old with a felony record.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When we made entry into the house, they played a little game with us. The owner of the house said no one was upstairs.
FEYERICK (on camera): We heard they were yelling inside.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, it was a little bit of yelling. He didn't want to comply or cooperate, I should say. So when we got upstairs, there was a locked door. And the fugitive was behind the door.
FEYERICK: How often is it that people just lie?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All the time, for whatever reason. Kids, mothers, fathers, you know, don't want to give up their own family members.
FEYERICK: What is this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) gang.
FEYERICK (voice-over): Police also find what they say could be good intelligence: a plaque which appears to be covered with gang street names. ATF Special Agent Paul Greenfield says intelligence often times comes from the fugitives themselves, some willing to cut a deal rather than go back to jail.
SPECIAL AGENT PAUL GREENFIELD, BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO AND FIREARMS: They may have information on guys that are selling guns or selling drugs or where other felony fugitives are. And they're always willing out themselves out a little bit.
FEYERICK: As we head to the next location, one of the local Hempstead cops gets a tip: a suspect is just blocks away. Luck is with the team. Two men are quickly cuffed and questioned. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don't have anything off of these deals, do you? (INAUDIBLE)
FEYERICK: Not all the hits are successful. The team goes to a number of houses, only to find no one home. Word is out, and the fugitives are going underground.
(on camera): Do they have a sense of what's going on?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes, drums are beating right now.
FEYERICK (voice-over): Beating in a chase law enforcement is determined to win.
Deborah Feyerick, CNN, Hempstead, Long Island.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Well, the heat's on, the power's out, and hundreds of Chicago residents are being evacuated to cooler spots. Many of them elderly, living in high-rise buildings on the city's south side. The power went out last night and isn't expected back on until mid- afternoon.
And today the East is fleeing the heat. Temperatures soaring to around 100 degrees in countless cities. Many of them have opened cooling centers and waived the fees for state parks and beaches. With the high humidity, it's downright miserable up and down the East Coast. It's still that way in the Plains, going on three weeks in some places.
(WEATHER REPORT)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: It's older than its target audience, but it's still working to stay hip. Want your MTV? We've got it right here on LIVE FROM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: A quarter century of cool as MTV hits 25. We can't help but have a giant, collective flashback. Still, the channel that has revolutionized pop culture isn't ready for a hip replacement.
CNN's Brooke Anderson has more on how MTV continues to hone its edge.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROOKE ANDERSON, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The channel that told us that video killed the radio star.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Boxers or briefs?
ANDERSON: That brought politics back to the campuses, and gave us reality TV before reality TV was everywhere.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And start getting real.
ANDERSON: The rebellious music channel that many of us grew up with turns 25 today.
JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE, SINGER: MTV was birthed in '81, right?
BEYONCE KNOWLES, SINGER: It was.
TIMBERLAKE: And so was I. Coincidence? I think not.
ANDERSON: Not that it's ready to grow up.
BRIAN GRADEN, HEAD OF PROGRAMMING, MTV: I think we, as a culture, we never want to grow up, and so the fact that we're turning 25, maybe that's all the older than we want to be; maybe that's part of it.
ANDERSON: Older, and facing more competition to stay in the center of pop culture.
TOM LOWRY, BUSINESS WEEK WRITER: Basically, when they started out, they were competing against, you know, other TV channels or maybe the radio. Today, you know, they're competing against the person that has their own kind of Web site and can create something that's unique and fun and catches a lot buzz on the Internet, you know, sites like MySpace and YouTube that basically pop up overnight and have these huge communities.
ANDERSON: Now that cable is old school, the battle for young viewers has moved onto the Web and into your cell phones.
GRADEN: It's different for every platform. And what's working on MTV the channel is very different than what works on MTV Overdrive or on a telephone.
ANDERSON: And while Graden admits that keeping up with new forms of technology and entertainment will be challenging, he thinks there will be some constants.
GRADEN: The only thing that I think will be constant is that "The Real World" will still be in its 27th season and Madonna will still be having top 10 hits.
ANDERSON: Brooke Anderson, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Time now to check in with CNN's Wolf Blitzer standing by in "THE SITUATION ROOM" to tell us what's coming up at the top of the hour. MTV fan, Wolf?
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Love MTV, but love CNN even more. Thanks, Kyra, very much. Thousands of Israeli ground forces moving deeper into Lebanon, and Israel's air war about to start again. We're taking you to the frontlines and beyond.
Plus Fidel Castro -- speculation and rumors flying after the dictator gives up power for the first time in 47 years. Is this the beginning of the end?
Also dancing before he's dead, Miami Cubans taking to the streets to celebrate Castro's decline.
And Mel Gibson apologizes for his anti-Semitic rant. Is it enough to make his critics forgive? All that, Kyra, coming up right here in "THE SITUATION ROOM."
PHILLIPS: All right, Wolf.
Well, the "Closing Bell" and a wrap of the day's action on Wall Street straight ahead. Susan Lisovicz comes right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, we're starting something here at CNN and we just want you to join in with us, watch and learn how you can become a bigger part of the world's most trusted name in news.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Ever wish you could say I report for CNN? Well, here's how you can join the most trusted name in news. When you have pictures or video of breaking news or cool stories from your part of the world, go to CNN.com and click on I-Report.
There, you will get complete instructions on how to submit your stories to CNN. It's fast and easy, and if we use your pictures or video on air, you can tell your friends I-Report for CNN.
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PHILLIPS: Well, are you happy? You might be happier if you were in Denmark. British scientist Adrian White says that Denmark is the happiest country in the world. He finds happiness is most closely associated with health, followed by wealth and then education. So where are we? Well, the U.S. clocked in at number 23.
He finds that Burundi is the unhappiest country on earth. We're not sure why. We can work on finding out, but White came up with the "World Map of Happiness." The redder, the happier. The social psychologist looked at information from 178 countries and 100 studies.
"Closing Bell" is about to ring on Wall Street. Susan Lisovicz, clap your hands if you are happy there.
(STOCK MARKET REPORT)
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