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Havana Reacts; 'Inside Autism'

Aired August 03, 2006 - 13:32   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, despite questions about Fidel Castro's health and Raul Castro's whereabouts, life in Havana seems to be going on pretty much as usual, at least on the surface.
CNN's Morgan Neill has more on the continuing public support for the Castro regime.

Tell us how it is, Morgan.

MORGAN NEILL, HAVANA, CUBA: Well, Kyra, I'll tell you, the big question here today is, where is Raul? Since taking power three days ago, the 75-year-old longtime defense minister has yet to make a public appearance. We did get some words of his in today's edition of the state-run newspaper Granma, but they were from a speech made in July. And in that speech he said the only legitimate error of the confidence of the Cuban people in their leader Fidel Castro is the communist party.

And of course thing we haven't seen President Fidel Castro either since his announcement on Monday, giving power over temporarily over to his brother. The latest update we had was Tuesday, in which we heard he was in good spirits reportedly, and that his condition was stable.

Now I can give you a sense of what Cubans are seeing in their state-controlled media. Take a look if you will. This is a newspaper called (INAUDIBLE), or "Rebel Youth." And what do you see on the front page? Well, this is a recently graduated class of the ministry of the interior cadets, wishing Fidel a quick recovery, thanking him for the opportunity to become professionals.

So, Kyra, no update on President Fidel Castro's condition, and no public appearances yet from either he or his brother, Raul Castro.

PHILLIPS: All right, Morgan Neill, we'll keep talking throughout the next couple of hours. Thanks so much.

(BUSINESS HEADLINES)

PHILLIPS: The higher the temperature outside, the bigger the temptation to lower that thermostat. And then the power bill goes up through the roof. How can we conserve energy and still stay cool? LIVE FROM gets some tips from an energy expert straight ahead.

And back to the Mideast crisis: The leader of Hezbollah making a statement to his followers. The rest of the world is watching. We'll speak to our senior editor of Arab affairs, Octavia Nasr, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: As you know, we've been monitoring Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, and the speech that he's been making. It was airing on all the Arab networks. This was just a short time ago, and Octavia Nasr -- oh, it's still going right now. OK, it's still airing, and we are continuing to monitor it over there at the international desk.

But Octavia Nasr, our Arab affairs editor, you've listened to it up to this point. Is he saying anything of substance to this point?

OCTAVIA NASR, CNN SR. EDITOR ARAB AFFAIRS: No, it's -- so far what he's saying -- basically, he's giving like a field report to his supporters and anyone who wants to listen. He's talking about how strong the -- his militants have been in the face of the Israeli strikes.

He's basically sending out a message that the -- his resistance basically, the Hezbollah resistance in Lebanon, by just the mere fact of resisting, is winning. He said that they surprised, as he called it, the enemy. They surprised everybody, including military analysts. And basically what he's doing, he's sending out a message saying we're still fighting, we're still strong, and nothing has happened.

Mainly, you know, people who are waiting even for this speech were saying that there's nothing new that he can really provide, except, of course, if he says we're going to go beyond Haifa, like he did before, or we're going to use a new weapons or something.

PHILLIPS: He was more extreme last time. He was making more threats last time.

NASR: Yes, and the time before, really. I mean, last time, you remember, Kyra, we talked about it. He looked tired. He looked like -- well, he was reading from notes, which is unusual for him. So here, he's going back to his usual self, basically improvising his speech, and sending out a message that he's still strong and his militants are strong.

PHILLIPS: And at the same time, we're also getting word from the State Department that it hopes for a U.N. resolution to end the Mideast violence by tomorrow. So it's interesting timing that we're hearing from Nasrallah.

NASR: Yes, it's very interesting timing. And, you know, I listened to a lot of analysis because, you know, this tape was announced about an hour ago and a lot of analysts were trying to understand what is going on. And I tell you, very interesting analysis from Lebanese analysts and experts, basically saying that this is a time for Nasrallah to basically accept victory if you will, by saying, look, we resisted, we're strong, we stood in the face of Israel.

And many analysts are saying this is his time to say, OK, now we're going to stand behind the government and allow the Lebanese government to step forth and basically spread its authority over Lebanese territories by sending the army to those southern areas that Israel wants either south -- the Lebanese army to control or the multinational forces to control.

So very interesting to see how this is going to play out. Is he sending out a message saying, OK, we're victorious, we won by just resisting? And is he going to say now we'll let the government take control of business from here on?

PHILLIPS: All right, Octavia. Thanks so much.

And coming up in the next hour, we're going to talk with Israel ambassador to the U.N., Dan Gillerman. We'll get his response to the civilian casualties on the rise in addition to what Nasrallah continues to talk about on the Arab networks right now.

Also, our "LARRY KING LIVE" has already sat down with Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, for a one-on-one interview. He's going to join us in the next hour also, the top of the 2:00 Eastern hour, to tell us about that interview and what she has to say about brokering peace in the Middle East.

Let's get straight to the newsroom. Carol Lin with details now on a developing story -- Carol.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: That's right, Kyra.

There is a standoff in Tampa, Florida, on a major highway, the North Dale Mabry Highway. We're going to show you live pictures right now, but also want to let the audience know that we are putting this on a delay because we don't know how this thing is going to go down.

What you're seeing is an armored vehicle on that interstate, as well as the police presence. And beyond there is a car with a man who allegedly tried to kidnap a woman at a nearby Sweet Tomatoes restaurant. According to witnesses who are talking with CNN affiliates on the scene, they said that the man apparently went up to this woman, tried to force her into this car at this restaurant.

Another eyewitness who told the local affiliate down there, Fox 13 affiliate down there, that there was a shot fired at that restaurant. These are things that are being told to the local stations down there.

So officers on the scene are trying to negotiate with this man using a bullhorn. When he took off from the restaurant -- and they believe that he's the only person in the car right now -- but when he took off from this restaurant there was a police chase. There were shots fired.

It has ended up on this highway right now where it appears they have surrounded that Crown Victoria. It's a dark green Crown Victoria. I haven't seen the suspect as I've been watching the local television feeds come in, so I don't know if he's in custody quite yet. But at one point, this man who was communicating with police had asked for a Spanish translator and was even telling them that they had to tell the media get the helicopters away. He was becoming agitated, and so police had asked the local media to back off to try to calm the situation.

So this is what's happening right now in Tampa, Florida, Kyra, and we'll let you know what happens as soon as something goes down.

PHILLIPS: All right, Carol, thanks so much.

And at the same time, we've been monitoring Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah. He's been making a speech here on the Arab networks. We've been following it through the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation. And apparently he really -- as you heard Octavia Nasr say, wasn't really saying anything new or of threat or -- of a threatening nature.

But now we're being told that he did just talk about attacking Israel's capital. We're reracking that so we can let you listen to it right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HASSAN NASRALLAH, HEZBOLLAH LEADER (through translator): He needs to hear from me today a clear speak. If you hit our capital, we will hit the capital of yours, of your entity. If you hit Beirut, the Islamic resistance will hit Tel Aviv and is able to do that with God's help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: We're going to have reaction, of course, to that with Israeli ambassador to the U.N., Dan Gillerman, coming up in just a few minutes. We're going to take a quick break. The news keeps coming. We'll keep bringing it to you. LIVE FROM right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, air conditioners are humming, fans are spinning, and power companies are being taxed to the max, and no wonder. It's near or at 100 degrees in the plains, across the southeast, and up the Eastern Seaboard. What can we do to keep our energy demands down and our utility bills somewhat reasonable?

Well, author and energy expert Alvin Ubell joins us now from New York with some very creative ideas.

Alvin, good to see you.

ALVIN UBELL, ACCURATE BUILDING INSPECTORS: Good morning. Or it's good afternoon already.

PHILLIPS: That's right. Good afternoon. I tell you what, though, it's hard to remember with this heat. It does something to the memory. You know, where do we even start with regard to saving money? A lot of things that you've written about I never realized could actually make a tremendous difference. Should we start with the A.C. and how to handle that?

UBELL: Well, with the A.C. units, the idea is that you're really trying to extract heat energy that is accumulated in your house and to get rid of it. That's a very difficult thing for a machine to do. And so the idea is, if you can some way reduce the amount of heat that comes into your house, that would really be the major trick. And the way you do that is with insulation.

In other words, I think that if anybody wants to do something that's really spectacular, if they took some insulation and put it into their -- into the attic and everything around the house, this would save more energy than anything else. Why? First of all, you don't have to adjust it. You don't have to fix it. You don't have to do anything to it. It does it by itself. And that's what's so marvelous about insulation.

PHILLIPS: So Alvin, you mean just take insulation and put it maybe in all the open areas, like in the attic or storage areas that you have in your house, closet areas?

UBELL: Yes. In other words, the same thing works for a house during the wintertime. If you -- you wouldn't go out in the street with a threadbare sweater in the middle of the winter. You would freeze. So in the summertime, it's just the reverse. You don't want the heat to go out of the house in the wintertime. In this instance, you don't want the heat to come into the house in the summertime. So insulation does that job. It is the most important thing one can do to save energy. Once you put it in, it lasts forever and you don't have to do anything.

However, the control of the thermostat is a very important thing. And I brought one of these regular thermostats along that you can how it works. And for every degree you raise the temperature, you save 2 percent to 3 percent of your energy bill. That is quite significant. And if you raise it -- if you raise it, say, five degrees, you could save as much as 15 percent of your energy bill.

But you also want to be comfortable. So the idea is to drink a lot of water, make sure that the house is as dark as possible. What's happening is if you burn lights in your house, that puts heat into your house, incandescent bulbs. These incandescent bulbs cost so much money to run and also gives off a lot of heat into the house. If you buy a fluorescent bulb, which costs a little bit more -- but the fluorescent bulb is 20 -- it's almost 35 to 40 percent more efficient than the incandescent bulb and lasts about ten times longer. It is really the way to go.

Lighting has improved so much that you save, with one of these little light bulbs that you see here that you use for a night light -- well, right now they have these LEDs. This is 15 to 17 times more efficient than this unit here. This is really amazing.

PHILLIPS: What about unplugging the television? I had no idea that they had heater coils. UBELL: In a television set -- yes, the television set, when you turn it off, it's not really off. Especially one that uses a cathode ray tube. This -- the cathode ray tube, in the beginning, used to shut it off and you used to have to wait five or -- three or four or five minutes until it warmed up. But now -- people were annoyed with it, so the manufacturers put in a little device in it that when you actually shut it off, it stays on. An cathode ray tube could be at least 200 watts...

PHILLIPS: Wow.

UBELL: That's like a 200-watt bulb. When you turn it off, it's about 35 to 40 watts burning continuously for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, forever. And that's the same thing with a computer, if you have an old cathode ray tube, which could be like almost 150 watts or 200 watts. If you have a flat-screen tube -- the flat-screen -- the new type of flat-screen, that's about, I would say, uses maybe 100 watts while it's running, or maybe down to 75 watts.

So there's another way of making your computers more efficient. The thing is, the -- what they call a light bulb -- what a light bulb really is a resistance heater. And if you can reduce the amount of resistance heaters in your house, you will save a tremendous amount of energy and you'll be cooler in your house.

PHILLIPS: Alvin Ubell, I think I'm just going to have come inspect my house. That's the easiest way to do it. And I bet you're going to get - you're going to get a lot of calls now.

UBELL: Actually I have -- actually, people will have and get a free energy audit that they can use themselves. All they have to do is go onto the computer and download it. All they have to do is dial up -- I mean on their computer at Google maybe, www.accuratebuilding.com. And you can download this energy audit, and I guarantee you can save 10, 15 and maybe 20 percent of your energy bill...

PHILLIPS: I love it.

UBELL: .. and also feel comfortable at the same time.

PHILLIPS: Fantastic idea. Alvin Ubell, thanks so much for the tips today. I've got some shopping to do. Thanks, Alvin.

UBELL: Go forth and save energy.

PHILLIPS: All right.

Well, in about half an hour, New York City's mayor is scheduled to talk about the record-setting energy usage in his city, as well as its power problems. You can catch Mayor Michael Bloomberg's comments right here on CNN during the next hour of LIVE FROM.

Well, raising a child with autism can be an enormous emotional burden. Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now with part four of his special series this week, "Inside Autism." DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It can be incredibly hard on everybody. You know, the family, certainly, is going to have a struggle. When a family hears that their child has autism, you can imagine all the different things that are going through their mind; not just taking care of the child, but taking care of the entire family as well.

Here's one family's struggle.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let's do your hair.

GUPTA (voice-over): Getting a haircut can be traumatic for 4- year-old Sebastian Gomez (ph). You see, Sebastian is autistic, and until recently simply being touched could trigger a tantrum.

CHRISTINE FRY, PRINCETON CHILD DEVELOPMENT INST.: It's really a milestone to come from a child who would throw himself on the floor for a haircut.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Should we sing the "Itsy Bitsy Spider"?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (SINGING): The itsy bitsy spider...

GUPTA: Contrast Sebastian now to him singing the same song a year ago.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (SINGING): Up came the...

GUPTA: The exhaustion and frustration of a child you can't comfort or control is a pain families express in this video from "Autism Speaks."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everything I do is about autism.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I really have to give up my entire life.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Your life slowly is beginning to disintegrate and you can't do anything to sort of keep it together.

GUPTA: For Maria and Alfredo Gomez (ph), living in a new house in Miami, Sebastian's autism diagnosis at 16 months led to another struggle: debt. They were shelling out thousands of dollars for private therapists with no insurance coverage.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I could give you a list of horrible things that could happen to us which would be covered by insurance, that would cover his occupational therapy, it would cover his speech therapy. If it's a developmental issue it's not covered.

GUPTA: Only eight states mandate health insurance coverage for autism. And with therapies costing around $70,000 a year, autism can break the bank.

Another complication, educational resources vary greatly from state to state.

DR. FRED VOLKMAR, YALE CHILD STUDY CENTER: It is a bit of a roll of the dice in terms of where you're at and what happens to be available.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (SINGING): ... T, U, V, W, X...

GUPTA: Like many families with autistic children, the Gomezes were forced to move to get better care. Then enrolled Sebastian at the Princeton Child Development Institute in New Jersey, where tuition is paid for by the state. Still, with Alfredo commuting from Miami, the distance tests the couples resolve and their marriage.

The reality, advocacy groups say the divorce rates in autism families is 80 percent.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's very difficult not to blame each other, not to resent things. The move, the changing our lives, the living in different states, it's a huge gamble. I will never forget the first time Sebastian just got up and gave me a kiss. I froze, because never did I expect such a thing ever to happen.

GUPTA: Small miracles, what the sacrifice and struggle of raising an autistic child is all about.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: Really, just a remarkable family they are as well. And many parents of children with autism also worry about what's going to happen when their kids grow up and the parents are gone. Who's going to take care of the children then? Another thing to worry about. But you get a sense of how much is going on here: the debt, the divorce rate, and just trying to get your child the best possible intervention that's there.

PHILLIPS: And so parents say -- what do they need the most?

GUPTA: Well, you know, it's a good question. But I think it does come down to money in so many different ways. You talk about the fact that you have so much expense just in terms of taking care your child, and then, you know, in this particular case, they had to commute from one state to another so that they can try and get their child good care, but still keep their jobs.

There is something called the Combat Autism Act, as well, that's going to be before the U.S. Senate, actually talking specifically about trying to increase funding across the nation, Kyra. So, you know, there's eight states now that provide that sort of health care insurance. What about all the rest of the states? Could you provide some sort of insurance coverage for kids to get treatment?

PHILLIPS: Well, it's a great series. Thanks, Sanjay.

GUPTA: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Well, straight ahead, we're going to be talking about the Middle East crisis. The leader of Hezbollah is speaking out in a televised appearance. I'm going to speak to the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, in the next hour of LIVE FROM.

Plus, Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld in the hot seat on the Hill. Hear what he had to say about the war in Iraq, and the words "civil war."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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