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Crews May Soon Free Trapped Worker in Phoenix; Mission of Mercy; Joe Lieberman Web Site Has Been Hacked

Aired August 08, 2006 - 13:30   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's go straight to the newsroom. Betty Nguyen with details on another developing story -- Betty.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: We've been following this one, Kyra, since early this morning. A construction worker in Phoenix basically was trying to pull down a wall, and that wall came tumbling down on him and his heavy equipment. In fact, he was working a front-end loader at the time. Thousands of pounds of concrete on top of the man. He does have injuries. But here's the good news, crews are getting close to freeing him.

And we have on the phone Mike Sandulak with the Phoenix Fire Department.

Mike, we spoke with you earlier. What's the condition right now on the status of this rescue?

MIKE SANDULAK, PHOENIX, ARIZ., FIRE DEPT.: Yes, Betty, the Phoenix Fire Department has been working vigilantly for almost six hours now to try to get him out. The last report I heard from command and the people actually with him, that they're about 10 minutes out from getting him out. We have a trauma nurse on the scene with doctors. Our paramedics and our rescue are standing by. We have family with him. They're going to take him to the hospital.

Right now, he's still stable. Once we get that weight off his leg legs, then we'll get him propped and transported to the closest medical facility.

NGUYEN: You mention weight off of his legs -- where are his injuries?

SANDULAK: injuries he was driving a huge, like a (INAUDIBLE) front- end loader piece of equipment, and the roof (INAUDIBLE), heavy construction, heavy concrete, rebarb, collapsed on top of him. So he was trapped from the lower leg to the waist down. He was trapped underneath the debris.

And we're looking at live pictures right now of the rescue that's taking place. And obviously, just the amount of concrete on top of him has caused so much time in trying to get to him. What's been the key in these last 10 minutes, as we wait, of getting the concrete off of him. What have we brought in?

SANDULAK: Well, the key is it wasn't necessarily a bunch of debris on top of him that we can get a bunch of manpower and firefighter to get that stuff off of him. The key was the weight, the huge pieces of concrete, that we had to have cutting torches, saws, some extrication equipment, the jaws of life, equipment like that, air bags and stuff, to try to cut that away from him, cut all that rebarb with torches, to get that huge piece of debris and all of that weight around him so we could get a work condition to him out of the cab.

NGUYEN: Well, Mike, we are watching. We're going to stay with this and bring our viewers the details as they happen. You mentioned about 10 minutes now, we're going to see this man, a 28-year-old, being pulled from this debris here after being trapped for some six hours.

Mike, we thank you for your time, and we do want to speak with you as we see them pull him out.

In the meantime, Kyra, rescue operations still very much under way as time has been really of the essence. Six hours now that he's been trapped. But the good news is that he's conscious and he's been talking, but he does have some major injuries.

PHILLIPS: All right, Betty, thanks.

Well, aid workers might need a little help from -- well, help themselves in Lebanon rather. They're under fire, and overworked and scrambling to bring relief any way they can. So how bad is it? We're going to show you later this hour on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Plenty of attacks, very little aid. That's what people in the Lebanese port city of Tyre have been facing for the past four weeks, and they fear the worst is yet to come.

Our Karl Penhaul is there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Smoke rises as Israeli warplanes and artillery guns pound suspected Hezbollah positions south of Tyre. Airplane gun camera video released by the Israeli military shows explosions hitting targets. But that's not enough to stop Hezbollah firing more Katyusha rockets off to Israel.

Humanitarian aid workers say they fear a two-day Israeli bombardment six miles south of Tyre may be the prelude to a ground attack on the port city.

(on camera): A Lebanese military intelligence officer has told me that Israeli ground troops did reach the outskirts of a Lebanese village on high ground just south of here, but he says they were repelled by Hezbollah fighters.

(voice over): And to the north, bridges along the highway to Beirut have been bombed, destroying the only route in for humanitarian supplies. ROLAND HUGUENIN, RED CROSS: The roads from Tyre to Saidar (ph) has been damaged by bombing last night. So Tyre is beginning to look like a city under siege.

PENHAUL: No way out either for aide workers to help the thousands of civilians thought to be stranded in outlying villages.

HUGUENIN: And now for two or three days we are just getting red lights on our security clearances. We aren't able to move out of Tyre.

PENHAUL: In the Old Quarter, the Doctors Without Borders aid group is preparing in case there is an all-out attack on central Tyre. "What we fear over the next few days is that Tyre is a high-stake target and this could be the theater of a larger military operation," he says.

The deck (ph) and his team are rushing to refit this operating theater in Bashur (ph) hospital. It has not been used for the last year.

He says a potential Israeli assault could split Tyre in two, cutting off this hospital in the west of the city from three others in the east.

"We're preparing for the worst in the event the fighting spreads into downtown Tyre, so we can tend to the wounded from street battles," he says.

With the bridge on the approach to Tyre blown up, Doctors Without Borders volunteers had no choice but to wade into the Litani River Monday. They say they desperately need these boxes of medical supplies for their clinic.

As they stepped up the humanitarian effort, Israel was ratcheting up the war effort. Planes flattened six apartment blocks in the north of Tyre with bombs and missiles, leaving smoking ruins. Israeli commandos stormed these buildings before dawn Saturday, killing a handful of Hezbollah commandos. By late Monday, shells were exploding on the city outskirts, but no sign yet of Israeli ground troops at Tyre's gates.

Karl Penhaul, CNN, Tyre, South Lebanon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Our reporters in Tyre can't join us live at the moment, because the once-thriving port city is now a virtual ghost town. People have nowhere to go and no way to get there. That includes our crew, who along with many others, are short on gas and other supplies. All the while, the threat of more attacks is looming. Israel has dropped leaflets over Tyre and surrounding areas, warning people to stay off the roads or risk being bombed.

Now, how many are affected by the fighting in Lebanon? The numbers from the Lebanese government are alarming. A fourth of Lebanon's population, more than 900,000 people, have fled their homes. Of those, almost 700,000 are still in Lebanon. More than 200,000 have gone to neighboring countries. Meantime, aid workers have scrambling to bring in relief and sometimes getting blocked at every turn.

Cassandra Nelson is with Mercy Corps. She joins me once again from Beirut. Cassandra, I like how we're talking on a weekly basis, just to stay in touch with where you're going and who you're able to get to. What was the trip yesterday and how would you compare it to last week?

CASSANDRA NELSON, MERCY CORPS: Well, the trip yesterday, in the end it turned out to be a success, but it was really one that was just riddled with challenge after challenge. Mercy Corps was organized and ready to go out the door at 7:00 a.m. yesterday to Nabatiyeh.

We actually received a call just as we were about to depart from contacts we had in Nabatiyeh, residents of the town that basically informed us that the city had been under attack and had been shelled since about 3:00 a.m. that morning. And they said it simply was not safe and that we should not try to deliver aid yesterday.

So at that point, we were sitting there, literally, you know, on the streets of Beirut with a convoy of trucks filled with 20,000 cans of food and ready-to-eat meals, ready to go to Nabatiyeh. So we quickly readjusted our plan to go down to Sidon, which is a much closer area. It's on the coast.

And we just had heard that they needed aid as well and since we were all loaded up and ready to go, we thought we should at least take advantage of the opportunity. So we headed out, and ...

PHILLIPS: No, go ahead. I just wanted you to describe more about Sidon.

NELSON: Well, we were heading out to Sidon, and I guess the first challenge we ran into was that one of our trucks, our lorries, that was filled with about 7,000 cans of food, had been filled with bad diesel. There's a horrible fuel shortage in the city right now, and it's been very hard to get diesel. We finally got it, and it turned out that one of them had watered down diesel. So, unfortunately, we had to send that truck back.

We finally got to Sidon after about a five-hour trip. And when we got there, we immediately went into a school that had about 1,000 people that were seeking refuge there. Most of the people actually were from Tyre. They were people that had come up in the last week or so because of the bombing, had fled, and were living there. They'd received very little aid so far.

There are thousands and thousands of displaced people who have ended up in Sidon, and although aid is going into the city, it is simply a massive number of people that need assistance. So there was lines and lines of people trying to get to the aid we had.

It was a good distribution. But, again, you know, at the end of the day, we meant to go to Nabatiyeh, and were obviously detoured along the way because of the ongoing shelling there.

PHILLIPS: Now, you were saying that some of the gas in one of your trucks was watered down diesel. Are you seeing a problem with price gouging and supplies being sold that aren't the real deal?

NELSON: Definitely. I mean, the fuel is just the starter. The prices almost doubled, you know, for the fuel, and then when you get it there, they're definitely price gouging you, they're giving you watered down fuel. In some cases, we're getting shipments that they say is 20,000 liters and it turns out it's 15,000 after we check on our stocks. So there's a huge problem with the fuel.

On the food, the prices have gone up as well. We're not feeling it as much there as we are in the fuel, though. That is really I think the crisis point right now in Beirut and throughout Lebanon.

PHILLIPS: Cassandra Nelson with Mercy Corps, we'll keep checking in with you. It amazes us that you get into these area even the way that you do. Cassandra, thank you.

Will it be the summer of their discontent? Well, Democrats vote in two major races today and what once looked like sure victories for two well-known incumbents could be anything but. And now the Lieberman camp points fingers over a Web site problem. An update on that developing story, straight ahead on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Let's go straight to the newsroom, again. Betty Nguyen working details on a developing story -- Betty.

NGUYEN: Yes, this is an interesting one, to say the least, Kyra. OK. It is primary day, people are headed to the polls, and the race between Ned Lamont and Joe Lieberman -- well, Joe Lieberman says his Web site has been hacked into and basically its been shut down and he blames his challenger, basically saying that voters cannot go to our Web site. They cannot access our information, and that this is a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise the voters.

We have our correspondent Mary Snow on the ground, following this story. She's going to bring us up to speed with what we know so far. Mary, what have you been able to determine? I know the fingers are pointing at Lamont. What's Lamont saying?

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Betty, the Lamont campaign, actually, got in touch with CNN just a short time ago. It's saying "there has been no attack or effort by us." This is according to a spokesman for the campaign, saying the campaign has "denounced and it condemned this sort of thing," and they're urging whoever did it to stop.

Now this comes after the Lieberman campaign accused Lamont's campaign of dirty, political tricks, believing that it had something to do with disabling the e-mail and the Lieberman Web site for the past 24 hours. Lieberman's camp took it a step further today, saying they have been in contact with the U.S. attorney, Connecticut state attorney, and the attorney general to investigate.

This, of course, in the backdrop of such a dramatic race here in Connecticut, between these two Democrats. This is primary day, of course, and Joseph Lieberman, who has been a three-term senator, really in the fight for his political life here in Connecticut, because his opponent has challenged him on his positions on the Iraq war. Mainly, that's what this race has been about.

So so far, the Lieberman camp is saying it has nothing to do with this, these allegations of hacking. And that it is urging whoever is behind it to stop. Just the latest in a very heated campaign -- Betty.

NGUYEN: No doubt. And we've been checking the Web site. I don't know if you if you can see it behind me, but when you pull it up right here, it shows, "This account is under construction, please check back soon."

But here's an interesting note, Kyra. If you go to dailycoast.com, it will show -- just pulled a little image from an earlier attempt to access this Web site. And if you look very closely -- I can read it to you -- it says, "This account has been suspended." At the bottom of it, in very small print, it says, "Please contact the billing support department as soon as possible."

Now, according to this Web site, this blog, they say that an account is only suspended for two reasons. One, there was illegal conduct, which they say probably didn't happen here. But two, a lack of payment. So they're kind of pointing fingers at the Lieberman camp, saying you didn't pay your bill. Now, we don't know if that's true or not. But there are a lot of fingers pointing in many different directions. And we'll try to get to the bottom of it for you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Thanks, Betty.

Well, here in Georgia, some say that Congressman Cynthia McKinney is cruising for a major bruising in the Democratic runoff. CNN's Rusty Dornin is watching how the slap heard around the country is playing in Georgia's fourth district.

A lot of talk about this race, Rusty.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A lot of talk about this race. And of course, a lot of action now at the polls. We're sort of in the midday doldrums, you might say. Also a passing thunderstorm. But it's been slow and steady here at the Ray of Hope Church in Decatur, Georgia. Early this morning, Cynthia McKinney's main opponent, Hank Johnson, was here, casting his vote. And he did tell us he thinks it's going to be a very close race.

Meantime, across town, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was out on the streets, campaigning hard for her vote. This is something that she's battling for in her political career. She's been in -- in Congress since 1992. She lost her seat once. This is the second time around that voters have expressed some displeasure about her flamboyant behavior.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REP. CYNTHIA MCKINNEY (D), GEORGIA: I was not elected to remain silent.

DORNIN (voice-over): Her campaign slogan claims she's President Bush's worst nightmare, but Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney is haunted by her own demons. They stem from an incident earlier this year in which she hit a Capitol Hill policeman who had stopped her to check her credentials.

MCKINNEY: The fact of the matter is I was never charged with anything.

DORNIN: Known as defiant and confrontational, the Georgia democrat sparred with AMERICAN MORNING's Soledad O'Brien a few weeks later.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: With all due respect, Congresswoman, forgive me for interrupting you, but I believe we can't have this...

MCKINNEY: You shouldn't interrupt me, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Well, until you answer my question I'm not sure we can move on.

DORNIN: Later, she said she was sorry for what happened at the Capitol.

MCKINNEY: And I apologize.

DORNIN: But she's still defending herself.

MCKINNEY: I have already apologized for that incident even happening.

DORNIN: McKinney's opponent in the democratic runoff, Hank Johnson, has taken advantage of her notoriety and admits he's running on the ABC ticket, anyone but Cynthia.

(on camera): Do you think people are just fed up with what happened?

HANK JOHNSON, CANDIDATE IN 4TH DISTRICT RUNOFF: Well I think it's just one more controversy that could have been avoided, and it was an embarrassment to the people of the fourth district.

DORNIN (voice-over): McKinney initially claimed her clash at the Capitol happened because she is African-American.

ALAN ABRAMOWITZ, EMORY UNIVERSITY: Any problem that she has, any criticism that's made of her, she immediately tries to turn into a racial issue.

DORNIN: A successful strategy for the most part in a district that's 60 percent African-American.

McKinney first won a congressional seat in 1992. But in 2002 she outraged voters when she claimed President Bush might have known in advance about the attacks of September 11th. She was defeated for re- election that year. She won her seat back in 2004. This time around, she's trailing in the polls, battling a candidate who seems to be her opposite.

ABRAMOWITZ: He's campaigning on a promise of less politics, less division, less polarization, and let's work together here. And I think that is something that appeals to a lot of voters in the district, irrespective of party or ideology.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN: But many of the voters that we talked to today said they like the fact that Cynthia McKinney is outspoken and blunt. They know exactly where she stands, and they like that fact. Meantime, Hank Johnson, according to a conservative Web site, is showing a 13 percent lead over McKinney -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: So what do you think about the relationship between McKinney and the media? Is she sticking to interviews? Is she canceling at the last minute? It seems like it's kind of a volatile relationship.

DORNIN: Yes, she feels very much maligned by the mainstream media, Kyra. And she is very evasive when it comes to interviews. We had asked six times for an interview, and her office turned us down each time. And then they agreed to an interview, only to have our crew arrive and we were told there was never such interview agreed to. So I've also spoken with many newspaper reporters who are frustrated as they follow her around. She just doesn't want to sit down by herself and do a long interview with a member of the media.

PHILLIPS: All right, Rusty Dornin, we'll stay on top of the race, that's for sure.

Well,we're also monitoring the rescue effort under way to save a trapped worker on this construction site in Phoenix. The news keeps coming, we'll keep bringing it to you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: More on this developing story. Live pictures coming to us from our affiliate KTVK out of Phoenix. We could be moments away from a rescue on the scene of this construction accident. You can see them signaling, all the workers there, along the edge of a tense moment. A worker who was operating a front end loader is buried under the debris, right there behind that collapsed wall. And as soon as there's a rescue, we start to see signs of life. Hopefully, we're going to take you there live.

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