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Britain Terror Charges; U.N. Mideast Mission; Karr: What's Next?

Aired August 24, 2006 - 13:59   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Getting word now that one more suspect has been charged in that U.K. terror plot.
We want to get straight to our Dan Rivers in London with the details -- Dan.

DAN RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we just heard within the last few minutes, as you say, that another person has now been charged in connection with this alleged terrorist plot. His name is Umir Hussein (ph). He's 34 years old. We understand he's the brother of one of the other men who's already been charged with more serious charges.

This man has been charged with material assistance of this terrorist plot and of withholding information. So not as serious charges as some of the other 10 men and one woman who have already been charged but, nevertheless, he has now been formally charged under the Terrorism Act this evening.

His solicitor came out within the last few minutes, Tim Rossin (ph), and made a number of complaints about the way the police have been dealing with his client. In particular, complaining about the number of strip searches he'd been subjected to at the police station. He complained about what he said was suspicion of possible illegal monitoring of some of the private meetings he'd had with his client, and saying that his client had been subjected to 16, 17 hours of questioning on many of the days that he's been held here for the last two weeks, and was asking questions about how possibly he could be accused of withholding information when, in the past, the police have praise praised his client for being very helpful and for answering all of their questions.

But nevertheless, that now means that we have 12 people charged in total in connection with this plot. They are still holding eight other people here in custody, and they have released now a total of five people.

PHILLIPS: Dan Rivers, thanks so much.

I want to get straight to President Jacques Chirac. The French president is talking about how many troops that he's willing to commit to a peacekeeping force in Lebanon.

Let's listen in.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS) JACQUES CHIRAC, FRENCH PRESIDENT (through translator): ... also is to achieve full sovereignty on its own territory. This resolution also decided to strengthen UNIFIL in order to control the cessation of hostilities and to support the deployments of the Lebanese army in the south of the country as the Israeli army retires.

And because of the urgency of the matter and to encourage this movement, I decided last week initially to double the number of our contingents within UNIFIL. And furthermore, the 1,700 defense soldiers of the air and naval units are naturally maintained. And we had to respond to the emergency. But also, we had to create the conditions for an efficient and safe operation.

It was my responsibility to obtain a number of guarantees from the parties to the conflicts, as from the United Nations. From Lebanon and Israel, we obtained the assurance that the forces in question would be able to fulfill their mission on the ground.

I also asked the secretary-general of the U.N. to ensure that the force would be in a position to be as safe as possible, and we obtained the necessary clarifications from the U.N. on the chain of command, which needs to be simple, coherent and reactive, and the rules of engagement that must guarantee the freedom of movement...

PHILLIPS: French president Jacques Chirac addressing his nation, talking about a substantial increase in French troops for a revamped U.N. force in Lebanon. France had led calls for a pretty robust international force to police the sort of shaky cease-fire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah guerrillas but was heavily criticized for sending only additional 200 soldiers to Lebanon to bolster that existing U.N. force. Now the president coming forward, saying once again he will increase those forces.

You can continue to listen to this live on cnn.com/pipeline if you want to listen to the rest of his statement.

Meanwhile, CNN Senior U.N. Correspondent Richard Roth joins me with more -- Richard.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN SR. U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kyra, it appears that the French president is ready to announce a larger amount of soldiers to go to southern Lebanon as part of the expanded United Nations force there. The French president has been very hesitant to commit, even though France, along with the U.S., co-wrote the Security Council resolution which provides the political mandate for the troops to go to southern Lebanon.

There was definitely some type of disagreement, argument, disconnect between the foreign ministry side and the defense ministry in France. France also has bitter memories of prior experiences in Lebanon, losing dozens of soldiers, along with hundreds of American troops, in the early '80s in bombings and Beirut.

The United Nations is eager to get troops. There's a big meeting in Brussels tomorrow, where Kofi Annan will be there, and he hopes to hear personally of a larger amount of contributions from France and the others, as a spokesman for the U.N. discussed earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANE DUJARRIC, U.N. SPOKESMAN: We're still in a state of -- of a process, of a lot of discussions at many different levels form the secretary-general on down, the military, political level. We're very much looking forward to the meeting in Brussels tomorrow, with some commitments from -- from our European friends. And as I said, we're also talking to a number of non-European nations. But we remain confident that we'll be able to get that bulkhead force in there sooner rather than later.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: I mean, they want to get up to 15,000 total. Though all of them may not be fighting soldiers, they do need a lot of support personnel, two for every one fighting soldier, is the way it's been described.

The French president is speaking now, and he's promising more troops to go to southern Lebanon. Finland, Belgium, and many other European country have been looking to France to provide more.

The Italians have said they are willing to, in effect, being the lead nation providing thousands. President Bush spoke earlier today with Prime Minister Prodi and also German Chancellor Merkel. The French president, Chirac, announcing 2,000 more French troops in these remarks now -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Richard Roth, thanks so much.

Well, moving on to John Karr finally setting foot in Boulder, Colorado, when is it going to happen and will it mean the realization of a creepy dream or the return of an actual killer? Investigators there are still keeping their lips sealed about any connection between Karr and JonBenet Ramsey, but have they known about him for longer than they let on?

CNN's Ed Lavandera has the latest now from Boulder -- Ed.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra.

Well, we've gotten some new information this morning that I think kind of helps puts things in perspective as to what investigators here in Boulder has been dealing with in the last week.

We've talked a lot about this journalism professor at the University of Colorado who had been e-mailing with John Karr for the last four years. However, what might have -- what might have gotten lost in a lot of that is that this professor never knew his full name. And in a court filing that the district attorney's office has made in response to various news media organizations trying to get the arrest warrant affidavit unsealed, the D.A. making their argument for why that should remain sealed, saying that they only knew John Karr's identity, his full identity, five days before he was arrested. So it was August 11th when they found out exactly who they were talking about and who they were looking for. So, even though this journalism professor had been corresponding with this person for the last four years, that things had kind of turned eerie in those e-mails and that's why that person turned him over, authorities here in Boulder saying that they didn't fully know, they didn't know exactly who they were look for until five days before John Karr was arrested in Thailand.

So you can understand why investigators have been scrambling and, we understand, have been working around the clock, trying to piece together all the different pieces of evidence and all the different information that has been flowing into them in the last week -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right.

Ed Lavandera, out of Boulder.

Appreciate it.

At least three more car bombings in Baghdad today. Four Iraqis killed, 18 wounded. Outside the city, another car bomb killed three Iraqi soldiers. Two U.S. soldiers were killed today in separate attacks around Baghdad. One in a roadside bombing, the other when his patrol came under fire.

In hopes of easing the tensions, Iraqis released 55 more detainees today. Some had spent almost two years in prison without ever being charged.

Gut-wrenching violence is an everyday occurrence, but lost amid the casualties in the fight for Iraq is the suffering of Iraqis who are still in one piece but who have left everything behind just to survive.

CNN's Michael Holmes has an exclusive look at the forgotten Iraqis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): On a dusty scrap of dirt in an outer suburb of Baghdad, a temporary home is fast becoming a permanent one for hundreds of Iraqis.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I used to have a house in Haswa (ph) and have a good life. And now I live like in this place like animals live in a cage.

HOLMES: They are Iraq's internally displaced refugees in their own country, forced to flee their homes and old lives by increasingly deadly sectarian violence.

Around the country there are 19 camps like this one, Chirkuk (ph). Some contain Sunnis forced to flee Shia neighborhoods. Some, this one included, contains Shias forced to escape death threats and killings in Sunni neighborhoods. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): They forced us to leave our house. They told us to leave the house or "We will kill you." I moved to where my family lives, but they threatened us there, too.

HOLMES (on camera): The government here estimates nearly a quarter of a million Iraqis live in camps like Chirkuk (ph), all of them displaced since February of this year. And the number grows every day.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We used to live in Al Amariyah, but then we decided to leave because it became unsafe for us. And because of the threats we decided to escape.

HOLMES: Here in Chirkuk (ph), 800 people live in an area about the size of two soccer fields. Tents still dominate the dusty landscape, but showcasing the pessimism of ever moving home, many make their own cement blocks and begin to build something more permanent.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We live such a miserable life here. Now we are building a small house. One day we eat and the next day we have nothing to eat.

HOLMES: Karim al-Jasim (ph) helps build that house, collecting dirt and stones to mix with spartan supplies of low-quality cement. Everyone pitches in. There are few tools here. Cement often mixed by hand.

Nearby, a man scales an electricity pole, stealing electricity for his family. A dangerous job by an unqualified but desperate man.

Local aid agencies try to help out, building community toilets, providing water, but even that even sometimes runs out.

Under a baking summer sun, some children pitch in. Others amuse themselves as best they can. No school for these kids, although the government says it is working on that.

For now, a game of marbles. Others just wander, avoiding the pools of sewage. Some simply sit and stare ahead into an uncertain future.

Michael Holmes, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Carol Lin in the newsroom.

What are you working on for us?

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Kyra, we've been watching this dramatic rescue in lower Manhattan up in New York City. A construction worker fell into a hole. This hole was three stories deep.

You're looking at the scene. These pictures just in from our affiliate, WABC, which is also reporting that this is at the intersection of White Hall (ph) and State streets.

It happened at about 1:30 this afternoon. He was able to be pulled from that hole, and he is now being rushed to a local hospital.

We don't know what his injuries are, how severe they may be. This construction site near the Staten Island Ferry terminal.

There you can see that he's strapped into one of the rescue boards to keep him mobilized so that they can assess the severity of his injuries. But, boy, three stories deep, Kyra. That's about 30 feet and something to be taken very seriously there.

PHILLIPS: All right. We'll follow the live pictures via our affiliate, WABC.

Glad you're monitoring it for us, Carol. Thanks so much.

Meanwhile, straight ahead, she's fought cancer, and last night singer Sheryl Crow talked with Larry about things that she says we should avoid to stay healthy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY KING, HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE": Never heard of it.

CROW: It's just bad in general to heat in a microwave in plastic, to freeze in plastic. It emits carcinogenic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Well, is that fact or fiction? A cancer doctor joins us coming up after the break to talk about whether you should take Sheryl's advice or not.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, more than two million women in the United States today have been treated for breast cancer. Among them, singer Sheryl Crow.

She talked about it last night on "LARRY KING LIVE" and shared some advice about avoiding potential cancer causers (ph).

Should you follow her advice?

Well, we asked Dr. Otis Brawley, an oncologist with Emory University's Winship Cancer Institute to join us once again. He's sort of our resident expert on all things cancer.

Good to see you again.

Let's just get to parts of this interview and have a discussion, because it really raised a lot of issues in our morning meeting. And we thought, let's bring Otis back and get his opinion.

So, let's look at this first clip about what Sheryl Crow says about water bottles.

DR. OTIS BRAWLEY, MEDICAL ONCOLOGIST: OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CROW: And just little, small things which I feel compelled to educate people about, like not drinking out of a water bottle that's been in your car. If it gets hot, it's emitting byproducts that act as cancer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: I can't tell you how many times I have left my water bottle in the car and had it a day later. Is what she's saying, true?

BRAWLEY: Well, you know, there have been these rumors, some of them spread by the Internet, that Bisphenol-A, which is found not in water bottle plastic, but in reusable plastics, like in baby bottles, things that we sterilize or things that we heat in the microwave, bisphenols have been found to cause cancer in laboratory animals.

Now, they are also found in those plastics. The thing that is true, however, is nobody's looked -- and a number of governments have looked, the European Union, the Japanese government, and the United States, the toxicology program for the United States, they've looked to see if these compounds come out of the plastic, into the food, and are consumed. They haven't been able to find that.

So, this is a rumor of the scientific evidence to show that it actually does cause harm. It simply is not there right now. It's something a lot of people are looking at, however.

PHILLIPS: And I want to point out, too, the FDA said this: "Based on all the evidence available at this time, the FDA sees no reason to change its long-held position that current uses of BPA are safe and products made from BPA are approved for use in food packaging.

So, it could still be a risk, may not be a risk. But something has turned up in laboratory rats.

But you a as doctor wouldn't say, "Kyra, don't worry about that bottled water," or would you say -- you would say, "Don't worry about the bottled water that's been in your car for a few days"?

BRAWLEY: I would definitely say do not worry about the bottled water that's been in your car for a few days. There are a number of things that cause health -- cause health issues that are much higher worry than that.

PHILLIPS: All right. Let's get to another part of the interview with Sheryl Crow and Larry King. She talks about plastic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Never heard of it. CROW: It's just bad in general to heat in a microwave in plastic, to freeze in plastic. It emits carcinogenics.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Heat and plastic. And freeze in plastic.

BRAWLEY: Yes.

PHILLIPS: Bad?

BRAWLEY: Yes. Again, the scientific evidence -- and this has been looked at by a number of different organizations, a number of different universities, where actually the incentive is to find something bad and get it out there and make one's reputation by saying it's bad. Nobody's actually done that, and people have looked very hard.

PHILLIPS: All right. This one really grabbed our attention, cooking with olive oil, actually cooking olive oil at a very high heat. Let's hear what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CROW: And cooking in olive oil at a high heat. If it's -- if it's burning, it's carcinogenic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: I can't tell you how many of us cook at high heat with olive oil. Is that true?

BRAWLEY: Yes. Now, the first thing is, we actually have several epidemiologic studies that actually correlate the use of olive oil in cooking, the so-called Mediterranean diet, with being a very healthful thing.

It decreases the risk of heart disease. There are some studies that have been done. The so-called Physicians Health Study actually correlated a lower risk of prostate cancer in people who have cooked tomato products, especially tomato products cooked with olive oil.

So cooking with olive oil is a good thing.

Now, where there is truth, it's the burning of food. We've known for a long time, grilling food, be it with butter, with vegetable oil, with olive oil, grilling of food, broiling of food, anything that brings meat to high temperatures -- and when I say meat, I also mean fish, chicken and fish, bring them to high temperatures for long periods of time, actually creates what's called a heterocyclic amine.

Now heterocyclic amines actually do cause cancer. If someone eats broiled or grilled food every day for their life, they are likely increasing their risk of colon cancer, especially, by a small amount, maybe breast and prostate cancer. Again, there are a lot of other things out there that we need to be concerned about before we start saying never grill food.

PHILLIPS: Well, but you're saying that it does involve some risk, so what's the best way to cook meat or chicken or fish? I mean, is baking the way to go? I mean, obviously, you can't bake a steak.

BRAWLEY: Right.

PHILLIPS: But, you know -- I mean, people might here this and, uh-oh, get a little nervous now about grilling and broiling.

BRAWLEY: Well, interesting, frying foods actually has less heterocyclic amines than does grilling or broiling. Baking has less than frying. One could say that baked food is better than grilled or broiled food, yes. One can also say if one uses the grill, don't cook it to extreme.

Now, one doesn't want to say undercook it either, because then there are infectious disease issues to worry about, but overcooking and blackening is what's really to be avoided when one grills or broils.

PHILLIPS: So having my blackened fish in New Orleans every day is not a good thing?

BRAWLEY: I wouldn't do it every day.

PHILLIPS: I'm so disappointed.

All right. Dr. Otis Brawley, it's great. Appreciate the insight.

You helped us lay it all out, because all those things really caught our attention. We appreciate your insight.

BRAWLEY: My pleasure.

PHILLIPS: Thank you.

Well, is your laptop safe? We're talking about all kinds of things today, is it safe for you or not. Well, we've gotten news of another computer battery recall.

Susan Lisovicz has the latest on how the stock market is reacting to the news.

More LIVE FROM right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Let's get straight to the newsroom. Carol Lin working a developing story for us -- Kelly -- or Carol -- I apologize.

LIN: You can call me whatever you want, Kyra, but I've still got a story for you.

PHILLIPS: I'm calling you my friend. OK. LIN: Yes, you are my friend.

PHILLIPS: Tell me the story.

LIN: Rochester, New York, Kyra, an 89-year-old man in a small SUV plowed into an open market, hitting pedestrians. Nine people, injured, two of them seriously.

He was not hurt. And so far no charges are going to be filed against this man. But this is what we know, according to The Associated Press, that eyewitnesses on the scene heard a big bang, and suddenly this vehicle just plowed through everything at full throttle.

The driver apparently lost control of his Subaru Forester when his foot apparently slipped off the brake pedal and hit the accelerator instead. And this vehicle apparently ramming through about eight different food stalls.

So, fortunately, the driver not injured, but obviously very senior, 89 years old, to be driving. Still had his drivers license, I can only imagine. But you know what? I'm not even going to go there, because police are still investigating.

But nine people hurt -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, we'll follow it. Appreciate it, Carol.

LIN: You bet.

PHILLIPS: Well, last week, we told you about a recall on Dell laptop batteries, and now the problem has hit Apple as well.

Susan Lisovicz live from the New York Stock Exchange with that.

(BUSINESS REPORT)

PHILLIPS: Well, casualties of the war in Lebanon. A human rights group says that more children were killed than combatants. Were war crimes committed?

That report straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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