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CNN Live Today

North Korea Continues to Make Threats; New Jersey Budget Crisis: Day Six; Discovery Docks with International Space Station

Aired July 06, 2006 - 10:30   ET

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

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Back to international headlines now. North Korea is not wilting in the international spotlight. In fact, a day after its missile volleys ignited world outrage, the communist nation says more tests are planned. No timeframe has been mentioned, but reports to neighboring South Korea say three or four missiles are now on launchpads ready to go. U.S. officials say none is long-range. North Korea also threatens stronger physical action if any country dares to interfere.
The U.N. Security Council is meeting for a second day to consider possible sanctions. Council members Russia and China oppose sanctions. They're calling for more diplomacy. North Korea's missiles may not have threatened the U.S. this time, but what about next time?

Here's our national security correspondent David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Not surprisingly on North Korean television, the announcer said nothing about the missile firings and nothing about the failure of the Taepodong-2 long-range missile within 40 seconds of launch.

JOSEPH CIRINCIONE, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: This backfired. This blew up in Kim Jong-Il's face.

ENSOR: Said one U.S. official, "It sounds like they're thinking about how to play this."

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: One thing we have learned is that the rocket didn't stay up very long, and tumbled into the sea.

ENSOR: U.S. officials and analysts say it clearly did not go as planned.

CIRINCIONE: We had six Scuds and one dud fired. All of them landed in the Sea of Japan, all of them thousands of miles away from America's shores.

ENSOR: U.S. intelligence and the Pentagon have been watching the Taepodong launchpad for weeks with spy satellites, aircraft, and surveillance ships. Officials say North Korea has more Taepodongs, though their reliability is now in question. DAVID KAY, FORMER UNITED NATIONS WEAPONS INSPECTOR: I think the most interesting sidebar story is going to be what happens in Pyongyang. Who vouched for the reliability of this missile, and what are the consequences now that it failed?

ENSOR: That will be hard for American intelligence to know. North Korea is an extraordinary difficult society to penetrate.

While South Korean intelligence likely has agents in the North, most of the assessment of Kim Jong-Il's motives and intentions must be educated guesses, and nothing more.

On that basis, some analysts say the goal yesterday was less to test missiles, more to make a statement.

JIM WALSH, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST, MIT: The fact that they shot off another, what, six other short-range missiles that have nothing to do with sort of verifying or collecting data shows that it really is about politics, less about security.

ENSOR: But other analysts and intelligence officers say, don't assume Kim Jong-Il's missile launches were foolish, from his point of view.

(on camera): The North Korean scientists will learn from the failure of the Taepodong and from the other tests. And Kim has reminded the world how serious the risks of war with North Korea would be, and how limited the military options are.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: We do expect to hear more from President Bush in the next hour. He will appear with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and you will see that live here on CNN. Also, President Bush appearing later tonight on "LARRY KING LIVE." He and Mrs. Bush doing this on his 60th birthday. That would be the president's 60th, not Larry's. Actually, they'd like to hear from you, by the way. If you have a question for the president that you would like Larry to ask, just go to CNN.com/larryking and send your questions, and Larry will go ahead and ask him some of those tonight.

We are also waiting and watching this Space Shuttle Discovery, about to dock with the International Space Station. Quite an incredible feat. You'll see that happen live here on CNN, just ahead.

Meanwhile, let's check in on the state of New Jersey. Still in gridlock, still without a budget, still shut down. Now a compromise plan hits the table.

Our Mary Snow is watching developments in Trenton. Mary, hello.

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Daryn. Good morning.

And, you know, yesterday we saw the effects of that shutdown in Atlantic City, with the casinos closing. Today, the fight goes to Trenton here, the state capital. I'll get out of the way so you can see a better picture. Several hundred people have shown up here for a rally. These are workers directly feeling the impact of the government shutdown. There have been some 45,000 state workers who have been furloughed because of the impasse on a budget agreement.

This is day six of the shutdown. And they are calling on lawmakers to reach an agreement, chanting "let us go back to work" and "shame on you." Some of these workers saying that they're growing desperate because they're not getting a paycheck. Some of those workers include people in Atlantic City who don't work for the state, but have been impacted because of the government shutdown. They work in the casino industry, and they have also now been out of work because of the casino shutdown.

Now, inside the capital, we heard from Governor Jon Corzine earlier this morning. He gave a very short speech. This is the third day in a row that he has addressed the legislature. His message was short, saying pass a budget.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JON CORZINE (D), NEW JERSEY: No one want to hear another speech. No one wants to hear more excuses, most certainly not the citizens of New Jersey. They want budget and they want a government that works for them. Let us resolve to pass a budget that can be agreed upon today. We can do this today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: And the governor actually got a standing ovation when he kept repeating the word today, and vowed to get some kind of deal worked out. This, as he says, that New Jersey is digging itself into a financial hole. You know, just with those casinos closed every day, New Jersey loses an estimated $1.2 million in tax revenue. And that's a pretty conservative estimate. It actually loses more than that. And he also told lawmakers that the state is also digging a hole for what he said nearly 100,000 innocent bystanders, workers who are being directly impacted by the shutdown -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Mary Snow, live in New Jersey. Thank you.

(WEATHER REPORT)

KAGAN: Let's go way up in the sky, looking at the Space Shuttle Discovery. I think we have live pictures for you. Just minutes away from docking at the International Space Station. Stay with us for live coverage. Our space correspondent Miles O'Brien will be with me, along with the former shuttle commander, explaining just how they do this.

Also, will the most powerful man in the world -- how he will celebrate his 60th birthday? Meetings, meetings and more meetings. Right now Mr. Bush is in talks with the Canadian prime minister in the Oval Office. North Korea's defiance, a likely topic. We expect to hear from both of them live in the next hour. Later this afternoon, Mr. Bush and the first lady will spend part of the day with Larry King. Do you have a question for the president? E-mail Larry now by logging on to CNN.com/larryking. Watch the interview tonight on "LARRY KING LIVE" at 9:00 Eastern, 6:00 Pacific.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BUSINESS HEADLINES)

KAGAN: This just in to CNN. It has to do with the former soldier who's accused of an incident in Iraq of rape and murder, Steven D. Green. He's is being transferred. Was being held in North Carolina, but the military moving him to Kentucky. This is a preliminary hearing for Stephen D. Green, will be scheduled for Monday, the 10th. He'll go back to Charlotte, North Carolina for that. He could face the death penalty if he's convicted on the charges he now faces.

A delicate and carefully choreographed ballet high overhead at this moment. The International Space Station and the Shuttle Discovery are slowly getting into position to dock.

Our space expert Miles O'Brien is in New York to explain to us what we are watching, besides some pretty lights in the sky -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, take a look at that picture. Right in the center of that picture, Daryn, is the orbital docking ring right here, and that is -- well, they just switched to inside. There you see the crew. right here, that Pavel Vinogradov. He's the Russian commander of the space station. That's Jeff Williams, the NASA astronaut.

All right, let's get back now to the space station view of the shuttle. It's kind of hard to see in the darkness here. But this is -- they keep changing the shots on me. I can't keep up with these people. But this is a shot now from the outer reaches of the space station. If you look very closely, that's the space station right there. There's the shuttle right there. And the two are coming close together. There is just about ten feet that separates the two of them right now. Right from there to there right now.

And let's bring in our guest if we can. Bill Readdy, former shuttle commander, who is joining us from Washington. Bill, tell us what -- the commander, Steve Lindsey, what's he doing right now? He's already gone through an alignment stop within 30 feet to make sure he's lined up properly. At this point, he just kind of flies it straight down? Does he make many adjustments?

BILL READDY, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, "AVIATION WEEK": Well, yes, he first of all didn't have a fly-out required. The alignment of the space station and space shuttle was so precise that no adjustment was required. Now what he's doing is controlling this closure so that he's about closing at one inch per second. He's trying to make sure that the alignment between the two vehicles is within an inch when they contact. And last I heard from mission control, they ought to be about six feet away. O'BRIEN: Yes. Here they come in right now. This is a shot from the space station. There you see -- these windows right here, these are the windows that Steve and the other members of the crew that are assisting are looking out of right now. That's the aft flight deck. There, of course, you see the forward windows of the space shuttle. They're using -- at this point about to dock, but they use -- prior to this point, Bill, they use a laser range finder, don't they?

READDY: They do. They've got laser range finders in the payload bay (ph). It looks as though we're inches from docking right now.

O'BRIEN: One foot away.

READDY: One foot away, OK. So probably about ten seconds to contact. And then attention will shift over to Stephanie Wilson, who will be running the docking system.

O'BRIEN: Contact is confirmed. Go ahead.

READDY: OK, and right now, the springs and everything...

O'BRIEN: Let's listen. Let's listen.

Houston Discovery capture confirmed, was the call.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... Discovery crew confirming capture of the preliminary latches.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... is in free drift.

O'BRIEN: Tell us what they're talking about now when they say free drift, Bill?

READDY: What they're doing right now is allowing the mechanism to damp the -- what modest rates there would be at contact. And then, the next thing they'll be doing, is once the rates have damped, then Stephanie Wilson will be commanding the docking ring in so it draws the space shuttle towards the space station. And then they'll close the larger latches, which allow them to actually physically mate the two ships.

O'BRIEN: Now you see the space station crew. They were enjoying that. Jeff William and Pavel Vinogradov, shaking hands there, smiling. Happy to have some company, I'm sure. And among the things on board the space station is a third crew member for them to -- for the rest of their tenure up there, and part of the tenure of the next space station crew. Five thousand pounds of equipment and supplies. This is the first time since -- in the wake of Columbia that the space station will have a three-member crew. How important is it to have that third crew member up there, Bill?

READDY: Well, I think we've been able to adapt by using the ground an awful lot more as the virtual third crew member. But it sure helps to have an extra pair of hands and set of eyes distribute the workload on board a little bit more evenly. Plus, in addition to that 5,000 pounds of cargo, they've got experiments. So Thomas Ryder (ph) from the European Space Agency will be occupying a lot of his time doing science experiments.

O'BRIEN: Yes, he's got his hands full up there. It happened 220 nautical statue (ph) miles above us, off the coast of Chile, right near the Pikarin Islands (ph), docking pretty much on schedule. So far this mission has gone pretty smoothly. I think there's a sense, Bill, at this point, among the shuttle program, that they're sort of back in business this time.

It's -- you know, granted, they want to see these pictures that they just took. And it's important that they have good pictures and an indication that that heat shield is intact. But so far, what we saw on ascent, it's not one of those big pieces of foam that we saw the last time. They've got to be breathing a sigh of relief.

READDY: Well, I think that folks are really very pleased with preliminary results. Of course, they'll be studying it for days to come, examining each and every image in minute detail. But I think it really does point to the wisdom in declaring the first two flights as test flights, and making sure that we weren't attempting to do assembly on those, but rather resupply and evaluating condition of the orbiter and all the different modifications that we made to the external tank and to our procedures.

O'BRIEN: Now, what's happening now is this dampening continues. In other words, the relative motion between the two is -- in other words, they're flying in perfect synch. Those -- that docking ring will actually retract and tighten up and form a tight seal.

READDY: It will.

O'BRIEN: But then they'll go through a whole procedure for opening up the hatches of the two vehicles, right?

READDY: Exactly. What's going on right now is just as though you had shock absorbers on your car. That's what's reducing the relative motion between the shuttle and the space station. And as soon as that is all completely damped out, then what Stephanie Wilson will do is command ring in, which causes the two ships to physically contact. And then she'll drive the large latches, which will cement the two ships together. After that point, we'll do pressurization checks and be ready to do crew exchange and perform the remainder of the mission.

O'BRIEN: All right, good stuff. We got Jeff Williams there. Right behind him there -- I'm sure you -- doing the outline of it -- is the hatch. And we'll see them come through very shortly. We'll keep you posted as all this transpires.

Bill Readdy, thanks for guiding us through that.

READDY: Oh, my pleasure.

O'BRIEN: Back to you in Atlanta -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right. Thank you, Miles. Thank you, Bill. Other things flying in the air: North Korea's missiles. There might be more on the launchpad. The communist nation underlying its defiance with a new threat. We're covering that next hour on CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Britain may send more troops to Afghanistan. The British defense secretary told parliament today it's a matter of urgency. There are about 4,000 British troops in Afghanistan right now, most of them in the troubled Helmand Province. Fighting there with Taliban insurgents has been on the rise. Six British servicemen have been killed in Afghanistan in the past month.

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