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American Morning
Ford to Announce Plant Closings, Job Cuts; Is Somalia a Safe Haven for Terrorists?; Russia's New Ice Age
Aired January 23, 2006 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: You're watching AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Christopher Columbus and Columbus Circle looking mighty wet this morning.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Somebody get the man an umbrella. I mean, he discovered America, he deserves an umbrella, don't you think?
S. O'BRIEN: Or he can hold it behind him. Welcome back, everybody.
(NEWSBREAK)
S. O'BRIEN: Let's turn the corner and talk about these job cuts, these huge job cuts that we've been telling you about at Ford. The company is expected, in fact, to lay off up to 30,000 workers, shut down several plants. That announcement is coming in just about two hours. The lay-offs are part of a major overhaul as Ford is fighting for its life. CNN's going to bring you that announcement live at 10:30 a.m. Eastern time.
Among the many problems at Ford is persistent allegations that fuel tanks on some of the models can rupture and blow up in rear-end collisions.
National correspondent Susan Candiotti has been looking into one type of potentially deadly crash, one that actually safety experts say could have been easily prevented. You're going to see that full story on "ANDERSON COOPER 360," but we get ahead of ourselves.
Let's get right to Susan with a preview. Good morning.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
Our story begins with the tragic deaths of three sisters in North Carolina a couple of years ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They had a glow about them. They were beautiful.
CANDIOTTI (voice-over): Three sisters, all young, two of them new mothers, left in a limousine for a rock concert at Greensboro, North Carolina. They never got home. Caught in a traffic jam, their limo was rammed from behind by a pickup truck going well over the speed limit.
JAMES CANADY, LIMOUSINE DRIVER: I saw flames shooting past my window. And I said oh, my God, we're on fire.
CANDIOTTI: Limo driver James Canady had to kick his door open.
CANADY: The whole vehicle was on fire. As soon as I jumped out of the car, I heard one of the ladies scream oh, my God. And that's all I heard and that was it.
CANDIOTTI: The sisters were trapped in the back, the fire too fierce for anyone to reach them.
CANADY: You could see the fire just like gasoline just keep blowing up.
CANDIOTTI: The medical examiner ruled all three sisters burned to death, even though only one was injured by the crash impact.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CANDIOTTI: What the parents and some lawyers are saying now is these deaths could of been avoided, might have been avoided with only a hundred dollars worth of safety fixes -- if the public, Soledad, knows what to ask for.
S. O'BRIEN: That is just brutal. What can be done in these cases, Susan?
CANDIOTTI: Well, when police were dying in these rear-end fires, Ford did find a solution a couple of years ago. It created a set of shields to go on places around the gas tank to protect against fires in these rear-end crashes, and that has worked. The Town Car, Ford Crown Victoria and Mercury Marquis models, for the last dozen years, have the same gas tank location as the cop cars, in the rear. But Ford did not notify every day car owners about these safety fixes.
Ford is now offering the shields free for limousines, but so far not for regular drivers. It says they don't need the shields because they don't use their cars the way police do. Ford says all cars can have fires, not just theirs. But what makes the story significant is Ford has found an answer here and for the most part, the public hasn't been told about it.
But if you do know what to ask for, you can go to your dealer. Again, your cost should be not much more than a hundred dollars and we'll be telling you more about that tonight.
S. O'BRIEN: How heartbreaking for the family to know a hundred dollar fix. Wow, all right, Susan, thanks. If you want to know more about this investigation that Susan did, you can go to "ANDERSON COOPER 360," 10:00 p.m. Eastern time tonight on CNN.
M. O'BRIEN: A country that was once the scene of a deadly firefight for U.S. troops is now a quiet front in the hunt for al Qaeda. We're talking about Somalia. U.S. troops pulled out in 1993, but as AMERICAN MORNING's Barbara Starr shows us in an exclusive report, they're still watching Somalia and its borders carefully.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The Horn of Africa, approaching Somalia. This remote area is one of the front lines in the war against al Qaeda.
CNN is with a small U.S. military team. These troops mainly conduct humanitarian relief, but they are watching al Qaeda, because al Qaeda is watching them.
(on camera): The U.S. military has brought CNN to this place, where it almost never comes. This the border of Somalia, a place that is ungoverned, uncontrolled, and now there is great concern that al Qaeda and other terrorists groups are moving through this region.
(voice over): This is one of the countless watches and photos of Osama bin Laden distributed in villages across Somalia in the last several weeks. Major General Timothy Ghormley, commander of the military task force for the Horn of Africa, gave it to CNN. It's part of a new al Qaeda recruiting campaign here.
MAJ. GEN. TIMOTHY GHORMLEY, U.S. MARINE CORPS.: We know for a fact that there are -- there's an East African al Qaeda cell in Somalia. It's been referred to as "Mad Max and the Thunderdome" in southern Somalia. And that's exactly what it is.
STARR: Somalia has no central government, and the U.S. has limited knowledge of what is happening ever since its withdrawal after 18 troops were killed in 1993.
Military intelligence is now watching for several top al Qaeda operatives in this region. Two in particular are Haroon Fasul (ph), involved in the U.S. embassy bombing in Nairobi and Saleh Ali Saleh Naban (ph), the main planner behind an attack on an Israeli airliner in East Africa.
Military officials here say terrorist groups have made threats to attack the 1,400 U.S. troops here in the Horn region. Ghormley believes there are training camps inside Somalia, and the threat is expected to only grow.
GHORMLEY: We're winning up in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are going to have to go some place. They will have to move to another area, an where there is safety, where they can begin to rebuild.
STARR: This remote landscape, this is where al Qaeda can readily move.
Barbara Starr, CNN, on the northern border of Somalia.
(END VIDEOTAPE) M. O'BRIEN: A story you'll see only here on CNN. Now keep in mind, al Qaeda claims to be supplying weapons to some Somali militia that engaged U.S. troops in the "Blackhawk down" incident back in 1993.
(WEATHER REPORT)
S. O'BRIEN: There is this major cold spell in Europe right now, and when we say cold, we mean way beyond freezing, like 24 below Fahrenheit, 24 below. Among the hardest hit has been Moscow. And just today, more pipe burst, so it's left thousands of people without any heat. Twenty-four below, pipes burst, no heat.
M. O'BRIEN: Is that near the Celsius/Fahrenheit crossover point?
S. O'BRIEN: Getting close, I'll tell you that.
M. O'BRIEN: Yes, we're getting there.
Matthew Chance has our report this morning from Moscow.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's being called Russia's new ice age. On the streets of the capital, Moscovites struggle through the biting conditions. Many of their cars don't make it.
Despite debates elsewhere about the morality of wearing animal fur, when it's this cold, it's hard to find anyone here who cares.
"There is no such thing," in my opinion, "as bad weather," this woman told us, "only bad clothing."
(on camera): It is staggering just how low the temperatures across this country have plunged. Out here on the frozen Moscow River, the sun is having its effect, and it's warmed the air to minus- 30 degrees centigrade. That's a frigid 22 degrees Fahrenheit below. What's amazing about this country is the ability of ordinary Russians not just to live on, but to embrace this climate.
(voice-over): And they do embrace it here. The Arctic conditions have not deterred the ice swimmers. Some bathe for religious reasons. For others, this is winter fun. Medics are on standby in case it proves too much.
"It feels just great," this man told us.
But of course, there is a deadly sight to the cold. This, a bus filled with passengers, crashed through the ice as it tried to cross a river. Rescue workers pulled at least eight bodies from the icy waters. It's the kind of tragedy regularly featured in Russia's winter news bulletins.
And every night, the cold claims a few more victims, especially among the thousands of homeless here. More than 120 people have succumbed so far. Life in Russia's deep freeze can be brutal. Matthew Chance, CNN, Moscow.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
S. O'BRIEN: Oh, that's awful.
SERWER: What a plum assignment Matthew got there.
S. O'BRIEN: Oh, really. I mean...
M. O'BRIEN: You might say the short straw was dealt him.
S. O'BRIEN: Not expected to get above freezing until next month.
M. O'BRIEN: How often do you get to wear that hat, though, on television?
SERWER: He looked good, though.
M. O'BRIEN: He was probably looking forward to it.
SERWER: Yes, he looked good. He looked fine.
S. O'BRIEN: Backpedalling from (INAUDIBLE). OK, we will take that as we know it is.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MARKET REPORT)
S. O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, the very latest on Lobbygate. The White House says the president doesn't recall meeting self- admitted influence peddler Jack Abramoff. Could there be some photographs maybe to help jog the president's memory? What kind of damage could they do? A look at that's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
S. O'BRIEN: Be sure to check out our Web site, CNN.com, for the latest on this morning's top stories, including this one, that building collapse in Nairobi. Some of the images just horrible, as we've seen hands poking out from the rubble. People desperate for help there.
Also, CNN.com. The most popular stories today, including this one. Those cruise ship passengers, well, they're threatening mutiny. They're very angry, in fact, that their cruise ship didn't stop at three islands they were supposed to stop at. Now they say they won't get off the ship. We'll tell you more about that story, too.
If you're about to head out the door for work or school, you can stay in touch with CNN and AMERICAN MORNING. Just logon to CNN.com and our free -- our pipeline video service. You can catch live, commercial-free news updates all at CNN.com/pipeline.
Ahead tomorrow on AMERICAN MORNING, we're going to have this book. Michael Eric Dyson, best-selling author. Remember he wrote "Is Bill Cosby Right?" He's got a new book, it's called "Come Hell or High Water" and it's an examination of race in America. And, of course, what happened in Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath. We're going to talk to him about some of the allegations that he makes about the status of black Americans today.
M. O'BRIEN: Are you going to ask about Mayor Nagin's comments, the chocolate city stuff?
S. O'BRIEN; Chocolate and frosty glass of white -- well, of milk? We sure will!
M. O'BRIEN: Oh, good.
S. O'BRIEN: We don't want to let that one go.
M. O'BRIEN: I'm going to want to see that one, and you will, too. Coming up on this program today, does the key to losing weight lie in the flavors of your food? And we don't mean you'll eat less because your food tastes bad. No, no, no. Take a look at the so- called flavor point diet. We'll explain, ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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