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CNN Sunday Morning
Woman Arrested in Connection With Bombings in Jordan
Aired November 13, 2005 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: New developments now in the terror bombings in Jordan. King Abdullah says a woman is under arrest in connection with last Wednesday's attacks. Police identify the woman as married to one of the three suicide bombers, and that she tried but failed to detonate her own bomb.
We have a live report from Amman in just a few minutes.
Now to India where police have arrested the suspected coordinator of last month's bombings in New Delhi. Three blasts on October 29th killed 62 people and wounded more than 200. Police say they have identified seven accomplices and are tracking them down.
Now to some live video of Midtown Atlanta. Actually, this is a simulation version taped a little bit earlier. Yes. There it is. An early morning terror drill is being carried out. Now, the emergency preparedness exercise is being coordinated by state and federal Homeland Security officials. The drill is scheduled to conclude in the next hour.
It is 8 am in Woodward, Iowa, 9 am in the nation's capital. It's Sunday, October 13th. Good morning everybody from the CNN Center in Atlanta. I'm Betty Nguyen.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Tony Harris. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for starting your day with us.
We begin this hour with the president. His troubles and his travels. Mr. Bush leaves tomorrow on an Asian trip that includes a summit of Pacific Rim leaders in South Korea. It comes at a time when the president is tangled in political turmoil and sinking in the polls.
CNN's Elaine Quijano joins us from the White House with more.
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Tony.
Well, officials here continue to argue that polls are simply snapshots in time. But taken together, they illustrate a decline in public support for President Bush's policies.
Now first of all, taking a look at the results of a "Newsweek" poll out this weekend, it shows that only 26 percent of Americans say that they are satisfied with the way things are going in the United States right now.
And when it comes to the president's overall approval rating that is down four points from a month ago to 36 percent.
Now those numbers come, of course, in the wake of the CIA leak investigation. At the same time, the Bush administration, in recent days, has faced renewed criticism by Democrats over Iraq.
That is why we saw President Bush, on Veterans Day, forcefully pushed back against Democrats who say his administration manipulated pre-war intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. And the White House says those charges are simply baseless.
This week the president will focus his attention on other matters as well. He'll mostly talk trade while visiting Japan, China, South Korea and Mongolia. But the president is also expected to address the issue of bird flu.
U.S. officials say on the president's trip, they are not necessarily looking for a specific plan of action, but rather, some kind of an agreement that Asian countries can come to help prevent a flu pandemic.
Now before President Bush heads to Asia, he'll actually be making a stop in Alaska and it's there that he'll talk to U.S. troops and make another speech about the war on terror.
And Tony, aides here are saying that you can expect the president to come out hitting back hard once again against those democratic criticisms.
HARRIS: It's an interesting strategy for the president. The president to be down there in the scrum with the Democrats and battling it out. I'm not sure about that. But he is away. And you can presume there will be Republicans sort of fighting these battles at home.
I see that Wolf has Republican Governor Mike Huckabee on his show later this morning. Who else do you expect to be out sort of fighting this fight with the president here at home?
QUIJANO: Well, that's right. Later on, on late edition, Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, himself, will be out appearing, not just on Wolf's show but, of course, other shows defending the administration and how it went to war.
Now at the same time, you're also going to see the White House enlisting the help of Republican allies on Capitol Hill. They certainly want to make sure that the charges don't go unanswered.
CNN's Elaine Quijano at the White House for us. Elaine, thank you.
NGUYEN: They are picking up what's left after tornadoes swept through central Iowa. At least three twisters touched Down in Ames, Iowa, and in nearby towns of Woodward and Stratford. Only one death is reported, that of an elderly woman in Stratford. And a natural gas leak forced some evacuations after gas lines ruptured.
In Ames, though, a twister forced football fans at the Iowa State-Colorado game to clear the stands and flee the basketball arena.
Well, it happened again. Killer weather sweeping in and blowing things away. This time it was a string of tornadoes hitting central Iowa. Eric Hanson from our Des Moines affiliate, KCCI, met with dazed survivors in the ravaged town of Woodward.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ERIC HANSON, KCCI AFFILIATE (voice-over): In the hours before sunset, Woodward went from quiet small town to tornado victim.
DELLAS KEELING, TORNADO VICTIM: I saw all these debris swirling. And we, real quick, tried to find a place to hide.
HANSON: The southeast corner of town, they hit the deck.
MIKE RAMSEY, TORNADO VICTIM: I knew it was headed right at us. I knew it.
HANSON: Mike Ramsey was watching TV.
RAMSEY: And I looked off to the southwest and I could see it coming across that field. That's when I told my wife, I said, "OK, this is it." We've got to go to the basement now.
HANSON: While cars were getting tossed and walls were getting crushed above the ground, Mike and his family heard it pass overhead.
RAMSEY: Got huddled up in a corner, hang on to some pipes that were overhead and rode it out.
HANSON: When he surfaced, he found trees snapped, buildings ripped apart, and a nightmare scene playing out right off his front deck.
RAMSEY: Well, it's destroyed, pretty near, the whole neighborhood. Right through here, all these houses are gone. My son lives right over across the street. And you see that house is no higher than ten feet high right now.
HANSON: Within minutes rescue crews arrived going door to door. Searching for some victims, while trying to prevent more.
KEELING: Gas leaks. If anybody was injured. If any of the power was still going.
HANSON: The realty building was destroyed. The Casey's got hit hard too. So did dozens of homes. A quarter of town turned upside down, debris everywhere and survival stories from everyone.
DOUG ZINNEL, TORNADO SURVIVOR: As it went over the house, they got pictures of it.
HANSON: Including Doug Zinnel, who thought he left the destruction behind.
ZINNEL: Well, we lived in Kenner, Louisiana, just right south of the lake, Pontchartrain.
HANSON: Now just weeks after one disaster, another one. A second cleanup job that will start once the sun rises again.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN: Difficult day there. You can find out more about tornadoes on CNN.com. All you have to do is log on to discover when and where they form and how new technology is tracking them. The web address on your screen, CNN.com/tornadoes.
HARRIS: And here's a look at other stories making news across America this morning.
In Wisconsin, a plane lands nose-first. Do we have that wide shot of the pictures of this? Right into some power lines during a thunderstorm. There it is. The pilot was the only one on board. He's a little banged up, little cut up. He'll going to be otherwise okay. Now police want to give him a sobriety test, Betty, to see if alcohol caused the crash landing.
Also in Milwaukee, police want to know why two teenage girls were on a set of train. The girls were struck and killed by an ongoing Amtrak train yesterday. Police say there was a sidewalk and road going beneath the tracks where they were hit. A spokeswoman for Amtrak says the girls were trespassing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In my 17 years I have never seen anything like this in this area. It's very, very rare.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Well, here is what that lawman saw. He saw a man on a wild, destructive mission near Salem. That's in Oregon. Police say the 37-year-old man, Christopher Lee Millis (ph), set several squad cars on fire, then lit a fire in one building, and rammed his car into the county courthouse. Officers say they had to shoot him in order to subdue him.
NGUYEN: All 350 miles of the battered levees around New Orleans might not get rebuilt before the next hurricane season. But the Army Corps of Engineers says it plans to shore up the structures so they can withstand another big storm. It's an enormous amount of work that needs to be done and some independent engineer's question whether the Corps can meet next year's summer deadline.
Here is an interesting tidbit about the possibility of global warming relief. Scientists will begin testing layers of lava rock found deep underground in portions of Idaho, Montana, Washington and Oregon. Now they believe the rock layers may contain carbon dioxide. If so, the carbon dioxide could function as an underground storehouse for greenhouse gases. A very interesting theory here.
All right. And there is hope that all of this could relieve the world's global warming problem. There is an $18 million price tag, though, attached to the research, which is slated to start in 2007.
It's usually not very easy getting from here to there in Southern California. Right? We know that. Just look at traffic here.
HARRIS: Right.
NGUYEN: So, to ease the traffic gridlock, officials are mulling a plan to build the world's second largest road tunnel. But the location of the multi-billion dollar, 25-year project is raising some concerns.
The tunnel would begin barely a mile from a fault that produced a magnitude 6 earthquake about a century ago. Planners are set to make a decision a little bit later this month.
HARRIS: There are a number of new developments going on in Jordan this morning following Wednesday's deadly bombing of three American-owned hotels.
You'll remember, there were early reports that claimed one of the suspected suicide bombers was a woman. Then those reports were refuted.
About three hours ago, now, authorities confirmed and announced the arrest after woman suspected of being a suicide bomber. Let's go to CNN's Brent Sadler, doing great work for us this morning. He is live in Amman with more on this story.
And good morning, Brent.
BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Tony. A lot more clarification about this team of suicide bombers that came into Jordan with devastating effect Wednesday.
Now what we know from the authorities is that there were three men now. All those three men were able to successfully detonate suicide belts in three hotels. But one of those men, in his mid 30's, took his wife along to the Radisson Hotel, but her belt that was also strapped around her failed to detonate.
Had that happened then, of course, the injuries and deaths would have been even greater.
Now Jordan's deputy prime minister Marwan Muasher, gave a news conference a short time ago and he gave more details about what authorities have been able to find out from this woman.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARWAN MUASHER, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER, JORDAN: The suicide bomber and his wife went to the Radisson Hotel knowing that they were going to a wedding party by the clothes that they were wearing, and both had explosive belts around their waists.
His wife attempted to detonate the belt after they went in the wedding room but fail to do so. And her husband asked her to leave the wedding party. Once she did, he detonated himself successfully.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SADLER: Officials here say all four suicide belts were constructed in Iraq and they were smuggled across the border into Jordan from Iraq.
Now it's interesting, because I've spoken, Tony, to some explosives experts and they say that had that woman -- the would-be suicide bomber -- had she stood next to her husband when he blew himself up, that primary explosion would almost certainly have detonated her belt, had she not left the hotel, and the injuries would have been even greater and deaths higher had both bombs gone off at the same time. Tony --
HARRIS: Wow. Brent, are authorities there still planning to run a bit of the interrogation of this woman on television?
SADLER: Yes, they are. That's the word. We expect it in the next few hours. They want to put this woman on television nationally. We'll see it globally across the world. And this woman will apparently give more details in front of a camera to a question and answer session about the terrorist operation. Very, very unusual, that, Tony.
HARRIS: CNN's Brent Sadler for us in Jordan. Brent, thank you.
The fighting is winding down. But the soldiers aren't out of danger. Next, a CNN exclusive "Inside Operation Steel Curtain." U.S. troops walk a dangerous line trying to avoid some tricky traps.
NGUYEN: And, Tony, we all know where babies come from. But, new technology may soon allow us to select the ones we want. But should we? That's the question. We're talking about designer babies and ethics a little bit later this hour.
Good morning, Bonnie.
BONNIE SCHNEIDER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning. If you're just waking up this morning in Las Vegas, the temperature is 50 degrees. Looking good
(WEATHER REPORT)
NGUYEN: It is a little after 5 o'clock in the evening in Iraq where U.S. forces are carrying out Operation Steel Curtain in the town of Karabila, which is near the Syrian Border.
After ridding the area of insurgents, the troops will continue to battle the silent, hidden and deadly enemy they left behind. CNN producer, Arwa Damon, is embedded with US forces in Karabila. She filed this exclusive report.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
ARWA DAMON, CNN PRODUCER (voice-over): It is the deadliest of insurgent weapons, the improvised explosive device.
PAUL HAAGENSON, LIEUTENANT, U.S. MARINE CORPS: Today's battlefield is one of almost fighting an enemy who wasn't there.
DAMON: But one that's proven deadly hidden in dust and grime.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: About half my squad got through, then it went out. OK, we need to clear out of this alley so they can get frigging people in and out of here.
DAMON: A marine is killed when he steps on a pressure plate IED. An Iraqi army soldier is wounded.
(on camera): No matter how quiet the streets may seem, it is more often than now, a deceptive calm. A few moments ago the harsh reality of the dangers that lie in wait as Marines and Iraqi army soldiers push their way through Karabila.
As First Platoon gets us and gets ready for, yet, another morning of pushing through the city, they discover in the very house that they spent the night in, more unexploded ordinance. The men tread carefully and somberly, the memories fresh, but they keep going.
HAAGENSON: It's just our fighting spirit as Marines. If someone gives us a challenge, our instinct is to push back harder. That's just the way the Marines do it. We meet resistance head-on.
ANTHONY HILL, CORPORAL, U.S. MARINE CORPS: It doesn't take much, two to three pounds can set these off. They'll bury it just below the surface where you can barely see them.
UNIDENTIFIED MARINE: We finding cachets left and right. I would say a very significant ordinance and improvised weapons systems.
DAMON: A crude enemy that hides in the shadows and blends into the background. When spotted, Marines employ high-tech solutions.
PETE KARR, STAFF SERGEANT, U.S. MARINE CORPS: Great robots, wide-tracks are kind of like a tank. It's got an arm that articulates forward and back, wrist up and down. And it's got a little claw on it, camera systems. It basically just allows us to remotely view what we're dealing with.
DAMON: No one is entirely sure what that massive explosion just was.
(VIDEO CLIP)
DAMON: Five marines are wounded.
(on camera): It was a pressure plate IED originally intended for a vehicle, run across the road, with the explosive hidden in that hole.
BRANDON ATTWOOD, CORPSMAN, U.S. MARINE CORPS: It's a little confusing. You never know where they're coming from. Basically, it's kind of sneaky. I mean, you can just be walking down the street and, boom, people are hurt.
DAMON: Fighting a silent but deadly enemy. Fighting to find it before it finds them.
Arwa Damon, CNN, Karabila, Iraq.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Hard to believe the fighting like we just saw is still raging on. But to some, it is worth the price.
Up next, we'll meet a U.S. Special Forces commander given a daunting duty: rebuild a war-torn Iraqi city in just 14 days. He'll tell you how he did it.
And another deadly twister across the heartland, this time in Iowa. So why all of this weird weather? Meteorologist Bonnie Schneider is going to explain it all to us.
You're watching "CNN SUNDAY MORNING."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: On the ground in Iowa, people face a huge cleanup after a string of tornadoes. The storm struck central Iowa yesterday, ravaging Woodward and other towns. One elderly woman is dead. Tornado sirens sent college football fans scrambling for shelter before the Iowa State-Colorado game.
Authorities are trying to size up the extent of the damage this morning. The twisters ripped up several farms and damaged at least 40 homes, some, Betty, Bonnie, beyond repair.
NGUYEN: Well, you know, last weekend we talked about the deadly tornadoes in Indiana. This weekend we're talking about Iowa.
Bonnie, where did this path take the tornado and the destruction?
SCHNEIDER: Well, Betty, we can look back on the radar picture starting from 2:30 yesterday afternoon. I'm going to put this map in motion and show you the way that everything shaped up to be.
The storm worked its way across Iowa and it really affected areas like Woodward, where we saw the tornado touch down. But, what's interesting to notice, there were three different sightings of tornadoes? Actually 20 reports but three actual touchdowns reported. So we're still kind of putting the information together to get a complete report from the national weather service.
Another thing to point out is why all the tornadoes? We had a tornado outbreak last weekend in Evansville, Indiana, another one this weekend. Well, it really has to do a lot with the weather pattern. The way things are shaping up right now.
We have low pressure over to the north, over the Great Lakes, pulling down that colder air, colliding with the warmer air. And this is the area where we tend to get the strong storms, not just in the spring but certainly in November, too. In fact, 10 percent to 12 percent of tornadoes that occur annually occur in November or as early as mid-October.
Let's talk about the way things are shaping up right now. Here is the same frontal boundary. And you can see, it's already stretching across much of the mid-south. We're getting some rain in there, some heavier downpours currently in Mississippi at this hour, working its way through. Not much in the way of lightning yet, but the day is still early and we could certainly see that.
On the flip side, on the area of low pressure, on the backside of it, as it pulls down that cold air, look what's happening, we're getting snow. Not only snow but strong winds in Minnesota, in Iowa today. Behind, you know, picking up the pieces from the tornado, we've also got some strong winds and wind advisories in effect until 3 pm.
Here's the temperature contrast. Right now, in Minnesota, 32 to 36. Makes a big difference. It determines whether you get rain, sleet or snow. So as the cold air pulls in behind this storm system, we're likely to see more snow develop and strong wind. Wind is really going to be a key factor today.
And unfortunately, it's not something folks out there want to contend with when they're cleaning up debris and kind of getting things back on track in Iowa today -- Betty -- Tony.
HARRIS: You know, it might be we just have to settle in. We have to decide, are we winter or are we still fall?
NGUYEN: In between in some areas.
HARRIS: And then we can get past this stuff.
Bonnie, thank you.
SCHNEIDER: Sure.
NGUYEN: Okay. With just two weeks and $3,000, one company of U.S. Special Forces made a stunning achievement in the town of Rutbah, Iraq. How did they do it? Well, in this morning's "Soldier's Story," I talked to Army Special Forces Major James Gavrilis about the gritty reality of nation building.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN: Major, for two weeks you and your Special Forces company was able to do something that many In Iraq are still trying to do, and that is create a democracy. How in the world were you able to do it in just two weeks?
JAMES GAVRILIS, MAJOR, ARMY SPECIAL FORCES: Well, we first focused on getting the city back to normal. We went in to stop the looting and restore order, but we continued the process of trying to reach our overall objective of establishing a free and democratic Iraq. And so what we did was we focused on the mayor and public administration and getting the public services working again. We knew that was the first step to getting normalcy in the city.
NGUYEN: Here is what surprises me the most, out of all of this. Millions, billions have been spent in Iraq, yet you were able to take this town, turn it into a democracy on $3,000. How did you do that?
GAVRILIS: Well, one of the ways was that we got the Iraqis to do a lot themselves. The city had been functioning prior to the invasion just fine. So we wanted to get the city back to the way it had been functioning before.
And there was a bank if the city, and people had accounts there, and the city had an account there. So what we did was we insured that the banker opened the city's accounts and the new interim mayor could pay city employees from the existing account.
Then we also opened a gas station so that the city could produce revenues for itself. And in other areas, where we didn't have any funds, we actually got volunteer groups from the city. For instance, to clean out the schools, so that they could reopen. Even though we didn't have the ability to do it ourselves, with our limited forces, we encouraged the Iraqis to do it themselves, and they did.
NGUYEN: When you look to what's being done in Iraq, what they're trying to accomplish with this government, what's your biggest piece of advice to them?
GAVRILIS: It's instituting democracy at the sub-national levels now. now that a constitution has been approved and they're going to seat a government at the national level, it's time to take democracy to these lower levels and to really institute it, like we had done in Arupa.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Still ahead, we're talking designer babies this morning. And we want to hear from you. E-mail us your thoughts on this subject. If you could, would you design your own child? We'll talk about science and the ethics. That's up next. Here's the e-mail question.
And now in the news, a dramatic new development in the Jordan hotel bombings case. A woman who allegedly planned to join her husband as a suicide bomber in the attack is in police custody. Jordanian police say the bomb, a 35-year-old woman who was wearing apparently, failed to go off. They say her taped interrogation will be aired on Jordanian television.
A new polls can't be good news for White House. The latest poll is from "Newsweek" magazine. It finds President Bush's approval rating continues to fall, now standing at just 36 percent.
Former president Bill Clinton is in Israel to mark the 10th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Israeli's packed the Tel Aviv Square where Clinton was to be one of the several speakers. Clinton worked closely with Rabin to broker a Middle East peace plan. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton joined him on trip.
A former New Orleans police officer has been arrested in Houston for allegedly driving a stolen truck. Houston authorities say Willie Bickham is expected to face felony charges. He resigned from the police department after being accused of abandoned his post during Hurricane Katrina.
NGUYEN: Well, this morning, we are tackling a topic many of you thought would only happen much later this century.
HARRIS: Member the human genome project? That's where scientists unveiled all the chromosomes that make us who we are. Well, not all those chromosomes have been identified. British researchers are now allowed to work on a radical form of gene transplant. It could wipe out some diseases such as Down's syndrome, but it could lead to designer babies.
NGUYEN: Yeah, designer babies. It is a complicated process, so we're going to try to simplify it so you can discuss it with your family and friends. Now Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg is a reproductive endocrinologist and he joins us from Los Angeles to really show some insight into exactly what this is.
Doctor, when we say "designer babies," what do you mean? That you can pick out height, gender, eye color, hair color, those kind of things?
DR. JEFFREY STEINBERG, ENDOCRINOLOGIST: Well, we don't look at designer babies the same way we look at designer outfits, for example. We've just been handed a road map to the human genome, and what we're doing is we're taking a ride through the city learning about the terms and the intricacies of where we want to go. So you can't...
NGUYEN: All right, well let's talk about what science knows right now. As we look ahead, but let's talk about what science knows right now. Science can determine whether a baby is going to be a boy or girl and it can single out whether a couple wants a boy or girl. Correct?
STEINBERG: Absolutely correct. We do this on a daily basis.
NGUYEN: All right. What about diseases? How does this play into this?
STEINBERG: Well, we've got a list of over 200 diseases now that we know the genetic makeup of, so as we identify each one of these genes, we have the ability now using procedures like multiple display technology and we can look at those genes, find out if they're there. If they are there and the couple doesn't want them to be there in their child, we can make arrangements to assure that that doesn't happen.
NGUYEN: Make arrangements. I see. All right. Let's talk about this in most simplest of terms. Are we talking about in vitro fertilization? And is it safe for the baby?
STEINBERG: Yes. Well, of course, we can't take a bad gene and replace it with a good gene yet, although we'd be very interested in doing that. All we can do is study what nature has done on her own and if she has placed a gene into an embryo that we know causes harm to that embryo and perhaps to that child, we can make sure that that embryo is not used to help this couple become pregnant.
NGUYEN: Well, could this then lead, with these designer babies, lead to people having designer babies just so that they can be used to help their other children who were born and created the old-fashioned way, as donor babies perhaps it.
STEINBERG: It's already been done. British have done it and several other countries have done it. You know, children are born with the potential for all kinds of diseases, some happen early, some happen late. If a disease happens early, for example leukemia and the bone marrow is destroyed, they need a genetically very close-matched donor to be able to allow them to survive and parents have arranged to make show that embryos carrying very close match to their first child are produced to help that first child.
NGUYEN: You know, it's one thing to help a child survive, but it's another thing when the couple says, you know what? I just want a girl. I just want to make sure that we have a girl. And so with this technology, will it allow doctors to basically allow for more boys to be born? Would it change the whole makeup when it comes to boys and girls on the earth? And what about race? I mean, there are so many issues here.
STEINBERG: Well, this has been the ethical criticism of the technology, choosing boys and choosing girls. The criticism has always been you're going to upset the balance of the world. And of course, I work with a lot of female embryologists that are leaders in their science who are outraged that -- about the thought that if you give couples the selection; they're preferentially going to choose boys over girls. It's simply not true, there are papers published, two others prior to ours and we've recently produced some very interesting data that shows when you let people choose, they choose 50-50.
NGUYEN: And ethically, I've got you ask you this, as a doctor, is this playing god?
STEINBERG: No, it's not playing god. What we're doing is studying god's work, we're studying god's creations, we're analyzing it and we're learning from it.
NGUYEN: Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, reproductive endocrinologist, thank you for your insight today.
STEINBERG: You're very welcome.
NGUYEN: Tony.
HARRIS: OK Betty, when we start discussing a subject like designer babies, the word "eugenics" comes to mind and that often has very negative connotations including memories of Nazi Germany. Jonathan Moreno is a biomedical ethicist at the University of Virginia and he joins us from our Washington bureau.
Jonathan, good to see you this morning.
JONATHAN MORENO, BIOMEDICAL ETHICIST: Morning Tony.
When you get down to the bottom line on this, cut through it all, we're talking about, at least the controversy seems to be around this notion of the embryos, what happens to the embryos, when they're -- when we've gone through the selection process. Isn't that where the real controversial is?
MORENO: It is. And I think we have to worry about this dilemma that we're really going to be facing a lot, I think, in the next five, 10, 20 years, Tony, in the future. On the one hand you don't want to disvalue people who have disabilities by selecting for children that will not have certain genetic disorders. On the other hand, we do want parents to be able to make decisions about what's best for their children.
HARRIS: So what's the balance -- what's the balance we need to be thinking about now? And clearly it's an issue that you're talking about probably most every day.
MORENO: It is and unfortunately, we don't really know not only where to draw the line but should society, should our political system, even be drawing these kinds of lines. Isn't this something that really needs to be decided by couples and families? It really is a very interesting problem. And you know, down the road, Tony, there are whole groups of people who are not going to be able to afford these technologies, and we're going to be in a very interesting situation, I think, in which not only the sort of traditional inequalities among people and groups of people are going to be problematic, but also these inequalities are going to be created by the fact that some people can afford to have children with certain characteristics and some will not be able to. It's really a fascinating problem.
HARRIS: Let me have you respond to this. Are we treating offspring like a commodity?
MORENO: Like commodities.
HARRIS: Yeah, are we?
MORENO: Well, it's the commodification that we worry about. But you know, here's the problem. Some of us can afford to give our kids tennis lessons and math tutoring and some of us can't. We're shaping our children now in low-tech ways that are traditional and we think that's fine, who would object to people being able to do that for their kids?
HARRIS: Let me try this one. If the baby was being created say to provide bone marrow for a sick sibling, you'd be introducing that baby to a process that is very painful, so how do you feel about creating a baby to remedy an existing problem in a child that you already have, but subjecting that new child to pain?
MORENO: Discomfort seems to be not an issue for these children. Some parents have been able to do this for their children who have rare diseases and they've been able to have other children that can help them. And we also know that that children are loved when they're produced in that way to help a sibling if it's possible to help a sibling. That one doesn't raise a big problem for me, I have to say.
HARRIS: Eugenics. What does eugenics mean?
MORENO: Well, the old-fashioned, Nazi Aryan (INAUDIBLE) who should --what -- who should -- what kinds of people there should be. In a different situation now, where its sort bottom up eugenics, potentially, Tony, where of People will be making decisions about the qualities of their own children. Let's imagine a lot of people decide to have blonde, blue-eyed children?
HARRIS: Yeah.
MORENO: You know, well, do we have an Aryan nation because of individual decisions people decided to make rather than because of decisions the state decided to make? In China, already there is an imbalance of boys and girls. The boys are more valued in that culture than girls and that's going to be a big political issue for that country and maybe for the whole region in the world in 10, 20 years.
HARRIS: OK, Jonathan, let's take the other view of this, and you've touch on it. What about the hope that this science gives to families of having a way to control the disease in another child by creating a healthy child who has the genes, who has the stem cells that can be of help in curing that disease in the child that is here and unhealthy?
MORENO: Well, we've already been doing that to some extent. There's going to be more of that. I don't have a big problem with it, again, the experience is that these children are loved. But hopefully we're getting to a point, Tony, with regenerative medicine, where we'll be able to use our own cells and tissues to cure ourselves. And that's really where we need to go.
HARRIS: Jonathan Moreno, a biomedical ethicist at the University of Virginia. Good debate. Thank you.
MORENO: Thank you.
NGUYEN: It is a really controversial issue and lot of people really hot over it on both sides of it, Tony. So, we'll see where that goes.
OK, up next, it's a romance -- talk about romance now -- for all- time. A princess gives up her royal status, yeah, she just gave it to, to live with the man that she loves. We'll have that story when we go global. HARRIS: And good morning, Boston. Bean Town, your complete -- hey, it's a great start to the day! Nine-forty in the morning in the East.
NGUYEN: Beautiful sunshine.
HARRIS: Great sunshiny start to this Sunday morning. Your complete forecast for rest of the day and into the work week, Betty, coming up. CNN SUNDAY MORNING continues in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: Let's check our top stories right now. Former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton are interrupting their visit to Israel. CNN has learned the Clintons will head to Amman, Jordan, they'll console the Jordanian people in the wake of Wednesday's terrorist bombings. Our Wolf Blitzer will have more details on "Late Edition" that's at 11:00 a.m. Eastern. The Clinton's are in Israel to mark the 10th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Authorities in central Iowa are surveying some intense damage this morning. Look at it. A string of tornadoes tore through two counties yesterday killing an elderly woman and destroying homes as well as businesses.
And defending NASCAR racing champ, Kurt Busch, gets ticketed in Arizona. Yeah, he got a ticket, not for speeding though, but for reckless driving. The officer says Busch smell of alcohol but refused a field breathalyzer test. A local sheriff says streets are not to be used as raceways.
HARRIS: And let's take a look now at other stories making news around the world.
NGUYEN: Britain is pausing to remember soldiers who died serving their country. CNN's Shannon Cook has more from our international desk.
Good morning, Shannon.
SHANNON COOK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Good morning. Thanks, Betty. This weekend nations around the world are honoring those who died in past and present wars. In London, Queen Elizabeth led tributes to the soldiers who died serving Britain, again, in past wars and of course also during the present conflict in Iraq. She laid a wreath of red poppies at a monument during the ceremony. And Prime Minister Tony Blair and Prince William were among the dignitaries who were there, along with thousands of veterans there for the event.
Meanwhile, France is breathing a sigh of relief that its own Armistice Day commemorations weren't mar by violence in the nation's capital. The unrest that has gripped France for more than two weeks now finally appears to be easing, thanks in part to emergency measures and curfews put in place. In fact, the national police chief said there has been a major lull in urban violence Saturday night. But still, nevertheless, even though that sounds encouraging, last night was the 17th straight night of unrest and youths clashed with police for the first time in the city of Leon.
Now Betty, tell me you think about this. Do you think that being a member of a royal family would sort of be a good thing? It would come with a lot of perks, a lot of benefits?
NGUYEN: Yeah, without a doubt.
COOK: People opening doors for you.
HARRIS: Nothing you'd want to give up lightly.
COOK: No.
NGUYEN: No, I think you'd want to hold on that that. You know, there's something big that came along? Are you going to be telling us?
COOK: Well, something big did come along for a princess out of Japan. In fact, Princess Sayako is relinquishing her royal title so she can...
NGUYEN: Say what?
COOK: Well, she's doing this because show's fallen in love with what we call, I guess, a commoner. So, in order to live as a housewife, she had to say a formal farewell to the imperial family in a traditional ceremony in Tokyo. Women aren't allowed to inherit the throne in Japan, so if you want to marry outside the royal family, you have to say bye-bye to the royal family.
NGUYEN: Hold up, wait a minute. Just a second, Shannon. She is giving up her throne to become a housewife. Well, this is better -- well, this guy must be some catch. Tell me who he is.
COOK: Well, he's a 40-year-old guy, he's an urban planner. His name is Yoshiki Kuroda, he's a childhood friend -- he's been a childhood friend for many, many years. But apparently they started dating three years ago. Now interestingly, the princess has really sort of been practicing for her middle -- I guess her middle class life in Tokyo.
NGUYEN: She has to practice?
COOK: Well, preparing, more like it. She's been taking driving lessons. Because of course no one is going to drive her around anymore. In the real world, we drive ourselves.
NGUYEN: Yeah, I did that this morning.
COOK: Me too.
NGUYEN: Hey, you know, that is the meaning of love, the true meaning of love right there. She gave it all up to be with the man that she loves.
COOK: It's got to be love. Got to be love.
HARRIS: Can we go now?
NGUYEN: Yeah.
COOK: This is too sappy for Tony.
NGUYEN: Thank you, Shannon.
HARRIS: Oh lord. I'm getting a cavity here. All right. Bonnie Schneider has your Sunday weather forecast coming up. And we haven't forgotten about your e-mails this morning. What do you think about this whole concept of designer babies? We'll read some of your responses up next. Stay with us.
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HARRIS: And now time to check in with Howard Kurtz in Washington to see what's ahead on CNN's "Reliable Sources."
Howard, good morning.
HOWARD KURTZ, "RELIABLE SOURCES": Good morning, Tony. Coming up, the producer fired by CBS over that debacle of a story about President Bush's National Guard service takes on her critics. Mary Mapes is here in our "Talk Back to the Media" segment.
Also, Judith Miller forced out by the "New York Times." We'll have an analysis. Another CIA leak investigation, this one involving a "Washington Post" report of secret prisoners in Europe who interrogate terror suspects. And NBC's fake but entertaining presidential debate. All ahead 10:00 a.m. Eastern on "Reliable Sources."
HARRIS: OK Howard, thank you.
NGUYEN: And with winter just around the corner, hopefully, Bonnie, we won't be talking about tornadoes.
SCHNEIDER: No, usually when the temperatures across much of the country cool down, we don't have enough of a contrast to create those strong storms like the fall and in the spring.
NGUYEN: So, into this month, maybe?
SCHNEIDER: Yeah hopefully. I think we've got that cold air coming in time for thanksgiving.
NGUYEN: All right.
SCHNEIDER: So, good and bad. Right? Depends how you look at it.
November tornadoes, you know, not completely out of the question as we've seen in the past couple of weeks, two tornado outbreaks. This is actually known as the second season for tornadoes, the first one being the spring. So, 75 percent of tornadoes occur March through June; 10 percent to 12 percent of tornadoes occur in late October through November because we're still seeing that contrast in the temperatures and we certainly saw that yesterday where we had the tornado outbreak in Iowa.
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NGUYEN: All right, thank you, Bonnie.
HARRIS: Bonnie, stick around, our e-mail question of the day. All morning long, we've been dealing with this issue, designer babies. What do you think about this concept? And the e-mail box has just been -- well, it's full, totally full. First e-mail comes from Victoria and Curt in (inaudible) Washington.
"Adolf Hitler would have loved this idea. By now in Germany everybody would be blond and have blue eyes. In some cultures we would have no more women, because only male children count. Is this really the direction our world should go? Whenever man has tried to play God they screwed it up!
NGUYEN: And Kim in Atlanta says, "I believe this is the most brilliant idea. There is too much disease and stupidity" she says, "in the world. Maybe this way we can breed this out of the human race." Wow. "I think it would make the world a better place without disease and ignorance."
HARRIS: And this from Mike, "If there's one think Katrina showed us, is that there are huge discrepancies..." and it goes on and on and on, but we are flat out of time. Flat out of time. So, you're not going to read that one.
I have to read the last one tough. Give me this time. Cindi says "People are so insecure. If we can't have enough confidence in ourselves and our partners, then we shouldn't be having babies...but a designer baby would happen if Tony and I had the opportunity."
I don't think your wife would like that idea, but hey. I think you should take it as a compliment, Tony.
We'll see you next weekend.
Uh, he won't be calling you later Cindi, he's married, but we thank you for watching, though. "RELIABLE SOURCES" is coming up.
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