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CNN Saturday Morning News

U.S. Dispatches Warship to Japan; Alleged New York Terror Plot Foiled; Palestinian Prime Minister Calls for Calm; Discovery Astronauts Prepare For Spacewalk; Fresh Start on Healthy Living

Aired July 08, 2006 - 09:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK J. MERSHON, ASST. DIRECTOR IN CHIEF, FBI: They were about to go to a phase where they would attempt to survey targets, establish a regiment of attack and acquire the resources necessary to effectuate the attacks. At that point I think it's entirely appropriate to take it down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: A terror plot foiled in its early stages. We have the latest developments on the al Qaeda plan to cause a major attack in New York.

From the center here in Atlanta, the CNN Center, I'm Betty Nguyen. This is CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: That's what we call it the center.

NGUYEN: The center of the universe for us.

HARRIS: Good morning everyone, I'm Tony Harris, thank you for starting your day with us. More of that story in just a moment.

We're also following a developing story on the deployment of a U.S. warship, the destroyer USS Mustin, to Japan. More of that straight ahead.

But first a look at what else is happening right now in the news.

NGUYEN: The Palestinian prime minister calls for calm from Israeli's and Palestinian militants. This comes as Israeli troops continue their large-scale military operation in Gaza. Now their mission is to gain the freedom of the kidnapped Israeli soldier and stop Palestinians from firing rockets at Israel.

The U.S. has reportedly dispatched a new top of the line guided missile destroyer to Japan. This comes amid the deepening North Korean missile standoff. Wire service reports say the USS Mustin will be based at the Navy's seventh 7th fleet homeport. It's equipped with sensitive missile tracking radar.

There is violence in Iraq that claims the lives of three U.S. soldiers today. The U.S. military says the three were within the First Marine Expeditionary Force and that they were killed in combat in Iraq's volatile Anbar Province.

HARRIS: New Jersey casinos reopened two hours ago following the end of a government shut down. New Jersey lawmakers worked through the night and approved a nearly $31 billion budget early this morning. The governor then issued an executive order allowing state agencies to reopen including one that oversees the casinos, all 12 of them.

It's just about time to step out into space, not us, but two shuttle Discovery astronauts. They will test a new 100-foot long boom for use in making repairs to the International Space Station. A live report with Miles O'Brien just minutes away.

Just say no, Pope Benedict advises the Catholic faithful. The pontiff today began a weekend visit to Spain where same-sex marriage became legal last year. Benedict said there are certain things to which the church must just say no and it's challenging the marriages and other changes in Spanish society.

For a complete coverage of breaking news on today's top stories stay with CNN, the most trusted name in news.

New development this is morning amid the North Korean missile standoff. Wire reports say the U.S. has dispatched a top of the line warship to Japan, a U.S. guided missile destroyer equipped with sensitive missile tracking radar. This comes after a series of missile tests this week by North Korea.

Joining us by phone is Major General Thomas Wilkerson with the U.S. Naval Institute. General good to talk to you.

MAJOR GENERAL THOMAS WILKERSON, U.S. NAVAL INSTITUTE (via telephone): Good morning Tony, nice to be with you.

HARRIS: Well, let's sort of get to the nuts and bolts of this. Help us through this. Why do you believe the Mustin is on its way to Japan?

WILKERSON: Well, let's get to the nuts and bolts of it. The Mustin has been tracked and ready to go to Japan for some time. This is not a knee jerk response to the North Korean effort. It takes a lot of effort on the part of the Navy to deploy major combat systems because especially in the instance of home porting in a foreign port like Japan, there are families involved and moves involved a whole bunch of other things. This is not something that happened yesterday.

HARRIS: Good. So why then are we hearing about this?

WILKERSON: Because the Navy does not normally nor should it announce destinations and deployments for all of its vessels either coming or going. Obviously with embedded journalists across the world with U.S. forces, once these ships show up, it's obvious where they are. But in the timing and the transit and assignments those are things that they usually hold close

HARRIS: Do you think we are learning about this because of embedded reporters? Is this the kind of information that the Navy would rather we not know?

WILKERSON: Well now that it's headed there, there's no harm, no foul, I would think, especially since it is very close to arrival. Not only that, since in fact it's a very strong statement about the capabilities of the Seventh Fleet which is home ported in Japan and Japanese self-defense forces which have the Congo class which are also destroyer type cruiser vessels.

HARRIS: Does the U.S. military need the Mustin to handle the situation as it is developing in North Korea given what we know so far about the missile tests?

WILKERSON: The missile tests did not over fly Japan or any of our allies. Obviously, that's an act of war and a concern for the U.S. and Japan and other allied nations. The capability to stop a missile from entering home airspace is something that's very desirable to have in fact the destroyers of the latest class flight two and beyond are more than capable of handling any of the missiles North Korea attempted to fire whether they went well or not.

HARRIS: I think you mentioned in your conversation with Betty last hour that the Shiloh is also heading to the region as well.

WILKERSON: I heard that there's a second cruiser-destroyer that has been dispatched on the normal course of rotation to Seventh Fleet. I think the reason the Shiloh's name came up is in fact she was the vessel that conducted the most recent anti-ballistic missile defense test in the missile area and successfully intercepted re-entry vehicles outside of the atmosphere. Which is a clear demonstration of the capabilities of the system.

HARRIS: I also believe the nuclear powered aircraft carrier Enterprise is on the move as well?

WILKERSON: I'm not so sure about where it's on the move. I have reason to believe it's not at homeport anymore. So whether it's on the way to the Iraqi war zone or whether it's on the way to the northern Pacific I'm not sure.

HARRIS: OK. General we appreciate your time.

WILKERSON: Great, take care now, Tony.

HARRIS: So we're asking you what you think. This is about diplomacy, not the military moves that are going on right now. Lets talk about diplomacy. Should the U.S. sit down in direct talks with North Korea? E-mail us your thoughts weekends@CNN.com and we will read some of your comments through out the program.

NGUYEN: I think it's fair to say though in light of all that is happening what we are learning about, the deployment of these ships. If you have something to say about that as well go ahead and send it in. It's all on the issue of North Korea and the launching of these missiles and the reaction to that. Let us know what you think about it all. All right. We're going to move on to martyrdom and explosives. That's what the FBI says terrorists planned for New York. An alleged plot involving suicide bombers and tunnels aimed at flooding the financial district.

CNN's Sumi Das reports.

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SUMI DAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As Londoners mark the somber one-year anniversary of the subway bombings that left 52 dead, Americans learn of a foiled plot to attack New York City.

MERSHON: For most of the year we have been focusing on a group of al Qaeda followers who have targeted the Hudson River tubes that connect New Jersey with lower Manhattan. We believe we intercepted this group early in the plotting.

DAS: The plot first detected by monitoring Internet chat rooms was investigated in concert by law enforcement authorities in New York, New Jersey, and in Lebanon. The FBI says the self-described plot mastermind is 31-year-old Hammoud. He was arrested in Beirut in late April. In a statement Lebanese authorities said Hammoud had admitted he was preparing to launch an attack in the U.S. and intended to travel to Pakistan for a four-month training mission.

A Lebanese official described Hammoud as a computer scientist professor who was leading an indulgent playboy lifestyle so as to disguise his extremist beliefs. Authorities say the plot was uncovered before it reached the operational stage and no explosives were found.

MICHAEL CHERTOFF, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: We take all threats seriously. We don't wait until someone has lit the fuse to step in and prevent something from happening. That would be playing games with people's lives.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: OK. Obviously, we're having a little bit of technical difficulty with that. We will continue on with this story. In the meantime we do invite you to stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable information about your safety and your security.

I want to talk about new developments in the Middle East today. Israeli forces pushed deep exchanging fires with Palestinian gunmen outside Gaza City. Visiting Americans, well they are frightened by the violence and they packed up and moved out.

The Palestinian prime minister calls for calm amid all of this. The top left-hand corner of your screen there you can see the border right there and CNN's Paula Hancocks is in Gaza City. She is going to be talking to us now about the reaction to the peace call.

What kind of reaction have you seen so far, Paula? PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The exact call has been an offer really from Ismail Haniya to stop all the violence on the Palestinian side if the Israelis stop their violence as well. Basically saying if the Israelis stop this inclusion into Gaza that he will try to stop the militants firing the rockets.

Now we haven't had an official reaction from the Israelis yet but what they said all along is that they want to see the kidnapped Israeli soldier released before there's anything like this to be discussed. Also they want to make sure the militants are stopping launching these rockets from Gaza into Israel many of which have actually reached Israel over the past week or so before they discuss this any further.

Now, we know from the military point of view there has been -- we know that majority of Israeli tanks and troops have moved out of northern Gaza. This is where we have been seeing some of the fiercest fighting over the past three days. We know at least 30 Palestinians were killed according to Palestinian medical sources and one Israeli soldier was killed.

We did have some activity to the east of Gaza City. This was engineering groups that were trying to find exploded devices. Trying to find tunnels that the Palestinian militants would have dug. But according to the Israeli defense forces they moved out of that area as well.

We are still hearing shelling, there is activity still going. The majority of the troops are in southern Gaza and just northeast of Gaza, as well. One residential area where there has been very heavy fighting -- Betty.

NGUYEN: CNN's Paula Hancock's joins us via broadband from Gaza City. Paula, thank you.

HARRIS: OK, we can count it down. We are just moments away from the start of today's two astronaut spacewalk.

NGUYEN: They have a lot to do today. This is a six-hour spacewalk. Think your day is long, just image they have been up for hours now. So you want to keep it right here. We're going to give you live coverage with space correspondent Miles O'Brien. That's next right here on CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

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HARRIS: Live from the International Space Station; put a little radio emphasis on that. Two hundred miles or so above our heads.

NGUYEN: That's a long way. Shuttle Discovery astronauts, they are going for a spacewalk today. And donning his space correspondent hat minus the suit, Miles O'Brien joins us from New York. Hi Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: And no $250,000 gloves, either. I didn't get any of the good gear. What's the deal?

NGUYEN: You need to work that a little bit better.

O'BRIEN: I need to get a better contract. Lets take a look at the live pictures in space. We lost it. What you're looking at is the quest airlock. Now we look at some of the animations. In short order, the astronauts will turn on their suits to battery power. Should happen any minute. Once they go to battery power that's the official start of the spacewalk. These are some pictures that were deemed down a little while ago, as they were getting ready.

To the right here that is Mike Fossum getting some help from the space station crewmember Jeff Williams. And that is Piers Sellers, right inside the air lock there's a door that is shut since that time across here. They slowly but surely remove the air from that air lock. Make sure the suits are checked out fine. No leaks in the suit.

Then open the other door, which leads them out into space. And it will be a six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk. What a view they are going to have. This is unprecedented in shuttle history. What you're talking about here is a ride like no other. This is a 50-foot boom, the normal length. They have extended it, doubled it another 50 feet with an extension boom, which is used also to look for problems along the leading edge of the shuttle's wing and tiles and so forth.

Want to see if they can work at the end of the long, long boom. If the shuttle was not at the space station and they needed to do some repairs to the heat shield that can actually reach underneath and do some work on the belly of the craft. Something they can't do with the 50-foot arm.

They have been practicing this in the big, huge swimming pool in Houston. Neutral buoyancy tank they call it. Nothing is going to match the view they get when they are six stories away from the space shuttle as they do their job.

Now, there may be some real relevance to this work to see if this is a stable enough platform to work. NASA has not cleared Discovery to come back home yet. On the backside there's about five areas that are requiring some attention. Some potential places where they need a little bit of work.

On the right wing, nose cone, back in this area. Let me show you some pictures of one of the areas of greatest concern. This is the so-called gap fillers. Just little narrow things that go in between the heat resistant tiles. Take a look at this imagery right here. On the left-hand side that's a gap filler that is sticking out. They don't care so much about.

But this one which happens to be down near the base kind of the tail end of the shuttle near a door, which opens and shuts it, allows the fuel to go into the main engines that actually is sticking out pretty well. You can see it there, right there. And it is possible that NASA would like to have the astronauts pluck that gap filler out because it could create a little hot spot downstream of it, almost a blowtorching effect. So they would need to use that extension arm in order to do that in the current configuration. Otherwise they have to undock and do all kinds of special gyrations to use the space shuttle arm. Let's go back live to space as you look at the hatch opening.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is mission control Houston. Battery powered open and spacewalk start official at 8:17 a.m. Central Time this morning.

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O'BRIEN: That's what I call good producing to the control room Atlanta. Hit it just right. 8:17 Central, 9:17 Eastern, which means rye about now the space station, is officially under way. There you see Piers Sellers as he begins the spacewalk. Out the hatch they go. We'll watch the first stages of the spacewalk, a lot of set-up. Like getting when you go to work on the car and get the tools all laid out or you get your tools together and tool belt for a project.

Then we'll see them do some work. There's a kind of railroad car, which goes the full length of the space station, which need some work first. Then they get at the end of that 100-foot extended arm, we will see how that goes. They have helmet cameras so we'll be able to see what they are doing.

HARRIS: Miles. This is like, I mean the production of this -- this is like reality television. This is like ...

NGUYEN: At it's finest.

HARRIS: It is like real world Galactic. It seems that we can see everything.

O'BRIEN: As you said at the top of the show, Betty, at CNN Center. This is the center of the universe really.

NGUYEN: It really is.

O'BRIEN: So want to stay with us all day today as we walk you through this six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk.

NGUYEN: I think you're going to need a raise for that. I really do.

O'BRIEN: Absolutely.

NGUYEN: Always working it, Miles.

All right. Thank you.

Well speaking of working it baby boomers they are working it out. That's a good thing. There are a few fitness pitfalls that you don't want to fall into. We're going to talk to a fitness expert. Boy, he's a hoot in just a few minutes. Look at the man. That's why he's an expert. Those are some guns.

HARRIS: Let's move on. Did I say I'm jealous enough there?

NGUYEN: Yes you did.

HARRIS: Sales again this latest installment of "Pirates of the Caribbean" rounding up the bootie at the box office in just a few minutes.

NGUYEN: You just wanted to say bootie.

HARRIS: The man responsible for settling the score. Bit confused, don't worry. We'll clue you in just about five minutes. We'll be right back.

NGUYEN: Got it.

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HARRIS: Jump-start your day? How about some goals to get you feeling healthy, look being good? A fresh start on healthy living, if anyone can spread the feel good vibe it's fitness expert Jerry Anderson who joins us from Los Angeles. Betty says -- she like you ...

NGUYEN: Put some clothes on Jerry.

HARRIS: She would like you to dress for the appearances. That is wrong for the first thing in the morning.

JERRY ANDERSON, FITNESS EXPERT: I'm overdressed. You see I have two shirts on. Come on.

NGUYEN: I wish mine looked like those.

ANDERSON: There you go, girl power.

HARRIS: You two -- OK. Let's start with a little fact or fiction here. Vitamins, mineral supplements.

ANDERSON: Yes.

HARRIS: Do they give you energy?

ANDERSON: Fact or fiction. Do vitamins and minerals give you energy? It is fiction. Vitamin, minerals don't have calories Tony. How can it provide energy? You only get energy from fats, carbohydrates and protein. That's the only way you can get it. It doesn't have energy. A lot of people are thinking it is working. 60 percent of Americans take vitamins, thinking it is giving them energy. It doesn't work. Unbelievable. Only get it from calories.

HARRIS: OK, so fact or fiction here eating carbohydrates will make you gain weight?

ANDERSON: That is fiction. You only gain weight when you take in more calories then you burn. When you reduce your carbohydrate it induce a water loss not fat loss. Now you dehydrate, and you are depleted, your blood volume is low. It is not working.

Tony, the other day this lady said my doctor said doesn't eat bananas because if I eat to many of them it will make me gain weight. It's not the banana it is how many bananas you eat. Whenever you take in more calorie than you burn you gain weight. That's the one principle all Americans need to remember. Don't get caught up on these fad diets, because it is better to get caught up on wrestle mania instead of low carbs.

HARRIS: Where does that come from? How does his mind work? Where does it come from?

NGUYEN: We love him.

HARRIS: All right. So Jerry, a fact or fiction, you should always stretch before exercising?

ANDERSON: Right. People always ask me that. I see them doing it at the gym. I saw them doing it last night. It's fiction. You never stretch cold muscles. You warm your body up first then you stretch. It's almost like trying to stretch cold taffy. If you bend it when it's cold, what happens Tony?

HARRIS: You are right.

ANDERSON: You got to flex it up. Warm it up. I always have a thousand people and I ask them fact or fiction, always stretch before warming up. Only two people get that right. That's one of the things I see people doing all the time. That increases the chance for injury. Reduce your possibilities by warming up first.

HARRIS: So that means what? Get on the elliptical. Get on the treadmill, warming up for five minutes or so and then stretch?

ANDERSON: Exactly or you can march in place. Move side to side or go down the soul train line.

HARRIS: I got you.

ANDERSON: Raise the body temperature.

HARRIS: Oh, this is good. Fact or fiction using the stepper machine will help you burn more calories than the treadmill?

ANDERSON: You know what, it's fiction. How does the body know what piece of equipment you're using, Tony?

HARRIS: You know what -- all right. One more quick one. Weight lifting will help you burn more calories than cardiovascular exercise after working out?

ANDERSON: Tony, the answer to that is fact. Studies have shown that weight lifting. Weight lifting will help you burn extra calories up to 48 hours after working out. It's almost like when you turn the oven off it's still on. Unbelievable.

HARRIS: Yes.

All right we are flat out of time. Are you going to be with us? What did you say to me over the next six weeks?

What, every week?

ANDERSON: I'll be here every week. You can deal with this or you can deal with that. Take your pick.

NGUYEN: You want the left or right.

Step up to the mic. All right. Jerry, good to see you.

ANDERSON: I will see you next week.

NGUYEN: Yes we can't wait.

I'm glad you got out of that in time Tony, because you normally don't. Which is why we have this here today. Talking about stretching you stretch that mouth muscle a whole lot on this show. I've been told to show you this. If you press a little button here we're very proud of the fact you got out finally for once on time.

HARRIS: You know what? Once again ...

NGUYEN: Just a little note from our producers by the way.

Time to go.

Speaking up "OPEN HOUSE" with Gerri Willis is straight ahead.

Join us on the top of the hour for the latest reports on that naval destroyer which is deployed to Japan.

HARRIS: So breaking news when it happens, stay with CNN the most trusted name in news. We will be back at the top of the hour.

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