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CNN Saturday Morning News

U.N. Security Council Meeting to Discuss New Libyan Sanctions; Beyonce's Photo Scandal; Jumpstart Your Retirement Savings

Aired February 26, 2011 - 07:00   ET

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

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, I'm Randi Kaye.

The crisis in Libya intensifies with reports of armed men killing protesters. And towns near Tripoli under siege. Libya leader Moammar Gadhafi vows he will stay or die fighting.

So, what's the next move for the White House?

The next move for Americans just out of Tripoli is to head home to anxious relatives. The stories that they are telling is just remarkable. We'll bring them to you.

And some advice you can take to the bank. We'll help you jump- start your retirement savings. Times are tough all over, but you really do need to protect that nest egg.

It's early, we're on it. From CNN Center, this is CNN SATURDAY MORNING. It's February 26th. I'm Randi Kaye, glad you're with us.

Let's start with that worsening situation now in Libya and the strong reaction from the international community. And just a few hours, the United Nations Security Council meets to consider some new sanctions. They could include travel bans, arms embargoes or possibly even financial freezes.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

KAYE: Inside Libya, protesters continue to take to the streets. Clashes with pro-government forces continue in and around the capital of Tripoli. But much of the rest of the country is actually relatively quiet right now.

Leader Moammar Gadhafi made another appearance on state TV, warning protesters that he may escalate the violence. He said Libya could soon be red like fire. Gadhafi made a small concession saying he was ready to raise state salaries and give every family $400 only if the demonstrations stopped.

Numerous countries are working to get their citizens out of Libya right now. Several planes and ships have left the country, carrying thousands of foreign nationals to safety. That includes a loaded ferry with 183 Americans on board that landed in Malta last night. You can see those people getting off that ferry in that video. And last hour, I spoke with one of the evacuees about her escape from Libya.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDITH DROTAR, EVACUATED FROM LIBYA (via telephone): I never felt, you know, totally threatened. It's just that I -- I didn't know what was going to happen. None of us did, because as I told you, things deteriorated so rapidly that we didn't know what to expect. So, the uncertainty was just horrific.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: All U.S. citizens have been warned to get out of Libya.

Now, let's get back to those sanctions for just a minute. President Obama imposing new restrictions in an executive order late last night.

CNN senior State Department producer Elise Labott joins me now from Washington live.

Elise, good morning to you. What new sanctions are actually being put into place and how significant would you say this is?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN SR. STATE DEPARTMENT PRODUCER: Well, Randi, they are starting with an executive order, as we said, targeting Moammar Gadhafi, his children and members of the Libyan government involved in this crackdown. It involves asset freezes. It involves travel bans.

And it also involves freezing American holdings of what they call a sovereign wealth fund of Libya -- that's holdings of the government that should be used for its people, that as we know, one of the reasons that the Americans are freezing it because they're afraid that Moammar Gadhafi will try to use it for himself. So, they are starting with that.

As we've been discussing, the U.N. Security Council is meeting a little bit later this morning and they're expected to go even further, talking about an arms embargo, talking about asset freezes and travel bans. And also possible, even indicting or revering the case of Moammar Gadhafi's crackdown to the International Criminal Court.

KAYE: And we know that Americans are being told to get out of Libya. But, really, what are the evacuation options for them if they're still there now that the embassy has actually suspended operations?

LABOTT: Well, they're really dwindling. It's going to be really hard. The State Department in recent days has been telling Americans if you want to get out, do so now. We will help you.

We've been noticing that the administration was kind of holding powder dry a little bit, not criticizing the regime until they were sure that all Americans that wanted to get out did. You saw, as soon as the last charter flight left Libya yesterday, that's when the administration started ramping up its rhetoric, talking about those sanctions because it was afraid of some kind of hostage situation.

So, the State Department says that they do think all Americans that have gotten out are out now. And now you can really expect the Americans to really use all the tools in its, kind of, diplomatic tool box, so to speak, against the regime.

KAYE: And you traveled to Libya not too long ago. So, what's your take on all that's happened there now?

LABOTT: Well, it's really unbelievable. When you go to Libya, Randi, it really is a police state. I mean, you can't go anywhere. We had a little minor with us. The Ministry of Information had traveled everywhere with us.

And people would say to us, you know, don't sit on that park bench because, you know, we think it's bugged. You really have to watch what you say. You can't talk on the phone, talking in the hotel rooms.

And we did interview Saif al-Islam, the son of Moammar Gadhafi that's been speaking out in recent days. He was really considered one of the reformers of the regime and was known to have a lot of influence over his father and some of the reforms -- settling the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie case, getting those sanctions against Libya lifted, those weapons of mass destruction that Moammar Gadhafi (INAUDIBLE), he was really seen as instituting that.

So, it's really weird to kind of see him now siding with his father, talking about dying and bloodshed against the Libyan people, Randi.

KAYE: All right. Elise Labott this morning -- thank you, Elise

LABOTT: Sure.

KAYE: A new death toll from New Zealand's earthquake tops our look at other weekend stories in our "Weekend Wheel."

One hundred forty-five killed, more than 200 still missing in Christchurch. Tuesday's 6.3 magnitude quake demolished parts of the city. Among the missing: 90 students and staff from a language school. That was in a building that had been destroyed.

Jared Loughner is now back in Tucson, Arizona, waiting for the next hearing on last month's shooting there. It will be on March 9th. Loughner is accused of shooting 19 people, including Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. Six people died in all in that attack. A new indictment is expected before next month's hearing.

Just about everyone remembers this -- the miracle on the Hudson landing. That's U.S. Airways flight 1549. Who can forget it? Piloted by Captain Chesley Sullenberger, splashing down in New York's Hudson River. That was January of 2009.

The jet is now in a New Jersey warehouse, but will soon be taken this spring to Carolinas Aviation Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHAWN DORSCH, CAROLINAS AVIATION MUSEUM: It's an artifact that is going to be as timeless as the Apollo 11 command module or Charles Lindbergh's airplane.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: The exhibit at the Charlotte museum is expected to be ready in 2012.

Well, one tweet, that's all it took to get this man and his daughter reunited after 11 years. Daniel Morales joined Twitter just three weeks ago when he was given a phone. As part of the project that's aimed at giving a voice to the homeless. Well, he and his daughter actually reunited Friday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIEL MORALES, FOUND DAUGHTER VIA TWITTER: A great moment for myself. I feel - I feel rejoiced.

SARAH RIVERA, FOUND DAD VIA TWITTER: I found my dad. After 11 years, I don't even know how to feel right now. It's just -- I'm very, very happy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Amazing. It was all because of a tweet. Well, since getting started on Twitter, Morales has more than 3,000 followers from around the world. And what a story he has to tell.

In the market for a luxury home with a little something extra? And there's some property in Beaver Creek, Colorado, that you may just want to know about -- a President Gerald Ford's home. And it is back on the market. The Fords owned the home for more than 20 years. They actually sold it the day President Ford died.

The eight-bedroom vacation home at the Beaver Creek resort comes complete with a presidential seal engraved in the entryway. And it could be yours for just a shade under $11 million.

It's an international scandal in the world of fashion. Dark make up on the face of one of the most beautiful women in the world. Beyonce's controversial photo shoot sends shock waves through the fashion industry. She'll tell us why she did it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Ten minutes past the hour.

There's a bit more white in the Golden State this morning. Check out these snow pictures out of Nevada County, California. That's in the north central part of the state near Sacramento. Lots of snow leaving a number of reported power outages -- snow not out of the ordinary here. But there's a real street for San Francisco this morning. And, no, we're not talking (INAUDIBLE). At roughly 10 minutes past the hour now.

Reynolds Wolf is here to tell us -- what they got a dusting?

REYNOLDS WOLF, AMS METEOROLOGIST: A light dusting.

KAYE: In San Francisco?

WOLF: Not much at all, but I mean -- still, it's pretty odd sight to imagine a cable car going up one of those steep hills with some snow flurries. Kind of weird, but that was the case.

Take a look at what we have right now. Here's the Bay Area, got Oakland on one side. You can see Berkeley, Richmond. But you can see a little bit pink popping up on the radar. That is the brief frozen precipitation, certainly nothing too substantial. But still, San Francisco snow didn't happen every day. It's a big deal.

We'll show you what else we have. Zoom out across the region, the snow is much more dramatic in a few other places. Take a look at this from Bakersfield back over to Los Angeles, you see a switching of rain to the snow when you get to the higher elevations. Back into portions of the Sierra Nevada, it's all some snow.

But just west of the south of Salt Lake City, not far from Zion National Park, right along 15, you could see anywhere from two to even three feet of snowfall before the day is out. Same story for parts of the Rocky Mountains and into portions of the Sierra Nevada, several feet of snow in the mix for the day today.

The reason why it's all happening is very, very simple. It's this area of low pressure, this frontal boundary that is drifting into parts of the western U.S. That heavy snowfall is going to continue through the weekend. As you get through the Northern Plains, light snowfall and less than an inch expected for portions of Michigan and into parts of the Ohio Valley.

Nice and cool, dry for you in St. Louis. Plenty of sunshine here in Atlanta, with that rain well to our south now and beginning to drizzle, possibly a little bit of drizzle for places like Galveston and back into Houston, maybe even as far as south as Corpus Christi.

So, that's a quick snapshot on your forecast today. But snow in San Francisco, not something you see every day.

KAYE: No, but fun for them.

WOLF: Absolutely.

KAYE: All right. Thank you, Reynolds.

WOLF: You bet.

KAYE: It's not like Beyonce needs a little make up, right, to enhance her beauty. But she did a recent photo shoot that a lot of people are talking about. We'll show you the pictures and tell you all about the controversy.

But, first, believe it or not, some of America's top entertainers and pop stars have a history of performing and palling around with autocrats. Our friends at "The Daily Beast" compiled a list of just a few of them. Take a look, Michael Jackson fled to Bahrain after his 2005 acquittal on child molestation charges. Well, he spent almost a year as a personal guest of a Bahraini prince.

And as well as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Director Oliver Stone teamed up to make "South of the Border" documentary about Venezuela. The two apparently became friends, but that didn't help with the film. You may recall, it was a bust at the box office.

So, which entertainers performed for the Gadhafi family? I'll tell you that right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: We are taking a look at stars who have entertained dictators. Can you guess which huge stars performed for the Gadhafi family?

According to "The Daily Beast," Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, one son of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi paid Mariah Carey $1 million to sing just four songs at his New Year's bash in St. Barts.

A WikiLeaks cable revealed that Hannibal, another of Gadhafi sons, hired Beyonce and Usher to perform at another St. Barts New York's bash. Reports varied on how much they were paid. The numbers range from six figures to $2 million.

Beyonce using complexion as a fashion accessory. Well, she has found in this new controversy around her photo shoot in a French magazine. She's actually sporting a darker look.

Nadia Bilchik is here to tell us more about that.

The pictures are interesting. So, what was behind it?

(CROSSTALK)

NADIA BILCHIK, CNN PRODUCER: -- absolutely exquisite and it's "L'Official" magazine in Paris. And she's got this darker look because she is paying tribute to this incredible Nigerian artist called Fela Kuti.

Now, anybody in Nigeria or Africa will have heard of Fela Kuti. He is the man that invented afro beat, I know we're expanding our vocabulary, and afro funk. And it was thought that hip-hop would not have happened without Fela Kuti.

And by dressing up like this, really what she's doing is paying tribute to what we call Fela's queens. These were his dancers. But, Randi, they were also his wives. Fela Kuti married all of his dancers in a ceremony. So, he had many wives. They were known as Fela's queens. So, it's interesting all Fela's dancers were his wives and his wives were his dancers.

KAYE: Right. So, this was a tribute to him but certainly not how it was received.

BILCHIK: No, it wasn't intended to say I'm putting on a black face. The concept of blackface, of course, coming from white people who put on a black makeup to appear black. But really, she was donning the makeup and the adornments of his queens.

And Fela was an extraordinary musician. He was a gifted multi- instrumentalist. He played saxophone, keyboard, trumpets, drums, guitar.

And if any Nigerian speaks of Fela Kuti or the shrine to this incredible musician, so much so that there's a musical on Broadway called "Fela" and it is produced by Jay-Z and Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. And Beyonce herself talks about the enormous influence that Fela has had on her life.

KAYE: Wow.

BILCHIK: So, having the single most influence, paying tribute to Fela, this is what she did. So, a remarkable story of Beyonce and a tribute to the man who had over 1 million people attend his funeral.

KAYE: Do you think she regrets it? Does she had to chance to explain --

BILCHIK: I don't think there's regret. I think there's a sense of celebration of the man. Now, one of the publicists on the Broadway production of "Fela" said you -- he can't understand that she's being castigated. She's celebrating a culture, not destroying it. And I think if it's seen in the light, and it's one of those things, if you understand the why --

KAYE: Yes, it just needed a little explanation. I mean, she's so stunning to begin with that it's a little surprising.

BILCHIK: And the photographs are absolutely exquisite. So, the music of Fela Kuti and the musical "Fela."

KAYE: All right. Nadia, we'll have to leave it there. Thank you.

BILCHIK: Thank you.

KAYE: It is panic time for millions looking to retire very soon. Their 401(k) plans and other funds just are not what they hoped. So, what do baby boomers do now? The answer is coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Twenty-one minutes past the hour. So, you want to retire, get a start on these golden years that you dreamed about. But if you're like lots of retiring baby boomers, that retirement account of yours may not be as reliable as you've been hoping. Too many retirement savings plans are falling far short these days, forcing retirees to keep on working.

Well, this morning in our "Take It to Bank" segment, help is on the way so you can figure out what to do if you are in this situation or possibly even how to avoid it.

Certified financial planner Karen Lee is here to tell us about this.

So, first of all, this is such great information that we need to get out because a lot of people are hoping to retire soon or looking to retire possibly right now.

KAREN LEE, FINANCIAL PLANNER: Right.

KAYE: So, we know there's a limit on actually how much you can put into your retirement account of, like, what, $16,000 or so.

LEE: Fifty-five.

KAYE: Right. But if you're older, you can actually, over 50, you put in more.

LEE: If you're 50 -- in fact, if you're 51 a day in that calendar year, you can up that to $22,000 for the whole year. But figure that out, at the beginning of the year, you're going to be playing catch-up at the end trying to get all that in.

KAYE: So, what steps should people take so they don't have to look for a job like a lot of these folks when they are 70 years old?

LEE: Let's talk about these people that are already in retirement or approaching retirement. You're going to need to reevaluate your situation. And if you have come up short on your savings, you can either keep working if you're still in a job. Get some part time work or reduce your lifestyle. So, that's what we do for those people.

But for those that are, you know, like us, we're still working and we got years and years, take a look at how much you're really going to need in retirement. Figure out a budget, subtract from that Social Security if you're lucky to have any pensions. Take that off. And with what's left, you're going to need to make that up out of your investments.

So, a good rule of thumb is between 3.5 percent to 5 percent. The sustainable withdrawal rate, let's just use 4 percent.

KAYE: OK.

LEE: So, if you come up $40,000 of income you need from your investments, 4 percent, you need $1 million. KAYE: So, that's the formula.

LEE: Four percent. If you want to be aggressive, go 5 percent. But, yes, for every 40 grand of income, you need from your investments, $1 million.

KAYE: And so, say for people who aren't looking to retire right now, younger folks, can they be more aggressive in their investing? Will that get them there faster?

(CROSSTALK)

LEE: Let's talk with some percentages. I've always had a golden rule, which is you should save 10 percent of every paycheck you ever earn for the rest of your life, no matter what. Make no excuses, OK?

So, if you are 20, 10 percent. If you're just starting to save in your 30s, let's up that to 15 percent. If you're just starting to save in your 40s, 20 percent. If you are in your 50s, say a little prayer and you're probably going to be working for a while.

KAYE: Yes.

LEE: But in your question, yes, you can be more aggressive with your investments. You can have higher in stocks than in bonds when you're younger. It's a time horizon to retirement that would tell you how much you can have. And the key, Randi, though, is you must rebalance those investments.

KAYE: Keep an eye on them for sure.

LEE: Keep an eye on them, you can't just leave them run.

KAYE: Right, because nobody cares about them as much as you do.

LEE: That's right.

KAYE: What about the company match and contribution, do you suggest going --

(CROSSTALK) LEE: At a minimum -- at a minimum, you should be investing up to the company match. It's free money. But I think the mistake that many of the boomers made is only investing to the company match because -- well, that's the only amount they are matching. You got to do your 10 percent or 15 percent that's required. But, of course, at a minimum of the match.

KAYE: So, you can't go beyond.

LEE: Of course. Of course.

KAYE: And there's all those supplemental plans and all that. If you can afford to do it, then if that's a good idea.

LEE: And that's always the key and I think what happens is people make the excuses that they can't afford to and all these boomers that are coming short are looking back and saying, I should have made that my priority.

KAYE: Well, nothing is guaranteed and I know it's been a tough economy out there. But, certainly, some helpful information.

Karen Lee, thank you very much.

LEE: Thank you to you. Good to see you.

KAYE: It is six days and counting. The United States government could shut down for the first time in 15 years. Just one of the day's top stories right here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Time now for a look at top stories.

The unrest in Libya still dominates the headlines this morning. Violent clashes are still happening in the capital city of Tripoli as a desperate Moammar Gadhafi tries to stay in power. A U.N. security panel is meeting today to discuss new sanctions against Libya. They could include an arms embargo, asset freeze and possibly even a travel pan. President Obama has already ordered U.S. sanctions to tie up transactions between Libya and interest here.

The death toll keeps rising in the aftermath of Tuesday's earthquake in New Zealand. Police in Christchurch say some 145 have died as a result of the 6.3 magnitude quake. More than 200 people are still missing. There's a search and rescue mission underway. But hope is fading that any more survivors will be found in that rubble.

With less than a week to go, a new budget in place, federal agencies are making contingency plans and getting ready to shut down operations, in case lawmakers can't broker a funding bill by March 4th, which is the deadline. But there are some indications that a compromise is in the works that would keep the government running for two more weeks while cutting $4 billion. The last federal government shutdown was back in 1996.

A special "SANJAY GUPTA, M.D." starts right now.