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CNN Student News

Aired January 29, 2002 - 04:30   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: You're watching CNN STUDENT NEWS seen in schools around the world because learning never stops and neither does the news.

SHELLEY WALCOTT, CO-HOST: CNN STUDENT NEWS for Tuesday gets things rolling with a visit from interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai and a preview of President Bush's State of the Union Address.

MICHAEL MCMANUS, CO-HOST: Next, we continue our focus on the State of the Union, a little history is coming your way.

WALCOTT: And later, a "Health Report" from the shadows of a nuclear plant.

MCMANUS: More from the health front when we visit a Nigerian school for kids with special needs.

WALCOTT: And welcome to CNN STUDENT NEWS. I'm Shelley Walcott.

MCMANUS: And I'm Michael McManus.

The chairman of Afghanistan's interim government makes a historic visit to Washington. U.S. President Bush welcomed Hamid Karzai to the White House on Monday. Karzai is the first Afghan leader to visit Washington in 39 years.

WALCOTT: That's right. Now earlier Monday, Hamid Karzai helped to raise his country's flag outside the reopened Afghan Embassy. The facility was closed in 1997 after the Taliban took over the government in Kabul. During the ceremony, Karzai said the future is bright for a U.S.-Afghanistan relation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAMID KARZAI, INTERIM AFGHAN GOVERNMENT CHAIRMAN: I'm thankful to the American people, to their government for giving us this opportunity, for helping to rebuild this embassy and for helping us organize this event. Let's hope that this flag will be there forever and that the partnership between the American and Afghan people will be forever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALCOTT: The Afghan leader will attend President Bush's first State of the Union Address tonight.

Our Joel Hochmuth reports on the speech that's considered one of Washington's biggest political events.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOEL HOCHMUTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): To say there's a lot riding on this speech is an understatement. As Mr. Bush delivers his State of the Union Address Tuesday night, his presidency is at a crossroads. The nation has rallied behind his leadership in the war on terrorism so far, but what happens as the fight drags on?

DAVID GERGEN, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: I think the test here in this State of the Union is for the president to reassert his leadership as Commander-in-Chief and as -- and as the national president, as the national leader, and that is a -- it's going to be a tough order, but he's proved that he's capable of doing it.

HOCHMUTH: Case in point was Mr. Bush's first address to Congress a little more than a month after he took office. It wasn't an official State of the Union Address but a speech to promote his proposal for a $1.6 trillion tax cut over 10 years, the centerpiece of his domestic agenda.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Tax relief is right and tax relief is urgent. The long economic expansion that began almost 10 years ago is faltering. Lower interest rates will eventually help, but we cannot assume they will do the job all by themselves.

HOCHMUTH: The big question was whether the president could command the leadership to push through such a sweeping proposal, especially given the controversy surrounding his election in the first place. That question was put to rest when Congress okayed $1.35 trillion of the tax cut and Mr. Bush signed it into law.

Then, of course, there was his most important speech to date, his address to Congress and the nation September 20, nine days after the terrorist attacks in the U.S.

BUSH: Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.

(APPLAUSE)

HOCHMUTH: By all accounts, he hit a grand slam. Even Democrats were impressed.

REP. GARY ACKERMAN (D), NEW YORK: A lot of people I've been speaking to of late were very, very concerned as to whether or not the president was going to be up to the task. He seemed a bit tentative at first and unsure of himself. He's shaken that all off. He's gotten up there. You know he's the guy that I think none of us would be afraid of being in the foxhole with.

HOCHMUTH: As the nation rallied behind the president, his approval rating soared to nearly 90 percent at one point. While it has slipped somewhat in the months since, it remains extraordinarily high. Analysts say that popularity poses its own set of problems for Mr. Bush and Republicans in general.

JOE LOCKHART, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: President Bush has benefited over his career from extraordinary low expectations and they've been masterful about it. Expectations are high. As soon as there's a scent of politics and trying to take advantage of this situation from the Republicans, I think they're in -- they're on very shaky ground.

GERGEN: I think the most important thing he has to do with this speech is to bring us back to September 11 and what's happened since then and where we're going to go from here, what he plans to do from here. Once he's done that, then I think he can move on to the economy and the other domestic issues.

HOCHMUTH: The president will need momentum from the speech to roll over many of the bumps that lie ahead. How long will Americans remain patient in the war on terrorism? What about the economy and the growing deficit? Then, too, there are the growing suspicions about his administration's connection to the Enron collapse. These aren't just the president's concerns but that of the entire nation.

For more on that we go to John King.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): League night means a full house at the Strike and Spare Lanes in suburban St. Louis, and at the moment Cynthia Cole is worried most that her average has slipped a few points of late.

She just found full-time work after a year long search and is nervous about the economy. Yet, she's upbeat. More tolerant is one way she describes the state of the union, four and a half months to the day that changed everything.

CYNTHIA COLE: I think 9/11 helped a lot of this, because they realize that all of us have to work together in order to make this thing all right.

KING: This is a blue collar crowd, mostly Al Gore backers in the last campaign, but Democrat Jeannette Callanan is glad Republic George W. Bush was the President on the morning of September 11th.

JEANNETTE CALLANAN: I don't think that Gore would have handled the pressure of all this.

KING: High marks for wartime leadership hardly mean Mr. Bush has won these folks over. Most say they aren't paying too close attention to the debate over tax cuts and deficit spending back in Washington, but the economy is a major worry. It tops Cheryl Nollinger's worry list, because more colleagues in state government are about to lose their jobs.

CHERYL NOLLINGER: I just heard today that there's going to be a lot of state employees laid off, and I don't know what the reason is for that. I just know that they need to cut money and that's where they're going to cut it at.

KING: The lanes are busy, the Rams advancing in the playoffs. It all seems almost normal again. Here too, visits to the St. Louis Science Center dropped 10 percent in the month or so after the attacks, back to normal now.

Ceramics class is part of the routine at the Afton Senior Center, before and after September 11th. Most here remember Pearl Harbor and want the President to see the War on Terrorism through to the end. Over cards, Kmart's bankruptcy filing comes up and Lilly Fields at the surprise of no one at the table, would like to make a point.

LILLY FIELDS: They can say what they want to about Clinton's morals, but by God we had a better economy when he was in.

KING: Frank Blair says 8-year-old son Nick doesn't talk about September 11th anymore, but he worries because of an unforgettable moment on that unforgettable day.

FRANK BLAIR: He was tugging on my sleeve. He pulled me down next to him, and he said "daddy, are we going to die?"

KING: Business if off a bit at the hardware store, but Blair trusts the President when it comes to the economy. He figures in any event, things will bounce back in time. It's a good place to get the pulse of a community, and Blair too, notices a different born of September 11th. Customers, he says, are more patient, more polite.

BLAIR: It's forced us to, at least for me, to examine how tolerant am I of people? Because this whole thing is all about hate.

KING: Getting home for dinner more of a priority now, a team effort here, and before eating a moment to reflect and remember that something so routine, so normal, is also something to be cherished. John King, CNN, Maryland Heights, Missouri.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEARON COMEAUX, HOUSTON, TEXAS: My name is Learon Comeaux. I'm calling from Houston, Texas. And I would like to Ask CNN: What is the State of the Union Address?

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, the United States constitution mandates that the president shall -- quote -- "from time to time give Congress information of the state of the union."

Now the first two messages from the president to Congress were delivered by George Washington and John Adams in person. Now Thomas Jefferson didn't like that. He thought it sounded too much like the king's speech to Parliament. So for the next hundred years, annual messages were delivered in writing. It was President Woodrow Wilson who restored the practice of delivering the annual message in person in 1913.

Calvin Coolidge was the first president to have his annual message broadcast over the radio in 1924. That's when it became a speech really to the American people, not just to Congress. It wasn't until Franklin Roosevelt in 1941 that the annual message began being called the State of the Union speech, which is a label taken directly out of the constitution. President Harry Truman's speech in 1947 was the first to be televised. And President Clinton's in 1997 was the first to be carried online over the Internet.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: As President Bush prepares for tonight's State of the Union Address, many Americans appear to be in his corner hoping for some encouraging words. Through the years, the speech has served as an echo for the economic times and a reflection of the country's mood.

CNN's Bruce Morton has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE MORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Woodrow Wilson was the first president in more than 100 years to deliver the speech in person. Lot of men in uniform as his policy unfolded, songs like "Over There" and "It's a Grand Old Flag." Americans were making the world safe for democracy. And then the jazz age: short skirts and the Charleston.

It was the bee's knees, good times. And President Herbert Hoover said the fundamental difficulties which have brought about financial strains in foreign countries do not exist in the United States. Well, wrong. Babe Ruth could still hit them out of the park. Folk singers were singing "This land belongs to you and me."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): This land was made for you and me.

MORTON: But it was the Great Depression, a lot of people lining up for free soup. And their song was: Brother, can you spare a dime?

Franklin Roosevelt convinced the country it could come back. And it did -- slowly. Big bands played swing. You could tell the mood was improving. And then Roosevelt led the country through its Second World War. And then peace came. And the G.I.s came home. And cars grew fins and they built the interstate highway system. And then people lived in suburbs and went to malls. And Dwight Eisenhower spoke about the State of the Union. And then John Kennedy and the Beatles.

And then Lyndon Johnson, the mood ugly again by then: cities burning, protest against the Vietnam War.

RICHARD NIXON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But now that night has ended.

MORTON: Richard Nixon said he had a plan to end the war and he did -- sort of. But by then, he was caught up in Watergate. He told the Congress in 1974 that one year of Watergate was enough. It wasn't. And he was forced to resign later that year.

The country was calmer under Ronald Reagan. People liked the Gipper.

RONALD REAGAN, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Win just one for the Gipper.

MORTON: And then Bill Clinton brought his own music, rock 'n' roll, a little the dated, maybe, but -- his State of the Union speeches weren't what caught the country's interest, of course. Gennifer and Paula and, most of all, Monica did that. He did not ask Congress for Social Security reform, Medicare reform. Instead, he got impeached, gave one State of the Union in the middle of his Senate trial.

The speeches are a ritual. Now it's George W. Bush's turn, a popular president leading a country at war. This year's symbol might be an American flag.

Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: Some sad news to report from Afghanistan, over the past few months we told you about Marjan the Lion. He died of old age at the zoo in Kabul over the weekend. Marjan lived through war and neglect and became a symbol of hope to many people.

Michael Holmes has his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Marjan's life was long-hard, but noble. He survived rocket attacks when the Kabul Zoo was caught in the crossfire of civil war. Then, his jaw was blown off by a grenade, and later he went blind.

After the Taliban fell, Marjan, believed to have been 24, became something of a celebrity, filmed and feted by media and animal welfare workers.

JOHN WALSH, VETERINARIAN: A case of a poor, old lion that everybody really cared about.

HOLMES: John Walsh first came to Kabul to treat Marjan in 1995. He admits to shedding tears when he heard of his death. In the end, it seems old age did what rockets and ill treatment could not.

Today, at Kabul Zoo, locals paid their last respects.

(on camera): In a country accustomed to the deaths of humans, Marjan's passing isn't important in the big picture. But, say his keepers, he was a symbol of this country: old, ailing, wounded, yet proud.

WALSH: It's an old country. It's got all kinds of ailing problems. All of them felt that way, they identified with Marjan.

HOLMES (voice-over): For many here, it's a tragic irony that Marjan survived so much mayhem, only to succumb as the guns fell silent.

Michael Holmes, CNN, at the Kabul Zoo.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: Some better news on another lion, this one used to live in Italy but now she has a new home in South Africa. The lion's name is Laya, but everyone calls her by her nickname the Spaghetti Kid. While she was in Italy, she grew up on a diet of pasta and potatoes. Now she's getting reintroduced to a more typical big cat diet.

Here's CNN's Charlayne Hunter-Gault.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT, CNN JOHANNESBURG BUREAU CHIEF (voice- over): First, meet Danny (ph), a 7-year-old lion who was almost a trophy on somebody's wall but for this man, long since his best friend and soul mate.

Heuer rescued Danny from what is known as a canned hunt.

KEN HEUER, LION RESCUER: But they don't want to hunt the lion one on one, they want to enclosure, there's Dandy (ph) there. Put a rifle through there, just rest it in the thing, and pick a nice shot so that you don't damage the head and then just blow him away.

HUNTER-GAULT: Heuer managed to buy Danny out of the hunt but not his mate. Since then, he's had no female company except for the occasional visitor.

(on camera): Hey, I get a big kiss too, huh? Sorry not to be your type, but hey, guess what, Laya's (ph) coming. Let's hope you won't treat her this way.

(voice-over): Enter Laya, a 5-year-old lioness who's lived in Italy all her life, sold by a zoo to an Italian who raised her as a house pet. Personal problems forced him to return her to the zoo. These pictures from Natuno (ph), Italy convinced Heuer that he had to get Laya out of Italy and home to Africa despite the fact that she'd never met another lion nor eaten meat and that the chances of her living like these lions who will be her neighbors in a private nature reserve near Johannesburg. Its owner is providing Laya with private quarters.

After a 24-hour journey, Laya finally arrives in the motherland and is soon whisked off to her new home. Taking her first steps on African soil, Laya seemed a bit perplexed. Danny is intensely curious. Laya refuses to eat. Her Italian former owner, traveling with her to help the transition, complains that the spaghetti is cooked wrong, not like he used to make. Eventually, Laya will be introduced to meat.

(on camera): Now they're trying beer. I mean clearly the lady lioness from Italy isn't as interested as the Dandy lion from South Africa, but it's hoped that over the next month they'll find common ground and lion love.

Charlayne Hunter-Gault, CNN, Kromdraai, South Africa.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Exploring our world, here now is CNN STUDENT NEWS "Perspectives."

MCMANUS: Food, medicine and clothing, just a few of life's basic necessities, things that you might take for granted. Yet in many parts of the world, it's a struggle just to meet these everyday needs. A push is on at the United Nations to improve the health and welfare of children around the globe, children affected by war and disease.

Here's Kathy Nellis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHY NELLIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When you think about it, the world is a dangerous place for children. In country after country, they battle disease, run risks from landmines and simply don't get enough to eat.

DR. WES BERGEVIN, HEAD MEDICAL OFFICER, UNICEF: In many countries, especially in sub-Saharan African and in South Asia, only four children out of five reach their fifth birthday. And this is hard to believe that this is still occurring in -- the biggest problem is one of survival of simply being alive.

NELLIS: While those statistics are grim, there has been progress. The World Summit for Children in 1990 put a global focus on improving health. In the past decade, there has been a massive campaign to stamp out polio.

BERGEVIN: In 1988, we had about 350,000 cases of polio throughout the world, and now last year, we've had less than -- about 3,000 cases. So that's a 99 percent decrease -- 99 percent decrease in the number of cases each year.

NELLIS: With continuing campaigns, doctors say it could be possible to wipe polio from the planet in the next few years. That would make it the second disease in history to be eradicated through health campaigns. The first global victory was over smallpox.

Another success story, the universal use of iodine. Iodine deficiency is a big contributor to mental retardation. Before 1990, only a small portion of the world's salt had iodine in it, but since then, UNICEF has been working to put more iodine in salt.

BERGEVIN: Over two-thirds of the world's salt is iodized. And fairly soon, we hope by 2005, we will complete this job and have all of the world's salt iodized, thus preventing probably the most important cause of mental impairment in the world and raising in those populations, which were deficient in iodine, the IQ by an average of 10 points.

NELLIS: When it comes to children's health, there are progress points and counterpoints. Plenty of numbers still need improvement.

(on camera): Nearly four-and-a-half million children under age 15 have been killed by AIDS, 13 million have been orphaned by the disease.

BERGEVIN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) three million children die each year of pneumonia, one to two million die of diarrhea, probably around one to two million die of malaria. Immunizations currently save two to three million lives, but there are still two to three million lives that could be saved if we were to immunize every child.

NELLIS (voice-over): The numbers are staggering and hard to comprehend until you go beyond the numbers and put a human face on death.

BERGEVIN: Each day, 30,000 children die of largely preventable causes. And if you think of -- if we had an air accident, you know, each day causing the death of 30,000 people, well it would make CNN. And yet it's very difficult to interest people about the preventable death of 30,000 children each day. Our mind gets dulled and we forget about it. But for that child, for that mother, for that family, that's a real death.

NELLIS: Despite these tragedies, there is hope and help. The 1990 World Summit on Children left a legacy living on in the millions of young people saved by global campaigns. Now the United Nations Special Session on Children has the chance to move forward to give even more children a future and a present, the gift of health.

Kathy Nellis, CNN, the United Nations.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: Our health reporting continues now with a chilling thought, imagine if the September 11 terrorists had flown the hijacked planes into a nuclear power plant. It's a scenario that the federal government has considered and is preparing for just in case.

Our Elizabeth Cohen explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Mark Jacobs lives about five miles from New York's Indian Point nuclear power plant and so he doesn't leave home without these - enough potassium iodide tablets for him, his wife, and son. They're basically salt pills and if taken right after a release of radioactivity can help protect against thyroid cancer.

MARK JACOBS: Every time that I hear a plane flying overhead, I have to ask myself is that a plane that's going to continue or is it going to crash into Indian Point, and that scares me.

COHEN: Since nuclear plants weren't designed to withstand the impact of a modern plane, the government is buying potassium iodide for people who live within 10 miles of the nuclear plant. The pills available without prescription have few side effects and are cheap.

Now the company that runs Indian Point, 35 miles north of Manhattan, says it can't imagine anyone would ever need potassium iodide.

JIM STEETS: Our containment buildings don't have glass walls. They are solid three and a half feet of cement with eight rows of steel reinforcement interwoven. We're very confident in its ability to stop a plane.

COHEN: In fact Jim Steets told us a plane would bounce off these walls - something Ken Kelly isn't buying. He lives across the river from Indian Point.

KEN KELLY: You think about the Twin Tower situation and you say my God, one of those planes rolled right over this site - right over - right down the river, and had they chosen, they could have put the plane into the plan and that would have been a real disaster.

COHEN: So is Kelly glad the federal government is going to give away potassium iodide - not particularly. A retired chemist, Kelly knows that the pills protect only against thyroid cancer and nothing else. His solution - he thinks post September 11th the plant doesn't belong in a densely populate area near five commercial airports. He wants Indian Point shut down. But Mark Jacobs says he knows that's not going to happen. So in the meantime he'll keep his stock handy just in case the unthinkable occurs.

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: Nigeria, like many other countries, struggles to meet the needs of its physically challenged citizens, many of whom are children. However, there are few formal institutions equipped to do that job.

But our Student Bureau brings us a story of one school ready and willing to serve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IYEGHEWU OSUNDE, CNN STUDENT BUREAU (voice-over): (UNINTELLIGIBLE) children have special needs the regular schools in Nigeria just don't address. Walking up steps is something that most people take for granted. Atunda-Olu School teaches special students how to cope with these kinds of disabilities. Apart from this, they're given both academic and vocational training. They're also given technical training in order to keep up with the fast moving technological world. The skills they acquire now may be their future occupation.

Aminal Kasali (ph) is a typical 18-year-old student of Atunda-Olu School.

AMINAL KASALI, AGE 18: I would like to work in computer office.

OSUNDE: Atunda-Olu School serves an area of Nigeria that has many disabled children. Yet in some ways, the school's resources are almost as limited as those of the families that they are trying to help.

(on camera): What is needed (UNINTELLIGIBLE) suffering are physically challenged children in Nigeria is more schools to address children's special needs, more funding for those that already exist and more government assistance for the parents.

Remi Amora (ph) is an educationalist (ph), a mother of a disabled child.

REMI AMORA: I (UNINTELLIGIBLE) children come together where these children could be helped. They need a lot of love and care.

OSUNDE (voice-over): Iyeghewu Osunde, CNN Student Bureau, Lagos, Nigeria.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ON-SCREEN: "Where in the World?"

Country's three largest ethnic groups, Mausa, Yorba, Ibo.

School attendance not legally required.

Soccer is the favorite sport.

Can you name this country?

Nigeria.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: We want to let you know about an important programming note for later tonight that's when President Bush will give his State of the Union speech.

WALCOTT: That's right, a very important one at that. Join CNN at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time for full coverage of the speech as well as reaction from both sides of the Capitol. We'll give you a full recap right here on Wednesday.

MCMANUS: And also click on CNNstudentnews.com for an interesting timeline of past State's of the Union. Check it out, and it'll give you a little primer for tonight.

Until tomorrow, I'm Michael McManus.

WALCOTT: And I'm Shelley Walcott. Have a great day.

MCMANUS: Bye-bye.

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