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CNN STUDENT NEWS

Aired March 05, 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: As CNN STUDENT NEWS rolls into Tuesday, we bring you news from the Afghanistan front of America's new war.

MICHAEL MCMANUS, CO-HOST: From rooting out the enemy to detecting disease, we "Chronicle" a career of the new era.

WALCOTT: Then, we hit the racetrack with an amazing young driver and go on an out-of-this-world repair mission.

MCMANUS: Plus, meet some folks for whom piercing is a passion.

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

MCMANUS: And I'm Michael McManus.

U.S. and allied troops continue fierce combat with several hundred Taliban and al Qaeda fighters.

WALCOTT: The Pentagon said as of yesterday nine Americans had been killed since the latest round of fighting began late Friday. Eight of those deaths came Monday in two attacks on U.S. Chinook helicopters near the town of Gardez. One of the helicopters was hit as it flew. It came down and a firefight ensued on the ground.

Our Joel Hochmuth has more on the region where the fighting is taking place.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOEL HOCHMUTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This latest fighting targeting Taliban and al Qaeda positions in Eastern Afghanistan is clearly the most dangerous yet for U.S. forces in the war on terrorism.

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: Both I and the Secretary of Defense have said on numerous occasions we are entering a phase where we will physically go to places on the ground inside Afghanistan to clear out pockets of resistance as we're able to find them. And, yes, it is more dangerous, and that is the phase of the operation that we're in right now.

HOCHMUTH: In a change in strategy, about 1,000 American and allied ground forces are going after al Qaeda and Taliban forces directly rather than leaving that up largely to Afghan troops. They're up against subfreezing temperatures, steep terrain and altitudes of 8,500 feet or more. The scene of the battle, Paktia Province, a mountainous region about 90 miles south of Kabul and about 70 miles from Tora Bora, site of the last major battle in the war in Afghanistan. It appears Taliban forces regrouped here after escaping coalition attacks elsewhere.

GENERAL RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: There's a pretty good likelihood that these al Qaeda fighters and the others in there were fighting with the Taliban forces early on in this conflict, up north, other places in the country, Kandahar region. And as the Taliban were driven out of -- out of power and destroyed, that they started to get together in a place where they could have enough mass to be effective. And we've been following that, allowing it to develop until we thought it was proper time to strike.

HOCHMUTH: U.S. officials are hoping to prevent Taliban and al Qaeda fighters from escaping again. The Pentagon is calling the operation Anaconda after the snake that wraps itself around its prey and crushes it. But officials warn this is not the Taliban's last stand.

DONALD RUMSFELD, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: So the thought that all of the people, all of the Taliban who oppose the interim government that now exists, that Karzai is leading, all of the al Qaeda are gone and disappeared or changed their minds or gone (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I think is just unrealistic. I think we have to expect that there are other sizable pockets, that there will be other battles of this type.

HOCHMUTH: Rumsfeld won't predict how long this battle will last, only that the war in Afghanistan is far from over.

Joel Hochmuth, CNN STUDENT NEWS.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: Making "Headlines" today, upcoming presidential elections in Zimbabwe. Incumbent President Robert Mugabe is appealing for peace in the streets. Political tensions are high in this country heading to the polls for the first time in nearly 25 years. About 150 people have been killed in political violence in Zimbabwe over the past two years. International observers have arrived in the country to keep an eye on next week's voting.

Zimbabwe was a colony of the United Kingdom that gained independence in 1980. Robert Mugabe has been the nation's only ruler and has dominated the country's political system, but that could all change next week as Charlayne Hunter-Gault reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a day for horse races at the track and on the trail, the campaign trail that is, as incumbent Robert Mugabe and challenger Morgan Tsvangirai appealed for votes entering the last lap of their presidential race. At the race track, these odds.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would think maybe 7 to 10 for Robert Mugabe and possibly 8 to 10 for Morgan Tsvangirai.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would say even money on the winner.

HUNTER-GAULT: Now guess where this was.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mugabe's going to win.

HUNTER-GAULT: And this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And definitely Morgan Tsvangirai is going to win.

HUNTER-GAULT: Predicting himself as winner, President Mugabe attacked first British Prime Minister Tony Blair who's been highly critical of what he's called a campaign of violence and intimidation by the ruling ZANU-PF party.

ROBERT MUGABE, PRESIDENT OF ZIMBABWE: It's as if we are an extension of Britain. We aren't. We are part of Africa. Black people and not white people.

HUNTER-GAULT: The president charged Morgan Tsvangirai and his movement for democratic change with the same brush.

MUGABE: The more you see you don't get support for -- given to them, you see, the more of course you will also see our people denouncing the MDC (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Party.

HUNTER-GAULT: At his much larger and more energetic rally, Tsvangirai predicted himself the winner. As for Mugabe,...

MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, OPPOSITION LEADER: He has destroyed a vibrant economy to a basket case. He has destroyed industry. He has destroyed agriculture. He has destroyed tourism. He has destroyed mining. How do you create jobs when you are destroying this industry?

HUNTER-GAULT (on camera): Heading into the home stretch, each candidate is calling for a big voter turnout, hoping that will make him the victor in Zimbabwe's political horse race.

Charlayne Hunter-Gault, CNN, Harare, Zimbabwe.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: The United Nations could get a new member soon. Voters in Switzerland put aside fears of losing neutrality and said yes to joining the world body. Now a formal application to the U.N. will get underway. Approval would make Switzerland the United Nations 190th member.

CNN's Robin Oakley has more on the campaign to join and the next debate that the Swiss may face.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Activists in Switzerland's referendum on whether to join the United Nations have been working right up to Sunday's close of polling seeking to sway the undecided. Yes campaigners like the Swiss Business Federation have been warning their nation that isolation is a danger and that joining up is a patriotic duty. Switzerland's neutrality, they insist, isn't at stake.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want to point out, no, this neutrality is no obstacle to entry in the United Nations. On the contrary, we could probably bring our experience in neutrality, also in mediation in conflict resolving into this association -- into the United Nations.

OAKLEY: The man who launched the movement for change insists that Swiss neutrality is, anyway, a myth.

REMO GYSIN, SWISS MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT: For instance, all economical embargoes, we did exactly what the U. Nations -- United Nations did so this kind of neutrality we already lost in the early '90s.

OAKLEY: But opponents of Switzerland becoming the U.N.'s 190th member are equally vehement.

HANS FEHR, SWISS MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT: Of course, no.

OAKLEY (on camera): Why is that?

FEHR: Because Switzerland is a free country. We have a democracy and the people always takes the final decisions. And now we don't want to change and take orders from the large countries.

OAKLEY: In Geneva, host to the U.N.'s European headquarters, you might expect to find some enthusiasm for Switzerland going multilateralist. Here in Bern, opinion about joining the United Nations is much more divided.

(voice-over): In Zurich, yes campaigners, some of whom want to see Switzerland join the European Union too, say it's time for their country to stop going it alone.

ANDREAS GROSS, SWISS MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT: This will open the people. This will make our Parliament discuss more foreign policy issues. And because we discuss this more, the perception of the world and the relation between Switzerland and the world will change for the better.

OAKLEY (on camera): The Swiss, who turned down the idea of U.N. membership last time they were asked in 1986, don't go in for fast food democracy. Getting up a petition, organizing a campaign and debating the issue in Parliament has taken nearly five years. But that's not surprising, perhaps, when a vote which could change not only the U.N. membership role but a fiercely independent country's whole scale of relationship with the outside world.

Robin Oakley, CNN, Zurich, Switzerland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: And for more on Switzerland and its decision to join the United Nations, log on to our Web site. That's CNNstudentnews.com. You'll find an interactive map and a wealth of information on Switzerland's neighbors.

The Centers for Disease Control opened in 1946.

MCMANUS: Since last September, biological warfare has been a big concern for many, but you might not know the history of this potential danger goes way back. In 1951, the Centers for Disease Control, or the CDC, established the Epidemic Intelligence Service. This program would serve as an early warning system against a biological attack. Today, you'll meet one of their officers. She's traveled the globe working against threats such as HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis C.

CNN's Deanna Morowski spoke with her about disease and how to detect it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LORNA THORPE, EPIDEMIOLOGIST: My name is Lorna Thorpe and I'm an epidemiologist, what a lot of people call disease detective. And what I do mostly is identify why diseases move the way they do, where they exist and try to figure out how we can alter the course of epidemics.

When we arrive somewhere, the first thing that we try to do is determine what is the problem. We try to identify if there's been a spike in cases, a sudden increase or if there's been a slow increase over time. Looking back to try to get a sense of, you know, what's the norm and then is -- has something changed, it's the first step.

Then what we often do after that is try as clearly as possible to describe the problem. And that takes a lot of field investigation and work and trying to map out in a sense of who, where, what, how, how the disease has perhaps risen over time and where it exists. Once we've described the current state of an epidemic or a disease, we try to identify factors that might be associated with those increases, who's getting it and why.

A typical day for us I think varies a lot depending on whether we're in the field or we're in our headquarters. In the field we are usually armed with our laptop, we're working with the local people who are involved with the disease somehow. It may be a hospital, it may be health care providers in another setting or the local government, and we're often collecting data in the field. So a typical day in the field might be a lot of looking through medical charts, developing questionnaires and asking people about their recent experiences or entering the data into our laptops, but it's a lot of amassing or collecting information.

In Atlanta when we get back, a lot of our work is sort of analyzing and synthesizing that data. It does deal a lot with numbers and sitting at a computer and analyzing data, but we don't stray far from what question we're trying to answer.

I guess you could call it a battle between ourselves and the diseases or microbes that we're working with. They will find ways to spread throughout populations and we're trying to find ways to stop them. With HIV, we find over and over again that it's a very, very smart bug and it's infected a lot of people worldwide. So we can't only rely on the -- on drugs or the fact that people will change behaviors by themselves, we've really got to look and figure out how we can introduce societal changes, how we can introduce any kind of changes to be smarter than HIV.

The level of danger depends on what disease you're working with and in what setting. My most recent work has been with tuberculosis, for example, and tuberculosis is an airborne disease that one can contract when around people who are sick, actively sick with TB or tuberculosis. Protections that we might take would be to wear a protective mask over our face, making sure that the institutions that we're working with are using the proper what we call institutional checks like keeping windows open if it's a warm, hot tropical area, making sure the air flow in rooms is proper, making sure patients who are infectious are separated from patients who are not infectious. And if we can do as much as possible at the local level to minimize risk to anybody while minimizing risk to ourselves.

I was called to respond to September 11 attack. We were asked to fly up to New York, before planes were actually flying, to conduct surveillance around Manhattan and the other four boroughs to see if there were any unusual disease syndromes that came out of the attack. So we were flown up immediately and spread out across the city in different hospitals in the emergency rooms. Two persons per hospital and we were on twelve hour shifts. And the emergency room collecting information on everybody who came in, working very hard for the -- for the two weeks immediately after the attack trying to see if there is possible biological agents that were involved in the attack or if any strange syndromes came out of the fact that the towers fell.

I think over time the CDC, the government as well as academic institutions and hospitals are going to need epidemiologists more in areas like bioterrorism surveillance and then also in areas where new diseases are cropping up. There's a whole new plethora of what we call emerging diseases. These include things like Hantavirus and Ebola Virus. The CDC tends to respond and be most active in the areas of greatest need. So if we see a rise in chronic diseases, like heart disease or cancer, you'll see more of our work and more availability for epidemiologists in those areas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

WALCOTT: While many people may think NASCAR is a man's sport, but there is one women proving them all wrong. Her name is Kelly Sutton. She wanted to be a race car driver since she was only 5 years old. Driving is in her genes, but for a while it looked like multiple sclerosis would steer her off course.

Elizabeth Cohen now on a woman changing the face of NASCAR by proving her doctors wrong.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): By now, Kelly Sutton was supposed to be in a wheelchair. And she does spend a lot of time in a chair, and it does have wheels, but it goes 150 miles an hour.

KELLY SUTTON, NASCAR DRIVER: I'm really competing with myself and the MS, showing that I can do it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go, go, go, go, go.

COHEN: Since she was five, Kelly knew she wanted to be a race car driver, just like her father and grandfather. But, then:

SUTTON: I was diagnosed at 16 years old, and at that point, I thought my world had come to an end. I didn't want anybody to know. I didn't want to go on living. I just wanted to crawl in a hole and just die.

COHEN: Her doctors told her that by age 25 or so, her multiple sclerosis would be so bad, she wouldn't be able to walk. And they were right.

SUTTON: In '96, I had a severe attack and was in a wheelchair pretty much all year of '96, and we thought that that was the end.

COHEN: MS is a serious illness, but with the proper therapy, it can be manageable. In her case, a drug called Copaxone allows her to lead a pretty normal life and follow her dream. Now 30, Kelly hasn't had a serious attack in six years. The drug company now sponsors her team.

SUTTON: Oh, man! That was a good run!

COHEN: Last weekend in Daytona, she finished 11th, even though she started way back in the pack, in 34th place.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good girl!

SUTTON: I think so. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I feel like I'm on top the world right now!

COHEN: Kelly knows it might not always be this good. Her disease could strike again at any time, because MS drugs, no matter how effective, only slow the progression. They don't provide a cure. But, for now, she feels like a winner.

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Daytona Beach, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: Well if you're a gear head, stick around, more on racing hard and fast in our "Student Bureau Report."

And now over to Michael at the desk for some transportation news of a different sort -- Michael.

MCMANUS: That's right, we go from driving to walking. With one spacewalk down, four to go for the crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia. The astronauts are giving the Space Telescope Hubble a major overhaul and upgrade. This is the instrument's 12th year in orbit, and the tune up could give it eight more years of life.

Our space correspondent Miles O'Brien has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN GRUNSFELD, ASTRONAUT: Oh, what a beautiful view.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For spacewalker, astronomer and self-proclaimed "Hubble hugger" John Grunsfeld, it was an encore performance. He logged two walks outside the space telescope in December of 1999. Back then, Hubble was out of commission after some gyroscopes failed. This time, Hubble is working fine and Grunsfeld is leading the repair team, hoping to make it better.

To that end, he and his spacewalking sidekick, Rick Linnehan, ventured into the void give Hubble a new solar wing, and more than a prayer for added amperage. The old solar arrays, on Hubble for nine years, rolled up like window blinds and were a bit temperamental. The new version is rigid and is 2/3 the size of the old wing, and yet produces 20 percent more electricity. On Earth, it weighs more than 600 pounds, but in the absence of gravity, Linnehan and Grunsfeld appear to have no trouble attaching it to Hubble.

The only bothersome moment came as Linnehan tried to attach the old array to Columbia's cargo bay. A bulky bolt refused to cooperate, but finally unfroze. And that set the stage for the solar panel deployment. The new wing unfolded like a book, hopefully opening a new chapter for Hubble.

Miles O'Brien, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: You know adorning one's body with jewelry or art really isn't all that uncommon. Throughout history, in fact, many cultures have practiced tattooing and body piercing. Tattoo and body piercing studios are peppered all across the U.S. Nevertheless, as you'll learn in our "Health Report" today, there are a few things people should know before walking into one.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A new tattoo brought this Army soldier to uptown today.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not one to just walk in and get something thrown on my body for life that doesn't really mean anything.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Out of town, from Iowa, he picked St. Sabrina's in Minneapolis.

BEN BENSON, TATTOO ARTIST: If you do your research and go to a tattooer who is sterile and licensed and clean, it's absolutely safe.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A study released by Mayo agrees. Twenty- three percent of undergrad students with tattoos didn't report complications but piercings were a different story. The incidents of infection was significant.

MICHAEL MULCAHY, PIERCING ARTIST: Piercing full time for eight years.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Michael Mulcahy has done more than 20,000 piercings. Experience and sterile tools, he says, could easily avoid health problems.

MULCAHY: What I explain to people is that tools are sterile. We open them in front of you. There -- the needle is use once, thrown away in front of you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And not having it done in a professional studio,...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well my friend did it. I didn't have it done at a piercing parlor.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... a big mistake say the artists. Without a professional, there is a risk of bacterial infection or worse, a risk some aren't willing to take.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was actually really easy to heal.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fung Farley (ph) admits her lip piercing may be just a phase. But back at Sabrina's they want people to think about how long their new jewelry will stick around before they decide to do it, because if they don't, neglect could lead to a more serious kind of office visit.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: Well, as we promised, more on racing as we round the bend into our "Student Bureau Report." Lisa Cantrell and Jason Croft first saw race cars as a hobby but realized this was something they wanted as careers. They both race competitively at the tracks and hope to one day become professional NASCAR drivers. It's full speed ahead as we continue our celebration of March and Women's History Month.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LISA CANTRELL, RACE CAR DRIVER: If someone pins, it's just a challenge. I like challenge. My name is Lisa Cantrell. I'm 19 years old, and I'm here to beat all of these boys tonight. It's just a dream of mine to race, to be the first woman in NASCAR to successfully win.

JASON CROFT, RACE CAR DRIVER: I feel real good -- real good with the car. I mean it felt fast. I'm Jason Croft. And I'm (UNINTELLIGIBLE) years old. Right now it's a hobby, but one day I would like to run NASCAR and be able to make a living at doing racing.

CANTRELL: Well, Jason Croft and I, we both started around the same time. We're both in our teens and doing the high school thing. And I guess we're good rivals. And I definitely want to be better than him.

CROFT: She's a pretty good driver, you know. She's the only girl out there. And everybody says it's a guy sport, but I always look at it if the girl is capable of driving a race car then let them get in there and try it.

We'll probably be about middle ways back in the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) so we'll have to come through the traffic again.

CANTRELL: Hopefully we'll do good, just won't get in any accidents.

I first got interested in racing was because of my dad. He raced when he was my age. My granddad raced and my dad raced and then when there was no boys it was me and that's a good thing.

CROFT: I just like to go fast. And when I went and watched the go-carts one year, and I just don't know, it just hit me that this is what I wanted to do. So I started racing go-carts when I was 11 years old.

CANTRELL: I would say this is definitely like the minor leagues. It's a learning experience.

I'm fine. We got into a little fender there, but I'm fine. Devastating. Oh I'm so devastated to go through all this work and then nothing. And everybody else didn't get out. They're still out there racing and so, anyway.

CROFT: I'm happy with the fifth place finish as far back as I started.

There's a lot of young of drivers taking over now and that's what everybody's looking for, somebody young who can drive a race car and.

CANTRELL: And we're going to win. I'm telling you we're going to win. I'm not going for second place this time. Tired of these boys beating me.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

"Where in the World" annexed by the United Kingdom in 1923, formerly called Rhodesia, English is the official language? Can you name this country? Zimbabwe.

MCMANUS: OK, gang, time to move from geography back to health. If you think some people are too old to workout, you should meet Ellen McCowan (ph). She's been in the gym for five years, Shelley, and get this, she's 95 years young.

WALCOTT: Wow!

MCMANUS: She says she loves to hit the treadmill and throw the steel around.

WALCOTT: And it just goes to show you that you're never too old to start taking care of your body.

MCMANUS: Absolutely.

And please take care to stay with us all week as we'll be bringing you more remarkable ladies. You'll meet women on top of the business world and a woman who has been out of this world when we profile astronaut Sally Ride.

WALCOTT: That's right.

And for now we're out of here. But don't despair, even when we aren't on TV we're still with you online at CNNstudentnews.com.

MCMANUS: So be sure to log on.

And in the meantime, we will see you right back here tomorrow.

WALCOTT: Have a good one. Bye-bye.

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