Return to Transcripts main page

CNN 10

CNN Student News

Aired March 14, 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.

MICHAEL MCMANUS, CO-HOST: Time for your Thursday "STUDENT NEWS." In today's "Lead Story," the results are in but questions linger after presidential elections in Zimbabwe.

SUSAN FREIDMAN, CO-HOST: Then in "Chronicle," thousands of years of espionage and trickery on display at the new International Spy Museum.

MCMANUS: Now quiz time. Do you know the leading cause of disabilities in the nation? Hang on until the "Science Report" for the answer.

FREIDMAN: We also stop in Mexico where the thinking of school dress codes is anything but uniform.

Welcome to "CNN STUDENT NEWS". I'm Susan Freidman.

MCMANUS: And I'm Michael McManus.

Vice President Dick Cheney meets with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. This was Cheney's third stop in a 12-nation tour that includes several Arab nations.

FREIDMAN: Cheney's trip has been overshadowed by the toughest Israeli military offensive in 20 years. Israeli troops pushed deeper into Ramallah Wednesday, hours before the U.N. Security Council passed a U.S.-sponsored resolution that affirms a vision of a Palestinian state. Cheney called the U.N. vote a positive statement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our vision for the Israelis and Palestinians is in two sovereign states able to reside in peace with one another. And the president's made clear that the U.S. vision for that part of the world includes that of a Palestinian homeland as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREIDMAN: Furthering efforts to calm tensions in the Middle East, U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni returns to the region today.

Mike Hanna reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE HANNA, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): This is the reality on the ground confronting the special U.S. envoy, the biggest Israeli military operation in two decades as troops reoccupy a number of Palestinian areas.

A massive loss of Palestinian life in these military deployments, loss of life, too, on the Israeli side as Palestinian gunmen attack Jewish settlers and the troops guarding them. And suicide bombers continue to threaten strikes in the very heart of Israel.

The region's violence nothing new to Anthony Zinni. Both of his previous visits were marked by an increase in the level of conflict. The man who'd come to negotiate a cease-fire ended up paying respects to yet more dead.

MAHDI ABDUL HADI, PALESTINIAN ACADEMIC SOCIETY: If he will not be able to hold Sharon tanks and firing and killing Palestinians, and if he will not be able to appoint an access for Arafat to go to Beirut to attend the Arab Summit, I think his mission will be failed.

HANNA: The conflict Zinni is coming to try to resolve is more intense than ever. The result, says this analyst, of two factors.

ARI SHAVIT, HAARETZ NEWSPAPER: One is that the Palestinians have learned that there is profit in killing Jews. There's political capital to be made. And the other is that there has been a process of legitimization of the slaughter of Jews in this country.

HANNA: Zinni's task: to revive a cease-fire plan drawn up by CIA Director George Tenet. Among the steps demanded of the Palestinian leadership, to arrest known militants, confiscate illegal weapons and do everything possible to end attacks on Israelis.

Demanded of Israel, to lift the blockade on Palestinian territory, to stop the killing of individual Palestinian militants and to withdraw forces to the positions they held before the end of September 2000.

SHAVIT: The thing that the Israelis must know that once they make these concessions they are going to have peace and quiet at home, that they can walk safely to their cafes and go to their shopping malls without being slaughtered.

HADI: We have been sacrificing hundreds of people from both houses. And we need international presence, not only to protect the Palestinians, but to separate the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) for the time being.

HANNA: Palestinians have made repeated calls for international monitors on the ground. But Ariel Sharon has made clear he believes that would internationalize the conflict rather than contain it. (on camera): Both sides have welcomed Zinni's return, but neither side has indicated it will take the steps necessary to ensure this mission ends differently from those that failed before.

Mike Hanna, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: The saga in Zimbabwe tops our "Headlines" again today. The election is finally over, and Robert Mugabe has been declared the winner. But many are calling the vote a complete fraud. And Mugabe's challenger has vowed to fight the results.

We have the latest from a country in turmoil.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do hereby declare Robert Gabriel Mugabe of ZANU-PF Party.

JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the end, it was the result everyone expected but not everyone wanted. In the end it was all about numbers, and incumbent Robert Mugabe has the numbers on his side.

In the capital Harare, these Mugabe supporters weren't wasting any time. They were quick to take to the streets in celebration, defiantly displaying how they put the final nail in MDC candidate Morgan Tsvangirai's coffin.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The happiest, and we are the happiest people, the happiest people in the whole world.

KOINANGE: There were no signs of the victor himself, but the loser put on a brave face, vowing the fight was far from over.

MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, MOVEMENT FOR DEMOCRATIC CHANGE: We therefore as MDC do not accept this result. We find ourselves unable to endorse the propitiate election of President Robert Mugabe as Zimbabwe's president in this election. We put it on record that this is a political issue that is to be resolved politically by the people of Zimbabwe who have been cheated of their right to freely and democratically elect their leadership.

KOINANGE: A heavy police presence on the streets of the capital discouraged any form of protest and troublemakers were quickly rounded up and taken away. Many here are MDC supporters and their disappointment was evident.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For today we are very sad about the situation is so bad.

KOINANGE: And in other parts of the city the army was deployed to stifle any form of opposition unrest.

(on camera): International observers are calling this one of the most fraudulent elections in recent times. Critics of Zimbabwe will no doubt continue to denounce the results, but that won't stop incumbent Robert Mugabe and his supporters from celebrating their victory. Mugabe, 22 years in power, begins a new six-year term on April 1, going down in history as one of the longest serving African heads of state.

Jeff Koinange, CNN, Harare.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: The U.S. stance on Iraq has been a major focus of Vice President Cheney's Middle East trip. As the threat of military action hangs over Iraq, we get a rare public glimpse into how one of the world's most secretive leaders runs his country.

CNN's Jane Arraf reports on the media appearances being made by Saddam Hussein.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What does one of the world's most talked about men do with his time? This week, uncharacteristically, Saddam Hussein talks. He talks about farming, sort of.

SADDAM HUSSEIN, PRESIDENT, IRAQ (through translator): As they say in the countryside, a tractor is judged by the dust it raises.

ARRAF: He talks about staying in touch with the people.

HUSSEIN (through translator): The aim is to participate in correcting the bad and to build on the good.

ARRAF: With the U.S. warnings to Baghdad swirling around the region, the Iraqi leader has spent an almost unprecedented amount of Iraqi TV time lecturing and listening, listening to compliments mostly.

"You are Yousef (ph)", this official says, referring to a great man in the Islam holy book, the Koran.

(on camera): TV is the only place most Iraqis see the president. Since the Gulf War and threats to kill him from inside and outside Iraq, he almost never appears in public. The nightly appearances on television are a way of showing he's still very much in charge.

(voice-over): These Kurdish groups are safe, they're loyal to the president and not from Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. "Convey my regards to every mountain and hill and every fallen stream and to every Kurdish man and woman, old or young", the president says.

Iraq has been effectively partitioned since the Gulf War. The north controlled by Kurds, either isolated from or hostile to Baghdad. On other evenings, the Iraqi leader holds talks with more import, like these with military leaders. But only those who are there get to hear what Saddam Hussein is saying at those meetings. For the rest of us, it is just the sweet sound of state television's favorite music.

Jane Arraf, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FREIDMAN: Washington, D.C. is known as a museum Mecca. Walk down Independence Avenue and you'll have your pick from either side of the street. Well, there's a new museum opening this summer that profiles an activity done in Washington for years but never celebrated.

David Ensor gives us a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Most people, when they think of spies, think of the Hollywood version. James Bond maybe and that Astin Martin. A car like that will be on show, but the real stars at the new spy museum under construction in Washington will be the real spies. Why Washington? Thanks to Alridge Ames and Robert Hanssen, this city has become the undisputed world capitol of espionage.

PETER EARNEST, DIRECTOR, SPY MUSEUM: I would say that as you and I stand here talking at 9th and F, there's espionage going on around us. Somebody is developing somebody for a recruitment. Someone's putting down a dead drop, as we speak.

BUGS BUNNY: I just learned a secret it's a honey it's a pip, but the enemy is listening, so I'll never let it slip.

ENSOR: With wartime cartoons, interactive exhibits, and artifacts, the museum will shine new slide into a shadowy world. Historian Keith Melton collected many of the most interesting items, like this shoe, designed by Czech intelligence to bug American diplomats.

KEITH MELTON: And essentially the person that was wearing them became a walking radio station.

ENSOR: Here's another charming item, created by Stalin's secret police. Looks like lipstick, but it's loaded.

MELTON: At close range next to the person behind the head, it would be devastatingly accurate and would cause a lethal wound if it was correctly pointed at the head. And it's a type of example that the KGB used.

ENSOR: Contrary to the Hollywood version, the best real spies aren't interested in killing. They are interested in stealing secrets without getting caught. Now the museum has one of the German enigma machines. The elaborate secret code message machines they relied on, never guessing allies had broken their code.

MELTON: You'd literally hold it like this.

ENSOR: And it has a collection of spy cameras from small to the very small.

MELSON: And the idea is that what I'm wearing, if I can take a picture of you, and you have absolutely no idea that it's been taken.

ENSOR: The spy museum turned to this legendary couple, CIA veterans Tony and Jonah Mendez, now retired, for advice on how spies use disguises. In 1980, during the Iran hostage crisis, Tony spirited six American diplomats out of Tehran using false identities.

TONY MENDEZ, AUTHOR, "THE MASTER OF DISGUISE, MY SECRET LIFE IN THE CIA": I've turned a lot of people into older people, and turned a few into younger people, and turned a few into different Genders and different races you know.

ENSOR: Whatever it takes?

MENDEZ: Whatever it takes.

ENSOR: And as the spy museum will show, Mendez still has a few tricks up his sleeve.

MENDEZ: This is what we call a dental facade and this pops in over your regular teeth.

ENSOR (on camera): The art of physical, visual disguises has always been part of the world of espionage. And it still is. During the Cold War, the CIA used disguises to spirit its agents out of danger in Eastern Europe. And in the post-September 11h world, you can rest assured the same techniques will be use ended in the war on terrorism. Things are not always as they seem.

David Ensor, CNN, Knoxville, Maryland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

MCMANUS: The beauty of Peruvian weaving is known the world over. The fabrics are admired for their complicated patterns and colors. It's an art that has changed very little over the centuries, and one group is doing its part to ensure this craft does not die out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANICE MCDONALD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Thirteen-year- old Alina Cusihuaman is learning to weave the way her ancestors once wove. She wants to carry on a tradition spanning generations in her family.

ALINA CUSIHUAMAN, AGE 13 (through translator): My grandmother new how to knit the Chinchero hats. She was the only one in town who knew how to knit this hat. If she was dead, the knitting of the Chinchero hats would disappear.

MCDONALD: These traditions date back hundreds of years to Incan times, and keeping them from disappearing is the main purpose behind the Center for Traditional Textiles in the city of Chinchero in the Cuzco region, high in the Peruvian Andes.

NILDA CHALLANAUPA, CENTER FOR TRADITIONAL TEXTILES FOUNDER: Also we are realizing you know that -- how important it is to keep tradition and how much we already lost from our culture, you know.

MCDONALD: Nilda Challanaupa founded the center in 1999 with a group of women from her village. She works with people throughout the region to teach and give weaving demonstrations such as this one at the Inca Museum in Cuzco. She says that while they recreate the look of the tapestries and designs, which the Incas were known for, there are some things they cannot do.

CHALLANAUPA: We are still weaving, but always this intriguing question comes, you know what is meant? The technique and way of figuring out the design is not that difficult once you get to a certain stage of weaving. What you lose is the meanings.

MCDONALD: Young people are brought in to make sure more of this isn't lost and the center teaches every step of the process.

CHALLANAUPA: The first thing is the fiber, where you get the fiber. The fiber comes mainly from the sheep's wool in the lower parts like Chinchero. And the upper parts will come from the alpaca and alpaca actually provides us really rich colors and color combination.

MCDONALD: Churning fiber into thread is the first challenge of any weaver.

CHALLANAUPA: This is called drop spindle and that's what we use to produce the yarn. From the raw fleece, you know, they are pulling out and spinning. Pull out, pick up and then start processing with your fingers. You know you pull out, you know, twist with the spindle very -- as tight as you want and then you will just -- that's how you get your yarn.

MCDONALD: The yarn used in weaving here is two-ply, so after the threat is created, it's twisted with yet another thread. When through, it is dyed using natural dyes.

CHALLANAUPA: That is a big difference between this which she just put it. She needs to boil it another 15 minutes at least.

MCDONALD: After the thread is dried, it is ready for weaving. One ball of yarn can represent six days of work. For the younger weavers, it's time to learn the most basic of techniques. The process of lining up threads and creating the pattern is called warping.

CHALLANAUPA: This diamond design, the -- that was the homework for this week...

MCDONALD: OK.

CHALLANAUPA: ... that they should learn and we're going to produce necklaces and we're going to produce bracelets.

MCDONALD: They'll work on countless pieces until they graduate to the more complicated methods.

(on camera): There is strict criteria for being accepted into the center, especially for young people. They have to be here, not because their parents want them here, but because they want to learn.

(voice-over): Technique can be taught but desire has to come from within. There are literally hundreds of designs, and each region of Peru has their own which they use to identify their weaves.

CHALLANAUPA: They're producing different designs. Actually, it's a middle stage of learning how to weave the complex textile. And here it's much easier to see how you create the designs by picking up, by changing the colors to the different states, you know. Our designs are abstract geometric designs. Some of them come even from pre- Columbian cultures.

MCDONALD: Belts and straps are made this way. Large pieces are created on something called a backstrap loom and start with a two person team and another warping technique.

CHALLANAUPA: Here in the middle they are making the control of the yarn, all the order of the threads coming out here.

MCDONALD: With each toss of the yarn ball, the thread is tied at the end. When the process is completed, it's attached to the actual loom.

CHALLANAUPA: This is the most challenging way to weave. With this type of loom, you will be sitting hours and hours until you accomplish one textile.

MCDONALD: Not just hours, but days. It's all time consuming, but for those here, it's time well invested. Their weaving is now recognized, not just as traditional craft, but as art.

Janice McDonald, CNN NEWSROOM, Chinchero, Peru.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ONSCREEN: March 14-17, Brain Awareness Week 2002.

MCMANUS: Earlier we asked if you knew the leading cause of disability in the U.S. The answer, brain and central nervous system disorders. But help may be on the horizon. Scientists say they've enabled some monkeys to move a computer cursor using their minds. These are tiny electrodes implanted in the creature's brains that allow them to do this. Researchers hope that findings one day may lead to increased independence for paralyzed people.

Meanwhile, some science students in New Jersey are having their own close encounters with the brain. The meeting place: the operating room.

Brian Palmer explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah, this green portion, good.

BRIAN PALMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In a relaxed Long Branch, New Jersey classroom, a group of eager science students gets ready for brain surgery.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then number nine and ten, we were talking about for, is the glosopheringal nerve and the vagas nerve.

PALMER: No, not rocket science, brain surgery. Students at New Jersey's Liberty Science Center watch on video screens in real time, as surgeons miles away at Overlook Hospitalremove a tumor from a 60- year-old woman's brain.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was there any concern with drilling the bone out in this area that there's future complications?

PALMER: Blood and tissue and sounds that would make the average adult squirm...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have a retractor right here which is elevating the cerebellum.

PALMER: ... barely phase these kids, who pitch questions to the surgeons like hard-nosed medical students.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why are more women affected by this than men?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What causes the Schwam (ph) cells to overgrow?

PALMER: The program, called Brain Works, takes science out of the classroom for children all over New Jersey. These aren't just one-day field trips. Liberty's educators partner with teachers at New Jersey schools -- particularly under-served ones -- to improve their science programs.

STEVEN BAUMANN, LIBERTY SCIENCE CENTER: What we're trying to do is identify the place where Liberty Science Center, as an informal science institution, as a cultural organization, cannot just be a supplement to what schools offer, but can be an integral partner with the school district to help them achieve their science education goals.

PALMER: Evelyn Maurice is in her 11th year as a science teacher at Long Branch High School.

EVELYN MAURICE, TEACHER: I could stand there and talk to them how wonderful it is to be a doctor or a nurse or a technician or an anesthesiologist or profusionist or whatever. But it's not the same when they're hearing it from the persons experiencing it everyday.

PALMER: Asla Turenly (ph) wants to be an anesthesiologist. ASLA TURENLY, STUDENT: I love the way the brain works. It's almost unexplainable. There are so many different perspectives of it.

PALMER: Caitlin Williams though she'd be grossed out.

CAITLIN WILLIAMS, STUDENT: It's not as gory as I thought it was going to be. And like once you got into it -- like what they were doing and listening to them, you just completely forgot all about the gore.

PALMER: The goal of Brain Works isn't exactly to teach kids how to conduct surgery, but to show them how textbook science is about the real world and real people.

Brian Palmer, CNN, Jersey City.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: You may not be able to watch brain surgery in action, but you can put your brain to the test online at CNNstudentnews.com. There are plenty of brain related activities for you to try. See how well you do.

For now, it's time for our CNN "Student Bureau Report."

FREIDMAN: The school uniform debate has been making its way through U.S. schools the past few years. Arguments vary, but its supporters say uniforms reduce violence and theft and remove status symbols from schools. Students, for the most part, disagree with these reasons in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Here's our "Student Bureau Report" from Mexico City.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

P. HERNANDEZ, CNN STUDENT BUREAU (voice-over): In Mexico, almost every school requires the students to wear uniforms. There are many different opinions about it, but is there any difference between wearing them or not? For some students, it's not a problem.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's easy to wear a uniform because you know every day you don't have to think, you know, what to wear.

HERNANDEZ: But some students feel strongly that they shouldn't all have to wear uniforms.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The uniform is something that everybody wears and not my style. And I wouldn't wear it on the street, and I don't think I look nice in it.

HERNANDEZ: School uniforms have been a tradition in Mexico, but fashion has changed over time and that's why students are trying to dress how they want to show their own personality.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I don't care if it's fashionable, but I don't like wearing a uniform in which I don't feel comfortable.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I think you should be comfortable what -- in what you're wearing, and I don't like uniforms at all.

GLORIA DIAZ, SCHOOL PRINCIPAL (through translator): We have here is students from many different economic backgrounds and obviously some of them come very well dressed and others not. Uniforms are a way to equalize the social economic universe and create an image of our school.

HERNANDEZ: The different uniforms have the color and the name of the school they belong to. It represents the image that the school wants to give to other people and also gives an independent identity to each school as well.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When you don't wear a uniform, sometimes they don't recognize that you are from one school. So if you have a uniform, they -- all the people know in which school you are working.

HERNANDEZ: Even though not all the students feel comfortable with the idea of wearing uniforms, they'll continue searching for a way to come to school as they want, and they'll try to express themselves with the way they dress.

(UNINTELLIGIBLE) Hernandez, CNN Student Bureau, Mexico City, Mexico.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

"Where in the World" gained independence after 300 years of Spanish rule, more than 90 percent Roman Catholic, home to more than 100 million people? Can you name this country? Mexico.

MCMANUS: OK, Susan, let me ask you something, has anything ever crazy happened to you while you were on a family vacation?

FREIDMAN: Not unless you count getting my picture taken with Mickey Mouse in the seventh grade.

MCMANUS: I think we've all had the pleasure of having that done to us before.

FREIDMAN: Yes.

MCMANUS: But how cool would it be if you were the one taking the pictures? And what if what you capture on film just might be legendary? Want to know what that feels like, ask Bobby Pollock of Scotland.

Martin Geissler has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARTIN GEISSLER, ITV-TV REPORTER (voice-over): The object in the center of this picture might not immediately look like a monster, the trouble is it doesn't look like anything else. When Bobby Pollock took his family to the Highlands on holiday, he didn't expect to make money, but then he didn't expect to see a creature rise five feet out of Loch Ness and speed along the surface. The images he filmed aren't exactly conclusive evidence, but they were enough to win him a 500 pound bounty put up by a chain of bookies for the Nessie sighting of the year.

BOBBY POLLOCK, NESSIE SPOTTER: First of all, I thought it was a man swimming. And then I said no, it's too big to be a man swimming because the height of the hill I was up actually was quite high. So I said no, it's not a man. It can't be a seal. And I know it wouldn't be a roe deer because I've seen them in the Loch myself in the past. So basically it could only be one thing, could it be Nessie? I don't know. You get a lot of ridicule about this subject the Loch Ness, a hell of a lot of ridicule (UNINTELLIGIBLE). So I held on to it for three months before I actually sent it to Inverness.

GEISSLER: But it is being taken seriously. Marine mammal experts have studied the tape time and again, they agree the creature is moving too fast to be a seal but it's far too big to be any of the other known residents of the Loch. Other experts in the field say it's among the best pieces of Nessie footage ever shot. It'll now sit alongside images like these in the Nessie archive helping keep the legend alive. Good news for visitors, Nessie hunters and small businesses as the tourist season approaches.

Martin Geissler, ITV News.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FREIDMAN: Now that would make for a fun vacation. How come nothing like that ever happens to me? You?

MCMANUS: I know, me neither.

We're out of here. We'll see you tomorrow.

FREIDMAN: Bye-bye.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com