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'CNN Student News' for 03/28

Aired March 28, 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: We get thing started on Wednesday with a look at today's "Top Story." First up, the Arab summit gets underway in Lebanon. If you thought all the Oscar talk was over, guess again. Later, we'll "Chronicle" the work of the magic makers behind the camera. Then in our "Science Report," take a tour of a home made of concrete. Finally, meet a young person who likes to work with the animals. He hankers to be a herpetologist.

Welcome to CNN STUDENT NEWS. I'm Michael McManus.

The Arab League Summit in Beirut gets off to a rocky start. The Saudis kicked things off yesterday with a proposal for peace. Their plan would offer Israel normal relations with the Arab world if it withdraws from the territory it's been occupying since the 1967 War. Not long after that proposal was introduced, Palestinian delegates left the session when their Lebanese hosts refused to let Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat address the summit by satellite. Arafat's speech did appear on the Arab language network Al-Jazeera.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YASSER ARAFAT, PRESIDENT, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY (through translator): We want to restore our firm inalienable national rights that have been supported by international legitimacy of a right to self-determination and to set up our independent state and all the land that was taken or occupied in 1967, including east Jerusalem (INAUDIBLE) as our capital.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCMANUS: Despite problems at the summit, many people remain upbeat.

We take you now to the American University of Beirut. This school is one of the oldest in the region and more than 6,000 students attend the school.

CNN's Brent Sadler talked with six of them about their expectations for the summit and for Middle East peace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: However this Arab summit is the most summit you shouldn't put on hopes and expectations, especially after saying that the Arab leaders are all in turn (ph) starting to decline to come to Beirut and participate and actually taking a decision which would assist the intifada and end the fighting which is happening in Palestine.

BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: But delegations from those countries whose heads of state may not be coming, they're still attending, aren't they?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But the difference is in Arab countries which are autocratic, usually president take the decisions, delegations represent. This is in my opinion, personally. And I think if there was something worth coming for, they would come and talk about it.

SADLER: Safe (ph), but this Saudi initiative, which is really the spotlight of this Arab summit, do you believe that on the basis of that, an exchange of land for peace, Israel should withdrawal from land occupied since June 4, '67 in exchange for normal relations with Israel? Do you think this has a chance, a real chance of building momentum in the United States, in Europe and in Israel?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the first place, I believe that Israel should withdrawal from the West Bank, from the 1967 borders without normalization because their occupation is wrong in the first place. But if you're talking about this initiative as a first step towards lasting peace, then I don't think so simply because the problem of peace in the Middle East is not going to be solved by an initiative like this one. It's more a deeply rooted problem. It's a conflict that's been going on for decades and decades. And I think to solve this problem we have to strike at the root of the problem which is, unfortunately this may not suit many people to hear it, but it's designism (ph). This is the root of the problem in the conflict in this region.

SADLER: But there's no military solution in your mind, is there, to peace in the Middle East? Terror just simply doesn't work. It's not going to work.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well terror might not work (UNINTELLIGIBLE) but I'm also sure that negotiations on their own and peace settlements with Israel are not going to work because as long as Israel is existing as an apartheid state, occupying Palestinian land, occupying Arab land and creating a state that is exclusively for a religion or a race, then there can never be peace in this region because it is occupying other people's land and...

SADLER: An apartheid state, I mean that's very strong language. Let me pick you up on there. Now how do you back that up?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well simply Israel is a nation for Jews and Israelis are the first to say that. And a nation for Jews is not a nation for all its citizens. And I think this is basically the constituents of an apartheid state. Just like South Africa was a nation for the whites and black people have equal rights.

SADLER: But Israel, let me just turn to Whalete (ph) here,...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

SADLER: ... Israel is a democratic state.

WHALETE: OK. It says it's a democratic state in a way. Let's the example of (UNINTELLIGIBLE). He's (UNINTELLIGIBLE) as soon as he stood up and said that the Arab-Israelis have the rights, they're an indigenous people (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

SADLER: Let's just make sure our viewers know, he's an Arab- Israeli member of the Israeli government.

WHALETE: The kneeset -- the knesset. So being a member of a parliament, which is supposed to be a democratic parliament, as soon as he came up and stood up and said what he wanted then he said what his -- what his minorities wanted to say, he was thrown out in a way or another and he's going to be taken to jail and such things.

SADLER: Now how do you see the violence between Palestinians and Israelis being stopped, by a truce, first of all, the Tenet plan and then the Mitchell plan, a road map to peace in the Middle East?

WHALETE: Well first the Tenet plan and the Mitchell plan don't believe they are a road map to the peace in the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in the peace to the Middle East. I think they're a road map to stopping the violence and putting everything on hold and then waiting for something new to come up. If we want peace, we have to look at it from another perspective. As a Lebanese, I lived 1990 through 1999, specifically May 25, 1999, and through the resistance, Islamic or not Islamic, any kind of resistance it threw the occupiers out.

SADLER: You're talking about the Hezbollah guerrilla organization?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

WHALETE: Yes, and it's accomplices.

SADLER: So what are you saying, that resistance, the arms struggle, the intifada...

WHALETE: Could get to a result.

SADLER: Hand in hand with diplomatic initiatives or United Nations (ph)?

WHALETE: Yes, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) nobody can be a radical these days. Even if you want to be a radical you can't. It has to go hand in down (ph) to diplomacy. But if one look at diplomacy from one perspective, you have to look at it from this way, it has to be diplomacy between two equal nations.

(END VIDEOTAPE) MCMANUS: There is new fallout to report from the financial collapse of the Enron Corporation, the largest bankruptcy case ever in the United States. Tuesday, Joseph Berardino, Chief Executive of Arthur Andersen, announced he was stepping down. Andersen, once one of the most prestigious accounting firms in America, was the company in charge of auditing Enron's books even as Enron was destructing.

Andersen now faces a federal indictment for shredding documents related to those audits and is itself now on the verge of collapse. It lost the business of dozens of major clients and partnerships in several countries have announced plans to go their own way. Its best hope appears to be a plan laid out by Paul Volcker the former Federal Reserve chairman picked to lead an oversight committee charged with reforming the firm.

For more on his plan and Berardino's resignation, we go to Allan Chernoff.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Joseph Berardino says he'll step down in the hope that it will help his company survive. He made the announcement in an exclusive interview with Lou Dobbs "Moneyline."

JOSEPH BERARDINO, FORMER CEO, ANDERSEN: I felt I had to take this step today to put an exclamation point behind the voices of our people to say that we are serious and we're a serious firm that deserves to continue here in the United States.

CHERNOFF: Berardino told CNN he was following through on suggestions that he and other Andersen leaders had presented to Paul Volcker, head of Andersen's independent oversight committee. Last Friday Volcker called for a change in management.

PAUL VOLCKER, ANDERSEN OVERSIGHT BOARD: We're willing to take control of the firm if some very serious conditions are met that will certainly involve changes in leadership.

CHERNOFF: Berardino has been the public face of Andersen since the Enron scandal broke, testifying before Congress, firing chief Enron auditor David Duncan and pleading Andersen's case before the media. But the Justice Department's obstruction of justice lawsuit has proven to be a crushing blow, triggering dozens of long time clients to jump ship.

Berardino tells CNN Andersen intends to follow through on the Volcker plan. Volcker's group will become the de facto board for Andersen U.S. Top Andersen managers will step down and Andersen will split its auditing and consulting businesses, that is, if Andersen can stay above water.

ARTHUR BOWMAN, BOWMAN'S ACCOUNTING REPORT: The organization we know as Arthur Andersen will probably take bankruptcy and definitely go through a dissolution of the partnership. CHERNOFF (on camera): Next Tuesday and Wednesday, Andersen's worldwide board plans to meet in London, where a successor to Berardino is likely to be picked.

Allan Chernoff, CNN Financial News, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: The U.S.-led war on terrorism is being fought on several fronts and one of the most important battles is in the area of public relations.

Kim Abbott has the story of one woman working to dispel stereotypes about the U.S. and the challenging mission of introducing American values abroad.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KIMBERLY ABBOTT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): While the U.S.- led war on terrorism rages on in Afghanistan, there's a woman in Washington waging a softer war against the same threat. Her primary weapon, education.

Patricia Harrison is the Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs. She's made it her personal mission to help foster global understanding in the next generation.

PATRICIA HARRISON, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL AFFAIRS: I think the more you have conversation, the more you have a chance for mutual understanding and mutual respect. Two people don't seem so strange to each other. You find common values. Sometimes it's just through our movies that people get an impression about the United States and don't really know who we are as a people.

ABBOTT: It's a goal that has a renewed focus after some neglect. Even the White House acknowledges the U.S. needs to do a better job in general of telling the world that America is more than strip malls and MTV.

KAREN HUGHES, SPECIAL ADVISER TO THE PRESIDENT: We have not done a very good job in America over the last 20 or 30 years of explaining our values to the rest of the world and talking about the values we have in common, our love for family, our desire for religious freedom, our free speech, to talk about the universal demands, what the president calls the nonnegotiable demands of human dignity, and we have got to talk about that throughout the world. And that will take years, and we're obviously behind.

ABBOTT: Harrison is lobbying hard to catch up. Since taking office in October, she's traveled to several countries selling American values and thrown out the welcome mat to international teachers, journalists and religious leaders. She's also using traveling art and music exhibits to promote American culture.

HARRISON: Reaching out at a time when your natural feeling is to pull in, reaching out more than you ever did before, investing more and more in educational exchange, more in cultural exchange, that's really our directive right now.

ABBOTT (on camera): Even with tighter security and a crackdown on student visas, Secretary Harrison insists youth exchanges and cultural dialog are more important than ever, especially in Muslim countries. The department has dedicated an extra $12 million to Muslim exchange programs since September 11. The centerpiece of that, bringing Muslim teachers and students to the U.S. and eventually sending Americans abroad.

(voice-over): While the details of that plan are still sketchy, educators applaud the news provided it goes both ways.

LORI HANDRAHAN, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY: We are not born with prejudices, we are not born with hatreds of people who are different from us in religion, in ethnicity, in skin tone, in gender, those things are taught to us. Particularly for our children who grow up in societies where there is no freedom of expression, no freedom of media and no freedom of thought, they are immersed in a culture of propaganda and very often this is a propaganda of hatred against others. So when you have international exchange programs, I think you dissolve instantly the myth that people who are not like us in some of our external garments, for instance, religion, ethnicity, race, gender, you dissolve the myth that they are different from us.

ABBOTT: But can it work now so soon after September 11?

HASSINA SHERJAN SAMAD, VITAL VOICES: To decrease these negative impacts, they need to know each culture, race and each other's supports (ph) that how positive the United States positively wants to support Afghanistan. There is a great hope that it will work in long term.

ABBOTT: And Harrison knows her task is a long haul, chipping away at stereotypes one person at a time.

Kimberly Abbott, CNN STUDENT NEWS, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: And for even more insight on Secretary Harrison's mission, be sure to check out an interview with her on tomorrow's show. It's definitely a compelling interview you won't want to miss.

The Academy Awards go to more than just the creators and actors of motion pictures. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has a separate awards ceremony devoted to the technical wizards, the engineers you could say, who invent the new devices and techniques that bring magic and excitement to the silver screen.

CNN's Ann Kellan profiles two of this year's winners.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNE KELLAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The next hair- raising chase scene you watch, think Mic Rodgers and Matt Sweeney. They invented the Mic Rig, a car body hauled around on what looks like a tow truck. They won an Academy Award for it.

MIC RODGERS, INVENTOR MIC RIG: Pretty maneuverable, and it's pretty fast. And it's a real simple idea.

KELLAN: Used in the movie "Fast and the Furious," the Mic Rig puts actors in the middle of chase scenes. The actors don't drive, the stunt drivers do. They're behind the wheel of this converted truck. Before the Mic Rig, most actors sat in front of a fake background and pretended they were screeching around turns. Winning the award means a lot.

MATT SWEENEY, INVENTOR, MIC RIG: It's a thrill. I mean, I didn't really think about it too much until I got there, until I walked up and you get your, you know, award and you turn around and you see everyone is staring at you in tuxedos. That's when I kind of froze.

KELLAN: Theirs is one of a number of technologies honored by the academy. Don't forget it's motion pictures arts and sciences.

Another winner in the crowd this year, Pete Romano. His award- winning invention was used in the movie "Message in a Bottle." Romano, who started his career as a Navy photographer, developed a remote underwater camera.

PETE ROMANO, INVENTOR: So in dangerous situations, you can put the equipment there and not have to worry about it. It mounts on to our remote head right here. Inside is the camera lens, lens controls, film magazine and a controller.

KELLAN: Romano's Remote Aquacam also added drama in the movie "Pearl Harbor." You don't see him in the final cut, but this is how he spent many workdays during the filming...

ROMANO: I'm in full sailor garb and my camera is shrouded in tarps.

KELLAN: Getting recognized for his contribution means a lot.

ROMANO: Well that was sort of a high watermark in my career, as I jokingly say. It is a very proud moment.

KELLAN: It allows innovators, who have made movies what they are today, come out from behind the curtain and take a bow.

Anne Kellan, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: I'll bet you have never had a long distance phone call like the one the students at Bath Elementary School had yesterday. The North Carolina kids had a Q&A with astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Karl Walls (ph) and Daniel Birch (ph) fielded a number of questions, including one about how they got ready for their galactic mission.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the seven days before your launch, what preparations did you go through?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well what we started to do was we started to change our sleep pattern so that we would be ready for the upcoming launch. The launch of a -- of a shuttle depends on several things. If you're going to space station, it depends on when the space station is going to fly overhead. So we basically have to change our sleep patterns to when -- based upon when the space station is going to fly overhead. So that's probably the biggest change we go through.

We end up also going into quarantine where we can't see any very young children, because they don't want us to get sick before we launch into space, because if you have a stuffy, even a stuffy head, it may prevent you from flying into space.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

MCMANUS: One of the world's oldest business practices is making a comeback, barter trade has entered the 21st century. Traditionally, bartering involved a simple two-way exchange of goods. But today, multilateral global trading adds a whole new dimension.

Lisa Barron looks at one businessman who is boosting bottom lines in Asia.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LISA BARRON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): American businessman Moreton Binn is known as the "Baron of Barter." The man who helped revive barter trading in the west 30 years ago is now bringing Asian trade back to the future.

MORETON BINN, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, ASIAN BUSINESS SOLUTIONS: In the United States, in Canada, in South America, Europe, East and West Europe, barter trade is a very common practice. And what we're trying to do is now bring it and make it a common practice, or at least an alternative, for Hong Kong manufacturers, Chinese manufacturers, Taiwan manufacturers.

BARRON: Binn set up Asian Business Solutions' Hong Kong office in 2000. The group now has offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Taipei as well. The economic downturn, ironically, has boosted the business. ABS allows manufacturers to use their excess inventory, be it food, furniture or clothing or chemicals to pay for already budgeted expense, everything from capital equipment and raw materials to advertising and office supplies.

BINN: Money is not an end product, you don't eat it, you don't wear it and when you go, you're not taking it with you so it's only a means to an end.

BARRON: Binn's group gives its clients financial trade credits for overstocked products, slow moving goods and cancelled orders. The trade credits can then be used by companies to obtain a host of goods and services from other vendors.

BINN: Barter trade system, look here's another option which you can consider that if you can't sell it or you're going to take a deep discount on it, then why not try to recapture your full value that you invested in the product when you decided to make the product in the first place and do it through barter trade.

BARRON: On the flip side of the business, China's increasing prosperity has created new opportunities for overseas firms to trade with mainland companies and for Chinese manufacturers to export their wares.

BINN: We will make it work. We become partners with them. We don't -- we don't work for them. We're not representing them. We're doing it hand in glove. We're showing them how they -- how they can export, what products to make that can be exportable.

BARRON: ABS and its mainland partners then split the profits. The concept is easy enough, yet even this most ancient form of trading has benefited in the high tech world of the Web.

BINN: The Internet opened up this little secret box and made visible or easier access to various vendors.

BARRON: But Binn says it's still the human bridge between buyer and seller that will continue to give the barter trade its staying power.

Lisa Barron, CNN, Hong Kong.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: Imagine owning a home that is fireproof, termite proof and environmentally friendly. Sound too good to be true, well it's the suburbanite's dream and has become a reality in a neighborhood just outside Atlanta, Georgia.

Christina Park has our "Science Report."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINA PARK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Concrete, builders use it to construct driveways like this every day. But what if you wanted to build an entire house out of it? Stephen Miles said why not?

STEPHEN MILES, BUILDER: Chose to build this home out of concrete because I was building the entire subdivision out of concrete. And the reason I chose that is because when I was in college, I studied alternative materials for residential construction, that is alternatives to wood and stick framing. PARK: Stephen decided to turn his thesis into a reality, so he took his idea to his architect father.

JOHN MILES, ARCHITECT: Concrete's an old material, it's been around for years and it's a -- it's a stable material. It provides the degree of safety for having the walls and the security in there, and it also helps in your -- in your heating and your cooling of your house.

PARK: This saves you money because concrete acts as an insulator. They say you'll pay about half as much on heating and cooling bills year round. And because you don't need trees, concrete homes are environmentally friendly.

J. MILES: There's only a finite number of trees on the -- in the world, so you know at some point in time there's going to be a shortage.

PARK: But building a concrete home isn't as easy as it sounds. Once you decide to go with it, the plans are set in stone.

J. MILES: You can do anything with a concrete house that you can do with a wood house. About the only thing that you can't do with a concrete house is change your mind once those walls are up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And they're actually just building blocks.

PARK: So what makes a concrete home worth all that planning?

J. MILES: Basically a concrete home lasts forever. There's not much you can do to destroy this home. It won't burn down, termites won't eat it, it's resistant to storms.

S. MILES: Americans have had the technology for a very long time to build homes that are tornado proof, hurricane proof, fireproof and it might be scary to them or different so they choose to stick with what they know because it's easier. It's far inferior to concrete, so they can't be choosing wood because they think it's a better product.

PARK: And it seems to be pretty easy, too. We were able to set up this mock structure in a few minutes.

S. MILES: Then they come in with a pump truck, put the hose over and fill the cells with concrete.

J. MILES: And that's -- you know it's just like building with Legos and everybody knows how to build with Legos.

PARK: This concrete home took 2.5 million pounds of concrete to build. Stephen and his family plan to move in.

S. MILES: The concrete home will be here longer than I will. This home will be here, you know, for my kids, for my grandkids. These homes will last, for all intensive purposes, forever.

PARK: Christina Park, CNN, Atlanta. (END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN COOPER, AGE 16: Want to pet a -- pet a caterpillar? Want to pet it? It's really soft.

EMILY GIMMEL, CNN STUDENT BUREAU (voice-over): Sean Cooper is 16 years old and spending his spare time a little differently than his friends. The junior from Manuel (ph) High School is a volunteer at the Global zoo. Sean has been volunteering for four years. He spends most of his time volunteering in his favorite exhibit the herpequarium (ph).

COOPER: It's really neat because it gives you a different appreciation of the zoo. Because like I was at the age, you know, 13, it's like I don't care about the zoo. But you start working back there, then you get to see how things really are, you know it gets -- you see them handle different things.

GIMMEL: His normal routine includes testing cage water, cleaning cages and assisting with animal care. Why does this dedicated teen spend so much of his time at the zoo? Sean is considering a career in herpetology. But this lizard lover has other reasons as well.

COOPER: My job and my volunteer work, it (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- it's kind of something that means something to me. You know I get to touch a little child, you know teach them something about a butterfly or I could get to show a little kid a snake that they probably would never see.

GIMMEL: Sean Cooper has a lot to be proud of. He has given more than 1,000 hours of his time to working at the zoo. In return, he was recently awarded the prestigious John Heaton (ph) Award. The award is named for the late John Heaton, a former teen volunteer at the zoo.

When Sean isn't lingering around lizards, he's a member of the Global Zoo Youth Board and active in fund raising. These things and more add up to a really great summer job.

(on camera): Organizers say that by the end of this program participants will have a new sense of responsibility and an experience that will last a lifetime.

I'm Emily Gimmel for CNN Student News Bureau.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

"Where in the World" controlled by the U.K. from 1841-1997, its lowest point of elevation is the South China Sea, the legal system is based on English common law? Can you name this city? Hong Kong, China.

MCMANUS: OK, last week we gave you a one-of-a-kind peak into the world of bugs. Well we've got another creature to introduce you to. To the African nation of Namibia now where there is word of a surprising find. An expedition with individuals from several countries spotted an ant-like creature, an insect long thought to be extinct. It is carnivorous and will grow to be about as large as a cricket. Scientists are calling it "the gladiator" and it's quite a surprise since the last insect order was described back in 1915. And hopefully that sparks a new interest in bugs everywhere.

Speaking of which, check out my bug special online. There are articles for you to read, interviews for you to watch and a quiz for you to take.

And that does it for the show today. I'm Michael McManus. We're reporting from CNN Center here in Atlanta. See you tomorrow.

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