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CNN Student News
Aired May 13, 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.
SUSAN FRIEDMAN, CO-HOST: Your week with CNN STUDENT NEWS begins with an examination of the relationship between the U.S. and Cuba. We move on to "Chronicle" the volunteer spirit of today's young people. Then we take a dive into the deep blue sea.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. SYLVIA EARLE, SUSTAINABLE SEAS EXPEDITION: I think what first attracted me to the sea was just getting knocked over by a wave when I was about 3 years old. It got my attention, but what has held my attention for all my life is the existence of life in the ocean and it's not just water. Water is the key to life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FRIEDMAN: Up next, Student Bureau explores the ways of whales.
Welcome to CNN STUDENT NEWS. I'm Susan Friedman.
Cuban leader Fidel Castro welcomes former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to Havana. Carter's five-day trip to Cuba is the first visit by a U.S. president since Calvin Coolidge went there in 1928. The former president arrived in Havana yesterday with hopes of improving relations between the U.S. and Cuba, which are separated by just 90 miles. Travel restrictions and a U.S. trade embargo still in place after four decades have been two sources of tension. While former President Carter is making a push to end the economic embargo against Cuba, President Bush is taking a different position with plans to implement even tougher policies.
CNN White House correspondent Kelly Wallace has more on that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): While former President Carter begins a journey he hopes will ease tensions between the U.S. and Cuba, back in Washington, President Bush is planning next week to unveil a tougher strategy to deal with Fidel Castro. The White House has made one move already, publicly accusing Castro of developing biological weapons, a charge Havana strongly rejects but one Secretary of State Colin Powell repeated in an interview with Russian television.
COLIN POWELL, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We know that Cuba has been doing some research with respect to biological offensive weapons possibly. And so we think it is appropriate for us to point out this kind of activity.
WALLACE: Mr. Bush has made it clear he believes that easing decade's old trade and travel restrictions on Cuba would only help Fidel Castro stay in power. The president ordered a full review of U.S. policy which aides say is nearly done.
Possible actions Mr. Bush could take include tightening even more travel restrictions to the island, increasing aid to Cuban dissidents and stepping up broadcasts of U.S. government information to the Cuban people, moves that would please Cuban-American lawmakers, important allies in the crucial battleground state of Florida.
REP. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN (R), FLORIDA: And for people to think that when you travel to Cuba that you are bringing the Cuban people closer to democracy, that's like believing in Santa Clause and in the Easter bunny. Castro is never going to change.
WALLACE: On the other side, lawmakers who agree that Castro needs to go but believe it's time to end the economic sanctions.
SEN. EVAN BAYH (D), INDIANA: We've tried the embargo and that doesn't seem to work. That really has punished U.S. workers and producers by cutting off our markets and allowing them to be filled by the Canadians, the Europeans and others.
WALLACE (on camera): U.S. officials say the president's announcement next week on Cuba was scheduled before former President Carter's trip. Still, it will be a chance for Mr. Bush to answer any calls to ease sanctions and to appease those Cuban-Americans who feel this administration so far has not put enough pressure on Castro.
Kelly Wallace, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRIEDMAN: For many high school seniors across the U.S. it's crunch time. As they prepare to graduate what is foremost on their minds may not be proms and graduation parties. For college bound seniors, choosing a school and figuring out how to pay for it are big concerns.
All this week we'll be focusing on the college crunch, everything from recruitment to the rising cost of tuition. In today's installment, Bruce Morton gives us some historical perspective on the ever evolving American college experience.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRUCE MORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Once, college was for rich people's kids. Most families couldn't afford it. The World War II G.I. Bill changed that. And veterans came home and found the government would pay for college. Millions went. And colleges changed -- hard to haze a freshman who had fought in, say, the Battle of the Bulge. The bill helped mostly men. The vets were mostly men. And blacks benefited less than whites.
SARAH TURNER, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: In part because they faced segregated institutions of higher education and had few opportunities to take up the very generous benefits of the G.I. Bill.
MORTON: And then the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first satellite. Was the U.S. losing the Cold War? Federal dollars to the rescue.
TURNER: Absolutely. The National Defense Education Act of 1958 following Sputnik in 1957 was part of this big infusion of federal dollars to higher education.
MORTON: It worked: roughly two million, 300,000 Americans in college in 1947, almost 14.5 million in the 1990 -- more minorities. Women caught up, are a majority now in undergraduate programs.
And, of course, the economy was changing: the old manufacturing jobs disappearing, lost to automation or to low-wage economies in other countries. Americans needed higher education to compete in a high-tech world. Turner says Americans need not just to go, but to graduate.
TURNER: The key is not just increasing the number of people going through the door, but increasing the number of people walking out the door with substantial numbers of years of educational attainment or degree credit.
MORTON: And college is a growth industry that will keep growing. The baby boomers' kids are campus-bound. The number of high school graduates is predicted to grow.
TURNER: And the question is: How will we provide collegiate opportunities for these new high school graduates?
MORTON: We don't know, but college students half a century ago wouldn't recognize what campuses are like today.
Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRIEDMAN: Last week was an historic one at the United Nations, representatives from across the globe got together to discuss numerous issues affecting young people. And who better to take an active role in that discussion than young people themselves.
Michael McManus reports now from the U.N.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MICHAEL MCMANUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): U.N. Secretary- General Kofi Annan kicked off the historic children's session with several goals in mind.
KOFI ANNAN, SECRETARY-GENERAL: Wherever you may live, you have the right to grow up free of poverty and hunger. You have the right to quality education, whether you are a girl or a boy.
MCMANUS: Did the special session accomplish what its members set out to do? We asked delegates in attendance who could best answer that question, the kids themselves.
CAROLINE BAREBWOHA, UGANDA: This is the first time that adults have gotten to listen to our views as children.
ABIGAIL FABRIGAS, PHILIPPINES: The children's forum was really a great success. That was really a great showcase of optimism.
MCMANUS: Abigail Fabrigas is a 16-year-old delegate from the Philippines who discussed an epidemic problem within her country: poverty.
FABRIGAS: More than half of the population of the Philippines, or at least half the population, lives under the poverty line. With that poverty, we have drug addiction, we have education overpopulation, lack of health services, et cetera.
GERALDINE KAMBIDE, KENYA: Poverty is the key to everything. I think poverty is the key of everything, education, lack of food, everything.
BAREBWOHA: It does not matter whether you are boy or you are girl, you should all go to school and have quality education. And there should be no gender imbalance in schools.
MCMANUS: The head of the U.S. delegation, Health and Human Services secretary, Tommy Thompson, spoke for the Bush administration against abortion and in favor of abstinence.
TOMMY THOMPSON, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: Our efforts include strengthening close parent-child relationships, encouraging the delay of sexual activity and supporting abstinence education programs.
MCMANUS: Finding a consensus proved difficult.
STEPHEN SCHWARTZ, UNITED STATES: Abortion is allowed in the U.S. so I don't think that's right, that Bush is trying to limit that right in other nations.
FABRIGAS: It is a right of every child to be given a chance to live, to be born, to be happy, to be healthy.
MCMANUS: And still others were upset with the plight of the youngest victims of war.
SEVINJ MASIYEVA, AZERBAIJAN: Children which live in war situation, how they live.
SCHWARTZ: In Africa there are lots of use of child soldiers. And these children, the psychological effects as well as the physical effects, are devastating.
FABRIGAS: We, the children, have power. But we couldn't deny the fact that we are still vulnerable.
BAREBWOHA: It's not only about speeches, talking and talking. We have to implement what has been said.
MCMANUS (on camera): Young people are long known for being a bellwether for change and that was no different here. Whether they voiced a concern, an opinion or just a thought, the bottom line, said one, the world was listening.
Michael McManus, CNN, the United Nations.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRIEDMAN: The enthusiasm of kids isn't limited to special sessions of the U.N. The eagerness of young Americans to give back to their communities and country is especially strong nowadays. Just last month, millions of youthful volunteers rolled up their sleeves and took part in the 14th Annual National Youth Service Day. That's the largest service event in the world.
I talked to a few kids taking part in Atlanta. Here's what gets them in a volunteer spirit.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRIEDMAN (voice-over): A generation that won't be held back by a national tragedy now counting the ways to serve their communities. During the past several months, youngsters have turned out in droves to volunteer events and rallies, like this one in Atlanta, Georgia, answering a challenge by U.S. President Bush during his State of the Union Address.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My call tonight is for every American to commit at least two years, 4,000 hours over the rest of your lifetime to the service of your neighbors and your nation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, we are ready to begin.
FRIEDMAN: National Youth Service Day, an annual event, gives kids a chance to start fulfilling those hours. Project coordinators say the ultimate goal is to encourage a lifetime of service.
GEORGIA GILLETTE, PROJECT COORDINATOR: Students come with a number of things that they are passionate about, whether it's homeless folks or animals and all kinds of things. And through service they really learn about what they can do throughout the rest of their lives to make a change. FRIEDMAN: The events of September 11 and President Bush's subsequent call to service compelled many young people to look beyond themselves and reach out to others.
ERIN KING, VOLUNTEER: I think when September 11 happened the whole nation got a different feel. Everybody felt a lot more united and it made people really stop taking for granted a lot of things that they had been and kind of look at everything and be like, you know, what if this is all gone, what if something were to happen. So I think in a lot of ways people want to get out and help and unite with each other.
FRIEDMAN: According to Youth Services America, young people today volunteer more than any generation in history. Half of all U.S. high schools and more than a third of all U.S. schools now have service learning programs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who's volunteered before? Has anybody volunteered before? Doing what? Let me see what you've done before.
FRIEDMAN (on camera): This newly mobilized army of young volunteers is on a march to make a difference. In Atlanta alone, more than 5,000 students are taking part in National Youth Service Day. Worldwide, that figure jumps to more than three million kids.
(voice-over): Those numbers shatter previous National Youth Service Day turnout records and show that kids like Khalifa Lee are focusing less on the goods they can accumulate and more on the good they can do.
KHALIFA LEE, VOLUNTEER: I just help something look better, I just help some person out somewhere. I might not even know the person. I mean this being my school, I know I just helped beautify the outside of my school because I have to look at this every day.
FRIEDMAN: Young people reap tremendous benefits from volunteering. It builds leadership skills, connections with others and confidence.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Feels good, really good.
FRIEDMAN: It also looks great on a resume.
SHANNON MCDOLE, AMERICORPS MEMBER: Employers look at resumes. They don't just want to look at what were you paid to do, what were you willing to do, what did you do above and beyond what was required of you. And volunteerism is something that it's just not necessarily everybody does it. It's something that makes you -- sets you aside, makes you different from everybody else, and it lets that employer know that he or she cares about their community and what's going on in it.
FRIEDMAN: And at the end of the day when the projects are complete, there's an overwhelming sense of accomplishment.
LEE: I go home with smiles and I feel good. (END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Exploring our world, here now is CNN STUDENT NEWS "Perspectives."
FRIEDMAN: Now to a woman "Time" magazine calls the first hero for our planet. Sylvia Earle is the premiere advocate for the world's ocean and was recently inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame.
Tom Haynes caught up with this undersea explorer in a place she knows all too well.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM HAYNES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It took an overnight voyage from Key West, Florida, for us to catch up with the Gordon Gunter (ph). As we pulled alongside the ship, I could see Sylvia Earle. She greeted me as if we were a couple of old friends who hadn't seen each other in years.
Sylvia and her crew make up the Sustainable Seas Expedition, researchers and scientists trying to better understand how life in the ocean coexists. On their journey, the team will explore sea life in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
Sylvia is the lead scientist on this mission. Many of her younger colleagues consider her the Jacques Cousteau of their generation.
BENJAMIN RICHARDS, SUSTAINABLE SEAS EXPEDITION: As a budding marine biologist and a marine biology student, getting to work with her and alongside her and getting to, you know, be around her is just an exceptional experience. She's full of energy, is constantly an inspiration.
HAYNES: Sylvia has made her life's work being an advocate for the ocean. She's logged more than 6,000 hours underwater and holds the record for the deepest untethered solo dive, plunging more than 1,200 feet.
SYLVIA EARLE, SUSTAINABLE SEAS EXPEDITION: I think what first attracted me to the sea was just getting knocked over by a wave when I was about 3 years old. It got my attention, but what has held my attention for all my life is the existence of life in the ocean and it's not just water. Water is the key to life.
HAYNES: Sylvia is comfortable in front of the camera. Sometimes even playful, using her camcorder to film us. The 66-year-old first lady of the ocean is an admitted introvert, whose favorite pastime is swimming with the fish.
EARLE: The ocean, life on earth, our connection to all of the rest of life, the importance of taking care of the natural systems that take care of us. I see myself either and sometimes as a mirror so people can see themselves or as a window so that they can see beyond and the things that they should be caring about if they don't already.
HAYNES: Sylvia lets me see through that window. Her deepness, as she's often called, takes my hand for a guided tour more than a hundred feet beneath the ocean surface.
EARLE: The ocean is like a soup, it's just filled with creatures from the top all the way to the greatest depths seven miles down. And I just love it all.
HAYNES: On the bottom we spot fishing line caught up in a bed of coral. This is exactly the kind of thing the Sustainable Seas Expedition is looking for, man's impact on natural habitats. The question is do we remove the fishing line or leave it alone?
EARLE: I'm torn, I want to take it out of the ocean. It doesn't belong there. It's all mangled -- you know tangled around the coral heads and cutting through some of the sponges. And on the other hand, there are other things that are growing on the line so.
HAYNES: It's an amazing experience, my first deep water dive. This is a world completely foreign to me, but at the same time, it's a place where I feel so comfortable.
(on camera): Wow, that was incredible.
(voice-over): Once I got over the head rush, my famous tour guide reflects on the significance of our underwater experience.
EARLE: But if people could see what you've seen and understand that this is a part of what makes the world work and that we can upset it, we can harm it, and when we do, we're really compromising and jeopardizing our own future, not just the fish.
HAYNES: Sylvia Earle has no illusions. It's a tall order getting people revved up about the ocean. She knows it will be a little easier if she could give everyone the kind of personal underwater tour she gave me, but she's undaunted by the challenge and even considers it an opportunity.
EARLE: We have a chance that is unique. This is a pivotal point when there is enough of the natural world still in tact to maintain stability if we take care of it. But if we don't and if we continue as we are now, we are in real danger of seeing the tremendous disturbances that are not in our best interest.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRIEDMAN: Tomorrow we'll go down under with Sylvia Earle and get a chance to experience the ocean as she does. Log on to CNNstudentnews.com and you can experience the deep blue sea on the World Wide Web. Test your mental mettle with the quizzes and check out our great photo gallery plus much more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Damont Webb of Inglewood, California asks, "What causes sharks to attack people?"
JAY BRADLEY, CURATOR, NATIONAL AQUARIUM: Well, Damont, I think that's a question that's on everybody's mind these days. Basically sharks are coming in shore waters to feed on fish, and most of these fish are very silver in color, and basically when you're at the beach, you're probably getting a tan, and the palms of your hands and the bottom of your feet usually stay very light.
Now the fish that they are feeding on are actually very silvery and they reflect light, and when you are swimming around and moving your hands around, you are flashing those light portions of your hands and feet, and the majority of attacks on people are on the extremities, the arms or the legs. So they're actually thinking that it's a fish. Usually, what they do is they come in and they bite, they find out that it's not a fish, and then release and they go on about their business.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARRICK UTLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is a sign written in the sky, B52s over Afghanistan, U.S. troops driving al Qaeda fighters from their caves, American power and global reach at work. This is more than a superpower.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: You can call it an empire, the biggest in history. No other empire has ever had the -- this kind of impact that we've had on so many places at once.
UTLEY (on camera): Empire, that's a word and an idea Americans are not very comfortable with. It belongs to the past, doesn't it? Think again. What's being called the new American Empire by a growing number of historians and commentators is based on a different kind of conquest. For example, there is language, English as the world's international language.
(voice-over): There is the conquest of tastes, food, for better or worse. Popular entertainment and music and information with American organizations dominating the global news floor. And to what end?
MEAD: What we're trying to do is create a power political basis with our military and an economic system that works for most people most of the time.
UTLEY: That's different from the British on whose empire the sun never set. They and other European imperialists used their military might to rule and exploit their colonies, including one called America. But just as the founding fathers broke with the old empire, they began building a new one. The justification for conquering and settling the land was called manifest destiny, the belief that the new Americans had the right and the duty to push to the Pacific and beyond.
The Panama Canal under American sovereignty for most of the 20th century was a model. It was built so that American warships could move swiftly across the world and also American trade.
(on camera): And how it has all paid off. Today the American economy is the strongest in the world and the U.S. dollar is the dominate global currency. And yet what has made this American Empire different from its predecessors is that it's based on more than just power and prosperity, it's also about spreading democracy and freedom.
MEAD: It's a bigger ambition in a way then simply to create another empire. It's an ambition to create a new age for mankind and we may or may not succeed.
UTLEY (voice-over): If the United States is the only power than can wage a war anywhere in the world, it is also seen as the only nation that can try to bring peace anywhere. Of course there are those who don't like what they see as a growing, unstoppable American Empire -- a McDonald's attacked in France, anger in the Arab world and worse. There is a price for being an empire.
Garrick Utley, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRIEDMAN: We return now to the deep blue sea. Our Student Bureau takes us for a walk on the beach where all sorts of treasures can be found. Sarah Beckly (ph), a student of Cold Bay School in Cold Bay, Alaska reports on one special finding that may hold clues to the life of whales in the Bering Sea.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARAH BECKLY, CNN STUDENT BUREAU (voice-over): The finding of small trinkets, glass balls and petrified wood along this Bering Sea beach in Nelson Lagoon, Alaska is not uncommon. But what resident Leona Nelson discovered was anything but common.
Belonging to the Scripps Oceanographic Institute, it's a buoy that records the noises made by whales. Upon hearing that their device had washed up, Scripps sent marine biologist Lisa Monger to retrieve the disk drives containing the recorded data. While the buoy itself is huge, nearly three feet by three feet, the part that actually does the work is relatively small. These yellow tubes contain the recording components and the lithium batteries that power the unit. But, how could such a precisely designed device just wash up somewhere on a beach?
The buoy is kept on the ocean floor by large weights that connect to it via cables. Scripps Oceanographic Institute believes that one of these cables may have become entangled in a fishing net, snapping a weight from the buoy and allowing it to drift to the surface. Lisa Monger will return the disk drives to the Scripps Oceanographic Institute in San Diego where they will be studied to find out populations of whales and their migratory patterns.
LISA MONGER, SCRIPPS OCEANOGRAPHIC INST.: We study the whale calls to try and get an idea of how many there are in the population and what their migratory patterns might be, when they get into the Bering Sea and when they leave.
BECKLY: According to Monger, whales are important to study because they're an excellent indicator species. One that could help tell the overall health of an area.
The body of the buoy was flown out shortly after the disk drives were removed. If a highly technical scientific instrument can simply wash up this easily, one wonders what other unexpected objects wait to be discovered on these volcanic sands.
Sarah Beckly, CNN Student Bureau, Cold Bay, Alaska.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
"Where in the World" communist government, origins of population: Spanish (over 35 percent), African (over 10 percent), and mixed Spanish-American (over 50 percent), currency: peso? Can you name this country? Cuba.
FRIEDMAN: I hope we got your week off to a great start. Be sure to tune in tomorrow when we focus on the rising cost of college tuition. I'm Susan Friedman.
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