Return to Transcripts main page
CNN 10
CNN Student News
Aired May 23, 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 jump right in to Thursday's broadcast with the controversy over whaling. We get insight from a conference in Japan. From Asia to Africa as a rock star and a moneyman bring attention to a continent in trouble. In "Perspectives" today, our look at careers continues. How would you like to be a hero? Finally, sick of all the noise? Get some peace and quiet in our "Science Report."
And welcome to CNN STUDENT NEWS. I'm Michael McManus.
A five-day meeting of the International Whaling Commission hits more choppy water. Iceland walked out of the conference in Shimonoseki, Japan. This after it's bid for full membership was turned down for a second straight year. There are deep divisions within the 48-nation commission. The debate: whether the global ban it imposed on commercial whaling in 1986 should be lifted.
The power struggle right now lies between the whale hunting proponent and nations who want to protect the giant mammals. If Iceland had been allowed to join the commission, pro-whaling forces could have tilted more weight toward their argument.
Deborah Wong (ph) has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): The rift between pro- and anti-whaling nations grew wider on Tuesday as delegates from Iceland walked out of the annual International Whaling Commission meeting in Japan. Iceland has had non-voting observer status since walking out of an IWC meeting 10 years ago to protest the commission's moratorium on commercial whaling. Monday, voting members turned down Iceland's bid for full membership for the second year in a row. Iceland whaling commissioner says the vote ignores the laws of the IWC.
STEFAN ASMUNDSSON, ICELAND WHALING COMMISSIONER: It's obviously a huge disappointment. I mean I expected the countries that oppose Iceland generally and the issue of whaling to take big steps in trying to oppose Iceland and trying to prevent us from taking our lawful place as a member. They did that last year, and I expected them again to take big steps. But so clearly to violate laws that you can simply look up, you don't have to be a lawyer to understand it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Delegates say Iceland is welcome to rejoin the IWC once it changes its stance on commercial whaling.
ELLIOT MORLEY, BRITISH PARLIAMENT MEMBER: I have no sympathy with Iceland. Their resolution is entirely in their own hands. They're welcome to join the IWC. But what they can't do is join the IWC and say we're going to join, but we're going to ignore one of the most important policies of the IWC, which is a moratorium on whaling.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Iceland's departure was a blow to pro- whaling nations. If Iceland had succeeded in rejoining, that could have given the pro-whaling nations the majority necessary to start debate on lifting the ban. For now, Iceland is hinting it may resume whale hunts, even without the commission's approval.
Deborah Wong (ph), CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCMANUS: And moving on from Asia to Africa in our "Headlines" today, where two unlikely people have come together. U2's Bono and U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, or the "Odd Couple," as they've been nicknamed, are taking a transcontinental tour of Africa. The duo is on a four-nation tour in hopes of finding ways to help the continent battle its dire problems, including disease and poverty.
CNN's Daryn Kagan is traveling with the rock star and the treasury secretary, and she talked to them about their mission and its meaning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: How does one of the biggest rock stars in the world end up traveling to Africa with the U.S. treasury secretary?
BONO, SINGER/ACTIVIST: I was invited by Secretary O'Neill. I think it is very daring and imaginative of him to have me on board and on this trip. I don't keep my room very tidy. I stay up late at night.
I like to think that what the secretary understands is that the scale of this problem on the continent of Africa is so huge that if we are to deal with it, we have to explain it to people before they can contribute.
PAUL O'NEILL, U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY: I agree with Bono that the problems that exist in the world, in Africa, with the AIDS problem, it's unforgivable for civilized people not to pay attention to and figure out a way to solve this problem.
KAGAN: You are very clear that you are not about a blank checkbook. What do you hope to show Bono on this trip?
O'NEILL: I'm hoping to show him that we should care even more broadly about this problem, not just one cause, but the cause of creating a world where every human being has the potential of realizing a great life and a life of making a contribution, instead of suffering and misery.
BONO: Secretary O'Neill is the tough guy. I don't think I can monkey him. OK? When it comes to guarding the American checkbook, I know he takes that job very seriously. But I know that over the next 10 days, I'm going to be able to make a case for increasing United States aid. I think post-9/11, there is a new mood in the world. The world has suddenly shrunk. The world has never been as interconnected as it is now.
O'NEILL: Showcasing Africa is a way to bring an understanding to the rest of the people in the world so that we can mobilize resources and demand results and change the world.
BONO: I mean, this may sound, you know, grandiose, but I think you can allow a rock star to sound grandiose: I am sure that this time that we are living in will probably be remembered for three things: the Internet, what happened on September 11, and how a whole continent went up in flames while people stood around with watering cans. These are the issues of our time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CNN STUDENT NEWS starting June 17 new airtime 4:00 a.m. Eastern Time and 1:00 a.m. Pacific Time.
MCMANUS: A true fan will know June 17 is a big day for us.
Now another question, are you a fan of the TV show "The West Wing?" Much has been made of this drama that draws inspiration from the real life lessons at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Now there's a new movie out that taps into another American institution, the CIA.
David Ensor takes a look at the movie versus reality.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BEN AFFLECK, ACTOR: That is not Jalinski (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Busted, it's Jalinski (ph).
AFFLECK: No, you're thinking Trapitski (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I'm not.
AFFLECK: And it ain't Trapitski either.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The new Tom Clancy movie stars Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan, a young CIA Russia analyst who literally saves the world. Do they get the CIA right? Well, this CIA Russia analyst helped brief Affleck for the role. He declined to be shown or identified because he sometimes works overseas.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As I sat there looking at that, I just -- I thought this was amazing. This is -- this is my job. I never believed that anybody would be making a movie about what I did for a living.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm an analyst. I'm not trained for this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just be my eyes and ears.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ENSOR: But in the real world, CIA desk analysts do not get into rubber boats for a living. Only a CIA operations officer would carry a gun and sneak into a hidden Ukrainian bomb factory. Even Jack Ryan knows that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AFFLECK: Clark (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What?
AFFLECK: No, I'm not going in there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay here and make sure no one steals my boat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't imagine a desk-level analyst accompanying an operations officer on a mission that dangerous.
ENSOR: That said, our CIA analyst loved the movie. So did a former CIA director, James Woolsey, who joined me at a special screening. On Air Force One in the film, the president and his advisers debate whether to take out Russian offensive nuclear weapons after two mysterious attacks on U.S. targets.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you advocating we launch a first strike?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is not a first strike. There's already been a first strike and a second. Don't you get it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I don't get it. I don't understand why we have to nuke them, for God's sake. It's not reasonable.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sydney (ph)!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: The one or two things that rang sort of false to me were the excited and very emotional behavior of the president and his senior advisors in the crisis. I don't think that's the way they would act in any administration.
ENSOR: Terrorists in the movie are trying to start World War III. They steal a nuclear weapon, blow it up in a Baltimore stadium, and try to make it look like the Russians did it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's flying. The bomb is in play.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ENSOR (on camera): Should Americans today be worried that something like this could happen, that a terrorist group, in effect, could use a nuclear weapon inside the United States?
WOOLSEY: Sadly, that's what gives the movie much of its verisimilitude: that we're all worried about that now.
ENSOR (voice-over): Real terrorists would have a much tougher time, says Woolsey, getting their hands on material to construct a nuclear weapon, but it cannot be completely ruled out. And if they did, smuggling a bomb, as shown in the movie, could be all too easy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The crate was put on a cargo freighter headed for the East Coast.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WOOLSEY: We have a lot to do to protect ourselves against exactly this kind of threat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AFFLECK: And if you shut me out, your family, and my family, and 25 million other families will be dead in 30 minutes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ENSOR: Could "The Sum of All Fears" really happen? No, say experts, but the movie does come close to reality in some ways that should worry Americans.
David Ensor, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCMANUS: Talk about reality, some high-tech dreams, things many people never thought possible, may be on their way to store shelves before you know it.
CNN's James Hattori takes us to Microsoft's TechFest for a glimpse into the not-so-distant future. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMES HATTORI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): A triple-wide computer display that eliminates desktop paperwork.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So this would fit into standard Microsoft Office.
HATTORI: A computer that recognizes who's in the room during a meeting.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This system is called an ICU.
HATTORI: And realtime interactive graphics on a personal computer that rival Hollywood's high-tech best -- just three of some 130 research projects on display at Microsoft's TechFest. Think of it as a high-tech science fair, presided over by company co-founder Bill Gates.
(on camera): You must be like a proud father almost.
BILL GATES, CHAIRMAN MICROSOFT: Oh, it's fun to see this stuff, particularly things I've never heard of before.
And research, I think, is the lifeblood of innovation in the economy. But big companies always have a problem taking their research and making sure it's focused on the problems that count.
HATTORI (voice-over): That's why TechFest isn't for the public; it's for other Microsoft employees in various product groups. The researchers' goal is to get their work out in the marketplace.
Gates says Microsoft has a 50 percent success rate turning pure research into products, which he admits is unusually high.
GATES: Well, if I think something's going to catch on, I trust my own intuition.
HATTORI: And you're never wrong?
GATES: No, I'm often wrong, but my batting record is good enough that, you know, I keep swinging every time the ball is thrown.
RICK BASHID, MICROSOFT RESEARCHER: When you're building products that are literally going to be used by 300 or 400 million people around the world in many different countries, in many different languages, it is an enormous undertaking.
HATTORI: Among the successes, technologies developed for the Windows Media Player, the grammar check feature in Microsoft word processors, and high resolution graphics used in the company's new Xbox video game consoles.
HATTORI: The ICU recognition project could end up in a future version of the Windows operating system.
GATES: So you can see as you walk in here the computer is identifying that that's your face, and now it's recording the various images.
HATTORI (on camera): Does it know you? That's the question.
(voice-over): Like all the projects here, aiming to put a more user-friendly face on computing.
HATTORI (on camera): There it is. Well, it looks like you guys get paid this week.
James Hattori, CNN, Redmond, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Exploring our world, here now is CNN STUDENT NEWS "Perspectives."
MCMANUS: The events of September 11 have pushed many careers like fire fighting into a new era. The New York Fire Department lost 343 firefighters on that tragic day eight months ago. Such bravery is a trait that rescue workers simply cannot be without.
Our Deanna Morowski spoke with one firefighter who proves that when bravery meets compassion remarkable acts can occur.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMIL EL-SHAIR, FIRE CAPTAIN: Hi, I'm Jamil El-Shair. I'm a fire captain with the city of Atlanta. I'm in charge of Fire Station 14, and it's four square mile territory on the south side of Atlanta.
I decided I wanted to be a firefighter when I was a little kid. And I'm one of those fortunate people I got actually to live out my dream. Watching as a child growing up, watching the fire trucks and seeing the guys go out and actually save people, actually save people, go out and hear people's needs and meet those needs, that just fascinated me. And I was fortunate enough to be able to do that.
As a captain on an engine, we're usually one of the first people to arrive at an incident, whether it's an emergency medical incident or whether it's a fire. No matter what the incident is, the first thing you always have to do is you ride up, you listen. You actually start responding from the second that you're toned out. You hear that address, and you know, things go through your mind: What's at that address -- is it a house, is it a business, are there hazardous materials there? And you're thinking all this through as you're riding down the street, sirens blazing and sounding this horn.
And then when you actually get there, if it's a fire call, you have to look and see just what kind of fire it is. Fire is like a living, breathing animal, and you have to figure out how far advanced is this, what do we need to do, what can we do? In the process of doing that, you have to establish command. Somebody has to be in charge of this incident. And as the -- in my case being on an engine, we're usually one of the first pieces of equipment there, so we're usually the ones who have to set up command. And it's very important that what we do initially to determine who gets deployed where is done correctly because it makes the difference between life and death.
Fire is a living animal. It wants to live, it wants to grow, and it gets very angry if you try to prevent it from doing that. And because of that, one of the things about our training is that you have to know how it behaves and how it will respond. It'll hide from you, it will sneak up on you, anything to try and survive, and that's why you have fully to be turned out in battle gear when you -- when you are responding to an incident.
Battle gear for us is we call it bunker gear. You have these -- you have bunker pants that are made out of a special material, GORE- TEX and various other -- various other materials that are designed specifically to resist penetration by heat, and also designed to keep your body fluids and body temperature down to a level that doesn't cause you problems.
Think about it: We've got on turnout gear that weighs 80 pounds. It's designed to keep heat out and yet allow you to breathe so that you don't sweat and become overcome by the internal heat. You've got a helmet on that weighs a great deal. You've got a face piece on that could limit your vision, but you've got to be trained so that you learn how to see. And that face piece is attached to a tank of air that you breathe, because fire is hot. We're talking 1,200 degrees. You don't want to -- you don't want to take in that kind of air so we have a tank of air that allows us to breathe.
And of course, we have to protect our feet. We wear steel-toed boots that have steel in the -- in the soles. So fire is a building under demolition: Things are falling down around you, even the floor.
We have a chaplaincy group that comes by and sits down and talks with us and helps us get by because when you think about it, we deal with wrecks and we have to untangle people from vehicles. We deal with people who are just getting old and die, but you've got their family standing around you, screaming at you, telling you do something, but you know they're gone, and you feel for them. And you also have to think this could be my mother, this might even be my mother. So we help each other out; that's part of that -- that's part of the brotherhood and sisterhood, that we sit around and we talk to one another, talk each other through it.
Making the choice to be a firefighter requires a certain special kind of insanity. Think about it: As a firefighter, you are going into a building that the flames are meeting you at the door. Everybody else has run out of the building, and you're going in because you want to help. You want to save this building. And it doesn't matter whether it's a mansion in Buckhead on the north side of town or whether it's the smallest two-room house that belongs to a person, you have to remember this is what belongs to someone, and you have to try your best, give your life, to save whatever you can because it means something to somebody. That's what it is to be a firefighter. (END VIDEOTAPE)
MCMANUS: I've got a question for you: Have you ever had noisy neighbors? You know the people who communicate by shouting at the top of their lungs, or who like to blast their music all night long? Now there's new technology that makes an apartment pretty much party proof.
Andrew Brown explains why.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDREW BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If you like to terrify your neighbors by playing loud music at 3:00 a.m., or your dog's been keeping them awake all night, consider this: Your neighbors may be soon be moving here. Architects and engineers in Honk Kong have brainstormed to produce a futuristic home which protects residents from different kinds of noise.
CARY CHAN, ENGINEER: It's always been a problem in Hong Kong, noise transmitted from one flat to the other flat.
BROWN: Experts say they can minimize vibration by insuring there's a layer of air beneath the floor of an apartment. The idea has been adopted by the Hong Kong-based construction company Gammon. About a year ago, the firm began prefabricating apartments for tower blocks. These giant jigsaws contain air-filled cavities, which cannot easily be penetrated by sound.
MICK ADAMS, GAMMON: Essentially, if you're underneath somebody who's having a party, you can't hear them.
BROWN (voice-over): And those mysterious scratching noises disappear.
(on camera): So that huggable hound sharing your apartment won't drive anyone mad, apart from possibly you.
(voice-over): Pets are at their nosiest when they are in an enclosed space, like an apartment, so living together with an animal may still be tough.
JILL CHESIRE, ARCHITECT: When the dogs bark, not only do you get the bark of the dog, but you get what we would call the reverberant bark. So it means the bark starts bouncing off all the hard surfaces.
BROWN: To tackle this problem, Chesire has experimented with special tiles coated in plastic. She's been using them to muffle the sounds of dogs barking at this animal welfare center run by Hong Kong's SPCA.
Tile technology can also change acoustics inside an apartment.
CHESIRE: If you mounted them on the ceiling, they will absorb any noises that are made around the apartment.
BROWN: So the home of the future will be quiet -- too quiet for some: As they say, you've got to fight for your right to party.
Andrew Brown, CNN, Hong Kong.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCMANUS: It used to be that lots of young people dreamed of growing up to be firefighters. But since September 11, fire stations in many cities, including Boston, have had a hard time lining up recruits.
Our CNN Student Bureau looks at what's being done to attract new personnel.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAYME STEVENS, CNN STUDENT BUREAU (voice-over): Since September 11, fewer people are applying to be Boston firefighters. And for those who do, the training is more focused on how to respond to a terrorist attack.
Capt. Hugh Duffy of the Boston Fire Academy admits that terrorism is a larger subject now, but he has kept the attitude that training is training.
CAPT. HUGH DUFFY, BOSTON FIRE DEPARTMENT: What we've expanded on though is the terrorism training, hazardous materials, and first responder tech training and what's expected of the recruit.
STEVENS: Lt. Jim Feeney has been with the force for 24 years. Feeney isn't only having to deal with fitting new training into the busy day of a firefighter; he has to worry about the city of Boston even having enough fire personnel. This is an exam year, and the department usually sees about 8,000 or 9,000 applicants. This year has turned out an alarming 300.
DEVON WATSON, BOSTON FIREFIGHTER: They gave us two reasons. They said it might be -- it might be because of the September 11, and people don't want to -- they don't want to risk their lives, I guess. You know, I -- but -- and also there's an age limit now. You have to be -- I think starting this class, you have to be below 32.
STEVENS: However, Watson and Feeney have other ideas and think that fear is probably a major factor in the low recruitment.
WATSON: I don't know, maybe people are just scared. This is Boston and they figure Boston could get attacked just like New York.
LT. JIM FEENEY, BOSTON FIRE DEPARTMENT: People don't want to put themselves in a situation where it could be them or they could be (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I think a lot of people are scared to become firefighters right now. If you were given a chance to a normal person and said, Gee, you could work construction or be a firefighter, they'd take construction right now.
STEVENS: Fire recruits agree that many don't want to join because of fear. JAMES CREED, BOSTON FIRE DEPARTMENT RECRUIT: A lot of my friends that I tried to get on are like why are you getting on after September 11, and so forth.
GREG MAGEE, BOSTON FIRE DEPARTMENT RECRUIT: Just talking to my own friends who once were eager to join, and after watching the news, and they're picking up slabs, and they're seeing whole companies underneath the slab, that kind of deterred a lot of people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on, let's go, let's go.
STEVENS: Yet September 11 has weeded out the truly brave who are dedicated to becoming firefighters.
BRIAN MULLEN, BOSTON FIRE DEPARTMENT RECRUIT: It made me want to help more because I saw what happened. It was just tragedy what happened down there, and it actually made me want the job more.
MAGEE: I wanted to join even more than ever. I want to -- I want to make a change in the world. I want to help save lives. I want to make a difference.
STEVENS (on camera): Maybe people are noticing firefighters more, maybe training does cover new issues, maybe people are scared to become a firefighter. Regardless, the men and women that do this job get into these trucks every day to save lives. September 11 hasn't changed that.
For the CNN Student Bureau, Jayme Stevens.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
"Where in the World": This continent has 53 countries, including the islands off the coast; Cairo is the continent's most populous capital city; home to the world's largest nonpolar desert? Can you name this place? Africa.
MCMANUS: And that desert is the Sahara.
For a wealth of information on Africa, click on cnnstudentnews.com. It's featuring a profile of the countries on Bono's African tour, plus a travel diary from CNN reporter Daryn Kagan.
For now, we leave with you more on Bono in Africa, making music with some new friends he made on a school stop in Ghana.
For now, I'm Michael McManus. Have a great day.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
