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CNN Student News

Aired June 04, 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: It's Tuesday, and this is CNN STUDENT NEWS. First up, the conflict over Kashmir. We'll look at the diplomatic efforts to ease tensions.

SHELLEY WALCOTT, CO-HOST: Next, it's hurricane season. Find out why scientists say the worst may be yet to come.

MCMANUS: On to "Perspectives" where we'll explore the science of bionics. The melding of man and machine is much more than a sci-fi movie.

WALCOTT: Then, when Fido turns furious. The myths and mayhem behind dog bites.

MCMANUS: And thanks for joining us today. I'm Michael McManus.

WALCOTT: And I'm Shelley Walcott.

The world waits to see whether India and Pakistan will talk.

MCMANUS: As the two nuclear nations edge even closer to the brink of war, the international community presses for a resolution to the conflict over Kashmir. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage are visiting the region next week. And Russia and China are trying to get Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to meet face to face. The leaders are currently at an Asian security summit in Kazakhstan providing a prime opportunity for talks. Pakistan's president says he's willing to meet but India's prime minister says he isn't.

CNN's Matthew Chance is in Kazakhstan with additional details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The jagged peaks of Kazakstan. Hundreds of miles from Kashmir, but now a focus of international efforts to stop a potentially nuclear war from breaking out there. If only the leaders of India and Pakistan would talk. But Atal Bihari Vajpayee, India's prime minister, is ruling out that. He's been meeting regional leaders here, including his host, President Nazarbayev. Until Pakistan cracks down further on militants infiltrating Indian administered Kashmir, Indian officials say there will be no talks face-to-face.

OMAR ABDULLAH, INDIAN EXTERNAL AFFAIRS MINISTER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and it's as simple as that.

CHANCE: President Bush arrived in this central Asian republic amid wide anticipation about what can be achieved. The two nuclear neighbors have so far avoided each other here, juggling meetings with regional leaders. But Pakistani officials say they at least have come to talk peace on Kashmir.

NISAR MENOM, PAKISTAN INFORMATION MINISTER: We have taken a lot action. India is time for the world to ask India what India is reciprocating. India has to reciprocate by way of de-escalation, by way of dialogue, by way of stopping all the act of India that it has been doing in order to escalate this.

CHANCE: The diplomatic war of words has already begun in earnest here. And if these very public battles are any measure, it's hard to see what progress, if any, can be made.

(on camera): But it is what happens in private that could decide the outcome of this central Asian summit. Diplomats say the closed meetings between the various countries represented here, and India and Pakistan separately are the real opportunity to put pressure on both sides to step back from the brink.

Expectations may be low, but it is in the interests of every country here to make an effort.

(voice-over): Not least Russia. President Putin comes to Kazakstan as the leader who invited both India and Pakistan to meet here in the first place. Much may now depend on if he can bring them together.

Matthew Chance, CNN, Almaty, Kazakhstan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: Heavy border shelling between India and Pakistan has driven thousands of people from the disputed region of Kashmir. And the U.S. State Department, as well as others, have issued travel warnings.

And now, a report on the high cost of the fighting.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUHASINI HAIDAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Leaving no one behind, diplomats, staff, and tourists are making their way home after the United States and many other countries warned that tensions between India and Pakistan could get out of control. The immediate casualty: tourism.

AMIT MITRA, INDIAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE & INDUSTRY: India was skipping forward its major historic sites that were being visited by international tourists, there is a pause, and we are hoping that as this tension goes down, it will pick up.

HAIDAR (on camera): In fact, this tourist season, arrivals were down 20 percent ever since the two countries massed their troops along the border raising fears there may be war. Here in one of Delhi's major tourist districts shopkeepers say business is hurting.

(voice-over): Ask Manav Wadhawan, who says he used to get up to 100 customers each day. Now, he says, he sees fewer than ten.

MANAV WADHAWAN, SOUVENIR SHOP OWNER (through translator): There are threats of a nuclear war. People feel they may get nuked here, so they all are going back.

HAIDAR: Stock markets have fallen, exports are lower and potential investors are staying away. And there is another cost to bad relations with Pakistan. Business analysts say for every dollar of direct trade between India and Pakistan, the government and people of both nations lose $3 to indirect trade and smuggling. They say the $600 million direct trade relationship is being held hostage to tensions.

MITRA: There is always two steps forward and unfortunately, due to tensions and insecurity, one step backward. The potential is just immense.

HAIDAR: At a candlelight vigil for peace, activists say the money spent on this conflict could be better used feeding the people in both countries.

AHUNDHATI ROY, AUTHOR: We have had a million men facing each other on the border for days, and for seven months I think now, at huge costs to this nation. You have nuclear weapons, which are very, very expensive.

HAIDAR: And at this rally at least, a fervent hope that the leaders of India and Pakistan recognize that peace may be cheaper. But even as they pray for peace, the reality of war continues to scare people into leaving the region.

Suhasini Haidar, CNN, New Delhi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: If you've never been in a hurricane, you're lucky. One survivor likened it to the devil breathing down her neck.

It's June and that means hurricane season has begun. Weather experts are now predicting more dangerous hurricane seasons. Part of the reason, they say coastal communities aren't prepared. Storm surge, evacuation routes and stronger construction are all things to consider when living in a cyclone prone area. John Zarrella has this report from Miami now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What you want to do with a recon...

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ten years ago this August, Hurricane Andrew took shape in the warm waters of the deep tropics off Africa, marched across the Atlantic, slammed south Florida and made history. The costliest natural disaster ever in the U.S.

Have we already forgotten the Andrew nightmare? The nation's top hurricane experts are afraid we have. .

MAX MAYFIELD, HURRICANE EXPERT: Our memories are very short and I think a lot of people have what I call Hurricane Amnesia.

ZARRELLA: Max Mayfield directs a team of forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. He's got lots of worries. During the past two years, although dozens of storms formed, not a single hurricane, weak or strong, has hit the U.S. That's good, Mayfield says, but it also breeds hurricane malaise. A Red Cross study last year showed half of the people living in coastal areas most likely to be hit by a hurricane don't have an evacuation plan. And, Mayfield believes, many people have the misconception that big, powerful hurricanes only strike in years when the experts are predicting lots of storms.

MAYFIELD: In fact, the deadliest hurricane the U.S. ever had, the costliest hurricane and the most intense hurricane that we ever had, all three of those hurricanes occurred in the years with below average numbers.

ZARRELLA: Case in point, Andrew -- 1992 was a strong El Nino year, not a good climate for hurricanes. In all, there were only six named storms. Well below the average. But one of them was Andrew. And the experts are convinced we're ripe for a hurricane hit this year. Since record keeping began in 1871, there have never been three consecutive years without a hurricane hitting the U.S.

John Zarrella, CNN, Miami.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: Well as you heard, hurricanes are coming and it's just a matter of when. Tomorrow we'll take a look at the problem of overpopulation in coastal areas. In the meantime, though, check out our Web site, CNNSTUDENTNEWS.com. There you'll find the information on 10 -- the 10 deadliest hurricanes and interactive detailing how hurricanes form.

And while we're on the subject of weather, the space shuttle Endeavour is still sitting on the launch pad after nearly a week of thunderstorms. For more, let's head back to Michael -- Michael. MCMANUS: Still waiting, Shelley, but when the big bird does launch into the world of weightlessness all may not be well. You see, many astronauts fall sick after hitting zero Gs so NASA has decided to factor that into the equation when scheduling work while in space. But Endeavour has an important mission, it's heading to the International Space Station.

Here's Miles O'Brien with more on the latest space assignments.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The first trip to space can be a real doozy, just ask shuttle commander Ken Cockrell who has now logged four trips to the world of weightlessness.

KEN COCKRELL, COMMANDER: Many people don't feel well when they transition from 1G to 0G so they have the added distraction of a little bit of nausea or just the strange surrounding, you know, pulling their mind off their job.

O'BRIEN: Now imagine your first job in space will last at least four-and-a-half months, maybe as long as a half a year. Now what would you be worried about? Ask space station keeper-to-be Peggy Whitson.

PEGGY WHITSON, MISSION SPECIALIST: Oh I hope I don't screw up. That's the biggest things (UNINTELLIGIBLE). In four-and-a-half months, you know, you have a lot more time to screw up so.

O'BRIEN: High anxiety indeed. Whitson and two cosmonaut crew mates are the main reason this space shuttle will fly. The current triad on board the space station have already logged their six months above the planet and would probably kill for a juicy steak and a beer by now.

That is not all that will happen during this dozen-day detail to orbit. Endeavour will carry a space age shipping container full of food, clothing, supplies and experiments. Once empty, the crews will stuff it full of flotsam and jetsam for the trip back home, an exotic trash hauler.

Amid all the touting, astronauts Franklin Chang Diaz and Philippe Perrin hope to take three walks in space, more construction work on the high tech gandy dancer that will ride the spine of the completed station and they hope to replace a bulky wrist joint on the station's robot arm.

PHILIPPE PERRIN, MISSION SPECIALIST: It's like surgery, you have a limited amount of time to do that because to be able to work on the harm -- on the arm, sorry, you have to cut the power. And so if you cut the power for too long, then some of -- some critical areas of the -- of the arm are just going to die, the electronics, the (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

O'BRIEN: Once again NASA is counting down with security ratcheted up. Fighters are enforcing a huge no-fly zone, additional radar is scanning the horizon and surface to air missiles are at the ready.

Miles O'Brien, CNN at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: Are you a soccer fan? If so, then you probably know that the Super Bowl of soccer events, the World Cup, is underway in Seoul, South Korea. But so far the event has been less than successful. Soccer games are being played in nearly half empty stadiums. This has one of the tournament's hosts demanding compensation from the agency responsible for printing and selling tickets. South Korea says it's losing an estimated $770,000 per match due to the ticket sale problems.

Here's Tim Lister with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TIM LISTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Getting a ticket for a World Cup game is proving more difficult than it should. Going into the tournament, about 100,000 prepaid tickets had not been delivered. Computer mix-ups are aggravating the problem. But at least some of the empty seats can be blamed on a mixture of local apathy and the cost of getting to Asia for European fans.

Spanish fans had much to celebrate when their team beat Slovenia in Gwangju, but there were only 28,000 supporters in the 44,000 seat stadium. Only about 1,000 Spaniards bought tickets before the tournament. And the stadium in Pusan for the South Africa-Paraguay match was little more than half full.

On the other hand, games involving China are heavily sold and Chinese fans arriving in their thousands for their country's opening match against Costa Rica in Gwangju on Tuesday.

LISTER (on camera): FIFA officials say it's not unusual for first round matches to be poorly attended. That's one of the risks of bringing soccer to the Asian market. The ticketing problem into the second phase could bring a real disruption.

Tim Lister, CNN, Seoul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: Well soccer is the world's most popular team sport. Don't believe me? Then ask these UN diplomats.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HO-JIN LEE, DEPUTY SOUTH KOREAN UN AMBASSADOR: We welcome as many as possible from all around the world to visit Korea, to look at, to enjoy this large sports event of the international community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JEREMY GREENSTOCK, BRITISH UN AMBASSADOR: You know the British, they just want there to be a nice competition and everybody playing to the rules. It's playing, it's not winning that matters. Rubbish, you know, we're there to win.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HANNS SCHUMACHER, ACTING GERMAN UN AMBASSADOR: My personal hopes are that our team makes good for the rather dreadful performance of the last championship when they were I think eliminated from the quarter finals. And I think there at present high hopes on the German team and the new German coach.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Hopefully Korean team will be at least in the -- within the semi finals. So...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You mean one of the final four?

LEE: Yes, if possible, then I hope that they will do their best to make the game successfully.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

INOCENCIO ARIAS, SPANISH UN AMBASSADOR: Spain always start as one of the favorites but at the end disappointed. I hope this time we not disappointed and we finish -- I think we are going to reach the final. And I have the feeling we are going to lose it. The final against Argentina we are going to play. I have a feeling. It's just a feeling, but I hope it's a reality.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DUMISANI KUMALO, SOUTH AFRICAN UN AMBASSADOR: It doesn't matter to me what group I'm in. My wish is to beat the Brits. You know this will settle the old Zulu-Anglo war scores.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREENSTOCK: I think we're thinking of Rourke's Drift in 1979. They have long memories the elephants of Zulu land. We can take them at their own game.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UMIT PAMIR, TURKISH UN AMBASSADOR: As a country -- as a Welsh (ph) country who is commanding the turf the -- I also wish good luck to the -- to the Japanese and to Koreans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREENSTOCK: Argentina is certainly in our group. It's a huge match. Luckily we have really good relations with the Argentines now, and I'm sure it'll be a very friendly affair. But we have a thing or two to teach them on the field.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

WALCOTT: From world class sports to world class technology, the gap between man and machine closes just a little more every day. Electronics isn't just for robots anymore. Scientists are constantly coming up with new ways to make life easier for people with physical ailments.

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We first heard the term bionics from Steve Austin, the "Six Million Dollar Man." That was 1973. Time has made technology more expensive but also more useful to real people.

(on camera): The melding of human and machine, today it's being used not to run 60 miles an hour or see miles into the distance, but rather to regain mobility, restore vision and allow the deaf to hear once again.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello, everyone, how are you doing today?

GUPTA (voice-over): At Neural Signals, one of the leading companies in the field, scientists are developing computer systems that respond to human nerve impulses.

DR. PHILIP KENNEDY, NEURAL SIGNALS, INC.: We'll actually record to the skin with just a little pad electrode. And even if there's no movement, there's often some even small muscle activity and which must be associated with electro activity and we can pick that up.

GUPTA (on camera): That's the first use of bionics nowadays. The fancy terms, peripheral computer interface, but basically it makes hands and feet useful again. Who can forget the "Empire Strikes Back" and this scene when Darth Vader cuts off Luke Skywalker's hand? Luke's hand was replaced afterwards with bionics. Researchers say substituting wires for nerves is still many years away. But what about now?

(voice-over): We already know that computers can talk directly to the brain. But what about the brain talking directly to a computer? This monkey in Brooklyn can move a robotic arm in North Carolina just by thinking about it. Johnny Ray (ph), a quadriplegic, can move the cursor on this screen from an electrode inside his brain.

KENNEDY: We have a thought, we know that there's activity -- electro activity in the brain. So we're trying to pick up some of that activity and use that in our simple systems just to control a computer cursor.

GUPTA (on camera): Here's how it works. Commands from the brain are read through a brain implant. It's placed inside the motor cortex, a part of the brain that controls body movement. As the patient thinks about a movement, the electrode picks up a signal, amplifies it and then transmits through the skin to a computer.

(voice-over): Bionics are already all around us. A cochlear implant, a morphine pump or even an artificial heart, they're all examples of this merging of electronics and biology steadily bridging the gap between human and machine.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: We turn now from a high tech health topic to a very basic one, breathing. The average American breathes 3,400 gallons of air each day making the importance of clean air all the more significant. In its annual "State of the Air" report, the American Lung Association highlights the nation's smoggiest cities.

CNN's Natalie Pawelski has a report card from worst to best.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NATALIE PAWELSKI, CNN ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From coast to smoggy coast, half of all Americans are living dangerously in places where air pollution levels, the report says, can be hazardous to your health.

JOHN KIRKWOOD, PRESIDENT & CEO, AMERICAN LUNG ASSOCIATION: There actually has been an increase of about 18 percent in the areas that are rated an F, which is unhealthy.

PAWELSKI: For the third year in a row, the four smoggiest cities are in California: L.A., Bakersfield, Fresno and Visalia. Houston, Texas came in fifth. Atlanta ranked sixth, followed by Merced, California; Knoxville, Tennessee; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Sacramento.

All of these cities scored Fs for ground level ozone. Note most on the list are hot and sunny. Start with the pollution most cities have. Nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons from tail pipe emissions and smoke stack pollution, mix in the heat and the sunlight, and you get ozone. That's the main ingredient in smog.

Ozone is especially dangerous for people with asthma, children and the elderly.

KIRKWOOD: Because ozone is an irritant. It is like getting a sunburn on your airways, and that affects everyone.

PAWELSKI: But some Americans are breathing relatively freely in cities that earned an A, suffering no smog alerts from 1998 through 2000. That list includes Bellingham, Washington; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Duluth, Minnesota; Fargo, North Dakota; and Flagstaff, Arizona. Also on that clean list, Honolulu; Laredo, Texas; Lincoln, Nebraska; McAllen, Texas; Salinas, California; and Spokane, Washington.

Some of these cities are relatively low smog, because of climate or geography. Others have less traffic or fewer industrial sources of pollution.

KIRKWOOD: You can't do anything about the weather and topography. What you have you to address are the sources of hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide emissions.

PAWELSKI: Cleaning up the sources of that pollution from the plants that power homes and businesses to the tailpipes on America's increasingly crowded roads will not be easy.

(on camera): Case in point, right here in Atlanta, one of the sprawl capitals of the universe, and Atlantans drive more miles than almost any other Americans. All of that traffic means a lot of pollution, and our climate, which is usually pretty hot and sunny, that can gets baked into a lot of smog. And efforts to get Atlantans out of their cars and into mass transit and into car pools haven't made much of a dent, one example of one city of what cities across the country are trying to do to battle the smog problems.

Natalie Pawelski, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: Well if you've ever been bitten by a dog, one, you're not alone, and two, you know that fear can linger. There are an estimated 58 million dogs in the United States, and each year more than 4.7 million people are bitten. Many of those bites are not severe, but when they are, they can be life altering.

Our Student Bureau has one such story. And we warn you, some of the pictures are gruesome.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LENNY PATE, CNN STUDENT BUREAU (voice-over): You wouldn't know it by looking at her, less than four years ago this beautiful women's life was put in jeopardy after a dog savagely attacked her face. Twenty-four-year-old Tera Eldrige was getting an assignment from a classmate's house when she began playing with his dog. Suddenly the half-breed Akita went berserk.

TERA ELDRIGE, DOG BITE VICTIM: He just lunged at me and like grabbed the bottom half of my mouth and kind of rag -- jerked it like a rag doll. And I fell backwards and it just ripped my entire mouth down to the bone.

PATE: Tera was rushed to the hospital and given more than 300 stitches. She lost all feeling in her chin and needed three major plastic surgeries.

ELDRIGE: We did take legal action. And we did that because we had found out fairly shortly after he had bit me that it had just bit his neighbor.

PATE: Illinois law states that after one bite a dog is put on quarantine for 10 days. If another bite occurs, he is put to sleep.

(on camera): When dogs attack, they could be man's worst enemy, yet there are many factors to consider why a dog attacks someone. Doctors at the Veterinary Centers of America North Animal Hospital dispel common myths about dog bites.

DR. LETTIE TITLEY, VETERINARIAN: Any dog can bite. Even that sweet, lovable Lab can bite if the conditions are right.

PATE (voice-over): These conditions include pain, fear, as well as genetic factors.

TITLEY: If an owner is planning on getting some of these dogs with these aggressive tendencies, they have to be a little bit more careful. It shouldn't (ph) be out walking around without a leash.

ELDRIGE: I think that anybody who has a dog should definitely be very, very aware of situations that they put people in with their dogs.

PATE: From Chicago, I'm Lenny Pate for CNN STUDENT NEWS Bureau.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: So why do some dogs bite? Well there are many reasons. Dogs may bite out of fear or to protect their territory. So what do you do if you think you're about to be attacked by a dog? Well first of all, don't run away screaming, as tempting as it may be. Instead, try to remain still. Avoid eye contact with the dog. Don't make any major gestures until the dog is out of range. And if the dog does attack, try to get something between you such as a purse or a jacket.

There are also safety precautions dog owners can take. And here are three biggies. Spay or neuter the animal, acquaint the dog with people and teach the dog appropriate behavior by avoiding aggressive games such as wrestling or tug-of-war.

The sport of soccer continues to invade CNN STUDENT NEWS.

MCMANUS: We have it on the Web. Check it here, check it there, check it anywhere you are.

WALCOTT: Anywhere you want (ph).

MCMANUS: And tune in tomorrow when we run down the scorecard of World Cup sponsors. Look for that in Wednesday's "Chronicle" -- Shelley.

WALCOTT: And until tomorrow, have a good one. Bye-bye.

MCMANUS: See you then. Bye-bye.

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