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CNN Student News
Aired June 06, 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: Thursday's theme for CNN STUDENT NEWS, politics and science. First up, they're working the phones in Washington to ease tensions between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan.
SHELLEY WALCOTT, CO-HOST: Next, South Korea, why it's the place to be for soccer fans and high-tech junkies.
MCMANUS: Then a scientific breakthrough that could turn the world of sports upside down.
WALCOTT: And a poignant reminder of the sacrifices made on D- Day.
MCMANUS: It's June 6, and this is CNN STUDENT NEWS. I'm Michael McManus.
WALCOTT: And I'm Shelley Walcott.
If you're there, get out. That's the message the U.S. State Department is sending to Americans in India and Pakistan.
MCMANUS: The official wording strongly urges U.S. citizens to leave both countries. The travel warning issued yesterday indicated just how serious the hostilities are between the two neighbors. Both sides in their own way have offered assurances that a nuclear war will not happen. India has said it will not be the first to strike with atomic weapons while Pakistan has suggested reducing nuclear forces. Nevertheless, U.S. and British officials say the International community is wary and needs to put more pressure on India and Pakistan to reduce tensions.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee left a central Asian summit this week without holding talks on the Kashmir crisis, a huge disappointment to the international community.
CNN's Tom Mintier will look at what, if anything, was accomplished at the summit after this report by Matthew Chance.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A summit marked not by the easing of tensions for which the world had hoped but by the failed efforts to bring India and Pakistan face to face over Kashmir. It appears these nuclear rivals are no closer to coming together.
ATAL BEHARI VAJPAYEE, INDIAN PRIME MINISTER: As far as an India- Pakistan dialog is concerned, it is India which has always taken the initiative for it. In the space of last four years, I have been to Lahore and invited President Musharraf to (UNINTELLIGIBLE). We have repeatedly said that we are willing to discuss all issues with Pakistan, including Jammu and Kashmir. But for that, cross border terrorism has to end.
CHANCE: India's position has changed little despite intensive diplomacy here for an ice breaking summit to take place.
Before his departure from Almaty, President Musharraf of Pakistan spoke to me of his disappointment, the lack of progress here.
PERVEZ MUSHARRAF, PRESIDENT OF PAKISTAN: The whole world feels that we are going home empty handed. So it's a disappointment. But as I keep saying, one can never clap with one hand. There has to be the second hand to clap. So, unfortunately, the second hand was not there and therefore this disappointment to the whole world.
CHANCE (on camera): The Indian administration says that you are not doing enough to crack down on militants who are infiltrating into Indian-administered Kashmir. What action are you taking to do what you've promised to do in Kashmir and to prevent these groups and these militants from moving across the Line of Control and attacking the Indian security forces?
MUSHARRAF: Well I -- we in Pakistan refuse to accept this the Indian claim of being the accusers as well as the judges. If they are the accusers, let there be somebody else act as the judge. And we would very much be interested in the UNMOG (ph), the United Nations Military Operations Group, which is operating in India and Pakistan to undertake this mission. Let's expand them and let them patrol the Line of Control and speak the truth.
CHANCE (voice-over): It's an offer of outside interventions Delhi is unlikely to accept. And while India and Pakistan blame each other for the stalemate, hopes for peace in Kashmir have, perhaps, tragically been set back.
Matthew Chance, CNN, Almaty, Kazakhstan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM MINTIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He returned to Pakistan empty handed, no agreement to reduce tensions, no meeting with Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee, not even a handshake. What he did return with was the promise by Russian President Vladimir Putin to bring the two sides together in Moscow. Not really together, both leaders agreeing to hold meetings in Russia on different dates to ensure that a face-to-face meeting is all but impossible.
While the leaders attempt to cool tensions, the streets in Karachi looked just the opposite, large demonstrations with harsh rhetoric. The protesters in Karachi were dressed in while cloth, a symbolic message that they were ready to die for defense of country. Others not directly involved on either side are seeking safe shelter out of the area. For the past week, foreigners are filling airports around the region as they attempt to flee the potential conflict.
MIKE ROBINSON, BRITISH NATIONAL: I think it's the most dangerous it's been in as many years as I've been coming to India, at least 20 years.
MINTIER: While some have the ability to escape, those who are most at risk do not. Poor and fearful residents on both sides of the Line of Control in Kashmir are seeking shelter wherever they can. Here in Indian-controlled Kashmir, most have already left after weeks of shelling.
"We have sent our families to safer places," he says. "We cannot leave as we have to take care of our cattle and our house. What to do, we are forced to stay here."
For some, leaving simply is not an option. Their homes and businesses have already been destroyed by cross border shelling.
Here on the Pakistani side of the line lives have been shattered too.
"We were working in our shop when the Indians started shelling," he says. "A colleague of ours, Mohammed Maksueb (ph), was killed. My brother and I got injured."
Stories that in this conflict are bound to be repeated on both sides.
The leaders may have visited Kazakhstan and so far cannot work out a face-to-face visit. But for their citizens of both sides, face to face means something totally different, what they face is the reality of war. Nobody may be calling it that, but the situation on the ground looks and sounds like it.
Tom Mintier, CNN, Islamabad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCMANUS: U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill is back in the U.S. after a four African nation tour with rocker/activist Bono. O'Neill told a crowd at Georgetown University yesterday that economic progress in Africa is being made but long-term growth will depend on entrepreneurship not aid. The 12-day African visit included stops in Ghana, South Africa, Uganda and Ethiopia.
Before Bono and O'Neill flew home, CNN asked them to reflect on their two-week trip. BONO, MUSICIAN: Well, these trips, I've taken a few of them. I don't really know what to expect every time I go. I sort of don't want to go. Usually, that's my feeling, is just, I just don't want to go.
This time, though, I was quite hung over. I do remember that. Edge is getting married, and we had his bachelor party. And I promised myself I wouldn't drink, because I knew we had important business, but, you know what I mean. So I was kind of holding my head a little as I came over here, and just thinking, you know, "Is this going to be jive? Are we actually going, to quote the secretary of the treasury, get some results?"
PAUL O'NEILL, TREASURY SECRETARY: When I go on the road, I really want to learn and see things. It really helps me a lot to be able to have a more personal understanding of what lives are like in different places around the world, when I'm thinking about either business or governmental policy issues.
BONO: I love being in Africa, because no one knows who I am here.
My name is Bono. I'm a rock star.
Or if they do know who I am, I'm the debt cancellation guy. I'm the "drop the debt" guy.
O'NEILL: As a general rule, I don't take my family with me. This is the first time my daughters ever traveled with me on an official trip, either in the public or the private sector.
BONO: When I'm on these trips, you know, I don't feel I'm an entertainer. I'm an activist. And I may appear friendly, and I may, you know, try to turn on what little charm I have.
But deep down, I'm very, very serious about these things, and I'm very angry.
(SINGING)
I don't know why I sang there. I just saw these people who, really, I'm sure, hadn't a clue who I was, probably been told, you know, when you do this, this is the Bono song, this is the U2 song. And I just felt for them.
(SINGING)
The only thing that I regret is I didn't get to the verse that I wanted to get to, which is "I believe in the kingdom come, then all the colors will bleed into one, but yes we're still running." I wanted to sing that for them.
If we really thought these lives have a meaning day to day in Ghana, in Uganda, in South Africa, in Soweto, if we thought they were as valuable as ours, we couldn't let them die a death to AIDS because they can't afford a dollar-and-a-half a day. Truly, this is about equality.
O'NEILL: My daughter handed me this -- must have been a three- month old, a little girl in a pink sleeper. And she had the most sparkly brown eyes and the most trusting manner. That was really a tear provider for me.
BONO: He's getting angrier by the day as he sees the great potential of this cause and how it's not been used. Is that fair?
O'NEILL: That's fair.
BONO: That's fair.
O'NEILL: But I think now an essential part for me to do as much it is possible, to transmit to the president of what we saw and how to communicate in a way that it really grabs other people. And it's not just our experience, which never gets communicated.
BONO: Some people say to me you're being used. I say, I'm here to be used, you know? It's really at what price. I really believe these people when they tell me they're serious about starting a new relationship with Africa and with the developing world. They're either lying to me or they are serious. I believe they're serious.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALCOTT: Well I'm on an important mission of my own, it's to let you know that come June 17 we're going back in time. We'll be on a half hour earlier, 4:00 a.m. Eastern, 1:00 a.m. Pacific. But you won't have to wait until June 17 to catch a story on genetics and food. That's in today's "Science Report" so stick around until then.
MCMANUS: Our weeklong look at hurricane season continues now as we focus on where to go in the event of a hurricane. For many coastal residents that's a shelter which is actually a school or some other type of public building where they can get out of harm's way. Unfortunately, some evacuees may be placing themselves in even more danger by heading to those shelters.
John Zarrella has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Eighty-year-old Kay Gold (ph) and 78-year-old Brownie Jordan (ph) live in a mobile home park in Pasco County on Florida's West Coast. Their lightweight houses are vulnerable to the wind from even the weakest hurricane.
KAY GOLD (ph), RESIDENT: Now here's where Brownie (ph) lives, right here.
BROWNIE JORDAN (ph), RESIDENT: Now if this place starts to go, forget it, because these tin cans are gone. You're not going to save any of them.
ZARRELLA: For a safe haven, they look to the county's emergency manager, Michelle Baker. But she has little to offer.
MICHELLE BAKER, PASCO COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGER: When people ask me, "Is Pasco County prepared for a hurricane?" I say, "No."
ZARRELLA: How could a community so vulnerable to hurricanes be unprepared?
(on camera): In Pasco County, and just about anyplace in the hurricane belt, schools are typically used as shelters. But there's a problem. Emergency managers are discovering that many of the schools they relied on may not be as safe as they thought.
(voice-over): This is South Carolina's Lincoln High School after Hurricane Hugo in 1989. And here, shelters in Mississippi after Hurricane Elena in 1985. And again, after Hurricane George in 1998.
Most shelters are selected by local emergency managers but staffed by volunteers from the American Red Cross, the federally charted relief agency. Now the Red Cross says it will not staff shelters that fail its strict new safety standards.
JOHN CLIZBE, RED CROSS: By making it clear that we aren't going to manage that shelter or staff it, it's a way of both keeping our own people safe and communicating to the community that we don't believe it's a safe place to be.
ZARRELLA: When inspectors applied the Red Cross standards in Pasco County, most of the shelters, schools that are safe in normal weather, flunked the test.
(on camera): Is it a liability concern?
BAKER: If the states said it wasn't safe and my contractor said it wasn't safe and we made the decision to open the shelter, I believe we would be liable.
ZARRELLA: Do you have friends you can go to that have a brick house somewhere?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I'm down here. I have a cousin who lives here in the park. That's the only relative I have down here.
BAKER: Here we have these nice wide-open corridors...
ZARRELLA (voice-over): In Pasco County, Michelle Baker is scrambling for money to install special hurricane screens. With added protection from wind-born debris, some of the schools can again be used as shelters. But until that's done, Baker says she has no alternative now but to take a chance with unapproved buildings staffed by county workers. That's safer she knows than having people like Brownie (ph) and Kay (ph) pump it out at home.
BAKER: They've got to evacuate when we're talking about a major hurricane. There's no ifs, ands or buts. Their lives are literally (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
ZARRELLA: John Zarrella, CNN, Pasco County, Florida.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCMANUS: With the World Cup being held in South Korea, the time change makes it a bit difficult to enjoy the games elsewhere around the world, unless you set your alarm for the predawn hours like these intrepid folks who got up to watch the U.S. defeat Portugal in a very exciting upset. Now that is some team spirit.
Well did you know the host country is one of the world's most wired countries? E-mail and Internet chat rooms are popping up like coffee shops. Seems there's one on every corner. To South Korea now and a tour of high-tech proportions.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SOHN JIE-AE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's not exactly the World Cup soccer matches but for online gamers in South Korea, it's as close as you can get. As one of the world's most wired countries, South Korea has a PC bomb (ph), literally a room offering quick Internet services around every corner. Here anyone can win or lose at high speed Internet contests like the FIFA 2000. But the country's high-tech hookup doesn't stop at online games. More than half the computers here are connected through broadband. Reading e- mail or your hometown newspapers, no problem.
Or if you're feeling adventurous, rent a mobile phone and try out the latest wireless services. SK Telecom, the country's largest mobile service provider, produced this promotional video just in time for the World Cup matches. It shows how visitors with mobile phones through the Internet can call up useful Korean phrases as well as access to hotels and taxis. And if you're lucky enough to have tickets, certain models can guide you to the front door of World Cup venues.
Still not impressed? OK, try this. In South Korea your mobile phone can even work as a credit card. It's a new infrared payment service that has just been launched.
(on camera): Now your credit card information should already be on your cell phone. This gets beamed on to the vending machine which allows you to get the drink of your choice. Pretty cool.
(voice-over): So South Korea is the place to be this week for World Cup fans and for high-tech junkies playing soccer online.
Sohn Jie-Ae, CNN, Seoul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Exploring our world, here now is CNN STUDENT NEWS "Perspectives."
WALCOTT: Dan Marino, Cal Ripkin, those are two recently retired athletic phenom. Now what if a gene made it possible for these guys to stick around the grass or the parquet for just a little longer? Ann Kellan now with a scientific breakthrough of muscular proportions.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANN KELLAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Meet Mighty Mouse, stronger than its sibling, and its muscle never age. If the scientists who make it happen can make it happen in humans, it could turn the world of sports upside down. Imagine quarterbacks like Joe Montana throwing passes into their 50s; he would still be playing. Hank Aaron not an exec, but still hitting them out of the park.
Gold medalist Scott Hamilton, now in his 40s, has dazzled us for years. He has decided to take a year off from his pro tour.
SCOTT HAMILTON, OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: The biggest problem was I couldn't recover as fast.
KELLAN: But what if he could recover fast? If an injection, not of drugs, but of genes, could make his muscles repair like they did when he was young, would he do it?
Would it keep greats like Olympic Gold Medalist speed skater Dan Jansen on the the ice longer.
DAN JANSEN, OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: It's something that you could use for health reasons. I think it's a great breakthrough. But to improve your performance athletically, I think we need to stay away from it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This one's a lot less muscular than this one.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
KELLAN: Researcher Lee Sweeney was never out to build a better athlete.
LEE SWEENEY, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: I was very much focused on something that we could do that would help the elderly.
KELLAN: In mice, he injected a gene into their muscles that instructs them to make a protein called IGF-1. In both mice and humans, our bodies stop producing IGF-1 in old age, which makes muscles sag and slow to repair; not in these mighty mice. Their muscles stay toned and repair like they were young. If this works in humans, you won't need to work out to keep muscles toned; it will dramatically increase mobility for the elderly and for those suffering diseases like muscular dystrophy.
As for athletes...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From someone who just likes to cure athleticism, I think this is a terrible thing because it will make a mockery of all the competition of the past, because these will be different people. At the same time, I do not see how you stop it. HAMILTON: For every blessing, there is an equal curse, it seems. So I would be really tempted but I do not know if I would go for it or not. Obviously, did not use Rogaine.
KELLAN: Next, Sweeney will try the gene therapy on dogs. If it's as successful as in these mice, humans may be next.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALCOTT: Well here's a tasty nugget for you tomato lovers, imagine having that ripe off the vine flavor all year round. Well true tomato connoisseurs know that in the off season tomatoes can taste, well, tasteless. But now some produce-loving scientists have stepped up to save that sandwich.
Ann Kellan reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KELLAN (voice-over): To find out about tomatoes, we went to the Auburn Market in Atlanta, Georgia and asked the experts, people who sell food for a living. They know a good tasting tomato and where to get one.
(on camera): How would you describe the tomatoes that you buy in the wintertime at the supermarket?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Has no taste.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is no distinct flavor. But if you get a tomato in the summertime and it was grown on the vine, it becomes very luscious and sweet.
KELLAN (voice-over): There is nothing like a home grown tomato picked ripe off the vine.
(on camera): So can you get home grown tomatoes at the supermarket?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, of course you can.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
KELLAN: When?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the summertime.
KELLAN (voice-over): USDA researchers at Cornell University hope to open the door on a new generation of tomato plants that could one day provide tasty, nutritious tomatoes all year long. It has to do with the genes.
After years of breaking apart and analyzing the tomato plant's genetic code, researcher Jim Giovannoni and his team found what he called the Holy Grail, the rin gene. This gene controls a number of plant functions, including how fast a tomato ripens which helps determine how it tastes.
JIM GIOVANNONI, RESEARCHER: Actually, probably the best way to get a good tasting tomato would be to allow it to ripen more fully on the vine and then slow the ripening process so that the fruit didn't get too soft and didn't become too susceptible to rotting.
KELLAN: With the rin gene, researchers can do just that, manipulate how fast a tomato ripens. Imagine a store bought tomato tasting as good as one that's piped ripe off the vine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They can come close, but they can't outdo it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come and bring it and I'll taste it, and I'll let you know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'd love to taste it.
KELLAN (on camera): Are you skeptical?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
KELLAN (voice-over): Most say they'll believe it when they taste it, which researchers say could be within a couple of years.
Ann Kellan, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALCOTT: Well, with Memorial Day just behind us and the 4th of July just ahead, it's hard not to get into the patriotic spirit. This year more than ever people are acknowledging the price and sacrifices that have been paid for freedom.
Our Student Bureau reports on one man who's been trying very successfully to help Americans understand what war is really like.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARSHALL HOPKINS (ph), CNN STUDENT BUREAU (voice-over): June 6, 1944 was a day considered to be one of the more significant of the 20th century and the turning point of the Second World War. It was called Operation Overlord by military officials. It is more commonly referred to as D-Day. On this day, five divisions of 85,000 allied soldiers landed at the beaches of Normandy and risked their lives in a battle for the fate of the world.
Dr. Stephen E. Ambrose, regarded as the leading historical author of our time, has collected more than 1,380 oral histories of D-Day veterans and recorded them in his best selling book "D-Day." As any veteran will tell you, the battle was fierce and terrifying on that day, especially on Omaha Beach. Despite the odds, allied forces pulled out an amazing victory.
STEPHEN E. AMBROSE, HISTORIAN: I'm telling you what, they do know what hit them and they do suffer. And they're trying to put their guts back into their stomach or their arm has been blown off. And they're holding up their left arm and their right arm and looking at it aghast and so on. And they want morphine and they want water and they want mother and they want a cigarette.
HOPKINS (ph): Dr. Ambrose's book, "D-Day," was adapted into the acclaimed blockbuster film "Saving Private Ryan." Having been the technical director of the film, Ambrose was, for the most part, pleased. But he felt some parts of the film were historically inaccurate.
AMBROSE: I said, well first of all you've got to get Tom Hanks out of there. He's way too old to be a Ranger captain. Hanks is 39 years old. Ranger captains were 22 and 23. And Steven said you're funny.
HOPKINS (ph): Twenty-three thousand men died at the D-Day invasion and many millions more in World War II. It is vital that we do not forget nor do we allow our children to forget the sacrifices made.
Marshall Hopkins (ph), CNN Student Bureau, Houston, Texas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
"Where in the World" world's third largest country by size (after Russia and China), world's largest producer of both electrical and nuclear energy, more than 75 percent of the population is urban? Can you name this country? United States.
WALCOTT: That's it for today. We'll catch you back here tomorrow.
MCMANUS: See you.
WALCOTT: Bye-bye.
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