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CNN Student News

Aired June 10, 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: We kick things off this week with the latest in the Middle East. Yasser Arafat concedes it's time for reform in the Palestinian Authority. And Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is on U.S. soil to talk about peace.

SHELLEY WALCOTT, CO-HOST: Then we head to Germany where World Cup excitement is gaining momentum.

FRIEDMAN: Our "Perspectives" looks at a peace ritual awash with color.

WALCOTT: And a gift from the heart that comes from your head. Our Student Bureau tells us about one very special program.

Welcome to CNN STUDENT NEWS. I'm Shelley Walcott.

FRIEDMAN: And I'm Susan Friedman.

President Bush hosts a round of meetings on the Mideast as Yasser Arafat announces a shake-up within Palestinian leadership.

WALCOTT: Arafat says he's trimming down his Cabinet and has set up a timetable for presidential and parliamentary elections. The reforms coincide with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's visit to Washington, D.C. And President Bush met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak over the weekend.

We have two reports. First, our Joel Hochmuth with more on Arafat's reform.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOEL HOCHMUTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On the eve of Sharon's meeting with President Bush, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is making news of his own. An apparent reaction to international pressure to make changes fast, Arafat announced a series of shake-ups within the leadership of the Palestinian Authority. In the most significant move, he named a new Interior Minister who will be in charge of all security forces. Arafat had held that post himself but came under intense pressure from Israel and the U.S. to do something to prevent violence against Israel. Israeli officials are reacting cautiously.

DORE GOLD, SENIOR SHARON ADVISER: We don't have great expectations from Yasser Arafat. But when we see that the Palestinian leadership renounces violence, renounces armed struggle, sets aside the use of terrorism to advance political interest, when we see the everyday security of the people of Israel vastly improving, we'll know real reform has occurred.

HOCHMUTH: Arafat is also sliming down his Cabinet from 32 ministers to 21 and announced presidential elections would take place by the end of this year or early next. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat tells CNN the moves are in preparation for building the institution of a Palestinian state.

SAEB ERAKAT, CHIEF PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR: I think President Arafat in the last few days faced major difficulties, because of all these ministers who are out now are very close personal friends of the president, have been very close in the president's years of struggle. So it's been rather very, very difficult to have this reshuffle. As I said, there's going to be a government of preparation, preparation for the -- building the institutions for a nation state, and at the same time, for the elections that will be announced in the next few days.

HOCHMUTH: There is no timetable for establishing a Palestinian state. That's something Sharon has said he doesn't want to discuss until violence against Israel stops. But his senior adviser stopped short of saying Israel is seeking Arafat's ouster.

GOLD: What Mr. Sharon has said and what he has written in the "New York Times" this morning is that he wants a real partner for peace. He wants to go forward. He has very specific ideas of how to pragmatically move the Israelis and the Palestinians in a positive direction. But he needs a partner. He needs a man like Anwar Sadat or King Hussein. And right now, Yasser Arafat hasn't fulfilled those conditions.

ERAKAT: I don't think Sharon cares if we are ruled by the Boy Scouts or Atilla the Hun. And I think the only meaning of Sharon speaking about reform is to get rid of the elected Palestinian president, President Arafat.

HOCHMUTH: Sharon and President Bush will be discussing Arafat's future when they meet.

As Kelly Wallace reports, Mr. Bush is trying to balance Sharon's views with Arab leaders who still support Arafat.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Bush, no fan of Yasser Arafat, choosing not to comment on Arafat's Cabinet shake-up. Aides say the president continues to look for, quote, "meaningful reform." At the same time, Mr. Bush is trying to convince the Israelis to eventually return to the negotiating table.

ANDREW CARD, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: There's a lot of things that have to happen. We think they can all happen at the same time.

WALLACE: But Israeli Prime Minister Sharon in Washington preparing for his Monday meeting with Mr. Bush says Israel won't engage in political discussions until the violence stops.

In an op-ed Sunday's "New York Times" Mr. Sharon wrote: "Israel must defeat terrorism. It cannot negotiate under fire." And he said, "a diplomatic solution requires first and foremost a reliable partner for peace."

The president repeatedly says Arafat has let his people down, but Arab leaders are urging Mr. Bush to give him a chance.

HOSNI MUBARAK, PRESIDENT, EGYPT: If he's given the authority and given the tools, I think it would work very well. If not, the people who elected him will not accept him afterward. We should give him a chance anyway.

WALLACE: During their weekend summit at Camp David, the Egyptian leader urged President Bush to commit to a timetable for Palestinian statehood, arguing that is the only way to end the violence. But Mr. Bush said he was not ready to do that, and Democratic lawmakers agree.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: I think it's more important to come through with an outline, a horizon of how this state is going to come in being. But I don't think to set firm timetables in that region of the world.

WALLACE (on camera): The president is expected sometime soon to outline his ideas about how to move forward. The daunting challenge for Mr. Bush is finding a game plan all parties can live with, with Israel arguing for an incremental approach, setting aside issues such as borders for the future, and the Arab world and Palestinians calling for major political discussions now.

Kelly Wallace, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRIEDMAN: When it comes to equality, America's come a long way during the past 30 years. Boys and girls alike are given opportunities in the classroom and on the playing field thanks in part to something called Title IX. That's the federal law barring discrimination against women and education. Its passage in 1972 has helped close an educational gap. Nevertheless, some barriers remain.

CNN's Kathy Slobogin talked to a group of girls in Fairfax County, Virginia about the hurdles they've encountered.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHY SLOBOGIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They used to call it vocational ed. Today, it's career education, and it's nothing like the shop and home ec classes baby boomers remember. Career education today is often highly technical. Students are often college bound. But one thing hasn't changed much. The ones doing hair and painting nails are girls. The ones wiring cars and computers are boys.

MARCIA GREENBERG, NATIONAL WOMEN'S LAW CENTER: There is the kind of sex segregation in career education programs that most people thought we had laid to rest 30 years ago when Title IX was passed.

SLOBOGIN: The National Women's Law Center found that despite Title IX, across the country girls are clustered in classes like cosmetology and child development, while boys dominate classes in high technology and high paying fields.

GREENBERG: The all girl classes aren't going to have the high technology equipment. They're not going to have the math and science programs. They're not going to be trained for the kinds of jobs that are going to have good wages and good chances for promotion.

SLOBOGIN: Chantilly Academy in wealthy Fairfax County, Virginia is a model for career education, offering state-of-the-art classes like this one in network design and engineering. But out of 90 students in the class this year, only one was a girl.

LESLIE PERSILY, OFFICE FOR WOMEN, FAIRFAX COUNTY: Visitors have come here from all over the world and invariably they've looked in these technology classes and said this is great, where are the girls?

SLOBOGIN: Students here say girls often feel unwelcome in classes dominated by boys.

SOO KANG, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION STUDENT: There is a lot of guys and they like to be macho about it, I know this, I know that.

JESSICA FELDMAN, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION STUDENT: Girls like really fear like being ostracized by the guys in their class, especially if they're the only girl.

SLOBOGIN: These girls are pioneers. Most are in an all girls computer class the principal started to make it easier for female students. They say the message that computers are for guys starts early and can come from the teacher.

FELDMAN: Like I just remember like being in the fourth grade and whenever the VCR was broken, you know, she would call a guy up to fix it, you know?

KANG: It's that stereotype. Teachers think, well, you know, because you're a guy you're going to be interested into that like getting into the technical stuff, the computers, the tech classes, while the girls, I think they're more like well what about culinary arts or cosmetology?

SLOBOGIN: Girls who choose those classes may not realize the consequences of their choices -- getting left behind in the new economy. GREENBERG: We've talked to young woman after young woman, parent after parent who said if only I had realized what the implications would be of this choice, I wouldn't have made it.

SLOBOGIN: As for these girls, they couldn't be happier with the choice they made.

CARMEN QUEIPO, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION STUDENT: I got a lot out of it. I mean I know what I want to do now and it's exciting.

KENIA RODRIGUEZ, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION STUDENT: By the end of the year I was really shocked about what I knew. I basically could fix a computer from scratch.

FELDMAN: You don't need to go to a man to take care of your teach needs. You can fix it yourself.

SLOBOGIN (on camera): The National Women's Law Center is asking the federal government to investigate career education programs. At a minimum, critics say, schools should make girls more aware of their choices and aware of the consequences for what they choose.

Kathy Slobogin, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: Well what a weekend in sports. The Belmont Stakes, NBA finals, Major League Baseball, the Lewis-Tyson fight, oh yes, and the most popular sport in the world, outside the U.S. anyway, soccer. Many of you might have gone a little Cup crazy this weekend, but you don't hold a candle to Germany where soccer is a phenomenon.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(SINGING)

STEPHANIE HALASZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There is no holding back Analiza Earlshlager (ph) and her friends singing the national anthem before the Germany against Ireland game Wednesday. Although many think of the German team as young and somewhat inexperienced, Analiza (ph) and her friends feverishly hope for victory against the Irish. The ladies have never played soccer, but certainly know all the moves and never miss a game.

Analiza (ph) has been a fan for 40 years. Her apartment is a temple to testosterone and soccer tackles.

"It is easy for women to understand because it is not so complicated," Analiza (ph) explains.

(SHOUTING)

HALASZ: But it does get complicated among women, soccer and men. In this theater play called "Obsessed," men have to make a choice between their game and their girls. The 90-minute play, no halftime, concludes men cannot love women and soccer at the same time. Not the conclusion made at this Berlin bakery. It is 4:00 on a hot summer night and the bakers are kneading their special World Cup soccer dough.

"Men buy it and women buy it for their men," says chief baker Frank Plutner (ph).

He will stop baking the soccer bread if and when Germany is eliminated from the World Cup.

(on camera): A leading European betting house says Germany's odds of winning are getting better, much to the delight of Germany's fans. Even the national monument, the Brandenburg Gate, is set for the occasion, courtesy of an advertiser playing to soccer patriotism.

Stephanie Halasz, CNN, Berlin.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: More World Cup news now, this not so good. At least one person was killed and more than 20 others injured when Russian fans went on a rampage near the Kremlin. Now police say thousands of angry soccer fans smashed cars and store windows after watching their team defeated on a big screen TV set up in a Russian square. Japan beat Russia in World Cup play 1-0.

Stick around, some good news from Russia is coming up. This week we feature Russia, its culture, economy and more, all week long in our "Perspectives" section. Today we'll meet one of the new faces in Russian politics. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.

FRIEDMAN: And now let's go interactive and answer an e-mail sent to us from New Brunswick, Canada. Referring to our "Where in the World" segment from June 6, Don Filmore (ph) writes -- quote -- "How do you figure that the United States of America is the third largest country in the world...by area? I know it's easy to miss us, all tucked up here, but Russia is the largest, followed by Canada, then China and fourthly, the good old U.S. of A."

Well, Don (ph), we used the "World Fact Book" located at CIA.gov for our source which was the U.S.A. as the largest -- third largest country in the world. But we looked into this a little further and found this Web site, World Atlas.com. It agreed with you with the U.S. being fourth, China third, Canada second and Russia topping the list. So I guess we'll call this one a draw.

Have a question, comment or suggestion about the show, send us a letter through e-mail at CNNSTUDENTNEWS.com and we might just read your letter on the air.

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

WALCOTT: Our "Perspectives" this week takes us to Russia, a nation that's seen many changes during the past 15 years. The government has gone through great lengths to reform society, but now some members of parliament would like to see administrative changes. One of Russia's most popular female politicians has her own bold ideas on how to improve the government.

CNN's Jill Dougherty has more on this rising political star.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Maybe it's the haircut or the designer glasses or the Japanese name or maybe it's all of these things and more. Meet Irina Khakamada, Member of Parliament, who's breaking the mold for Russian politicians.

"This is my message," she says, "I want the Russian people to get used to the fact that in politics you can have individuals and personalities, not just an army of people in gray suits dealing in intrigues."

Irina Khakamada is anything but gray. In college, they asked her to be a model. The daughter of a Japanese communist who immigrated to the Soviet Union, she's become a political pop star whose face seems to be everywhere but one who just happens to have taught economics.

At the end of the Soviet Union, she became a businesswoman. But making money, she says, wasn't her thing.

"I saw there was no real system, no middle class. All the rules of the game had to be changed," she recalls, "and I began to understand that government was the way to do that."

In 1994, she was elected to parliament. Khakamada learned the ropes at the State Duma, but she needed a team and political parties were still in their infancy. She served in the Yeltsin government for a year and a half and saw three prime ministers come and go.

"I was a kind of sign board," she says, "a pretty advertisement, but they didn't let me do anything."

Back in parliament, she's now helped turn a broad coalition of liberal politicians into a real political party, SPS, the Union of Right Forces. One of her heroes, Britain's Margaret Thatcher.

Running for office in Russia isn't for the fainthearted, says Irina Khakamada. She was born in Moscow but occasional encounters racial prejudice. She says she wastes a lot of energy on trying to prove a stylish woman can be intelligent.

"Russia is very patriarchal," she says, "very traditional."

Khakamada wants to change the Russian constitution. The president should be one sex, she says, the vice president the other. That's more progressive than the United States, she laughs. Would she run for president? It will take another 25 years, she says, for people like me to be elected.

Jill Dougherty, CNN, Moscow. (END VIDEOTAPE)

FRIEDMAN: How do you express your emotions? Some people sing, others write and then there are those that play music or draw. Well here's something a little different, some Buddhist monks in Washington, D.C. are communicating their feelings by making a mandala. Don't know what a mandala is, well you will in a sec.

Here's Bruce Morton.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE MORTON, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): They are Buddhist monks, Tibetans, from the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Monastery in India. They are in Washington this day, January 11, to help heal the wounds America suffered on September 11, four months earlier.

They chant. They dance. But what they are really here to do is make a mandala, a sacred picture made with colored sand. This mandala will honor a Buddha who overcomes negatives. Eleven-year-old Natalie understands.

NATALIE: I start the prayer they wish (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and they wish to become like Buddha to be kind, sweet, caring, forgiving and smart, and all the other kind of feelings, perfections.

MORTON: The monks begin designing the mandala. Catherine recalls the music.

CATHERINE: You could tell the parts of life that are frightening, and not necessarily benevolent. But most of it became something that you felt was just this communal feeling that you could feel it all the way through your body. It was resounding.

MORTON: January 20th, the mandala is about half finished now, the brilliant colors, flowers, birds, maybe glory. Thousands of Americans have come to the Smithsonian's sacra gallery to watch and learn.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's an incredible moment in time. I love that what they're trying to do to try to heal and protect the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you see something like this, you see that it just puts it in perspective I think, that you're able to realize that it was an event. It's over, and you just move on with your life.

MORTON: The mandala too is an event. It is January 27th now, maybe 30,000 have visited it, and today its life will end. They are going to the river to pour into the water the sand, which was the mandala.

Buddhists say everything comes to pass. Nothing comes to stay. But there is more symbolism. The sand goes into the river, into the oceans of the world, a way of sharing with the world the prayers, the words from this place and time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To sweep it away is (inaudible). It's magic that they can do that in three weeks, building a piece of art and then just sweep it away and let it go into the open water.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The mandala has so much love coming from it, and I just connected with that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a gesture for sharing our prayers and healings with the whole world.

MORTON: So, they have come and gone. Where are they now? In Miami, where they've built a mandala, a ritual they will repeat in cities around the country.

Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder but in our image conscious society, the way you look can matter a lot. So imagine how difficult it must be for teenagers who are losing their hair.

Our Student Bureau has this report on a charity that offers locks of love.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ERIKA CONNER, CNN STUDENT BUREAU (voice-over): Meet Melissa, she seems just like any other 16-year-old. She goes to school dances and on family vacations to Disney World and even sings in the church choir.

MELISSA ENDRES, AGE 16: I'm in grade 10, and I like to sing and write stories.

CONNER: But what you may not notice about Melissa is that she is one of four million people in the U.S. with alopecia areata, a disease that results in hair loss. The disease occurs in males and females of all ages but begins most often in childhood.

ENDRES: I have alopecia areata. I do have some hair. My hair has grown back over the past few years so there's a good chance that my hair could all grow back, which is really good to hear.

CONNER: But what is also good to hear is that Melissa will always have hair regardless of whether her own grows back and that's possible through a nonprofit organization in Florida known as Locks of Love.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We make hairpieces for kids who can't grow their own hair.

CONNER: But there's something very different about these hairpieces. MADONNA COFFMAN, PRESIDENT, LOCKS OF LOVE: You can call it a wig, but it's-- technically it's a -- it's a cranial prostheses. It's custom made from mold of a child's head. Because of that, it fits that child and only that child.

CONNER: And while these hairpieces are one-of-a-kind, it's the donations of real hair from individuals throughout the country that make these hairpieces more than just any other wig.

ENDRES: I had worn wigs in the past and everything, and they just didn't feel right. And like it was too easy to notice that they weren't real and everything so that -- you know it made me feel excluded. And I found out this one, you know I could swim with it, sleep with it, it wouldn't fall off or anything because of the suction that builds up in it.

CONNER: Melissa is one of hundreds of children that have had the opportunity to receive a unique hairpiece through Locks of Love.

COFFMAN: There are so many lives that are changed dramatically once they receive their prostheses. And that is conveyed to us through thank you letters and e-mails and photos that they send.

CONNER: Thanks to financial donations from throughout the country, Melissa and others like her receive the $3,000 hairpiece at no cost. And Melissa says she is thankful she was able to carefully select her new hairpiece.

ENDRES: Part of the fun is getting to look through all different hair colors and stuff. My first wig was more blonde than this one is the reddish. And so I mean you can get blacks and all different kinds of colors. It's whatever you choose, and it's really nice.

CONNER (on camera): Now donors can either come to a hair salon to cut their hair or they can cut it at home. As long as the hair is bundled together in a ponytail, at least 10 inches in length and free from chemical damage. But exactly how many ponytails are required to make one wig?

COFFMAN: Between 12 and 15 ponytails, because 50 percent of each ponytail ends up being a lot shorter than the longest hair in the ponytail. Many people can't tell that it's a hairpiece. It's -- and the kids at that point, as far as they're concerned, it's not a hairpiece. It's theirs. It's their hair.

ENDRES: Like most people don't see hair as the most precious thing. It's not just the hair that was precious, it was the thought to just give up something you know that was there to make someone else, you know, feel more special.

CONNER (voice-over): But giving up something special is not always the easiest thing to do. Meet Rebecca, a 26-year-old graduate student at MIT who has been growing her waist length hair for four years. While the thought has crossed her mind, she has always refused to cut it until she heard of Locks of Love. REBECCA SLAYTON, DONOR: I would love to see what happens to this, like and where it goes and if it's useful and how people feel about getting it.

CONNER: And so Rebecca made the decision to make a difference. She set out to cut her hair and donate 24 inches of it to Locks of Love. And how does it feel to make such a donation?

SLAYTON: At least no matter how I feel about this -- about this, like it went to something useful, it didn't just go in the trash.

CONNER: While Rebecca's large donation is not common, her feelings about becoming a donor are quite similar to those of other donors.

SILJA JAMES, DONOR: It's one of like the best things that I've done that like to help out anybody. Even though like it seems like it could be just a small thing, like it really has a much larger impact than (UNINTELLIGIBLE) imagine.

CONNER: Silja is one of many students who have recently made a donation at Boston College. Students there held a hair drive to collect hair donations on campus. In one week, the drive collected an entire box of ponytails.

CATHERINE PORTNER, DONOR: Kind of a nice feeling to know that someone else will be able to use it.

CONNER: And while research on alopecia areata is continuous, there is no known cure today. Although they may never meet, Locks of Love has changed the lives of this donor and wig recipient.

SLAYTON: And I was walking around thinking about this and thinking in a way it makes -- it just makes sense. It makes sense to give it away because I don't appreciate it that much so why not do it now.

ENDRES: Locks of Love has definitely done so much for my life because it's just so much easier, you know, just for me to be who I am and not have to worry about, you know, how to talk to people about it.

CONNER: Erika Conner, CNN Student Bureau, Boston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

"Where in the World" a Chinese autonomous region since 1951, almost completely surrounded by mountain ranges, the capital is Lhasa? Can you name this region? Tibet.

FRIEDMAN: Well that wraps up our show for Monday, but there's plenty to come all week.

WALCOTT: That's right. Tuesday we'll talk about teens and smoking. We'll clear the air in our "Health Report."

FRIEDMAN: And we'll explore the ancient martial art of Tae Kwon Do. We'll see you then.

WALCOTT: Have a good one. Bye-bye.

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