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CNN Student News

Aired June 24, 2002 - 04:00   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.

SHELLEY WALCOTT, CO-HOST: Time to run down "Today's Headlines." Wildfires in Arizona top our agenda.

SUSAN FRIEDMAN, CO-HOST: Then we're off to the soccer field in "Chronicle," a place where diversity is the name of the game.

WALCOTT: More culture in "Perspectives" as wedding bells ring in India.

FRIEDMAN: Later, meet some party animals who aren't exactly getting a warm welcome.

WALCOTT: Hi, and thanks for starting your week with us here at CNN STUDENT NEWS. I'm Shelley Walcott.

FRIEDMAN: And I'm Susan Friedman.

Just as firefighters get a handle on the Colorado blazes, a battle emerges against two big fires in eastern Arizona. Two blazes which officials fear may merge into one big inferno.

WALCOTT: Nearly 300,000 acres have burned in Arizona since Thursday. Now firefighters are hard at work against what's described as a frightening wall of fire with flames shooting 300 feet high. So far, at least 25,000 people have been forced to flee their homes. Arizona's governor calls the situation a wake-up call.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANE HULL, GOVERNOR OF ARIZONA: We have got to clean up these forests. Nature did it. Nature did it on a very regular basis before people came out here. Now nature is telling us that we have got to get this in control. This is the most out of control fire we've ever seen. This is not -- this is the time to get our act together and realize that the healthier the habitat is the cleaner the forests are.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: The town of Show Low is directly in the path of the flames. CNN's Charles Molineaux is monitoring the situation there and filed this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHARLES MOLINEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Traffic jammed the few roads out of town still opened, as huge smoke plumes heralded a wall of fire bearing down on Show Low, Arizona at a mile every hour. And thousands of families moved out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's smoky. We can't breathe in front of the fire here, we can't breathe here.

MOLINEAUX: Cole Sigoviak (ph) and his mom are among -- or could become 30,000 people clearing out of Show Low and nearby towns in the path of the Rodeo and Chediski fires.

People who live here have been on alert to evacuate for days. And to the very end, the painful choices continue about what treasures to take.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This picture, we may not be able to take.

MOLINEAUX: Arlene Rokan (ph) and her mother are weighing their belongings versus the size of their car. The 87-year-old Beatrice Jarvez (ph) has lived on this spot for more than half a century.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to take it all because it all means something to me.

MOLINEAUX: While Rebecca Sanders (ph) faces moving out only days after the fire forced her out of a town just up the road.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've already got evacuated from Clay Springs. And then I came here with my dad. And now Show Low is going to have to evacuate and this is my second time. So, it's going to be kind of hard. But if this place burns down, I got nowhere else to go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You take things that mean the most to you, things that you look at the most, things with the most memories, and then go from there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRIEDMAN: The two day European Union Summit in Seville, Spain has ended. At times it seemed as if the World Cup was the most important issue of discussion. But the EU leaders did manage to squeeze in some other important points.

Robin Oakley has this wrap.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The EU leaders rolled up all right for their Saturday summit, but an hour after they should have done. Talkathons aren't much competition for World Cup finals. And with Spain playing their game at the time, their host, Jose Maria Aznar, like most of the delegations and journalists, have other things on his mind. Later, after Spain's defeat, he told journalists it hadn't been a field of dreams.

JOSE MARIA AZNAR, SPANISH PRIME MINISTER (through translator): I want to express my appreciation to our football team, the players, the trainer and the manager. Unfortunately, today luck was not with them or with us. Luck, to say the least.

OAKLEY: It wasn't a field of dreams for the unsmiling Mr. Aznar at the summit either. He and Britain's Tony Blair, whose England team went out of the Cup on Friday, were double losers. They'd wanted to get tough with countries who didn't do enough to stop their nationals becoming illegal immigrants into the EU. Blair and Aznar were ready to cut the EU aid going to countries that don't cooperate.

Other leaders like President Chirac of France said that would merely make things worse. So to fight illegal immigration, the 15 have merely agreed a package including so-called integrated management of their borders and more information sharing. Future deals with countries will include a clause about managing immigrant flows, but aid won't be cut.

Mr. Blair put a brave face on it.

TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: None of us want to cut back on our aid. On the other hand, all of us want to make sure third countries are cooperating in dealing with illegal immigration and readmitting their nationals to their countries where there are illegal immigrants. If people are refusing to cooperate, well, we'll consider any appropriate action to be taken.

OAKLEY: But nobody was spelling out what that action might be. The positive element in Seville came over lunch with the leaders of the 13 applicant countries who wanted admission tickets to the EU. The existing members said they were determined to finish negotiations with 10 of them this year and to admit them as full members in 2004.

But the trickiest subject of all set in what farm subsidies the new members will get has become such a hot potato that the issue was dropped from the agenda in Seville.

(on camera): The farm payment's battle has been postponed until the autumn when it's likely to become tangled with reform of the whole system of subsidizing agriculture among the existing 15.

So achievements were limited in a football crazy summit in Spain which opened with three EU teams still involved in the World Cup and which has ended with just one, Germany, still flying a European flag in the semifinals.

Robin Oakley, CNN, Seville.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: Well as we just heard, illegal immigration and ways to curve it, a key point of discussion for leaders at the European Union Summit. But how are countries handling the illegal workers who have managed to get in?

We have this close up examination of an Immigration office in England on the lookout for illegal workers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEX THOMSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Immigration arrest officers assemble for their final briefing before mounting a raid on a south London car wash.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's intention to go to the car washes and to seek the person with a view to identifying him and if appropriate, arresting him. Obviously if anyone else who is detected at the -- at the car washes who's working illegally or we have got doubts about their bona fides, and obviously we'd be seeking to bring them in as well.

THOMSON: With everyone in Europe in disarray hitherto, this is how Britain goes about it. And we've had exclusive access to one of seven British Immigration arrest squads.

KEIRON MOONEY, HOME OFFICE IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT: Confrontation in the next report we do is very, very, very rare. I personally have only been involved once ever in a confrontational situation. However, people do tend to, as we -- as we say, run. They will try and escape, particularly if they've got reasons for them not to want to be able to speak to us.

THOMSON: From the unmarked hired van, the officers surround and then enter the car wash.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) chaps.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got any documents on you that prove who you are (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I have not.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I see. You should be carrying something to say who you are, you know. A regular reference that we can check out makes life a lot easier.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When did you arrive in England?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Four years?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

THOMSON: The government now hopes improved European cooperation plus aid incentives to Kosovo in this case would prevent any more surprise visits to the car wash. (on camera): So the premise is now blocked off both back and front. What they're going to do is gather together all the staff here. There's a number of people who it's believed are either Albanians or Kosovoans, nobody's quite sure which at the moment, but they have the technology now to do more or less instantaneous fingerprint checks on them to see if anything's known about those individuals. On the basis of that they may or may not be taken in for further questioning.

(voice-over): They certainly have the new technology. Problem is, on this occasion it didn't work.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rick, while you're waiting, do you want to bring up (UNINTELLIGIBLE) get check on this chap who hasn't done anything for three years?

THOMSON: So it's back to good old fashioned phone calls. Eventually it becomes clear three Kosovoans here cannot account for their presence in the U.K. and knock (ph) on the records, all three are duly arrested.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You do not have to say anything. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) defense. If you do not mention (UNINTELLIGIBLE) question something (UNINTELLIGIBLE) court.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This will all be explained to you (UNINTELLIGIBLE) defend the position. OK.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Give me this hand.

THOMSON: What happens next depends on whether or not these people decide to claim political asylum or accept swift deportation back to Kosovo.

So a successful operation in limited terms, but there are plenty more people like this who are prepared to take the risk of coming to Britain. So will the Seville agreements make any difference to that?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRIEDMAN: Lots more coming up in CNN STUDENT NEWS. Stick around and we'll look at one country's cultural celebration of the covenant of marriage. We also have a whole section on the Web site dedicated to the topic. So be sure to check that out as well. That's at CNNSTUDENTNEWS.com. And while you're there, check out the latest scores and winners with our link to the World Cup coverage. And stay tuned, in just a few we'll "Chronicle" soccer U.S. style.

WALCOTT: OK. Well, folks are still getting physical from South Korea all the way to the White House. Now over the weekend, President Bush and some staffers took a three mile run around the nation's capital. And Sunday, Mr. Bush hosted a T-ball game on the South Lawn of the White House.

Why the workout? Well the president was pushing his new initiative to get Americans working out at least 30 minutes a day. Tomorrow's "Chronicle" will have all the details. Be sure to check it out.

And if you are feeling a little out of shape, why not kick around the soccer ball? It's something New Yorkers have been doing since 1925.

Brian Palmer has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN PALMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These teenagers have more control with their feet than most of us have with our hands for good reason. Many play five days a week or more here at the Metropolitan Oval in Queens, New York, a field carved out of an immigrant neighborhood in 1925. It's said to be the oldest soccer field in the United States.

It still retains its international character more than 75 years later, with parents discussing the ins and outs of soccer, particularly the World Cup in their native languages. The oval has hosted generations of players from all over the world. Every day here is a miniature World Cup.

College instructor, soccer mom Lynette Williams is originally from Trinidad and Tobago. She watches son Ryan, practice along with Maria Cortese, a retired New York City detective, also a hardcore soccer mom.

LYNETTE WILLIAMS, SOCCER MOM: Most of the kids from -- we have...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: South America.

WILLIAMS: South America.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And Europe?

JIM VOGT, DIRECTOR OF METROPOLITAN OVAL FOUNDATION: What makes soccer and what makes Metropolitan Oval the melting pot of soccer is right here? I don't know if the game or the oval would be the same without the diversity.

PALMER: Most here aspire to play for a team U.S.A. in the World Cup. 11-year old Stefano Vacarino (ph) and John Rogers (ph) play with a team called the Brooklyn nights at Met Oval. Vacarino attends Polly (ph) prep school, a sports powerhouse.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My school is mostly just a basketball, football and baseball. There's like only a few kids that play soccer.

PALMER: You don't feel kind of different, out of it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, not at all.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My school's the exact opposite. Everybody plays soccer.

PALMER: Rogers goes to Brooklyn Friends, a Quaker school.

SYLVIA GILIOTTI, STEFANO'S MOTHER: Soccer really brings together different cultures. And it's a great sport for children, not just for adults.

VOGT: Everybody brings a different piece of the puzzle to the field. And I think it just helps us understand what other people's cultures are about, what the games are all about, and just puts it all together.

PALMER: So the kids in the Met Oval, this diversity the parents make so much of, is simply their community.

Brian Palmer, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

FRIEDMAN: More on culture and diversity as we turn to a tradition celebrated all over the world, marriage. June is historically the most popular month for weddings, and rest assured, every single celebration is different. Culture and religion both play a part in matrimony.

CNN's Indra Sibal went back to her home country of India to document and participate in one such celebration. This one an arranged marriage. How does that work? Well let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we call it marriage of two families, not of boy and girl. This is a marriage of two families.

INDRA SIBAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): First comes marriage, then comes love. Well at least one hopes. I had the chance to take part in my cousin Vanif's (ph) arranged Punjabi Hindu wedding. My uncle, Nubic Gugin (ph) and Davi Vanif's (ph) wife, tells me over 90 percent of India's married couples are matched by their families. What's even more amazing to Americans, Vanif and Gugin (ph) did not know each other and have only seen each other twice prior to this ceremony.

When looking for partners, parents consider economic status, social class, education and astrology.

And you thought your uncle's Catholic wedding was long. How about three days? Monday night the engagement ceremony. The two exchange rings and the families exchange gifts, fruit baskets, saris and of course, plenty of money. The days are filled with food, dancing and singing. Family is such an important part of life in India.

On Tuesday night, we headed for a banquet hall for more food and more dancing. The DJ is pumping out the latest hits from India's top movies. Later in the evening, all of the women gather on stage for singing, mostly traditional songs. But breaking from tradition, men now join in as well. That's my grandmother at the microphone there.

As in many cultures, the bride and groom don't see each other the night before the wedding.

Wednesday, the wedding day, we were painted with henna, rituals in the temple, the turban blessed by all relatives. Then the horse that the groom will ride to the wedding is fed lentils and has its mane braided by the groom's sisters and cousins. I was even given a few rupees myself for helping out.

At the site of the wedding, the procession of the groom, one of the main events, with plenty of dancing to be done. Before entering the wedding hall, the close relatives of each side come forth and garland each other, more money exchanged.

Inside after dinner with only close family members remaining, the marriage ceremony begins. The priest chanting from the holy scripture. The two were tied together with a cloth. They take seven walks around the fire. Venif and Gugin finally officially married.

While their courtship was virtually nonexistent, their chances of staying together much better. You are 40 times more likely to get divorced in the United States than you are in India. Of course, the cultures are much different. In India there are fewer legal reasons for divorce than in the U.S. and the social stigma, especially for women, is much greater.

My cousin Venif and I are related by blood, but our cultures are a world apart. But no matter how two people meet or where they live, making any marriage work takes much dedication and hard work.

Indra Sibal for CNN STUDENT NEWS, New Delhi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRIEDMAN: The King of Pop Art is invading Hollywood. Andy Warhol, the master of celebrity portrait, is being honored in Los Angeles with an exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Two hundred and fifty of Warhol's most famous images are on display. And this summer, fans and art lovers from around the world will be checking them out.

CNN's Anne McDermott explains what all the fuss is about.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNE MCDERMOTT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Marilyn, Mao, Elizabeth, Elvis and Andy, Andy. Andy Warhol, the Pennsylvania lad turned New York City slicker died 15 years ago, but he left behind so many treasures. He had worked so hard.

ANJELICA HUSTON, WARHOL FRIEND: I guess he did. I don't when he ever found the time for it because he spent a lot of time playing.

WARHOL: Playing with the likes of Liza and Halston and turning them into art. Now on display in L.A., the celebrities and all those cans of Campbells.

JEREMY STRICK, MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART: The things that we're most familiar with and -- allows us to look at them again.

MCDERMOTT: And we love them. We even copy them. This man is a pet portrait painter who turned Nelson the Rottweiler into an Andy. But the original was much more than a picture painter, he was a movie maker. Andy was also into music, helping to put together the Velvet Underground with Lou Reed.

Then there was Andy the philosopher. The guy who said we'd all get our 15 minutes of fame. Well his time is still ticking because we still want to see his stuff, we still want to know what was he thinking.

Anne McDermott, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRIEDMAN: Our survey of the arts continues with a stop at the nation's capital. Since April, party animals have taken over the streets of Washington. Two hundred sculptures of donkeys and elephants wildly and whimsically decorated by artists.

But as Kathleen Koch reports, life on the street is taking its toll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They are simply irresistible whether plastered with paint or pennies or people's fondest wishes. The party animals, 200 all total, are part of a public art project launched in the nation's capital in April. But life on the street for the Republican elephants and Democratic donkeys can be cruel. Verico Rico (ph) lost an ear, the Divine Miss Donkey's necklace was snatched. Altogether, 15 sculptures have been defaced.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's really disturbing to see the graffiti on these because they're such treasures to look at.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Graffiti generally defaces something a lot of people put a lot of effort in.

KOCH: People like artist Cheryl Foster.

CHERYL FOSTER, ARTIST: When I got there, she was stark naked, no tutu, no tiara, bubble gum in both eyes.

KOCH: Her creation, Prima Donkey, was toppled twice and vandalized.

FOSTER: Aluminum wire mesh, which I fashioned for days bending back and forth, and finally got it mounted.

KOCH (on camera): But it was screwed on.

FOSTER: Screwed on. Screwed on.

KOCH (voice-over): It's not the first time public art has been subjected to animal behavior by humans. Cows on display in Chicago were tipped and stolen. Many of Toronto's moose had their antlers broken off. Security cameras caught one culprit. Foster would like to get her hands on D.C.'s vandals.

FOSTER: We can put them up on scaffolding in the hot sun and let them bake with me during a mural. The closer they are to the art, the more appreciative they'll be. That's my answer. As an art educator, that's my answer.

KOCH: Until then, Foster works to restore her fallen ballerina, bolstered by cards...

FOSTER: Get well soon.

KOCH: ... and an artist's determination.

FOSTER: I don't let it bring me to tears, but my designs have to be stronger if I'm going to stay in the business of public art.

KOCH: Kathleen Koch, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: Could the clock be ticking for Saddam Hussein? Last week, the "Washington Post" reported that President Bush had OK'd a covert CIA operation to oust the Iraqi leader. A new CNN-Time Gallup Poll finds most Americans think the U.S. should only attack countries which attack the U.S. first.

Our Student Bureau set out for more of a sampling of the American public's opinion.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW MOORE, CNN STUDENT BUREAU (voice-over): American soldiers in Afghanistan, the Taliban defeated, Osama bin Laden on the run, but America has already switched the focus of its war on terrorism to its old advisory Iraq.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I will not wait on events while dangers gather. I will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons.

MOORE: In the 11 years since the Gulf War, a coalition of U.S. allies have imposed a military quarantine against Iraq. The missile attacks of 1998 and 2001, evidence that peace was never secured.

RANIA MASRI, IRAQ ACTION COALITION: Because since 1998, December 1998 until now, the United States has been on average bombing Iraq twice to three times a week and nobody talks about this. So this is not the start of military aggression, this is the intensification of military aggression.

PROFESSOR NICHOLAS FOTION, EMORY UNIVERSITY, MILITARY ETHICS EXPERT: Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi government, is not right now aggressing against anybody. So it would be a bit difficult to be given ethical justification for doing anything militarily in a significant way right now.

MOORE: The 1991 cease-fire and the weapons inspections that followed have failed to convince the international community that Saddam isn't developing weapons of mass destruction.

PROFESSOR DAN REITER, FOREIGN POLICY AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION EXPERT: And we need to assume that he has been working on weapons of mass destruction in the 1990s in the last couple of years and he's probably been able to make some headway at least in the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons.

MOORE: U.N. Sponsored economic sanctions on Iraq, the world's second largest oil exporter, have continued since August 1990. By U.N. estimates, the 11 years of economic warfare have cost 1.5 million Iraqi lives, including 600,000 children. But after gassing the Kurds in the 1980s, Saddam proved himself to be a ruthless dictator.

MASRI: Politically they make no sense because sanctions strengthen dictatorships, sanctions strengthen fundamentalism, sanctions breed hatred because you're intensifying isolation, you're removing them at a class (ph). So what is the legitimacy for this unless the objective is the destruction of the entire country and that has been achieved.

MOORE: Vice President Dick Cheney's charm offensive towards the Arab world failed to win backing for a coalition effort to topple Saddam. But when President Bush met trusted ally Tony Blair at his Texas ranch, the British Prime Minister gave him the green light.

CHRISTOPHER MURRELL, STUDENTS AGAINST VIOLENCE AT EMORY: If we ever do take any action on Iraq it has to be multilateral. It can't be the United States going in alone and saying OK this is what we're going to do, we're -- we don't care about the international community, we don't care about the Arab nations, we don't care about NATO, we don't care about Europe or any of our other alliances because this would alienate the United States completely and foster in a new age of threatening isolationism.

MOORE: With the lack of international support and the escalation of violence in the Arab-Israeli conflict, President Bush is molding his foreign policy around significant obstacles.

SAMIER MOUKKADAMM, ARAB-AMERICAN ANTI-DISCRIMINATION COMMITTEE: If the Palestine issue is not there, things for America would have gone much easier in the Arab world and there would be much more willingness to cooperate.

JACOB SCHREIBER, JEWISH YOUNG ADULT AGENCY: America is going to have to do what it needs to do. America is going to have to fight Islamic terror. They're going to have to fight sections in the Arab world that are against the West. They're going to have to do that no matter what goes on in -- with Israel and the Palestinians.

MOORE: If Saddam fails to offer U.N. Weapons inspectors unlimited access, the U.S. has a number of options, continue diplomatic negotiations, all out military invasions akin to Desert Storm, strategic aerial bombing or by sponsoring opposition forces within Iraq, a repeat of the Northern Alliance effect.

(on camera): Without doubt, a difficult path lies ahead. The only thing certain in the Bush administration at the moment is to keep Baghdad guessing. Whether peace and diplomacy will prevail or whether the Gulf will once again descend into war remains unclear.

This is Matthew Moore reporting for CNN Student Bureau, Emory University, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRIEDMAN: Our cultural kaleidoscope continues tomorrow. We take you to a puppet festival in Kenya.

WALCOTT: That's right. And we'll also explore the phenomenon of contemporary Christian music.

We'll catch you back here tomorrow. Have a good one. Bye-bye.

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