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CNN STUDENT NEWS For July 18, 2002
Aired July 18, 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.
SUSAN FREIDMAN, CO-HOST: Our Thursday check of the news starts in drought-stricken Italy. The latest in our "Lead Story." Back in the Big Apple, we try on some guilt-free footwear. History is on the menu in our "Science Report" as we serve up an ancient confectionery delight. Next course, Student Bureau, please pass the pupu.
Welcome to STUDENT NEWS for Thursday, July 18. I'm Susan Freidman.
The severe drought affecting America is not just a local problem. Drought can be a factor in the marketplace globally. We travel across the Atlantic to Italy, which is facing a $3.5 billion loss because of a lack of water. As Italy faces its worst drought in three decades, government officials have called a state of emergency in four regions of the country. The problem is so bad the Italian government is planning to mobilize the Army to help transport water to help cities replenish their reserves.
Alessio Vinci reports now on Italy's dangerously dry situation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALESSIO VINCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is the worst drought southern Italy has seen in more than 30 years. Reservoirs in many areas are either empty or at critically low levels. This sign reads a lake was stolen here.
"We have no water, nothing, not even if we pray for it."
But the lack of rain is only part of the problem; there has also been an increase in water consumption here and inadequate infrastructure. The main reason is this region's outdated and inefficient system of aqueducts, some of which were built after World War I.
Billions of dollars have already been allocated to repair and upgrade aging pipes, money never spent or lost in southern Italy's bureaucracy. The result, 40 percent of the water is lost through leaking pipes. The average in Europe is 12 percent. Water is also lost simply because in some areas there is no infrastructure at all. Take this aquifer near Palermo, it dumps 80 liters of fresh water into the salty sea every second. Waiting for a $1.5 million project to build a pump and a reservoir, waiting on the bureaucracy.
Farmers are the hardest hit. The drought is expected to cost them up to $3.5 billion this year, mainly because of sickness to livestock and crops drying up. They have staged several protests demanding government action.
"We have reached rock bottom," says this farmer. "Look at our fields," says this other one, "they are a mess."
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has announced a series of emergency actions promising an additional $5 billion to modernize the infrastructure, setting up a distribution network of water tankers and mobilizing the Army to crack down on gangs profiting from the drought.
(on camera): Water delivery and distribution in Sicily is a big business, especially for those who do it illegally. Investigators have discovered that in some areas of severe drought water is being sold at four to five times the market price.
(voice-over): And the government could raise the price of water so that people use less of it. The government admits these measures are only a temporary fix. Solving southern Italy's water problems is a long-term process, which will take at least five years.
Alessio Vinci, CNN, Palermo, Sicily.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FREIDMAN: For a check of the weather in all parts of Europe, head to our Web site, CNNSTUDENTNEWS.com. And for further goings on in the country of Italy, hang around for "Perspectives." We'll travel to a small village that is perhaps better known for its Mafia ties than its food, an image some are trying to change.
This week we've been keeping a close eye on the U.S. stock market. Things have been shaky on Wall Street thanks in large part to well publicized corporate scandals at Enron and WorldCom. But the big board turned a little brighter yesterday, stocks finally ended the day in positive territory ending a seven-day losing streak, the longest since shortly after last September's terrorist attack. The Dow Jones industrial average, which tracks blue chip stocks, grossed 69 points. The broader S&P 500 index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite also posted gains.
The future of ground zero is now up for public discussion. As many as 5,000 people are expected to meet in Manhattan this weekend to discuss and vote on various plans for the site. Six options were unveiled this week by a group of architects commissioned by the government. At the center of each, a memorial.
CNN's Jason Carroll takes a look at the blueprints. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The recovery process at ground zero is over. Now it's time to rebuild. The question many New Yorkers have been asking: What to rebuild? Now a preliminary answer. Architects commissioned by the city and state have proposed six designs for the 16-acre site.
JOHN WHITEHEAD, LOWER MANHATTAN DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION: We will rebuild. It is now not a question of whether but a question of how.
CARROLL: Memorial Plaza includes a 79-story tower and a memorial marked by footprints, two squares where the towers once stood, and eight acres of open space. Memorial Square has an 80-story circular skyscraper, a 10-acre park area with pools of water in the symbolic footprints. Memorial Triangle has the tallest proposed tower, at 85 stories, with 5 acres of open space. Memorial Garden has an 80-story building and 4 open acres, including the tower footprints. Memorial Park would have two 70-story buildings and a 6-acre park, with a single sculpted column. A similar column would be found at Memorial Promenade, along with two 63-story buildings and a park that stretches along the west side of the site.
LOU TOMSON, LOWER MANHATTAN DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION: All these plans represent a beginning, as the chairman said, designed to spark an informed public debate about the future of lower Manhattan. We have not considered all the possibilities yet, nor have we discovered all the answers.
CARROLL: None of the proposed buildings are higher than the 110- story twin towers because officials say it would not be marketable. But all of them restore the 11 million square feet of office space and 600,000 square feet of retail space lost during the terrorist attack.
KATHERINE WYLDE, NYC PARTNERSHIP: It reestablishes lower Manhattan as the nation's third-largest business district, and it provides for bringing back the jobs we've lost.
CARROLL (on camera): The six proposals will be narrowed to three in September and then to one in December. Whatever proposal is eventually decided upon, it's expected to take several years before the buildings are finally completed.
Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FREIDMAN: Want a further look at the proposals, we've got it online at our spot in cyberspace, CNNSTUDENTNEWS.com. Log on and take a look.
They give up meat, they give up fur, but have you ever wondered what true vegetarians wear on their feet? You see most shoes are made of leather, so what's the animal sensitive person to do?
CNN's Jeanne Moos has more. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Seldom do your feet make you think about what you eat. Until you set foot in a vegetarian shoe store.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) they have a vegetarian food store, and like the common question is, though, can you eat them?
MOOS: You'd need some strong teeth.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Steel toe lasts forever.
MOOS: From combat boots to trendy bowling type shoes, from hemp to wood heel. What these shoes have in common is what they don't have. Moo/Shoes is New York's first totally non-leather shoe store, even less leather than Payless.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, I just -- I don't eat cows, so I don't want to have to wear cows.
MOOS: It's enough to make a cow sing, like in the PETA commercial.
Strict vegetarians use their nose to avoid leather.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's like you could always tell a vegetarian in a normal shoe store, because they're sitting there, smelling the shoes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I catch people sometimes coming in and smelling our shoes, just because they look so much like leather.
MOOS: Erica (ph) and Sarah Kavorsky (ph) are sisters who dreamed of opening a vegetarian shoe store, and now they've done it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you know, when you've been a vegan for 20 years, a place like this is really exciting.
MOOS: Vegan, a person who abstains from animal products.
(on camera): Were you one of those shoe sniffers, to see if it was leather or not?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my God, you would not believe the tests that I have done.
MOOS: What did you do?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Scratching, feel the suede underneath.
MOOS (voice-over): This guy ended up buying a pair of fake suede shoes for $100.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, these shoes are so cool. MOOS: The brand names here range from Ethical Wears to Vegan Wears to Vegetarian Shoes. Their motto, a treat for your feet if you don't eat meat. There are genuine non-leather belts, bags and jackets. Check out my leather-free biker look. There are also cow- friendly T-shirts with slogans like, "I am not a pair of shoes."
I wasn't the only person in the store with guilty feet.
(on camera): Now, what are you wearing now? Is that leather?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, a little bit.
MOOS (voice-over): He ended up buying a pair of hemp flip-flops. Some customers abandoned their leather shoes.
(on camera): What, they leave their shoes here?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah, they don't want anything to do with leather anymore. We're not saying that you have to do that.
MOOS (voice-over): Don't be surprised if you see a bovine ghost.
(on camera): Now, what used to be here?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, this used to be a butcher shop, actually.
MOOS (voice-over): Holy cow!
(END VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do I make myself clear, keep your hands off my rear.
MOOS: Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Exploring our world, here now is CNN STUDENT NEWS "Perspectives."
FREIDMAN: Corleone, the Mafia and freshly cooked pasta. These may sound like the elements to a "Godfather" sequel, but instead they're part of a project aimed at combating the Mafia in Sicily.
CNN's Alessio Vinci reports on how a farm co-op is helping a village erase its reputation for organized crime.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALESSIO VINCI, CNN ROME BUREAU CHIEF: In the movie "The Godfather," nobody could say no to the Corleones, but in the real Corleone village, just outside Palermo, Sicily, the story is much different.
On this land, once owned and controlled by Cosa Nostra, and seized by the Italian government, a group of farmers who produced the first ever anti-Mafia pasta and the brand name Libera Terra, or free land.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We want to prove that these fields, no longer controlled by the Mafia, remain profitable, says one of the farmers, and can generate revenue and give people jobs so that all can benefit from it and not just a selected few.
VINCI: But working on land once owned by the Mafia has its risks here. Finding people willing to do the job is difficult. The operator of the combine did agree to work the field. Still, he prefers not to talk about it on camera.
Chef Salvatore Saparito (ph), owner of Corleone's best restaurant, says he did not know about the new anti-Mafia pasta. Difficult to believe in a small village where everything is known.
Few residents here like to talk openly about the Mafia. But there seems to be plenty of customers ready to make the anti-Mafia pasta a big success.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): If it is cheap and good I will buy it, says the owner of the newspaper shop.
VINCI: Fear of Mafia reprisals? No, answered the butcher. The Mafia, he says, goes only where there is big money at stake.
(on camera): "Toto" Riina was the Mafia's most powerful boss, a man feared and respected by many here in Corleone. Riina is now in jail, serving a series of life sentences, including one for ordering the killing of two top Italian anti-Mafia magistrates. Before his arrest, investigators believe, Riina spent months inside his old farm house, hiding from the police.
(voice-over): The farmers plan to turn the farm house into a country hotel.
(on camera): So the people will be able to sleep in the same bedroom where the boss of bosses of the Italian Mafia used to sleep.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We hope so.
VINCI (voice-over): It will take some time to repair this place, time, people here say, better spent fighting the Mafia than working for it. Alessio Vinci, CNN, Corleone, Sicily.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FREIDMAN: From anti-Mafia pasta to carb-free pasta. This next story may be just what Dr. Atkins ordered. No-carb pastas, breads and muffins, it's a dream come true for dieters who think carbohydrates are bad. But how does it taste?
CNN's Jeanne Moos sinks her teeth into this food breakthrough.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Pass the pasta. Have another slice of bread, supposedly all you have to lose is weight when it's carbohydrate-free.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's good.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's heinous.
MOOS: Heinous? That's a term usually reserved for bloody crimes rather than bread.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Almost rubbery.
MOOS (on camera): I mean, I agree, I don't think it's the best bread I ever ate, but it tastes like bread.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It does taste like bread.
MOOS (voice-over): The inventor of carbohydrate-free flour claims it could mean...
(on camera): ... the end of obesity.
DR. MATHIAS CHRISTIAN ZOHOUNGBOGBO, INVENTOR, CARBOHYDRATE-FREE FLOUR: Exactly.
MOOS (voice-over): Dr. Mathias Christian Zohoungbogbo has spent more than a decade working on carbohydrate-free flour. He has naming his creation Ros '95, '95 for the year he came up with the now patented formula and Ros...
ZOHOUNGBOGBO: Ros is my wife. It is his name.
MOOS: Imagine having a flour named after you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She says, "Very important."
MOOS: Dr. Christian runs a major obesity clinic in Italy. He has managed to replace the carbohydrates in flour with vegetable proteins and fiber to make everything from muffins...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. So this is marginal.
MOOS: ... to bread sticks...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is very nondescript.
MOOS: ... to a sort of rice substitute.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Chewy or gummy.
MOOS: Just when everyone is chewing over the "New York Times" story, "What if Fat Doesn't Make You Fat," what if it has all been a big, fat lie, just when Dr. Atkins' high fat, low carb diet is back on the table, Dr. Christian is trying to bring his low and carb-free products to the United States. (on camera): Do you use your own diet?
ZOHOUNGBOGBO: I was very, very fat, and I begin with myself.
MOOS (voice-over): Nutritionists like Julie Walsh have their doubts. For instance, about using so much fiber to replace carbohydrates.
JULIE WALSH, NUTRITIONIST: I think some people would have a little bit of gastrointestinal distress.
MOOS: For a taste test, we headed for the experts.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It has some crumb to it.
MOOS: At Le Madri restaurant, owner Pino Luongo analyzed the pasta.
PINO LUONGO, OWNER, LE MADRI: The color, it is scary.
MOOS: Chef Pippa Calin (ph) tried to resuscitate the imitation rice with a sauce.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's called CPR, is what it is called.
MOOS: But no sauce could revive the pasta. Our first bite was followed by stunned silence.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cardboard.
MOOS (on camera): Cardboard?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wet cardboard.
MOOS (voice-over): Unsuspecting diners were diplomatic.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I can see that it would be filling, even if not the taste you might want.
MOOS: But this woman, who has previously been on the Atkins Diet, appreciated the pasta.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When you haven't had it in a long time, it does do the job for the pasta feel.
MOOS (on camera): Like if you had no sex for three years, I guess any sex is good sex.
(voice-over): She liked the rice. She liked the bread sticks.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now, this is doable.
MOOS: The carb-free products will be available at lightflour.com in the next month or two. But who knows if they'll fly?
(on camera): They don't seem to mind. (voice-over): Jeanne Moos, CNN...
(on camera): Come on guys, Carbo-free bread.
(voice-over): ... New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FREIDMAN: The carb-free products will be available online in the United States by mid-August. The prices, however, may be a little hard to swallow. Initially the new flour will cost about three times more than regular flour.
Now to a delicacy full of protein. A puffin is a diving bird recognized by its short neck and stout build. It's often found on seaside cliffs and recently on dinner plates.
CNN's Natalie Pawelski traveled to Iceland to view and taste one of nature's most charming birds.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NATALIE PAWELSKI, CNN ENVIRONMENTAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Where there is now a sandbar, there should be a river. After years of drought in Texas, the Rio Grande doesn't have enough water to make it all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.
JO JO WHITE, IRRIGATION DISTRICT MANAGER FOR THE RIO GRANDE RIVER: Obviously we're very short on water and every drop of water going down that river belongs to somebody. It's been ordered by somebody, whether it's a farmer, a city, whatever.
PAWELSKI: As spring has turned toward summer, drought has spread across much of the U.S. and now affects about a third of the country, hardest hit the Four Corners area of the Southwest. Colorado records show the driest 12 months in history, or at least in the 107 years that records have been kept, and that's fueling a brutal fire season.
GOV. BILL OWENS (R), COLORADO: Well, it's a huge challenge. Colorado is, in fact, in a crisis right now.
PAWELSKI: Next door in New Mexico, water restrictions prompted one shopkeeper to put in freeze dried shrubs that don't require watering instead of thirsty flowers, and some parched lawns are getting spruced up with green paint.
For some New Mexicans, there's not even enough water to meet basic needs.
GOV. GARY JOHNSON (R), NEW MEXICO: Twenty communities statewide have got some real problems right now with water supply and that needs to be primary focus certainly is that we have water to be able to bathe and drink.
PAWELSKI (on camera): Other parts of the country are drier than normal too. Here in the Southeast, we're in the fourth year of a drought that stretches from Georgia to Virginia. And in the Northeast, despite spring rains that have eased things for some farmers, a lot more rain is needed.
PAWELSKI (voice over): But right now it's in the Southwest that the biggest worries lie.
JOHNSON: We are in the midst of 100-year drought.
PAWELSKI: The forests are tinder dry. The streams are running low, and it's looking like a long, hot summer.
Natalie Pawelski, CNN, Heimaey, Iceland.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FREIDMAN: Well now on to something else most people would prefer to put between their teeth, chocolate. It's a guilty pleasure that's been enjoyed in various forms for generations. Now scientists say the love of chocolate can be traced back to ancient times.
Ann Kellan reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANN KELLAN, CNN SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Only Patricia Reeb knows why she married Robert, a third-generation French chocolate maker.
(on camera): Did you marry him for his chocolate?
PATRICIA REEB, CHOCOLATIER: It makes me feel good.
KELLAN (voice-over): They've been making chocolate together at Maison Robert for 30 years.
It's no surprise our love of chocolates. But what surprises scientists is how long this love affair has been going on. Until now, we thought it started with the Mayans around 400 A.D. But according to a report in the journal of "Nature," after analyzing the contents of this ancient Mayan pot, turns out that chocolate dates as far back as 600 B.C., 1,000 years earlier than previously thought.
Jeff Husrt, a biochemist at the Hershey Company, was asked by archaeologists at the University of Texas to analyze residue they found in 14 Mayan pots unearthed in Belize. Using a machine called a mass spectrometer, Hurst identified the compound theobromine in some of that residue. Theobromine is a key compound in chocolate.
JEFF HUSRT, SCIENTIST, HERSHEY FOODS: There are other plants in that region that do have theobromine, but none have it as the major compound, and that was what we were able to key on.
KELLAN: But Mayan chocolate, according to archaeologists is a lot different than a...
HURST: ... good old Hershey chocolate bar. It would not have been sweetened. From what, at least, we know.
PROF. PAUL GEPTS, UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA-DAVIS: The Mayans, for example, would add peppers to it. They would also add vanilla, as far as we can tell. They would also add hallucinogenic mushrooms.
KELLAN (on camera): Now, the Mayans didn't eat chocolate like this. According to archaeologists, they mostly drank it, or they used the cocoa powder as seasoning for food. It was so valuable the Mayans even used cocoa beans as currency.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of people say it's an aphrodisiac.
KELLAN (voice-over): With 300 chemical compounds...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think there is an addiction.
KELLAN: ... and 2,600 years of pleasure...
GEPTS: I would go for a Belgian (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
KELLAN: ... the taste of chocolate has changed. But our love for it...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's nice. You know, in your mouth, it melts slowly.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is why I love it.
KELLAN: Ann Kellan, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FREIDMAN: Next up, a delectable assortment of island appetizers, a plate Polynesian food connoisseurs simply call the pupu platter.
Our Student Bureau gives us a taste.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PI'ILANI MATUTINO (ph), CNN STUDENT BUREAU (voice-over): It's just like an appetizer, but in Hawaii we call it pupu. Spam musubi (ph), popei (ph), and porkei (ph) are just some of the pupu that are part of our daily lives. These appetizers are usually eaten at cookouts, on special occasions or as a snack.
A musubi is originally from Japan where the rice is shaped into a round ball or triangle and wrapped with dried seaweed. However, in Hawaii, the musubi went from being shaped as a ball to a rectangle so the slice of Spam can easily be placed on top of the rice and held together with the seaweed. Spam is a very popular meat substitute in Hawaii since the Pearl Harbor days of food rationing.
SHANA PETELO: Spam is an island favorite. It's an island delicacy. It's something that we've been all raised in and we love. We eat for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner, at any time. It's just -- it's an island favorite. MATUTINO: The opihi (ph) is another local pupu from Hawaii. Opihi is a sea animal with a hard protective shell. Some people pick them themselves even though it is very dangerous climbing the cliffs and watching for waves.
ROEL ANDOC (ph): To acquire the opihi on their own, they would have to scale like rough waters where waves are pounding on the shore. And people have died trying to pick those -- these.
CYRUS TAMABHIRO (ph): I think they like the local flavor of it. It's opihi is not something that is substitutable. It has a unique flavor and it's genuinely Hawaiian. And people who like opihi just love opihi.
MATUTINO: The most common pupu is porkei which is sliced up pieces of raw fish. The original way of preparing porkei is with kakuin relish (ph), salt and seaweed. As the years progressed, many ingredients have been added to suit individual tastes.
ALEXA ARMFRIESTER (ph): I think basically it's because it's tradition in Hawaii and it tastes good. But it's tradition. I mean we were brought up with opihi and porkei, and porkei is good.
MATUTINO (on camera): These are just some of the pupu here at Hamashiro Market (ph).
(voice-over): If the seafood is fresh and the pupu are made daily.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh I've lived in the Mainland for about four years so there's nothing really much you can do because all the stuff is mostly frozen. It's not as good as eating fresh porkei.
MATUTINO: From (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Hawaii, this is Pi'Ilani Matutino, CNN Student Bureau.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: "Where in the World" became a nation in 1861, agricultural products include grapes, grain and olives, tourism is a major industry? Can you name this country? Italy.
FREIDMAN: So where in the world is N'Sync member Lance Bass? Well come October, he could be on the International Space Station. In the meantime, Bass has spent the last few weeks in Russia training for the trip. Back in the U.S., negotiations are underway with potential sponsors, and it seems Bass may be closer than ever to getting his ticket to ride. If the 23-year-old gets the go-ahead, it would make him the youngest space traveler to date. Good luck, Lance.
And goodbye to all of you. See you tomorrow.
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