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CNN Live Sunday
Bush Told About New Bin Laden Tape; Ways to Conserve Fuel; Remembering the Holocaust
Aired April 23, 2006 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: He's back and speaking out against the West. A new audiotape from al Qaeda's leader. It's called catch and return and it's giving thousands of illegal immigrants a one-way ticket home. This CNN exclusive straight ahead.
And true or false, is running your air conditioner in your car a drain on your mileage? That answer and other ways to save gas straight ahead this hour.
Hello and welcome to CNN LIVE SUNDAY. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. That and more, but first this check of the headlines. Angry words from the head of al Qaeda. The White House believes that the voice on a new audiotape played on Al Jazeera television today is Osama bin Laden. More on what the voice said straight ahead.
Police in North Pole, Alaska are investigating an alleged Columbine style plot by a half dozen seventh graders. The students allegedly planned to knock out the power and phones at their school, then shoot or stab classmates and teachers. The police chief says the kids felt picked on.
Rocks and rubber bullets flying in Nepal today. Police again clash with pro democracy protesters on the streets of Katmandu. Fourteen people have died in the demonstrations. Nepal's king has vowed to return political power to the people but many hard liners want him to leave office.
And good news for you city dwellers. You need not worry about pigeons as potential carriers of bird flu. Researches have concluded that pigeons are not susceptible to the virus.
Not much doubt left this afternoon from his mountain hideout somewhere in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden has spoken again. Experts are still going over an audiotape that surfaced in the Middle East today. But White House officials say they believe the speaker is indeed bin Laden. CNN's senior international correspondent Nic Robertson reports on what he had to say and what it may mean for Americans.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): First broadcast on Arabic-language channel Al Jazeera Osama bin Laden's latest audio message ratchets up his anger at Americans. Unlike recent messages, he now says he holds American and Western citizens, not just their governments, responsible for conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Any war is the joint responsibility of the people and the government. While war continues, people renew the allegiance to the rulers and politicians and continue to send their sons to our countries to fight us. They continue their financial and morale support while our countries are burned, our homes are bombed and our people are killed.
ROBERTSON: Just three months ago in his last message, bin Laden directed his comments to the people of America. Offering a truce, if their troops got out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: In the past, bin Laden has sometimes made a distinction between the U.S. people and the U.S. government. In this tape, he's classing them in the same group or category as an enemy, which is a little worrisome because it implies that it gives religious sanction to al Qaeda to go after American civilians again.
ROBERTSON: Bin Laden's latest verbal offensive also attempts to rally Muslim support for al Qaeda's main message, that Muslims are under attack from the West. The al Qaeda leader claims U.S. opposition to the newly-elected Hamas government proves his point.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Their opposition to the Hamas victory proves that this is a crusade against Islam. The sanctions imposed by the West on the Hamas government prove more that there is a Zionist crusader war on Islam.
ROBERTSON: After silence in 2005, the new audiotape is bin Laden's second message this year. Last year he left all the talking to his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Now he praises al-Zawahiri's analysis.
BERGEN: It seems that bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are quoting each other, but from the media. So the implication of that is that they may not actually be together, but they are listening to each other through the medium of these audiotapes.
ROBERTSON: Bin Laden also attempts to rally support for al Qaeda in Africa. He warns Muslims to prepare for a long fight in Sudan against what he calls crusaders and plunderers. His aim, he says, not to defend the Sudanese government but Islam.
(on camera): While bin Laden offers no explicit threats in the message, his offer of a truce to the Europeans in April of 2004 was ultimately followed up 15 months later by an attack on the London transit system in July of 2005, killing 52 people. Nic Robertson, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: And be sure to stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable information on your safety and security.
How's the White House reacting to the bin Laden tape? Let's go live to CNN White House correspondent Elaine Quijano, part of the best political team on television. She has been covering President Bush's swing through California. Elaine?
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon to you Fredricka. And President Bush was informed about the existence of this audiotape around 6:30 Pacific time. The intelligence community, as you have noted, has told President Bush that in fact their analysts believe this is authentic, that it is the voice of Osama bin Laden. Meantime, President Bush spent the day visiting with members of the military and their families telling them that he will not lose his nerve when it comes to Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
QUIJANO (voice-over): On day three of his West Coast swing, President Bush spent time with the troops attending Sunday services at a chapel on a Marine Corps base in 29 Palms, California and later having lunch in the mess hall with service members and their families.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The only way we can lose in Iraq is if we lose our nerve. And I'm not losing my nerve and I know that the United States Marine Corps will not lose their nerve, either.
QUIJANO: With the White House anxious for some good news on Iraq, administration officials welcomed this weekend's political developments there, particularly the Iraqi parliament's nomination of Jawad al-Maliki as prime minister.
ZALMAY KHALILZAD, US AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ: With regard to his competence, he has a reputation for being a strong leader. We will have to wait and see how he does in office but the indications are positive.
QUIJANO: Yet weekend violence also underscored the immense challenges facing a future unity government with more U.S. troops killed and more deadly attack against Iraqi civilians. Lawmakers say the Bush administration must keep the pressure on the Iraqis to meet their self-imposed political deadlines.
SEN. CARL LEVIN (D), MICHIGAN: Our message to them must be that our continued presence depends upon their meeting those 30-day and four month deadlines.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If they don't meet those deadlines?
LEVIN: Then we have to remove our troops.
SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (R), PENNSYLVANIA: I do not believe we can put deadlines in concrete, because there are factors which arise which make it an impossibility. But I think the pressure to maintain those deadlines is exactly right.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUIJANO: And this morning officials say President Bush did call Iraq's leadership to convey that sense of urgency, also, though, to convey congratulations to them for taking the next step in forming a unity government. I also want to mention that in response to that Osama bin Laden tape, senior officials Fredricka are saying that they believe the al Qaeda leadership is on the run. Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right, in Palm Springs, Elaine Quijano thank you so much.
Now along the Gulf Coast and then there were two. Two familiar faces beating back 20 other candidates in the New Orleans mayoral election. Unofficial results show the incumbent mayor and the state's lieutenant governor finishing one-two, but the race is by no means over. Here is CNN's Gulf Coast correspondent Susan Roesgen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN GULF COAST CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Mayor Ray Nagin and Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu, they finished one and two in the primary and now they will face each other in the run off next month.
LT. GOV. MITCH LANDRIEU: We in New Orleans will be one people. We will speak with one voice and we will have one future.
ROESGEN: Landrieu comes from a prominent political family. His father, Moon Landrieu, was mayor of New Orleans from 1970 to 1978. And his sister is U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu. As a former state legislator and now lieutenant governor, Landrieu has promised to overcome the friction between city and state officials that he says has slowed the city's recovery. But Mayor Nagin says now is not the time for the city to experiment with new leadership. Political analysts say if it weren't for Katrina, he would have cruised to a second term. Instead he'll have to rally supporters for the run off.
MAYOR RAY NAGIN, RUNOFF CANDIDATE: There are too many people who thought this city should go in a different direction. But the people, the people have said they like the direction we're going in.
ROESGEN: The votes were carried in to be counted under armed guard, part of the extra precautions taken by state election officials who knew the world would be watching. Now they are getting ready for the final race on May 20.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROESGEN: Today in New Orleans, the big buzz is who is going to get the endorsements of the second and third place finishers who got a combined total of 28 percent of the vote last night. So you can be sure that today Mayor Ray Nagin and Lieutenant Governor Landrieu have been working the phones Fredricka, trying to get those endorsements and trying to pull in those voters.
WHITFIELD: Sounds like it might be a tight run off. Susan Roesgen, thank you so much.
Those new walking shoes aren't the only way you can conserve fuel and save money. Up next, proven ways to save that may surprise you.
Plus, one story about illegal immigrants you may not have seen. It involves the U.S. flying them out of the country at record speed and then remembering the Holocaust.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a difficult sight to see, to know that those were -- had been human beings.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: You'll meet a man who was one of three U.S. soldiers to help liberate the first Nazi camp. From the CNN center in Atlanta this is CNN LIVE SUNDAY.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Oil prices are breaking records and gas prices are breaking some bank accounts. With the busy summer holiday season approaching, the timing couldn't be worse. So what can you do to conserve fuel and save money? Let's bring in the AAA's Mantil Williams. Good to see you Mantil.
MANTIL WILLIAMS, AAA: Good seeing you also Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right. Well, let's get straight to it, the gas IQ test. And there are some that are real tricky, actually. Our first one saying running your air conditioner can help your gas mileage. I think this is kind of a trick question, because I would have thought this were a false.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, it is a trick question because it's actually true because today's cars are very aerodynamic and they're built to be more efficient with the windows up. The only exception is if you are in stop and go traffic of course, put those windows down and you can definitely conserve on fuel that way.
WHITFIELD: All right and some people really lean toward the premium fuel. The question being, use a premium gasoline to improve your mileage? True or false.
WILLIAMS: That is absolutely false. You always want to use the lowest grade that your owner's manual will allow. I know some people think that premium makes their car run better, but that's all just marketing and really it's in our imagination.
WHITFIELD: Really?
WILLIAMS: Try to use the lowest grade possible and also get the cheapest price you can and really the brands don't really make much difference either.
WHITFIELD: OK. That will save you a couple pennies, I guess. You'll use less gas if you keep the engine running for one minute than if you stopped and restarted the engine. WILLIAMS: Yes, that is absolutely true there, because I'm sorry that is -- that is false, sorry. That is false. That is false.
WHITFIELD: But people want to say it's true.
WILLIAMS: People want to say it's true, exactly.
WHITFIELD: I've heard that a lot.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, because when you restart -- what happens if you restart the engine, that really makes your car work more harder. So the way to warm up a car is to start and then drive it slowly for the first few minutes.
WHITFIELD: No surprises here. Cruise control saves you gas, true.
WILLIAMS: That is true and that's because if you drive smoothly and consistently you will be -- your car will be more fuel efficient.
WHITFIELD: And you can save gas with fuel additives or devices?
WILLIAMS: Yeah, that is false. A lot of those devices, those additives I think is just more marketing than anything. The best way to save gas, of course is make sure you maintain your vehicle and do some other things.
WHITFIELD: All right, so those marketers are making some money off you. And here's some other helpful hints that you suggest to really help people save a couple of pennies at the pump. For one, think about the type of car that you drive.
WILLIAMS: If you have the opportunity to drive, for instance if you live in a family that has a number of vehicles, try to drive the most fuel efficient vehicle. If you're going on a long trip, you may even consider renting a car because you can actually make up the cost by the fuel that you'll save.
WHITFIELD: And where you're going, speaking of road trips, you got to think about where you're going. How might that save you a few bucks?
WILLIAMS: Yeah, Fredricka, if you sort of plan ahead, try to combine all your errands, do a lot of your errands in one central location, if you just think ahead, you can actually conserve fuel that way too.
WHITFIELD: All right and how you drive, we kind of alluded to that, in terms of steady driving. If you are going to be a hot rod, obviously, you might be burning up a lot more fuel.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, absolutely. Aggressive driving not only makes you unsafe and others unsafe on the road, but it also wastes money.
WHITFIELD: And ways to maintain your vehicle which really could save you a little bit. WILLIAMS: Yeah, really simple things such as making sure your tires are properly inflated, do a little spring cleaning. Lighten the load. If there's a lot of stuff in your trunk, that can weigh you down but also stick to your scheduled maintenance in your owner's manual.
WHITFIELD: All right. I know one of your last tips was shopping around, trying to be an educated consumer as they say and try and look for I guess the lowest prices that are being advertised.
WILLIAMS: Shop with your steering wheel. You want to get the lowest price possible. Don't worry about brands, just i it's the lowest price possible on your normal route.
WHITFIELD: OK, Mantil Williams of AAA. Thanks so much for the tips.
WILLIAMS: Thanks.
WHITFIELD: Crude oil is sometimes referred to as black gold. In Brazil they may be calling their fuel sweet gold. The South American nation now increasing uses sugar cane based fuels to meet its energy needs. Frank Cessna reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRANK CESSNA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This place has a rhythm all its own. But what brings me to Brazil is this: sugar cane, mile after mile of it. They make sugar with it, of course, but also something that makes Brazil a world leader, sugar cane ethanol, clean burning, high octane. Ethanol now accounts for nearly 40 percent of Brazil's transportation fuel. In a dangerous world, this stuff is sweet in more ways than one.
This stuff goes on forever.
EDUARDO: Yeah, it's a green ocean, only sugar cane.
CESSNA: I meet Eduardo (INAUDIBLE) in the fields near his mill, four hours north of Sao Paolo. It's one of the largest operations in the region.
EDUARDO: They are loading the sugar cane here and with this sugar cane, it will produce sugar and ethanol.
CESSNA: You can smell the sugar, smell the molasses.
EDUARDO: Smells very good.
CESSNA: Here nothing is wasted. The fiber from the cane is burned which generates enough power for the entire mill. This is renewable energy in the real sense.
EDUARDO: Renewable energy in the real sense and we are able to produce ethanol that's enough to fuel about 11,000 or more cars per day.
CESSNA: 11,000 cars a day from ethanol from these tanks day after day.
EDUARDO: Day after day.
CESSNA: Brazil is experiencing a sugar boom. Three hundred mills produced 4 billion gallons of ethanol in 2005, 51 new mills are under construction and they will need 130 more in the next seven years. Why? Because ethanol in Brazil is not an experiment, it's a way of life. You see it at just about every gas station and it's a lot cheaper than gasoline though it doesn't deliver quite the mileage. Here, even regular gas contains 25 percent ethanol. Brazilians say the ethanol they make, together with the oil they pump, are about to make Brazil energy independent. They won't need oil imports.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: And more of that report from Frank Cessna on "CNN Presents, We were Warned." That documentary airs tonight at 8:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.
WHITFIELD: Desperate times call for desperate measures. You won't believe what one man has to do before he is able to buy a tank of gas. Go along for the ride on a flight nicknamed Conair. Wait until you hear who is on board. This CNN exclusive is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Thousands of illegal immigrants arrested in the United States are on the fast track home thanks to a tough new policy called catch and return. The flights began last September and so far this year, more than 80,000 people have been given the one-way ticket on the so-called Conair flight. CNN's Rick Sanchez went on board a flight for this exclusive report for "ANDERSON COOPER 360."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Shackles scrape against the tarmac at Williams international airport in Mesa, Arizona. These are the first close-up images of the U.S. government's new initiative to get rid of undocumented immigrants not within months or years anymore, but rather within days. From this airport alone, three full flights now leave each week bound for Central America. It's now 7:30 in the morning. We're about a half hour from wheels up on this MD-83 that is going to literally remove 110 immigrants from the United States.
The expedited removal program began last September, but because there are so many undocumented immigrants, the number of flights not just from here in Arizona but nationally have already been increased to 12 a week. On board, one of the men who handles the new program for the Bush administration.
GARY MEAD, ICE ASST. DIRECTOR: I hope that these people when they get back will explain that there is no safe haven anymore, that when people are apprehended, they are processed quickly and they are returned quickly. SANCHEZ: But is the message getting through? On board, we find immigrants separated by two classifications, criminal aliens whose crimes range from heroin smuggling, murder and petty offenses to those whose only crime is being in the country illegally. An hour into the flight, we find Marlin Vargas, a 23-year-old with a boyish grin who says he came to the U.S. because he was hungry. Is this the first time you tried to come to the United States?
MARLIN VARGAS: No.
SANCHEZ: How many times? Seven times.
SANCHEZ: Then there's Jose Mambrero (ph), a criminal alien who admits to a rap sheet that dates back to 1991 with crimes that include selling drugs, domestic violence, parole violations and finally a DUI arrest that is now getting him deported. Although not a citizen, Mambrero was in the U.S. legally. He's lived in Colorado for 19 years and speaks English with hardly a trace of a Spanish accent. You feel like you blew it?
JOSE MAMBRERO: Yep.
SANCHEZ: It's now about noon and the flight dubbed Conair is maneuvering the tricky approach through the mountains into the capital city of Tegucigalpa. Once on the ground, they are welcomed by Honduran immigration officials using the plane's PA to tell them they are happy to have them back. At the refugee return and welcome center, Mambrero, remember he's the one with the long rap sheet, clears immigration and Interpol almost immediately. However Marlin Vargas has a problem. Honduran officials spot his tattoos and question him about gang activity. MS-13 is a very dangerous gang.
Here, as well says the police official who decides Vargas' tattoo is not a gang logo after all. He is free to go, as is Mambrero who tells us he won't return to the U.S. because now as a deported ex-con, he would face a Federal sentence of 20 years if caught. However Honduras is a country he hardly knows.
MAMBRERO: Lost.
SANCHEZ: You're lost?
MAMBRERO: Yeah, I'm lost.
SANCHEZ: Vargas knows where he's going. It's now 3:00 p.m. and we follow him back to his village, a two-hour ride through the Honduran country side. Santa Rosa is poor but the greeting he gets from his mom is rich. One look inside Vargas' home and you immediately understand why half the boys here have left for America. Leaving behind fathers like Vargas' dad. Does it bother you when he leaves?
I need him says Tomas Vargas who tell me he only makes $3 a day, shows me his empty cupboards, the holes in his roof and his next meal and every meal, beans and corn. SANCHEZ: To say that life is hard here in Santa Rosa would be an understatement. For running water, for example, you have to go outside, that's if it works. Like this squeaky faucet, everyone seems to agree U.S. immigration policy is in disrepair. Will this newest initiative fix it? That's up to Marlin Vargas and tens of thousands like him. If it was easier to get in, would you go back?
VARGAS: Probably.
SANCHEZ: But they are making it harder now. Vargas plans instead to join the Honduran military. But his is just one story, a snapshot of one family, one village, where America's immigration dilemma begins.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: And you can watch Anderson Cooper 360 weeknights at 10:00 Eastern on CNN.
Meantime this just in out of Palmer, Alaska, reports of two small planes colliding in midair. A trooper spokesman Greg Wilkinson says there were no apparent survivors in the crash. It happened around noon today above the Palmer hay flats (ph). It's unclear how many people may have been on board those two planes, crashing in midair over Palmer, Alaska.
Meantime, other stories now in the news. U.S. intelligence experts now say they believe a new audiotape is from Osama bin Laden. In it, bin Laden blasts the west for denying aid to the Hamas led Palestinian authority, leading the CIA to believe the tape was recently produced.
In Baghdad today, three U.S. soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle and in the city's heavily fortified green zone, police say a rocket landed right at the entrance of Iraq's defense ministry, killing six Iraqi civilians. Two others were wounded.
In New Orleans the two front runners in the city's mayoral race will face off in a May 20 run off. Neither incumbent Ray Nagin nor Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu got the required majority in yesterday's municipal election.
Sixty years ago, he helped liberate a Nazi death camp. Now a retired Army colonel is teaching new generation about the Holocaust. His story still to come.
But first, those rising gas prices. Americans are fed up, but things are only getting worse, so bad in fact, one man has to pawn a family heirloom just to fill up. That is next on CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're going to the moon. There has to be other ways to get to our jobs. I get up at between 4:45 and 5:00 every day. I have to be at work at 7:15 and I often find myself dashing across the parking lot to make it. It affects my life, it affects the way I feel, that feeling of am I going to make it on time? Time is such a valuable thing. It's up to three hours of a day that I sit in my car. That's a huge amount of my life wasted. I'd be willing to try anything that would make my commute less painful.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It is really painful when you add up all the time we spend in our cars grinding our teeth as we grind our way through traffic. But what if we could commute through the wild blue yonder, breezing past the gridlock below?
WOODY NORRIS, INVENTOR: One day not too far into the future people are going to get off the ground and they're going to be able to get airborne.
O'BRIEN: Woody Norris is a man with big ideas. The inventors latest project the air scooter. Don't let its looks fool you. This flying machine is ingenious for its simplicity. It is an odd hybrid design with blades like a helicopter, a handlebar like a motorcycle an especially designed light-weight four stroke engine.
NORRIS: Turn the throttle, you go up. Release the throttle and you come down.
O'BRIEN: Due to hit the market later this year with a price tag of about $50,000, Norris says the air scooter could make rush hours a thing of the past.
NORRIS: With the air scooter it's a direct line the way the bird flies. There's a lot more space up there than there is down here on the ground. So we think that's going to solve the congestion problem.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Rising gas prices are beginning to bite hard and we're hearing more about desperate people who need to raise money for gas. CNN's Gary Tuchman has this report which first aired on "ANDERSON COOPER 360."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Lynn Wilson drives a 1991 Jaguar that only cost him 3,000 bucks, but he can't afford to drive it anymore. So, he has come to a pawnshop in Norcross, Georgia...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I will give you 500 out of that check.
TUCHMAN: ... where he has decided to use his car as collateral for a loan, and where he's decided to pawn this.
LYNN WILSON, PAWNSHOP CUSTOMER: I'm selling this Bulova watch, which was made in the early 1900s.
TUCHMAN (on camera): It's a beautiful watch.
(voice-over): Pawnshops around the country are reporting a significant increase in business from people who say they need money for gas.
WILSON: It was made in 1906.
TUCHMAN (on camera): So, this watch is 100 years old?
WILSON: One hundred years old.
TUCHMAN: And you're -- you're feeling like you have to sell it.
WILSON: Well, I don't have any choice, because I'm a -- I'm a veteran, and I only get a check once a month.
TUCHMAN: And you're selling it basically for gas money.
WILSON: I'm selling it for gas -- for gas money. I mean, it's not food or anything like that. I mean, this is strictly gas.
TUCHMAN: How much are you selling it for?
WILSON: Two hundred dollars.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): They sell most anything. The owner of this pawnshop says business is up about 30 percent because of people who need gas money.
(on camera): What's the most expensive thing you think you have gotten pawned for gas money?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rolexes.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): The cheapest gas in the neighborhood is at this station. But it has still gone up a lot in just the last few days.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I remember, when I moved to Georgia, back in '96, when I got out of the military, I was paying 99 cents a gallon. Look at this now. This is ridiculous.
TUCHMAN: Far more ridiculous is the price a station owner in Brooklyn, New York, was charging, $4.14 a gallon. And that was for the cheapest gas. In Northern California, only one-tenth of a penny separates premium gas from the $4 mark.
And, in Chicago, only one-tenth of a penny separates the cheapest gas from the $3 mark.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Honestly, we need to start looking at opening up Alaska or something. I mean, we have to become more self- sufficient and quit relying on the Middle East.
TUCHMAN: Speaking of Alaska, a gas station in Barrow, Alaska, which is only 200 miles way from the nation's largest inland petroleum reserve, is at $3.95 a gallon.
(on camera): In the attempt to rationalize high gas prices, many people point out that a gallon of milk is still more expensive than a gallon of gasoline. And, indeed, in many cases, it's still true. I just bought this gallon of milk for $3.25. But, practically speaking, it's not too often that you go into a grocery store and buy 15, 20 or 25 gallons of this stuff.
(voice-over): A recent ABC News/"Washington Post" poll shows, a large majority of people blame the White House for the high cost of gas. Nearly three-quarters of respondents say they disapprove of the way the president is handling the situation with gas prices. Democrats see this as benefiting them.
MORRIS REID, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think the Democrats have to be careful how they use this, but it should be used as a political football, and they should be able to gain some seats. I'm not for sure if it's going to change the House of Representatives or it flips the Senate, but it certainly could be something they can position for 2008.
TUCHMAN: Back at the pawnshop, Lynn Wilson believes there is plenty of blame to go around.
WILSON: I don't feel good about it. And I have got several more antique watches. And if I have to, you know, I will sell those as well.
TUCHMAN: He leaves in his beloved Jaguar with his $200, which won't even buy him four tanks of gas.
Gary Tuchman, CNN, Norcross, Georgia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: And join Anderson Cooper each weekday night at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.
Well in case you missed it "New York Times" columnist Nicholas Kristof appeared on CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES" venting his frustration over how the media is not covering the genocide in Darfur.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICHOLAS KRISTOF, NEW YORK TIMES: Traditionally frankly we've always done a bad job at covering these kinds of stories. During the Holocaust, the "New York Times" published 24,000 stories on the front page, and of those, 24,000 only six referred on the front page part to the Nazi attacks on the Jews. So there's a long and rich tradition of ignoring genocide.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: And coming up learn how a retired army colonel helped liberate Nazi death camps during World War II.
And then a character straight out of the Godfather. Find out why it took police 40 years to track him down, from B control in Atlanta this is CNN SUNDAY.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: With Holocaust Remembrance Day just two days away, witnesses and survivors alike say it's important to remember the 6 million Jews killed by Nazi Germany. Kim Law has the story of two men who were there when it all came to an end. A warning this report contains powerful images that some viewers might find difficult to watch.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KIM LAW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Emaciated bodies rotting in the open, prisoners packed into sheds, others buried in mass graves. This is what Colonel Willis Scudder saw as a young army commander when he and two soldiers liberated Ohrdruf, the first Nazi camp liberated by Americans.
RET. COL. WILLIS SCUDDER, U.S. ARMY: It was a difficult sight to see. To know that those were -- had been human beings.
LAW: The survivors linger in the colonel's memory sixty years later.
SCUDDER: These people didn't seem to be walking. They seemed to be gliding. They wanted to come touch us, which they did. They didn't know who we were. We didn't know who they were either. And we weren't prepared for something of this sort. It was beyond our akin to even understand that people could be treated this way.
LAW: The Ohrdruf camp stunned General Dwight E. Eisenhower who called journalists there to capture these images to show the reality of the holocaust. Americans then learned about the murder of 6 million Jews, a quarter million Roma people and 12,000 homosexuals by the Nazis.
SCUDDER: What it did was to give me a view of mankind and civilization to know that the veneer of civilization is very thin. And you can scratch it and you find an uncivilized person or individual.
MARTIN WEISS, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR: My mother, my younger sisters, a lot of aunts, a lot of cousins.
LAW: Martin Weiss says Nazis murdered most of his family in the most infamous death camp Auschwitz.
WEISS: They smelled bodies burning. You could smell it. They found out what it was all about.
LAW: The Americans arrived just days before he thought he would die.
WEISS: I remember looking at them like they were ten feet tall because it was a skip -- jump up and down from the jeep and they were full of life. The fact they were Americans it was the kind of feeling that you can't describe.
LAW: That feeling is what draws Weiss to volunteer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
STEVE LUCKERT, CURATOR, U.S. HOLOCAUST MUSEUM: I think it's important for everyone to understand about the liberation of the camps. About the reality of those camps to know something about what human beings experienced during this darkest of times.
LAW: Survivor and liberator urge the public to pause because history is rendered meaningless unless it's remembered. Kim Law, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Powerful story, powerful images and much more of news on CNN SUNDAY with Carol Lin coming up in the next hour.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Of course, we're developing a story about this purported Osama bin Laden tape and we've got all the day's news ahead. A couple of things we're doing at 6:00 and 10:00 tonight. There's a new movie coming out, "Akeela & The Bee," the story of a South Los Angeles girl who beats all odds because she believes she can win the national spelling bee. So if you want to get your kids all pumped up, we have this great guy, it's a dear friend of mine, but he started a school movement and he takes kids just like Akeela and he says, not just one, but 50. That's what you want going to the national spelling bee or anywhere they want. And then at 10 o'clock tonight, we're talking to the stars of the movie.
WHITFIELD: All right. Look forward to that. Thanks so much.
Familiar sound isn't it. It probably reminds you of the Corleone family made famous in "The Godfather." Well coming up next, the rise and fall of a real life Mafioso from Corleone, Sicily.
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WHITFIELD: After 43 years as one of Italy's most wanted fugitives the alleged head of the Sicilian mafia is in no hurry to give investigators any information. CNN's Alessio Vinci detailed the long awaited capture in a story that first aired on "PAULA ZAHN NOW."
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ALESSIO VINCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): People gathered at Palermo's police headquarters to get a glimpse of Italy's most wanted criminal, shouting "bastard and murderer." For more than 40 years, Bernardo Provenzano was a legend, a ghost. The last known photograph of his face was this mugshot taken almost 50 years ago. But police officers who spent decades looking for him had no doubt.
GIUSEPPE GUALTIERI, PALERMO POLICE OFFICIAL (through translator): When I looked him in the eyes, I saw the old Provenzano from the early days, from his first mugshot, the days of violence and murder. The strength of his look betrayed his apparent calm. (on camera): Provenzano is now sitting in a high security jail far away from here, in mainland Italy. Officials say he has not said much since his arrest, nor do they have high hopes he will reveal any big secrets. An old Mafia saying goes something like this, "if I am innocent, I have nothing to say. And if I am a Mafia boss, well, I have nothing to say either."
(voice-over): Corleone is forever linked to the glamorous world of "The Godfather" films and the characters of Mario Puzo's novel. But the story of the real-life Mafia boss is much different. Bernardo Provenzano was born in Corleone in 1933, and after World War II joined the Sicilian Mafia as an enforcer. His brutality got him the nickname "Bernie the Tractor" and eventually, the job of top boss of an international empire built on illegal drugs, construction corruption, extortion, and of course, murder.
In 1992, two anti-mafia judges were assassinated in Palermo. That's when the police began a serious search for Provenzano. The killings, for which he has been sentenced in absentia to life in prison, provoked an unprecedented crackdown. Hundreds of Mafioso were arrested. But the boss himself always managed to escape, thanks to a wide network of associates and informants who tipped him off, sometimes just minutes before authorities moved in.
MICHELE PRESTIPINO, PALERMO DEPUTY PROSECUTOR (though translator): Provenzano took advantage of a protective network that was very efficient. It included moles within the police or even with the judiciary. These men have since been identified, arrested and are now on trial.
VINCI: Provenzano began to believe that violence could be counter-productive. He shifted mafia strategy to more discreet and more lucrative businesses.
Always in hiding, Sicily's No. 1 mafia boss ran a powerful criminal organization with earnings estimated at close to $6 billion a year, from this small, smelly farmhouse just outside his hometown. His desk, a little crumbling table.
In Corleone, Provenzano was protected by a large family, old friends and local residents. Today, even with the former boss behind bars, most people here refuse to discuss what they might have known about his whereabouts, or even acknowledge his existence. The Sicilian code of silence, omerta, helped Provenzano stay clear of police manhunt. Afraid that police could intercept phone calls or computer messages, Provenzano issued orders through hundreds of little notes, known in Sicilian dialect as pizzini, written on this old typewriter police found on his desk.
Some pizzini contained requests to his family just a few miles away in Corleone. Others carried precise instructions to his lieutenants. Many of the messages were in a code that investigators are now trying to decipher. The key could be in a Bible found in Provenzano's hideout that police say contained numerous annotations.
A police investigator who has seen dozens of the notes agreed to show us how the mafia boss carefully prepared his messages, making them easy to hide and making sure they moved as fast as possible to be hard to intercept.
He needs to remain anonymous because he is working on cases linked to Provenzano. But authorities say this communications system ultimately did Provenzano in. Investigators followed a suspect they thought was a mafia messenger to a farmhouse outside Corleone and then set up a surveillance camera from a nearby hilltop.
From a distance, police also were watching the house of his wife a mile away in Corleone. From there, they noticed that bags of fresh laundry would travel through town, going from messenger to messenger. When they finally followed a bag all the way to the farmhouse that was now under surveillance, Provenzano made his biggest mistake.
GUALTIERI (through translator): We saw a hand reaching out to pick up the bag. It was strange, because that part of the house was supposed to be empty. That's when we realized that the phantom of Corleone was no longer such, but actually a person in flesh and blood.
VINCI: They moved in on the great mafia don, done in by clean shirts. Provenzano's arrest has hurt the Sicilian mafia, but it hasn't destroyed it. Now there is fear that it could lead to a leadership struggle and renewed violence. Alessio Vinci, CNN, Corleone, Sicily.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Pretty fascinating. Well that story first aired on "PAULA ZAHN NOW." Make sure to join Paula weeknights at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, 5:00 Pacific.
I'm Fredricka Whitfield, thanks so much for watching. So much more ahead on CNN, Carol Lin and more of CNN LIVE SUNDAY, straight ahead.
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