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Your World Today

Mudslides in Philippines; Merciless Heat & Drought in Africa; Greenland Glaciers Melting; Israel & Hamas

Aired February 17, 2006 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

HALA GORANI, CNN ANCHOR: Wiped from the map, a Philippine village inundated in a mudslide, homes and people buried underneath.
JIM CLANCY, CNN ANCHOR: Desperately dry in east Africa, rainfall is but a memory. A looming famine the reality.

GORANI: And al Qaeda, Inc. Would-be terrorists signed on the dotted line on a contract spelling out pay and vacation days.

CLANCY: It is 9:30 p.m. in Kandahar, Afghanistan, 1:00 in the morning in the eastern Philippines right now.

I'm Jim Clancy.

GORANI: I'm Hala Gorani.

Welcome to our viewers throughout the world. This is CNN International. And this is YOUR WORLD TODAY.

We start with this. Rescuers in the eastern Philippines are waiting for daybreak to resume their search for survivors of a devastating and deadly mudslide.

CLANCY: Behind all of this, on top of really the weeks of steady rain that caused an entire mountain slide to come crashing down, leaving virtually no trace of hundreds of homes. Hardest hit was a village on Leyte Island. The Philippine Red Cross says 100 percent of that area is now completely buried.

GORANI: The torrent of mud and rocks covered homes, as well as an elementary school packed with children. A few roofs sticking out of the soil are the only signs that the village ever existed at all.

CLANCY: Right now an initial count is putting the death toll at only 18. The Red Cross says though several hundred people have been killed, they just not -- have not recovered any bodies. Fifteen hundred people are known to be missing.

GORANI: Officials say 53 individuals were pulled to safety before darkness forced rescuers to stop for the night. Mud up to nine meters is also slowing relief efforts, preventing crews from bringing in heavy equipment.

CLANCY: Now we're hearing from Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who says help is on the way. It's coming in by land, air and sea. GORANI: Now for an update, let's go to Eva Tomol, Operations Officer of the Provincial Disaster Coordination Council. She joins us now on the line from the island that was devastated, Leyte.

Thank you for being with us. What is the latest toll? What can you confirm to us at this hour?

EVA TOMOL, PROVINCIAL DISASTER COORD. COUNCIL: OK, good morning, Gorani. This is the official -- these are the official figures from the field operation center. The estimated population of the village is 1,857. We have 83 confirmed survivors, 19 recovered bodies. The rest are missing.

GORANI: How many are missing?

TOMOL: About 1,780.

GORANI: One thousand seven hundred and eighty individuals missing.

TOMOL: Seven hundred -- yes, ma'am. This includes 246 elementary school pupils and the 5 teachers who were in there.

GORANI: It's always a tragedy there are children missing. We understand a school was entirely covered by the mud.

TOMOL: Yes, ma'am.

GORANI: Now what about rescue efforts? We understand they have been suspended now for the night. When will they pick up again?

TOMOL: As soon as there is enough light, ma'am, that they can see their way through.

GORANI: And you have enough, enough in terms of equipment, enough in terms of air support?

TOMOL: Air support, we have six choppers on standby from the Philippine Air Force. And I understand that the U.S. military, which is in joint exercise here with our Philippine military, one chopper already overflew the area earlier this last night to survey and that they will be coming in tomorrow.

GORANI: The issue is how easy, or difficult in this case, is it to work when there is so much mud, when the earth is so soft?

TOMOL: Yes, ma'am, it's very difficult, that's why we had to pull out at about 6:30. We had to stop the rescue operations because the rescuers were getting buried in the mud up to chest level. And the water of the river that is beside the village was rising also with the continuous rain.

GORANI: Were people given any warning that because of how much it had rained in the previous weeks that there was a real risk of mudslides? TOMOL: Yes, ma'am. As a matter of fact last Sunday, we already ordered evacuation of those areas which we considered to be at high risk. And people of the village that we are talking about were not sleeping any more in that village. Actually, except that last night, the other night and this early this morning, earlier last yesterday morning there was no rainfall anymore so they went back to do their usual routine things in the daytime.

GORANI: So the tragedy is because the rain stopped, many people felt the risk isn't there anymore so they went back?

TOMOL: Yes, ma'am. And I feel that the earthquake report even is our official evocanology (ph) office here does not consider it sufficient to have caused the landslide. It could have contributed to the fall of the mountain.

GORANI: How hopeful are you that among those who are missing that you will find survivors?

TOMOL: We are, ma'am, actually, considering that it's muddy, the debris that fell down was muddy and still raining, we are not very optimistic, sadly.

GORANI: Eva Tomol, Operations Officer of the Provincial Disaster Coordination Council, joining us there live from the site of the disaster on Leyte in the Philippines, thank you very much.

CLANCY: And as we look at that and you see a disaster unfolding there, you have to consider that there are several disturbing trends in weather patterns today. In a moment, we're going to be telling you about glacial melting in Greenland. That has global implications and has a lot of people worried.

But first, let's look at a situation developing right now in far eastern Africa, merciless heat and drought.

Jonathan Miller is there reporting on the situation that is particularly bad in Kenya.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN MILLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When livestock start dropping like flies, you know you're in trouble. It's the children who will start dying next. A veterinary charity reporting today that in parts of northeastern Kenya, two-thirds of all cattle and camels and 90 percent of donkeys are already dead.

Thirst and hunger may have already killed hundreds of people across a region where 11 million are at risk. Not much water left in the watering holes. These people pasturalists (ph), nomads. Their cattle their life savings. When the animals die, they are plunged into debt and can't afford to buy food. Three-and-a-half million Kenyans running out of food now. The U.N. says malnutrition rates among children alarmingly high.

We've had no food aid at all, these nomads say. But they are nomads no longer, their livestock all dead now. Where they've camped, there's no healthcare and no schooling either.

It's a month now since the U.N.'s World Food Program warned of a looming catastrophe. Oxfam says it all threatens to deteriorate rapidly, adding that failure to provide aid could herald Kenya's deadliest crisis in decades.

YUSUF BREHIM, OXFAM: The world will not respond and this situation is serious, as you can see. First, the people will consider themselves as people who have been forsaken at the worst time of their life.

MILLER: The rains have failed for two years in a row right across this ecologically fragile region. If they fail again in April, as some meteorologists fear, 20 million people may be at risk of famine.

Next door in southern Somalia, the U.N. says the situation is unprecedented, ominous. Twelve thousand nomads have arrived at this camp in Waleed (ph) where at least there's still water. One point seven million now in need of urgent assistance, many at high risk, already in this, a country which has endured 15 years of armed conflict and lawlessness and where roaming militia have been targeting aid consignments.

(ph) YAZDI, INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS: That the area is extremely dry. What I saw some on the roads is that the people are walking long, long, long distances to the water points. The people here are very concerned because they don't see any rain coming, so they are a little bit desperate.

MILLER: Today, Oxfam reporting that people are walking 50 miles just to get water in temperatures notching 40 degrees. Families surviving on three glasses of water per person per day for drinking cooking and washing. Some, Oxfam says, forced to drink their own urine.

The U.N. has been distributing food in southern Somalia since last June. It's children's agency says the drought is taking a hefty toll on under five's, the most vulnerable. Malnutrition rates high and rising.

In northern Kenya, a third of the population is already reliant on food aid in a region that's turned into a dustbowl. Now twice as many people actually need food, agencies say, if large-scale loss of life is to be averted.

The Horn of Africa has officially entered the critical phase, the sharp end of hunger in a continent where there are now 33 million more hungry people than there were a decade ago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CLANCY: Jonathan Miller reporting there.

Let's bring in Femi Oke now.

GORANI: Now more weather-related news. I mean we've seen the mudslide, we've seen the drought in Kenya, but also something else -- Femi.

FEMI OKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely.

Nice to see you, Hala. Nice to see you, Jim, as well.

And in recent years, once we've been able to put together a number of extreme weather stories, people keep asking, what is going on in the world, is this global warming? So the debate over global warming is certainly heating up. And for many, the facts are already clear.

A new study, for instance, suggests that glaciers in Greenland are melting faster into the Atlantic Ocean. And if this is in fact happening, sea levels are rising. But others disagree, saying Greenland is making more ice.

CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST (voice-over): It may be called Greenland, but much of the world's largest island is actually white. More than 80 percent of it is covered with ice. And according to a new study, more and more of that ice is winding up in the Atlantic.

ERIC RIGNOT, CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: The most direct impact this evolution of Green has is on sea level rise.

JERAS: Rignot and his partners studied the flow of Greenland's glaciers over 10 years. They say it has increased, especially in the southeastern part of the country. And as the glaciers flow faster, they dump more of their ice into the ocean.

RIGNOT: Glaciers are speeding up as a result of climate warming. This is especially true in eastern part of Greenland, where it has been a pronounced warming of air temperatures in the last 20 years.

JERAS: The study says that's resulted in the rate of which Greenland's glaciers are losing mass doubling between 1996 and 2005. And they say that trend means Greenland will be a bigger factor in rising sea levels than previously thought, possibly becoming responsible for as much as 17 percent of the annual increase, now about one-tenth of an inch per year.

But not everyone agrees. Pat Michaels of The Cato Institute says the study ignored other critical research that Greenland's glaziers are actually growing.

PAT MICHAELS, THE CATO INSTITUTE: When you average over Greenland, over the huge land area, you see a net gain in ice. That's water that is being taken out of the atmosphere and not going into the ocean. Certainly the sea level rise is being muted by the increasing ice in Greenland.

JERAS (on camera): And the reason why all of this is so important is because if that continues to happen, it could affect weather patterns all across the globe. As that freshwater is released into the ocean, it can change the amount of salt in the water and also can affect the temperature. Those two things could change the circulation of the ocean currents and that could have a dramatic impact on weather in the United States and all across the globe.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OKE: And that was my colleague Jacqui Jeras.

Jacqui, thank you very much for that.

Now I wonder, am I eligible to answer The Inbox question? It's very relevant, and I have a lot of information to give you.

Back to the news desk.

CLANCY: All right. And it is the question.

GORANI: You're eligible. Femi, you're eligible.

OKE: OK.

GORANI: Maybe next hour. But this hour, it's us, we want to know. And we've been asking our viewers, Jim, are you convinced global warming is a threat?

CLANCY: E-mail us at ywt@cnn.com. Do you think that global warming is really a threat? Keep your comments brief, please. Don't forget to include, though, your name and where you're watching us.

GORANI: Still ahead on YOUR WORLD TODAY, Palestinian politics.

CLANCY: As the militant group Hamas prepares to take power, Israel and the world watches and waits.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CLANCY: To our viewers in the United States and around the world, thank you for joining us. Once again, this is YOUR WORLD TODAY.

We're going to focus now on the Middle East, the Israelis and the Palestinians. Of course the Islamic group Hamas is preparing to take power in the Palestinian territories. A Hamas-led parliament is getting ready to be sworn in on Saturday. Israel, of course, threatening some tough new measures that aim at undercutting that group.

CNN's John Vause has more now on what is a complicated political landscape.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After the party, the reality, Hamas made big campaign promises, and now more than three million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza expect the Islamic militants to make good.

Jobs, law and order, better schools and hospitals, but this new government will face its first crisis within moments of taking office, a massive budget deficit, a freeze on international aid, and Israel plans to stop transferring customs duties and sales tax collected on behalf of the Palestinians.

The world should respect the democracy, which they preach, and they should not look for a tailored democracy, according to Israeli desires, says this Hamas spokesman.

But with Israel set for its own general election next month, getting tough with Hamas has become a campaign issue.

EHUD OLMERT, ACTING ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: And we will not recognize, not compromise, not talk and not deal with Hamas, which is a terrorist organization.

VAUSE: The President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is also facing his own confrontation with Hamas. He's expected to demand the new government honor previous peace agreements with Israel.

HANAN ASHRAWI, PALESTINIAN LEGISLATOR: And the president was elected on a totally different agenda from that of Hamas' and Hamas was elected on the opposite agenda. And each one feels that he -- or they must maintain that agenda in order to be true to the electoral pledges, to the constituency, to the promises made.

VAUSE: Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist, refuses to disarm, while Abbas wants to jumpstart the stalled U.S.- backed road map to peace. The best Hamas is willing to offer, a long- term cease-fire, called a hudrna (ph) in Arabic. No deal, says Israel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If there is a long-term hudrna, that means only a postponement of the date -- of target date at which Israel will be destroyed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Hamas says it will try to make up the financial shortfall by turning to the Arab and Islamic world, including Iran, one of the few countries which has been in contact with Hamas to wish them well on forming a new government -- Jim.

CLANCY: According to Israeli authorities, they've already gone to Iran, asking for money and asking for advice how to run the Palestinian Authority. How much electronic surveillance is going to work here on the Israeli side?

VAUSE: Well, we know from previous experience in talking with the Israeli intelligence community that they have every inch of Gaza, every inch of the West Bank mapped out, not just from human intelligence on the ground, but also from satellite intelligence. They say they have proved this time and time again by pinpointing individual terrorist cells, as they call them, in the West Bank and Gaza and being able to initiate targeted killings, for example, assassinations of individual members of the militant group.

So obviously that will be a big part of the Israeli surveillance of what Hamas does in the coming weeks, especially when they hold these parliamentary meetings by video link between Gaza and the West Bank city of Ramallah -- Jim.

CLANCY: The -- some of the Israeli top-level officials are saying that there's a whole variety of sanctions that they can impose come Sunday. These include barring all workers from coming into Israel, completely shutting down the borders, completely shutting down imports and exports by the Palestinians. This would bring the three million or more Palestinian society to its knees, wouldn't it?

VAUSE: Well, it would, and that's one thing, which Israel has said publicly at least, it does not want to do. It does not want to cause a humanitarian crisis among the general population of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

What we have heard from Dusvisvat (ph), the -- one of the senior advisers within the Israeli government, he said they don't want to starve the Palestinians. They just want to put them on a diet and slim them down for a while, make them think about what it means to actually elect a group which Israel, the U.S. and Europe considers to be a terrorist organization.

But on the issue of the workers not being allowed into Israel, well that will affect about 4,000 Palestinians. The numbers have been dropping for a very long time over the last couple of years. And in fact, the entire point of the disengagement, Israel pulling out of the Gaza and pulling out of the northern part of the West Bank, is to disengage from the Palestinians completely.

The plan, before Hamas was elected to power within the Palestinian parliament, was to stop the Palestinians from being able to work in Israel in the first place. So that's just a continuation of that plan.

As far as declaring Gaza an international border, what the Israelis are saying is that will rewrite all the rules when it comes to economic dealings with the Palestinians. It could mean leveling taxes, custom duties, sales tax on its Palestinian goods which travel through Israel for export. Extra taxes on goods from Israel into Gaza and the West Bank. All sorts of economic sanctions, which are now being considered, which Israel says will be implemented gradually, week by week by week, will be decided on Sunday when the cabinet meets.

Also, Jim, right now you may be able to hear it, but there is an artillery barrage under way. Israeli artillery firing into the northern part of the Gaza Strip. This is because the Israelis say they suspect a custom (ph) rocket was fired earlier tonight -- Jim.

CLANCY: All right, John Vause, never ending conflict, and never ending political strife as well. This weekend is going to be another test.

John, thank you.

We'll be checking on business news as soon as we come back.

GORANI: And then from the fascist salute to the image repair session, it's been quite a transition for one of Italy's best-known football players, Palo Deconio (ph), and his odyssey, next.

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(NEWSBREAK)

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CLANCY: Welcome back to YOUR WORLD TODAY on CNN International.

GORANI: I'm Hala Gorani. Here are some of the top stories we're following for you this hour.

Philippines officials say almost 1,800 people are missing after their village was buried beneath meters of mud. Weeks of heavy rain triggered a huge mudslide on the island of Leyte, covering hundreds of home as well as an elementary school packed with children at the time. Officials say crews rescued 83 people before calling off their search because of darkness. So far, 19 bodies have been recovered.

CLANCY: The problem on the other side of the world, not enough rain. Hundreds of people and tens of thousands of livestock in East Africa are believed now to have died from hunger and thirst since the drought began there late last year. Humanitarian aid organization Oxfam is launching emergency water operations right now in Southern Somalia, near the border with Kenya. The drought, likely to persist until at least early April.

GORANI: The militant Islamic group Hamas is preparing to take power in the Palestinian territories. A Hamas-led parliament will be sworn in tomorrow, Saturday. Senior politicians say they plan to have a government in place by March, but Israel is threatening tough new measures against the new Hamas-led government. They including restricting travel between the territories and Israel further.

CLANCY: The United States has released al Qaeda documents that were uncovered in Afghanistan. Those documents reveal some surprising insights into the terrorist organization. The group was offering prospective members an employment contract which included salary policy, paid vacations, even sick leave.

Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr has been investigating.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): So what does it take to be an employee of al Qaeda? The U.S. Military Academy at West Point has just released documents offering extraordinary details to answer that question. Military officials tell CNN they were chilled when they read a document known as the "al Qaeda employment contract," which they strongly believe to be authentic. It was seized after 9/11 in the home of an al Qaeda operative in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

There is an al Qaeda vacation policy. Married members get seven days of vacation every three weeks. Bachelors get five vacation days every month. Requests for vacation travel must be submitted two-and- half months in advance.

Monthly salaries are spelled out: 6,500 Pakistani rupees, about $108 if you are married; 1,000 rupees, about $17, for bachelors. An extra 700 rupees per wife if you have more than one.

The contract requires al Qaeda members to exercise and stay healthy, but they also get 15 days sick leave a year.

The document is one of dozens that Special Operations Command asked West Point to analyze. The idea was to develop a better understanding of the al Qaeda network in their own words. And the contract requires, of course total loyalty, secrecy and adherence to jihad.

(on camera): Nobody knows how many members signed the contract, and the documents are several years old now. But West Point officials and the Special Operations Command say there is a disturbing lesson here. Four years ago, al Qaeda was a highly organized business, and now no one can really say what they are doing.

Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CLANCY: We're going to focus attention on what some people are calling new frontline in the war on terror.

GORANI: Bangladesh has been rocked by a series of bombings in recent months, and as senior correspondent Mike Chinoy reports, there's growing evidence that Bangladesh has become home to a new network of Islamist extremists.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE CHINOY, CNN SR. ASIA CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's the world's fourth largest Muslim nation. Bangladesh, population 144 million, with a brand of Islam that's been traditionally tolerant and moderate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Muslim doesn't mean that they are fundamentalists. Islam is very clear. Islam is bad news to harm somebody else. It is a religion of peace, simple as that.

CHINOY: But now in Bangladesh, it's not so simple anymore.

(on camera): Intelligence sources and Bangladeshi human rights activists claim that Islamist extremists are active in this country, operating a network of religious schools and camps that train locals and jihadi fighters from elsewhere in Asia.

In recent months, that network has blamed for a series of violent attacks that have left dozens dead, hundreds injured, and turned this impoverished nation into a new frontline in the war on terror.

ROHAN GUNARATNA, TERRORISM EXPERT: The evidence that there is a robust jihad network in Bangladesh is very overwhelming. These groups are growing at a terrific pace in Bangladesh and some of these groups have developed international linkages to Pakistan and to some of the Southeast Asian countries.

CHINOY: The Bangladesh terror connection dates back to at least 1998. That's when Osama bin Laden announced the establishment of a world Islamic front to wage holy war on the West.

Among the signatories was a man identified as the leader every the jihad movement in Bangladesh. Militants who spoke Bengali, the national language of Bangladesh, were trained by and fought with al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. As the so-called American Taliban, John Walker Lindh, confirmed after his capture there by U.S. forces in late 2001.

JOHN WALKER LINDH, AMERICAN TALIBAN: We all have the same cause, which has to do with ethnicity or anything like that. But the language is divided into Bengali and Pakistani and Arabic. So that the Arab section of Ansar is funded by Osama bin Laden.

CHINOY: After the fall of the Taliban, sources believe some militants made their way to Bangladesh, where a weak government, rampant corruption and inefficient policing enabled them to find a safe haven and establish links with local jihadis.

Rosalind Costa is a Bangladeshi human rights activist who's monitored the rise of radical Islam here.

ROSALIND COSTA, HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST: They have camps. They have training centers in Bangladesh. There were non-Bangladeshis. They were trainers from outside the country, like some of them were from Afghanistan, of course. Still today they are operating -- they have their training camps, separate training camps, as well as the madrassas are being used for this purpose.

CHINOY: The Bangladesh government has accused an extremist group called the Jamaatul Mujahadeen Bangladesh, JMB, of staging the recent wave of bombings, claiming it received funding and help from a Kuwaiti-based charity called the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society. The charity was blacklisted by the U.S. State Department in 2002 for allegedly funneling resources to al Qaeda. Certainly the nature of the attacks, which had rocked Bangladesh in recent months, suggest a sophisticated organization.

Last August, nearly 500 explosions detonated within an hour, in 63 of the country's 64 districts. Later in the year, the country's first suicide bombing. Notes found with the bombers demanding the establishment of Islamic law.

RHAN GUNARATNA, TERRORISM EXPERT: It demonstrates ability to coordinate a large number of attacks, and it also shows more than that, that they have the organization to mount terrorist attacks, that they have built a structure to conduct those attacks.

COSTA: They don't respect human rights. They want to see everybody saying the prayer the same way they are praying. That means everybody has to be Muslim, and (INAUDIBLE) Muslims, no democracy, no human rights.

CHINOY: Until the upsurge in violence, the government denied there was a problem with extremism here, but now amid public protests demanding the government curb the fundamentalists, the government has changed its tune, and this bastion of Islamic moderation faces a new and worrying threat.

Mike Chinoy, CNN, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CLANCY: We want to show you some videotape that has just come in. Of course, Vice President Dick Cheney, the focus of a lot of attention and criticism this week in the wake of the hunting accident last weekend when he wounded a lawyer who was a hunting, a partner and friend in the state of Texas. This is the president getting off of Air Force Two, as that is called when he's aboard, getting into a car in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He is to give a speech to the state legislature of Wyoming. That is a western state just above Colorado that is famous, of course, for Yellowstone Park. The vice president has a ranch there. He's going to be talking to lawmakers.

This is be his first real public appearance. Now he's given a television interview and made comments, saying that he took full responsibility for that accident. A lot of the controversy, a lot of the cartoons in the newspapers and the humor won't go away. It's focused a lot on here. The White House says it's ready to get back down to business, but we're going to hear what message Dick Cheney has to say a little bit later.

All right, that was the vice president there in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

GORANI: Cold and snowing there in Wyoming.

Now let's switch gears. And a woman who spent decades living in very meager circumstances now stands to make a fortune. That as a result of one of the largest Holocaust restitution cases in history.

With the story, our own Richard Roth.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA PRINCIPE, WERTHEIM HEIR: This is the house where I lived most of my life. It's been badly let go at this point. There used to be a huge chicken coop over there.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Seventy-three-year-old Barbara Principi recalls how her family scratched out a meager living on this New Jersey chicken farm after they fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

What she doesn't remember much of is what her family, the Wertheims, lost when they escaped Berlin.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Wertheim family was one of the most prominent Jewish families in pre-war Jewish Berlin.

ROTH: Her grandfather owned a large stake in a major chain of retail stores. And the family was the largest property owner in the center of Berlin. The Wertheims had to give up control of their holdings under Hitler's Aryan-ization policy, an the Nazi leadership took particular interest in the Wertheim properties.

GARY OSEN, BARBARA PRINCIPE'S ATTY.: That same land became the center of the Third Reich. And as a result, the property was seized and taken to build the infamous Reich Chancellory. And across the street on the other side was Herman Goering Luftwaffe headquarters.

ROTH: Barbara was six when the family escaped. Her parents never told her about the fortune that was.

PRINCIPE: How do you explain to a child you were born into a very rich family, now here you are. That is a Cinderella story backwards.

ROTH: After the war, Barbara's father, Gunther, tried to get his shares back, but was told his interest in the company were virtually worthless. Much of the property was in the treacherous no-man's-land between East and West Berlin. Parts of the Berlin Wall snaked through the land, but in 1989, the wall fell.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Reunification of Germany freed up that land, and suddenly this undeveloped tract of land became the most valuable, available parcels for development.

ROTH: No-man's-land turned into modern office buildings and hotels, with more development to come. Estimates on the value of the Wertheim property range from $300 to $500 million, something Barbara finally learned about five years ago.

PRINCIPE: I was totally flabbergasted by all of it. I don't remember what I thought. I was just like, good Lord, all these properties I never knew existed?

ROTH: But getting compensation would not be easy. A Jewish claims organization, which fights for restitution in such cases, had been pressing the Wertheim claim with a German company and the government since the 1990s. Just last year, a German court ruled in favor of bar about and other family members over the German company that claimed ownership. It has turned into one of the largest single- family Holocaust restitution cases in history. Barbara could receive between $5 and $10 million. But her father would not know the victory. He died of a heart attack in 1954.

PRINCIPE: I understand now that everything my father must have gone through, and I just wish I would have known it before, because it is -- it's horrendous what this man went through. And that's one of the reasons that I say every day, and I speak to my dad, and say, we're getting there, father, we're going to get it back.

ROTH: Richard Roth, CNN, New York.

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GORANI: Welcome back to YOUR WORLD TODAY on CNN International. Now six months after Hurricane Katrina lashed the U.S. Gulf Coast, the city of New Orleans is getting ready to roll out the red carpet for the traditional Mardi Gras celebration.

CLANCY: Susan Roesgen is there, and she reports that a local casino kind of rolling the dice a little bit, hoping to cash in on this holiday season.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN GULF COAST CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After nearly six months away, Nanita Jones was dealing cards again, loosening up her fingers and loving being back at Harrah's Casino.

NANITA JONES, HARRAH'S EMPLOYEE: When I walked down the streets, you know, and for the last and they all see my badge, when are you all opening? You know, a lot of people ask me. It's going to be hectic in a way, but I'm quite sure, you know, it's going to fun.

ROESGEN: Sixty-five percent of Harrah's employees lived in areas hit hard by the hurricane, and so far Harrah's has only been able to hire half of its workforce back. Jones is lucky to be here, but her two teenage daughters still live in Dallas while she tries to find temporary housing here in New Orleans.

GARY LOVEMAN, CEO, HARRAH'S: Welcome back. I'm really grateful to you for coming back.

ROESGEN: Harrah's CEO, Gary Loveman, says luring customers back is next.

LOVEMAN: We had a fantastic business here before the hurricanes came at the end of the summer, and we feel that over time that business will come back.

ROESGEN: Harrah's wants that business and so does Louisiana. In exchange for being the only land-based casino allowed in New Orleans, Harrah's must pay the state $164,000 a day, a payment Harrah's continued to make even when it was closed. Now with three quarters of the city's population gone, no one knows how many locals will spin the wheel again. Before Katrina, half of Harrah's customers were local. Then there's the question of tourists returning.

LOVEMAN: None of us can predict how long it will come back, but we're in this for the long haul. We're going to be here a long, long time, and we think that over time, this will be revitalized. And we're very confident about it.

JONES: Yes, ma'am.

ROESGEN: And Nanita Jones is glad to be back.

JONES: It was hard for me, I mean, meaning that I had no sense of direction, which way to go, you know. So to get back to New Orleans is great, and Harrah's was the perfect reason to do that. Get back to work.

ROESGEN (on camera): Before the hurricane, Harrah's took in about $30 million a month in revenue. And today, they hope to start bringing the high rollers back.

Susan Roesgen, CNN, New Orleans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GORANI: We're going to check the "Inbox" in just a few minutes and see your thoughts on global warming.

CLANCY: We can tell some of you are interested in that. A lot of e-mails dropping on it. We'll be reading some of them next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CLANCY: Welcome back, everyone. This is CNN International, YOUR WORLD TODAY. That's Hala. I'm Jim.

GORANI: And we've been asking you, are you convinced global warming is a threat? Here's some of your replies, and they have been pouring in, Jim.

CLANCY: They really have.

GORANI: June in Chicago writes: "Are you kidding? In Chicago, we've only had to shovel snow twice and the temperatures have hit the 60s this winter. Is it a threat, it's a very real threat, and it's being mistaken as luck that we've had a, quote, 'pleasant winter'."

CLANCY: Now, Noah writes in with this one: "With the increase of deadly storms and odd weather around the planet, you would have to be an idiot not to see that global warming is real and here."

GORANI: Malay in Indian wrote this: "When I was a child, I remember the temperature never went about 40 degrees Celsius in eastern parts of India" -- above 100 Fahrenheit. "Now sometimes it goes to almost 50 degrees Celsius. That is the reality."

CLANCY: Well, not everyone agrees. I've got to say that very few people dissenting, but William in Rochester, New York, is one of them. He says, "global warming, how would we know? We haven't tracked the weather long enough to really know. The change in the weather could be a normal pattern that we as a species are not aware of. The temperature increase could be becoming from inside the earth, meaning our core may actually be heating up."

So that wasn't the typical one. It raises some valid points though, some questions. We got an e-mail from Ethiopia, we got it from Latin America, we got it from all over the United States and Europe.

GORANI: And, Jim, counting the e-mails, I would say 20 percent are not too concerned with global warming, and I would say about 80 percent say that it is, indeed, a threat. So that just gives you a breakdown of the people who watch the show and took the time to write in, and we thank you for that.

CLANCY: For now, our viewers in the United States, stay tuned. Kyra Phillips will be along with LIVE FROM next.

GORANI: And for the rest of you, John Mann and Colleen McEdwards are straight ahead. I'm Hala Gorani.

CLANCY: I'm Jim Clancy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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