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Will Slide That Rocked U.S. and European Markets Continue?; Baghdad Remains Perilous Environment; Palestinian Girl in Hospital Far From Home

Aired March 01, 2007 - 12:00   ET

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

JIM CLANCY, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Market jitters. After the big sell-off, Asian markets sink, European markets slide downwards. We're watching. What's next for Wall Street?
HALA GORANI, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Poised for an offensive. A Taliban commander say his fighters are ready to take on NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

CLANCY: A simmering crisis. Iraq's refugee crisis spilling across it borders and beyond. Hundred of thousands searching for a better life, or just survival.

GORANI: And, thank you, Audrey Hepburn. The late actress' philanthropic legacy reaches all the way to children in India.

It is noon in New York, 10:30 p.m. in Calcutta, India.

Hello and welcome to our report broadcast around the globe.

I'm Hala Gorani.

CLANCY: I'm Jim Clancy.

From Iraq to Afghanistan, wherever you're watching, this is YOUR WORLD TODAY.

GORANI: Well, concern and volatility returns to global financial markets with a vengeance as investors keep an especially nervous eye on American shares.

CLANCY: And let's take a live look right now at the numbers from New York. We're nervously watching it, too.

They got off to a rough start this morning, but we're back now to about 40 points down. It's been fluctuating but drifting a little bit upwards in a general trend for about the last hour.

We'll take you live to New York and London to find out what's going on a little bit later.

GORANI: Also this hour, U.S. Treasury secretary Henry Paulson speaks to the Economic Club of Washington. We'll monitor what he says about some of those key indicators that are now out and determine much of the direction that Wall Street takes.

There's some mixed economic news. We'll bring you up to date on that as well.

CLANCY: So, is this just a case of market jitters? Or is there an underlying cause behind the sudden downturn around the world?

GORANI: Will the slide that rocked U.S. and European markets continue?

Eunice Yoon takes a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

EUNICE YOON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): What Chinese banks, Taiwanese electronics firms and Japanese car makers all have in common? Stock prices. All caught in the steep and sudden slide in Asian markets.

For a third straight day, stocks across the region ended lower. The Shanghai Index helped trigger the global sell-off by plunging nearly 9 percent Tuesday. A try at a recovery was wiped out with another 3 percent drop.

Japan's Nikkei dropped after its biggest decline in eight months the day before. Hong Kong and Australia also both fell.

The markets didn't get any help from Wall Street's rebound either.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Concerns in the U.S. are rising about another down leg (ph) in growth.

YOON: Investors here took little comfort in Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's comments that the U.S. economy is growing at a moderate pace. Some investors in Asia point to a string of weak U.S. economic data, durable goods, revisions in the fourth quarter Gross Domestic Product, and a drop in new home sales, and worry about the impact it could have on consumer spending habits.

But despite the large losses, analysts are unfazed. They say market corrections around springtime happened here the past three years. Asian markets were up significant the past year, and investors flushed with cash looked for new places to park their money. But long term, analysts say Asia's economies are strong.

HUANG YI PING, CITIGROUP: The Chinese economy, we think, is doing quite well. And as we suggested, the market fluctuating in Shanghai market we saw had nothing to do with the fundamentals in the economy.

YOON: In fact, investors are still betting on the economic growth story. Shares in China's second largest life insurer, Ping An, debuted today, up over 50 percent. A sign that despite market jitters, the appetite for Asian shares is far from gone.

Eunice Yoon, CNN, Hong Kong.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GORANI: Well, as you can see, financial markets remaining there on shaky ground. And we want to know how you're handling it all.

CLANCY: We want to know, are you buying, are you selling, or holding your stocks today? Why don't you send us an e-mail and just tell us what you're up to financially to yourviews@cnn.com. That's yourviews@cnn.com.

A top Taliban military commander says his forces in Afghanistan are preparing to launch a spring offensive against NATO and U.S. troops. Mullah Dadullah (ph), as he's called, the Taliban commander in the eastern part of Afghanistan, also says he's been in regular contact with al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Now, in an interview, Dadullah (ph) says he looks forward to getting revenge on the United States, and the that the Taliban has scores of suicide bombers prepared to attack.

NATO has more than 35,000 troops in Afghanistan right now. Almost half of them are from the United States.

GORANI: Now to Iraq, where government figures are indicating that the number of civilian deaths in that country dropped last month. The February numbers were the lowest in four months. The figures come from Iraq's Interior Ministry.

Now, they show a total of -- and the numbers still staggering -- 1,645 civilian deaths. That is still much higher than the 545 deaths recorded February of last year.

They also show that 28 Iraqi soldiers and 132 police officers were killed last month, along with 451 suspected militants. Now, that number is down slightly from January.

Well, the numbers may be down on paper, but violence is still a very real threat to ordinary Iraqis. And that threat keeps them from leading normal lives.

Our Jennifer Eccleston is in Baghdad, and she joins us now live with more on what's it like to live in a war zone.

Hi, Jennifer.

JENNIFER ECCLESTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Hala.

Well, as you mentioned, U.S. and Iraqi leaders say tangible results from this latest version of Baghdad's security push will take months. And they're urging the public here to be patient. Even so, both American and Iraqi officials announced some progress.

They say the number of civilian deaths dropped significantly from January to February, as you mentioned earlier. But Baghdad remains a perilous environment. And simple chores, just going to the market, are potentially life-threatening.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ECCLESTON (voice over): It's Saturday, Sadad Ibrahim's (ph) day off. Time to go to the market, time to buy supplies for his family of four. Even in Baghdad, there's hope in the routine of life and living.

"Life cannot stop just because I hear about a car bomb or something. What can we do? We trust god, and life cannot stop."

Car bombs, suicide attacks and IEDs -- the daily violence that haunts his country has not spared his religiously-mixed neighborhood in eastern Baghdad. Four explosions, the latest just three days ago, leaving a trail of injured and dead.

He hails a makeshift taxi, someone with a van making extra money ferrying people around. He is searched for weapons and bombs. In February alone, six were planted in these type of vehicles.

At each stop, with each new passenger, another search. These are tense moments. One never knows who is friend and who is foe.

The traffic, a mess after the fall of Baghdad in 2003, remains bad today. Since a major security operation was launched two weeks ago, there are more police on the streets, more checkpoints and more congestion.

Sadad's (ph) journey is painstakingly slow. "But we are ready to bear that burden," he says. "For months and months we will wait in order to get security."

Finally, he reaches the market. It, too, the target of insurgent terror. His shopping is precise and brief. No casual browsing here. He buys just what his family needs.

Nearly five hours later, Sadad (ph) is safely reunited with his family. The stress of being in the wrong place at the wrong time melts away.

In Baghdad these days, the right places are few and far between. But for Sadad (ph) and countless other Iraqi families, the right place right now is home.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ECCLESTON: One man's perspective. Despite the hardship, despite the risk, he carries on, and he's willing to wait for progress. The question remains, just how long will that patience last and will other Iraqis share his optimism?

Hala.

GORANI: All right. Jennifer Eccleston live in Baghdad.

Thank you.

CLANCY: All right, Hala. Let's check some of the other stories that are making news this day.

(NEWSBREAK)

GORANI: Well, for one 5-year-old Palestinian girl, each day is a battle, a medical battle for her. She was paralyzed last year when an Israeli missile destroyed the car in which she was riding.

CLANCY: And now the little girl is in an Israeli hospital getting treatment. But as Julian Manyon reports, the money to pay for that care may soon run out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JULIAN MANYON, REPORTER, ITV NEWS (voice over): This is how every day begins for 5-year-old Maria Aman (ph). Quickly, her father disconnects the ventilator that keeps her alive. He has one minute to put her in her wheelchair and reconnect it.

Maria (ph) is paralyzed from the neck down. A living reproach to Israel's policy of targeted killings.

In May last year, an Israeli missile hit a car carrying militants in the Gaza Strip. But a second car was also destroyed. Maria's (ph) mother was killed and the little girl's spinal cord was severed.

Maria (ph) is intelligent and alert, but she is totally dependent on the Israeli hospital which has taken her in, and on her father who looks after her day and night. The hospital was celebrating the Jewish holiday of Purim, when children put on fancy dress. But Maria's (ph) father was in despair.

HAMDI AMAN, FATHER (through translator): She's just a little girl. She doesn't understand what things will be like in the future, that she'll be like this for the rest of her life.

MANYON: Maria (ph) controls her electric wheelchair with her chin. She drove it to the hospital's Purim party, where most of the other children were Israeli.

As always, Maria behaves with astonishing composure and courage.

(on camera): And it may be that this fancy dress holiday is a moment of happiness for her, but it can't disguise or minimize the death of the tragedy that has afflicted her and her family.

(voice over): The question now is, who will pay for the enormous costs of looking after Maria (ph) for the rest of her life? The Israeli Defense Ministry accepts that no hospital in Gaza can handle her case, but it's only agreed to pay Israeli medical bills until December.

What will happen to Maria (ph) after that? No one knows.

Julian Manyon, ITV News, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CLANCY: Well, still ahead, in the wake of a hurricane...

GORANI: A year and half after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, President Bush heads to New Orleans for a first-hand look at the recovery process. Also ahead...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's been a simmering crisis for quite a while. And it's just coming to everybody's realization.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CLANCY: A constant trickle transforming into a steady flow as hundreds of thousands of Iraqis flee to neighboring countries. The refugee crisis.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GORANI: Welcome back. You're with CNN International and YOUR WORLD TODAY.

CLANCY: We're covering the news that the world wants to know, giving you some perspective that goes a little bit deeper into the stories of the day.

Now, two embattled leaders caught in the crossfire of international criticism have found an ally in each other.

U.S. State Department Correspondent Zain Verjee reports on the growing strategic relationship between Sudan and Iran.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAIN VERJEE, CNN STATE DEPT. CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a two- day visit to Sudan, significant for any head of state. Africa's not been a priority for Iran in any substantive way, but President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is there. Experts say he's there in a third world solidarity way. He's been going to countries that are anti-U.S., like Venezuela.

Both Sudan and Iran are under strong pressure from the U.S. -- Sudan over the Darfur conflict, Iran over its nuclear program. So Sudan's president and Iran's president are supporting each other and criticizing the U.S.

PRES. OMAR AL-BASHIR, SUDAN (through translator): The attempts by countries possessing nuclear weapons to deny Iran its right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy reflects a double standard.

VERJEE: Analysts also say Ahmadinejad wants the world to know that he's not alone.

CLOVIS MAKSOUD, FMR. ARAB LEAGUE AMBASSADOR: He probably wants to show that he's not totally isolated. And that he he's having a sort of support on the international level. It is not as significant as he might want to project it is, to his own people.

VERJEE: And he needs help with his own people. Since Iranian leaders haven't liked Ahmadinejad's inflammatory comments like "wiping Israel off the map". And they're giving him a hard time. So he's going on more foreign trips just to get away. The State Department shrugged off Ahmadinejad's trip.

SEAN MCCORMACK, SPOKESMAN, U.S. STATE DEPT. Suffice it to say, the number of countries to which he can travel and try to generate some sort of support for the policies of his regime it's a pretty small group.

VERJEE (on camera): President Ahmadinejad will deliver a lecture in the capital, Khartoum, and Iran will sign trade agreements with Sudan while he's there.

Zain Verjee, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GORANI: Well, China's reacting to American criticism of its military spending with some decidedly undiplomatic imagery. Last week, during a tour of Asia, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney raised concerns about China's military buildup, up nearly 15 percent from last year. On Thursday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson compared the incident to a peeping tom.

He told reports, "If someone always tears through your clothes and even wants to lift open your underwear, saying, 'Let me see what's inside,' how would you feel"

China's defense spending has risen steadily in recent years -- Jim.

CLANCY: Now, a year and a half after Hurricane Katrina devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast, as well as the image of his administration, U.S. President George W. Bush back in the region. It's his 14th visit since Hurricane Katrina.

Mr. Bush's scheduled to talk with some of those who has received rebuilding grants. And he's also going to be visiting a charter school there in New Orleans.

President Bush's coordinator for the Gulf Coast recovery says Katrina's damage was so great, that it's hard to estimate when the recovery will really be completed. Residents in some areas of Louisiana and Mississippi are frustrated at what they say is a very slow pace of progress.

Now, the U.S. government says things are getting better in the Gulf Coast, but many of the residents, well, they might disagree.

To get a better idea of how things are going or not going along the Gulf Coast region, we're joined now by Terry O'Connor. He's editor of "The New Orleans City Business." He's lived there for five years.

You know, when the president comes, all the journalists would love to get an interview with him. But, you know, if you were to sit down with the president and he asks you, "What's the overview? What are the areas we need to be concerned about?" What would you say? TERRY O'CONNOR, EDITOR, "NEW ORLEANS CITY BUSINESS": Well, the first thing you would have to do is welcome President Bush back to New Orleans. It's always good to have him here on the ground. Then we would ask him for some action.

There are interrelated factors that are slowing and choking the recovery's momentum, and they're not terrible difficult to deal with.

The first one is the levees. We are still dealing with levee reconstruction by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that is modeled along the same failed business plan it used pre-Katrina. That is to say, it's underfunding the levees and it's rebuilding them in a piecemeal fashion that borders on the haphazard.

That's not the only problem they have, but it's the biggest one. And it should be our number one priority.

Number two is, we are still obligated to pay 10 percent back of the rebuilding funds we have been granted under the rules of the Stafford Act. This has amounted to $400 million, where the feds have given us this repair money and we've just had to pay it back so far more than any state has ever had to repay post-disaster. We would ask that they immediately waive all federal matching requirements, and that amounts to about another billion dollars in aid that we'd have to kick back.

That would really help the recovery.

CLANCY: Is the -- let me just break in here for a second.

O'CONNOR: Sure.

CLANCY: The president right now is in Mississippi. He'll be in New Orleans in a couple of hours.

O'CONNOR: Right.

CLANCY: But he's talking with the people there. And right now, he's with Haley Barbour and they're, you know, walking around. And I'm just wondering whether -- you know, there's been -- this is his 14th trip. Is there a sense that President Bush and the administration are doing enough?

O'CONNOR: Well, absolutely not. Again, we're very concerned that the president promised on Jackson Square September 15, 2005, to do whatever it takes to rebuild this great American city, and yet, we continue to underfund the levee construction. We continue to demand that Louisiana repay reparations that were meant to rebuild this arena. So, this is a big concern for us, certainly.

CLANCY: Well, you know, one of the areas I think that people really look to is what their healthcare is. And all of us remember that at its height, Katrina, you know, imposed a huge burden on the hospitals and the health clinics of the New Orleans area and along the Gulf Coast. But what's the situation there?

O'CONNOR: Well, it's interesting. Again, we talk again about interrelations. The levees -- the shakiness of the levees, the wobbliness, made too much pressure on the insurers. So the insurers decide it was too risky. They're pulling out.

Insurance rates soared. So healthcare costs began to soar because so many people came in that were uninsured or under-covered. Or they would wait too long to come in for treatment and they would come in and they would be in dire straits.

So, the healthcare is in crisis right now. Roughly 15 percent of the physicians have left because they aren't being compensated. Every single hospital in this area has lost tens of millions of uncompensated care. Roughly $100 million is in the pipeline to help make up that shortfall, yet only about $10 million has been given out to date, 18 months post-Katrina.

CLANCY: All right.

Well, Terry O'Connor there. A little bit of frustration reflecting the views of the people of New Orleans here as they try to get in some way or another back to normal.

Thank you very much.

O'CONNOR: You're welcome.

GORANI: Well, when YOUR WORLD TODAY returns, we'll get down to business.

CLANCY: That's right. We're going to go to New York and London for a closer look at what's going on with world markets.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

CLANCY: To no one's great surprise, Republican U.S. Senator John McCain announced plans he's going to be running for president. But the place he chose to make the announcement was something of a surprise. McCain made his informal announcement on Wednesday on a late-night TV talk show. McCain's top adviser telling CNN the senator will make his formal announcement in early April.

GORANI: Senator McCain is just the latest to announce he's running for president. He joins a race that seems wide open.

CLANCY: Now this is the first time since 1928 that neither a sitting president or his vice president is going to be trying to get that nomination.

GORANI: Jonathan Mann has more in our Insight segment.

JONATHAN MANN, CNN ANCHOR: This time around the road to the White House is starting with a traffic jam. Depending on how you do the math, there are at least 22 Democrats and Republican contenders officially declared raising money and planning their campaigns. You need a scorecard really to keep track, so we thought we would give you one, starting with the Democrats, and quite literally, the man on the left, Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio. Another even more distant longshot, former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel, and there's New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. He was a senator and a U.N. ambassador. Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, a Washington veteran, Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, another familiar face. You may remember he ran for president two decades ago.

And that brings us to the top three -- former senator John Edwards, who was John Kerry's runningmate three years ago, of course, Barack Obama, the big surging surprise of the Democratic field, and Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, who polls call the frontrunnter.

Get all that? Good. OK, we're going to move on to the Republicans now, starting with Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, a conservative popular with Christian activists, Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado. He's running a campaign really tough on immigration, pushing for new immigration laws, former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore, who says that there isn't a real committed conservative in the race, but he's one, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a former pastor with a passion for health issues. He actually slimmed down by 100 pounds. He's a diabetic and he needed to. Congressman Duncan Hunter, a decorated Vietnam vet who's strong on defense.

And then the three perceived Republican front-runners, former governor Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, a moderate who's been moving to the right, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, also seen as too moderate for some Republicans, but a staunch supporter of the war in Iraq, and now the last long-expected entry, John McCain, who has most vehemently called for more troops. It is a very crowded field.

CNN's Bill Schneider gives us a look at the competition upfront.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): The 2008 races are taking on a familiar shape: an establishment candidate and an outsider in each party. And, right now, the outsiders have the heat.

Hillary Clinton is the establishment Democrat. In last month's "Washington Post"-ABC News poll, Clinton had a big lead over outsider Barack Obama. Clinton is still ahead, but Obama is gaining ground, especially with African-Americans. Last month, Clinton led Obama among black Democrats by 3-1. Now Obama is ahead.

It's not that the black Democrats are souring on Clinton. Her popularity with blacks remains undiminished. But Obama is creating excitement.

DAN BALZ, "THE WASHINGTON POST": It's the fact that you have an African-American candidate who has a serious chance of becoming the nominee of the Democratic Party. And that, inevitably, is going to excite African-Americans around the country.

SCHNEIDER: In the 2000 Republican race, John McCain was the outsider. Now he's the establishment candidate.

BALZ: McCain obviously spent a good part of the last year trying to establish himself as the -- you know, as the -- the heir apparent in the Republican Party. And he had some success with that.

SCHNEIDER: Last month, McCain and outsider Rudy Giuliani were pretty close. Now Giuliani's way ahead. Why? Here's a surprise: evangelicals.

Last month, Giuliani and McCain were tied among evangelical Republicans. This month, Giuliani has surged into the lead. Doesn't Giuliani favor abortion rights and same-sex unions and gun control? Yes and no.

RUDOLPH GIULIANI (R), FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK: I am pro-choice, but I -- I'm also, as you know, always have been, against abortion.

SCHNEIDER: Giuliani makes a distinction between his personal views and what he would do as president.

GIULIANI: I would select judges who -- who try to interpret the Constitution, rather than invent it.

SCHNEIDER: And he has something else going for him. That would be 9/11.

(on camera): Republicans say Giuliani is the most inspiring candidate. Democrats say the same thing about Obama. They're the establishment outsiders.

Republicans give McCain the edge on experience, just as Democrats do with Clinton. They're the establishment candidates.

Now, which is it better to be? Establishment candidates usually win the nomination. But only after a tough fight.

Bill Schneider, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MANN: A tough fight that few will survive. Most of the candidates will drop out in fact in just the next few months. The first primaries are in the opening weeks of 2008 and only a handful candidates will get any further than that. Back to you.

CLANCY: All right. Jonathan Mann there. Really interesting, I think for our international viewers, they had a chance there to see the field, see why some of the front runners are front runners, and for Americans, well, did anybody know how many guys were actually in this race?

GORANI: All right, very few wide open, as we said a bit earlier.

Well, let's turn our attention now to another topic that we have been covering as well on YOUR WORLD TODAY. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been driven from their homes within their country, but also spilling over into neighboring countries.

CLANCY: And this is going to be a campaign issue as well. The United Nations is going to be holding a donor conference in April. They'll be talking about what they can do to raise some money to help these Iraqi refugees.

GORANI: Nic Robertson, our senior international correspondent, follows the experiences of one Iraqi family now in Jordan, forced to live there and hoping for asylum in the West.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Dr. Nafie Abtan had a thriving medical practice in Baghdad, a loving family, plenty of money.

DR. NAFIE ABTAN, IRAQI REFUGEE: I had a car.

ROBERTSON (on camera): Did you have a car her?

ABTAN: I drive it to clinic. Yes.

ROBERTSON: You had your own private clinic?

ABTAN: Yes.

ROBERTSON (voice over): But one hand-delivered letter took it all away.

ABTAN: "And if not, we should kill and cut your head."

ROBERTSON (on camera): They'll cut your head off.

(voice over): Dr. Abtan says he received this death threat last June.

ABTAN: "We tell to you leave your job and to travel and leave the country."

ROBERTSON: Three days later, he fled Iraq for neighboring Jordan, taking his wife, Suhare (ph) and son Mutaz (ph) with him.

(on camera): When you look at your life now, how do you feel about your situation?

ABTAN: For security, it's better. The life outside not good. Our life not good. Salary not good.

ROBERTSON (voice over): When they do go out shopping, it's to look, not buy. Dr. Abtan earns $600 a month treating cancer patients at a local hospital. Rent for his tiny apartment takes one third. The rest pays the bills.

They watch Iraqi TV. Violence has killed 10 of Dr. Abtan's relatives and four friends. Two of them doctors, murdered at their work. Suhare (ph) has lost three relatives. Neither of them think they can go back any time soon. They want better lives now.

ABTAN: I need to get a visa to another country.

ROBERTSON (on camera): Which country?

ABTAN: (INAUDIBLE) countries.

ROBERTSON: Such as?

ABTAN: Such as the British, USA.

ROBERTSON: I'll get on the other side.

(voice over): We go with him when he heads to the U.S. Embassy to learn more about the newly announced 7,000 refugee visas the U.S. says it will offer to Iraqis. He's upbeat. He may have that chance of a new life.

We watch as he heads off to the embassy. But his is not an isolated case.

(on camera): No one knows for sure exactly how many Iraqi refugees are here. The U.N.'s best estimates put the figure at around 700,000. In the United States, that would be roughly the equivalent of an additional 30 million people coming into the country.

(voice over): Jordan is struggling to cope.

NASSER JUDEH, JORDANIAN GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN: It does stretch the country. It is a strain on our natural resources. We're one of the poorest countries in the world in terms of water resources. Our economy is already strained. We have problems with unemployment.

ROBERTSON: After Saddam Hussein's fall, rich Ba'athists fled to Jordan, driving up property prices.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't find any work here.

ROBERTSON: But in the pat year, Iraq's brain drain of doctors, lawyers and engineers have been coming, too. They all want visas to move on. Jordan's government is afraid if they don't get them, they'll all stay.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CLANCY: All right, we're going to have more on the Iraqi refugee crisis coming up right after a short break.

GORANI: Well, Nic Robertson continues his report with the plight of Iraqis who fled to Jordan, putting a strain on government resources there.

CLANCY: And then a little bit later, long before Angelina Jolie, Audrey Hepburn made charity glamorous and she still is. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GORANI: Welcome back. You're watching YOUR WORLD TODAY on CNN International.

CLANCY: And we are pleased to be seen in more than 200 countries right around the globe.

GORANI: All right, and that's includes Jordan. And we return to Nic Robertson's account of the refugee crisis that has resulted from the war in that country.

CLANCY: And you know, it's important to realize that there is two dimensions to this. There's an internal dimension, where Iraqis move around their own country to flee the violence. But some of them swarm across their borders looking for their neighbors to help.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Jordanian border officials strip down an Iraqi car searching for weapons. This is Jordan's front line in preventing Iraq's war from spilling across its border. But every day, the war spills over anyway. Over the months, thousands of people, refugees, running away from violence.

This auto parts dealer from Ramadi told us his house had been burned, 20 relatives killed. He is now leaving to start a new, safer life.

(on camera): Every day it's like this, border officials say, with a constant trickle of Iraqis leaving their country because of the violence, but that steady flow is leading to a crisis now in Jordan cities.

(voice over): With Iraqis now more than one-tenth of Jordan's population...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's been a simmering crisis for quite a while. And it's just coming to everybody's realization.

ROBERTSON (on camera): It's about 9:30 in the evening. And if you want to find Iraqis in Amman, this is one of the best places to come to, the Falluja Kabob Cafe (ph).

Hello. Hello.

(voice over): Everyone has a story to tell.

(on camera): They killed him, yes?

(voice over): We are shown camera phone video of one man's dead brother, killed, he says, by the militant Shiite Mehdi militia. He is angry the international community isn't doing more to help and scorns America's offer of just 7,000 refugee visas. Jordan's government wants many more U.S. visas for the 700,000 Iraqis already here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope that we can see more of that.

ROBERTSON (on camera): How much more do you need?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't want to get into numbers, but certainly, I mean, you know, you just have to do the math, as they say.

ROBERTSON (voice over): We are waiting as Dr. Abtan returns from the American embassy. He looks downcast.

ABTAN: I have reached the American ambassador section. They say to me, "Have you worked with the American military in Iraq?". I say to them, "No, I am a doctor." They say to me, no, not come here. You go direct to U.N.

ROBERTSON (on camera): They said if you haven't worked with the American military in Iraq they can't help with you the visa?

ABTAN: Yes.

ROBERTSON: How did you feel about that?

ABTAN: I feel disaster, frustration.

ROBERTSON: American consul officials say they are "ramping up" the Iraqi settlement program and for Iraqi refugees who have experienced or fear serious harm due to their association with the U.S. government in Iraq, the U.S. government "seeks to ensure that they have access to protection and assistance. We refer all Iraqis who approach us claiming to be refugees to the UNHCR."

U.N. officials worry that some of the U.S. visa slots for refugees will be taken up by Iraqis who have worked for the U.S. government, including military translators. The result, even fewer slots for noncombatants. And the U.N. caught in the middle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're talking with them earlier this week to figure and out exactly how best to do this. We're uncomfortable with it.

ROBERTSON: And that worry seems to be playing out among Dr. Abtan and his refugee friends. They can't get visas.

ABTAN: Many of Iraqi peoples thinking about illegally going to Europe and they pay much money, dollars, $10,000, $12,000 to get -- to reach Germany.

ROBERTSON (on camera): And Jordan isn't the only country filling with Iraqi refugees. There an estimated one million in Syria, about 120,000 in Egypt, 40,000 in Lebanon. And inside Iraq, there's an estimated one to two million interntally displaced people forced out of their own homes.

(voice-over): Iraq's refugees now spilling across the region and beyond. Nic Robertson, CNN, on the Jordan/Iraq border.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLANCY: We're going to be hearing a lot more about this story, what's happening to these refugees. They're having a tremendous impact, raising housing prices, creating some friction. At least in Jordan you see some of those pressures coming to bear now.

GORANI: And in Syria, we saw there in Nic's piece, a million refugees in the Damascus area. Also in the Alipo (ph) area, some middle class who made it out earlier, others desperate and with very little money who are in other parts of Syria.

And those individuals are changing the makeup of some of the cities they've established themselves in. So really an interesting story on so many different levels.

CLANCY: And we're going to continue to watch it there. We're going to take a short break, we'll be right back with more of YOUR WORLD TODAY.

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GORANI: In life, Audrey Hepburn was of course known for her style and glamour. But also for her charitable works. Now 14 years after her death, Hepburn's philanthropic legacy is still being appreciated in a town near Calcutta, India.

Last year you may remember the dress she wore in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" was sold for a record, just for that dress, $800,000. Well, the proceeds from the sale have gone into building 15 schools in India. One dress, 15 schools. On Wednesday, French author and philanthropist Dominique Lapierre opened one of the schools. Two hundred of the town's children will be attending that institution were there to celebrate.

CLANCY: I don't think we'll ever be able to watch "Breakfast at Tiffany's" again without thinking about what happened to that dress when you see it.

GORANI: And it went really toward a good cause.

CLANCY: All right. As financial markets remain on shaky ground, we wanted to know how you're handling it.

GORANI: Well, are you buying, selling or holding stocks today? We have been asking your thoughts throughout the day here on CNN. And here is how some of you have responded.

CLANCY: Anjana in London wrote this in: "My motto is if you don't venture, you don't gain."

GORANI: Dan in California says: "There are two types of people in the market, traders and investors. I'm an investor." Long term, it seems like.

CLANCY: Now Henning in Germany says: "Sold out every stock. Never fight the big guys. They are stronger than you." GORANI: And Jane from Korea writes: "I'm holding my portfolio and buying new shares. I'm still very confident in the emerging markets."

CLANCY: Well keep those e-mails coming our way. The address, yourviews@CNN.com.

GORANI: All right. Tell us your name, where you're writing from. We'll read a selection throughout the day. That's it for this hour. I'm Hala Gorani.

CLANCY: I'm Jim Clancy. Stay tuned, the news continues right here on CNN.

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