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Karl Rove to Step Down; Taliban Sets Two Hostages Free; NASA Debates What to do About Damaged Tiles

Aired August 13, 2007 - 12:00   ET

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

HALA GORANI, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: An exit from President Bush's inner circle. A top aide announces his departure from the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We worked together so we could be in a position to serve this country. And so I thank my friend.

I will be on the road behind you here in a little bit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIM CLANCY, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Released on a roadside. Two South Koreans are safe, but 19 of their colleagues remain in Taliban hands.

GORANI: And Mission Control mulls a decision. Tests on the ground will determine if astronauts have to repair damaged tiles in orbit.

CLANCY: It's 11:00 in the morning in Houston, Texas, 8:30 p.m. in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Hello and welcome, everyone, to our report broadcast around the globe.

I'm Jim Clancy.

GORANI: I'm Hala Gorani.

From Sydney to Seoul, Washington to Warsaw, wherever you are watching, this is YOUR WORLD TODAY.

He has been on board with George W. Bush since the very beginning of his political career, engineering strategies that twice won Bush the White House.

GORANI: Now the man that some call the architect, others more derisively Bush's brain, say -- says it's time to bow out.

CLANCY: Karl Rove, the U.S. president's chief political strategist, spoke to reporters just a short time ago, announcing in an emotional, sometimes quavering voice, he's stepping down.

Let's start with Suzanne Malveaux. She's at the White House right now.

Karl Rove, you could hear his voice cracking. An emotional moment for him, but he didn't stop spinning about the achievements of George W. Bush.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly not, because you can't separate the achievements of George W. Bush and Karl Rove, really. It's one in the same here.

These two men have been working together side by side for some 34 years. He helped the president become the governor of Texas and then ushered him into the White House for some two terms.

His fingerprints are on everything that this president, this administration, has done. So really can't overstate what this means, the significance of him leaving. We heard from both men, who seem to be quite emotional about this moment, and it's a moment, quite frankly, that many people did not think was going to happen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARL ROVE, SR. WHITE HOUSE ADVISER: It's not been an easy decision. As you know from our discussions, it started last summer. It always seemed there was a better time to leave somewhere out there in the future. But now is the time.

I will miss, deeply miss, my work here, my colleagues, and the opportunity to serve you and our nation, Mr. President. But I look forward to continuing our friendship of 34 years, to being your fierce and committed advocate on the outside, and to the next journey we might make together.

BUSH: We worked together so we could be in a position to serve this country. And so I thank my friend.

I will be on the road behind you here in a little bit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Now, of course, a lot of people are questioning the timing of this announcement and of this decision. Some Democrats openly wondering if he is walking away because he's trying to avoid the numerous investigations that are calling for him to go before members of Congress to testify, to explain various activities of the administration, including the scandal -- the controversy, rather, over the firing of some eight U.S. attorneys.

Well, I spoke with Karl Rove this morning. We've been exchanging e-mails over the morning, and I put that question to him, say8ing, "How do you respond to those who say essentially that you are being run out of town?"

Karl Rove said, and I'm quoting here, "That sounds like the rooster claiming to have called up the sun," simply meaning that he says he's doing this on his own terms, that recently it was Chief of Staff Josh Bolten who confronted senior aides and said, if you plan on staying after Labor Day, then you are going to be staying for the rest of the term, so you need to make some decisions.

And Rove said that he made this decision and he decided to resign, that now is the right time. But as you know, I mean, he is not only responsible for the big successes of the administration when it comes to the campaigns, the compassionate conservative agenda, the political conservative agenda, he is also responsible for the failures as well -- immigration reform, Social Security reform, big-item tickets that never came to fruition.

He was under a cloud of scandal, if you will, over the CIA leak investigation. Found that he was one of the leakers brought before a grand jury five times but ultimately not charged with any kind of criminal activity or illegal wrongdoing.

They lost the control of Congress, the Republicans. So, clearly, it's a mixed record here. But it's important to understand, this is one of the most powerful men in this administration.

CLANCY: Suzanne, just very, very briefly, Karl Rove has been with President Bush in any -- you named them. You know, immigration, Social Security. You know, all of this realignment in the White House. He has been with Bush every step of the way.

Is his stepping aside mean this presidency is essentially over?

MALVEAUX: Well, it certainly is a transition, make no mistake about it. I mean, this is a very significant mark, what has happened today. And you really can't understate that -- overstate that, rather.

I mean, he has been called -- President Bush calls him "The Architect". He even has a friendly term. He calls him "Turd Blossom," which is simply the name of a Texas flower that blossoms in dung. And it means that he's able to make something out of just about anything.

CLANCY: All right. Suzanne Malveaux at the White House there with a little inside track for us on Karl Rove today. Hitting out one last time at his Democratic critics.

Thank you.

Now, his admirers, of course, say that Rove is pure political genius. But the critics, even those who grudgingly agree, say controversy really tarnishes his record.

GORANI: Well, here's some background on Rove's lengthy career.

He met George W. Bush in the 1970s and helped him become governor of Texas two decades later. Now, Rove then engineered the conservative agenda that galvanized the Republican base nationwide, catapulting Mr. Bush to the White House.

CLANCY: Still, Hala, we have to note Rove's political start dimmed a lot when Democrats took control of Congress last November. He's also been dogged by the scandal over the leak of a CIA operative's name, Valerie Plame. A special prosecutor investigated him, but as Suzanne just told us, he was never charged.

GORANI: Now, in a more recent controversy, Rove has refused to testify before Congress about the firing of U.S. federal attorneys.

Now President Bush's popularity is near record low levels. What part, if any, did that play in Rove's decision to resign?

CLANCY: Yes. We have been looking at this all morning. And it was interesting to see Rove, even right up there until the last moment, standing alongside the president as they stepped out here on the White House lawn to announce his resignation. His voice was quavering, yes, but he was still spinning. He was still talking about how George W. Bush's legacy was going to mean something for decades to come, that some of the change and the agenda that he set was going to remain.

Now, a lot of critics would say that is not the case.

GORANI: Right. And also, this is something that's important now at the end of a political adviser's career for the George W. Bush White House. What is the legacy of this man standing to the left of the president going to be?

Now, he...

CLANCY: He's going to write a book, for one thing.

GORANI: He's going to write a book. He's also perhaps going to enter academia. He's going to probably give speeches all over the country.

Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider joins us now from Washington with some perspective on the Rove resignation.

Why now for Karl Rove? Why step down now, Bill?

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, he said he has been discussing this with the president for about a year. And the real triggering mechanism came when the chief of staff of the White House, Josh Bolten, told the senior staff that if they were -- if they stayed in the White House past Labor Day, they would be expected to remain through the end of Mr. Bush's term, which is until near the end of January 2009, another 16 months.

So, obviously, Karl Rove had to decide to leave now or wait another 16 months. And his decision, which he had been thinking about for some time, is to leave now.

GORANI: All right. Now, there are many victories that Karl Rove can claim. Of course, getting George Bush elected twice, two of them.

But what will his legacy be? Because he's not leaving on a high note either for the Bush White House or, of course, after last fall's defeat to the Democrats and congressional elections and other controversies.

What will his legacy be?

SCHNEIDER: Well, President Bush described him as "The Architect" of his election campaigns. Not just for president, but also back in Texas for governor.

But he also has been called somewhat derisively by the critics and by many Democrats, "Bush's brain." The implication that Bush can't think for himself, he's dependent on Karl Rove.

He is, in fact, a political strategist with a very big plan. And the plan was to create a majority governing coalition that would outlast President Bush, that would prove durable for the Republican Party for many years. That was not to be.

Clearly, the 2006 midterm election was a big setback. Right up until the end he predicted the Republicans would regain control of Congress. And that was a blow, because it showed that the coalition that elected and re-elected George Bush barely elected him without the majority of the popular vote, did get him re-elected in 2004.

It just doesn't seem to be lasting. And that's mostly because of the Iraq war, and because I think that the failure of the immigration reform bill was a blow to Karl Rove because that was an important piece of the political coalition that he was trying to construct.

GORANI: And speaking of the post-Bush era, the Iowa Straw Poll...

SCHNEIDER: Oh yes.

GORANI: ... a victory for Mitt Romney. But then again, we didn't really have the participation of Rudy Giuliani or John McCain.

What does that mean then? What do the results mean in that context?

SCHNEIDER: Well, I think it does give Mitt Romney a bit of a boost. He gets some publicity from this.

He is not a well-known figure nationally. He's concentrated on Iowa, New Hampshire, where he is well known and spent a lot of money. It shows that he has the resources to have a strong organization that can turn out voters.

That is what Iowa is all about, not just the Straw Poll, but also the caucuses in January. You have to be organized because you have to get people to attend a meeting -- a caucus is a meeting -- on a freezing January night.

So he shows he is a serious contender. And I think he will get some publicity, and he hopes a little bit of a boost in the national polls.

GORANI: All right. Our senior political analyst, Bill Schneider.

Thanks so much for joining us.

SCHNEIDER: Sure.

CLANCY: A major development on the international front -- South Korea and for perhaps the world -- breathing a small sigh of relief. Word coming that two female hostages seized by the Taliban are free now. Still, there is so much anxiety that remains over the fate of those 19 still held in captivity.

Our Sohn Jie-Ae is monitoring developments in Seoul and brings us the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SOHN JIE-AE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Finally, after nearly a month, some good news coming from Afghanistan. The South Korean government confirming that two of the 23 South Korean Christian aide workers that were kidnapped by Taliban militants were released.

The South Korean government confirmed that the two South Korean female hostages were 37-year-old Kim Yung-Da (ph) and 32-year-old Kim Ji-Na (ph). The South Korean government said the two had been released into South Korean custody and they would be looked -- they would be examined by South Korean medical personnel in Afghanistan before being flown home.

The South Korean government said that while they consider this a very fortunate act, that they were urging the Taliban to release the remaining 19 still in custody, and that they would continue to try to secure the safety of the remaining South Korean hostages. Shortly after the South Korean government announcement, the family members of the two released South Korean hostages had a meeting with the press. The brothers of Kim Yung-Da (ph) and Kim Ji-Na (ph) said first that they apologized to the Korean people for causing such concern, but they also said that while they were happy that their family members were released, that their hearts were heavy because there were 19 South Korean hostages that were still in custody.

Sohn Jie-Ae, CNN, Seoul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CLANCY: You are with YOUR WORLD TODAY.

Still ahead, shoot to kill.

GORANI: Those words from a decades-old memo to East German guards patrolling the Berlin Wall. Now as Germans remember victims of the former oppressive communist regime, that memo is fueling both emotions and controversy.

CLANCY: And desert crossing. Hundreds upon hundreds of Sudanese refugees making a trek across the Sinai to go where? To Israel, where they will find a very uncertain future at best.

GORANI: Up next, though, another spacewalk. Here are some live pictures as NASA ponders possible repairs for the shuttle. It could be a risky endeavor.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CLANCY: Hello, everyone, and welcome back. This is YOUR WORLD TODAY on CNN International.

GORANI: All right. We're bringing you the top stories of the day, 200 countries and territories across the globe, including this hour the United States.

Welcome, everyone.

Rescue crews are expected to begin drilling a third hole in a Utah coal mine. It's part of an effort to find six miners trapped underground for more than a week now.

A camera sent down bore a hole, finding no signs of life there. But lighting was limited. The camera did spot a tool bag and a chain, objects that aren't typically seen in mines. Officials are still holding out hope that the miners may be alive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB MURRAY, PRESIDENT & CEO, MURRAY ENERGY: They're some of the most difficult mining conditions in attempting to get access to these miners, and they are the most difficult conditions that I have ever seen in my 50 years of mining.

As you know, I have been underground myself about every other day and have viewed the conditions. People are dedicated, every item that they would need has been committed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI: Well, officials say that drilling the third hole could take up to six days -- Jim.

CLANCY: All right.

Up in orbit, shuttle astronauts beginning a six-hour spacewalk. They're going to be working on the International Space Station.

Meantime, back on Earth, at Mission Control, they have got a lot to think about as well.

Miles O'Brien, our space correspondent, joins us now.

Always great to see you.

First, we've got some live pictures, I think.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

CLANCY: What's going on up there on the space station? O'BRIEN: I'll bring you up to date.

They have been on the spacewalk for about 40 minutes right now. You're taking a look right now at the helmet camera of Rick Mastracchio, one of the space-walking astronauts.

And there you see it. That is a failed Controlled Moment Gyro. Fancy term for a spinning top which is on the space station. There are four of them which allow the station to move in orbit, make navigational changes without having to burn rocket fuel.

It's a renewable energy source because it's powered by the solar arrays which you see in the top portion of your picture there. This one has failed. They're going to pull it out, pop a new one on today. Very important task.

Meanwhile, the other task.

CLANCY: Yes, that would be back on the Earth. I mean, Mission Control has got a lot to think about.

O'BRIEN: They do, indeed.

Let's go back to launch, first of all, and get people up to speed on what happened.

Fifty-eight seconds after launch, take a look. You see that kind of spray that's coming off of there as it hits the base of the space shuttle Endeavor? Or looping it around there over and over again.

What happened was, a piece of foam -- you remember the foam from Columbia...

CLANCY: Oh yes.

O'BRIEN: ... and how it can cause problems. It fell off. There you see it highlighted as it goes down off the side of the external fuel tank.

The foam is there to insulate that tank. It ricocheted off a strut, a bad bounce, and hit the shuttle. Caused four dings. One of them pretty significant, and that's what they are looking at right now.

Now, yesterday, the astronauts got out there with a fancy laser device which provides a 3D image. There you see another shot.

CLANCY: You've got some close-ups.

O'BRIEN: Yes. And we'll show you this close-up.

It's -- when you look at it, it's kind of telling. It's not that big. It's about six centimeters by four centimeters. But look right in the middle where the two -- where the seam is.

And as you can see, it's deep. It goes all the way, they think, to the shuttle's aluminum skin.

Now, this particular spot would endure temperatures of about a thousand degrees Centigrade coming in, 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit. So you want to pay careful attention to this.

The question is, do they need to repair it? They've got some options.

CLANCY: Can they repair it? Do they have the capability of doing that out there?

O'BRIEN: Three options in their toolkit. They can -- and they've practiced this. They did this on the first mission after we lost Columbia.

You see that? It almost looks like they're applying shoe polish. That's a good analogy.

It's kind of a -- it's a black liquid that goes on there. It enhances the ability of a chipped piece of tile like that to shed heat.

The second one would be like to fill it in, like you would if you took your car to the auto body shop. Sort of a high-tech...

CLANCY: A resin.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

CLANCY: Yes.

O'BRIEN: And then the final technique that they have is they could actually bolt a plate on it to cover it over. None of this has ever been tried for real in space. They tested it out, but they never staked a crew on it.

Now, take a look at this. This is not from this flight. Let's make that very clear.

NASA put this out because it wanted to point out this is the first flight after Challenger back in 1988, Discovery. Of course, back then they weren't doing on-orbit inspections. When it came back, huge gash, same location, all the way down to the skin. Discovery was fine.

So, they are going to factor all of this in. They've put some tiles in a blast furnace today. Computer simulations. By the end of the day we should know whether they will do a repair.

CLANCY: All right. Miles O'Brien, keep us posted here in the hours and days ahead on this mission. It's an important one. And well, as always, we are learning something.

O'BRIEN: All right. Thanks, Jim.

CLANCY: Miles O'Brien. GORANI: Let's get back to Earth.

Are you burned out on Knut, the cute polar bear cub? Well, the Berlin Zoo has something new to test your attention span.

CLANCY: Yes. This time it's a baby hippopotamus. And he's already got his name. Paul was born May 17th, which makes him just a little bit shy now, Hala, of 3 months of age.

GORANI: Paul? I don't know. That's a little bit sort of trite, Paul, compared to Knut.

Well, it's safe to say his cute face in the limelight will be relatively short-lived because hippos apparently grow a whole lot faster than baby bear cubs. And go ahead and...

CLANCY: Yes. Well, he's 60 kilos, or 60 pounds.

GORANI: Take a look at that little cutie.

CLANCY: He's a great guy. You know, in the wild, though, the hippos are the most dangerous African animal in all of Africa.

GORANI: I believe you, Jim. I believe you.

CLANCY: They're pretty docile, but very territorial.

GORANI: OK. I won't test that theory out.

We're going to take a short break. When we come back, a much more serious story.

CLANCY: A Cold War document generating some heat in Germany.

GORANI: West Berliners knew that guards along the Berlin Wall were trigger happy, but they didn't know how vicious the East German government had been in dealing with defection attempts with direct orders until now.

CLANCY: And then later, he was, of course, called "The Architect," Bush's brain," a number of other names. Even by the president himself.

We'll have more on the resignation announcement of Karl Rove after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

GORANI: Hello. Welcome from all over the world, and this hour, the United States. This is YOUR WORLD TODAY.

CLANCY: I'm Jim Clancy and these are some of the top stories we are following right now. The Taliban releasing two South Korean women, in what they call gesture of good will. The two women were reportedly ill. They were part of a group of 23 Christian aide workers taken hostage in Afghanistan last month. Two men in the group have been executed. These two have been released; 19 remain held by the Taliban.

GORANI: Also, in the headlines, NASA says engineers should know by tomorrow, Tuesday, whether they will try to repair damage to the outside of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, while it is still in orbit, up in space. Heat resistant tiles on the outside of the shuttle were damaged by a piece of falling insulating foam just after last Wednesday's launch.

CLANCY: U.S. President George W. Bush losing his chief political strategist, Karl Rove says he will resign at the end of the month. Ending decades of service to Mr. Bush; service he called the joy and honor of a lifetime.

GORANI: Well, engineered strategies that energized Republicans across the Unite States, helping Mr. Bush win the White House, twice. He is a colorful figure who is no stranger to controversy. His mastery of the political game won him widespread respect.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAREN HUGHES, PUBLIC DIPLOMACY & PUBLIC AFFAIRS: Karl is brilliant. He's funny. And he's a passionate advocate for the president and his policies. I know he will continue to play that role outside of the administration. We will all miss him a great deal, of course.

STEPHANIE CUTTER, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think he is a brilliant mind. I think where he went wrong he tried to run the White House and the federal government like a campaign. I think that's the results we are living through now.

BILL BENNETT, BILL BENNETT'S MORNING IN AMERICA: The headlines should be "Rove leaves unindicted." In some ways that's an achievement these days. The political temperature is so hot and there were so many people after Karl Rove, the fact he was able to leave and leave freely is a good thing.

JIM VANDEHEI, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, POLITICO.COM: Rove is one of the most powerful people we have seen in the White House in some time, especially somebody that has not been elected. The idea he could be replaced, that he simply could not be replaced. Because he does politics, he does policy. He does sort of the nuts and bolts infrastructure of election politics from this White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CLANCY: President Bush's fond of giving nicknames to close associates. He has a lot of them for Karl Rove. Some of them -- well, frankly we can't tell you. One of them was "The Architect". Given to Rove for spearheading Mr. Bush's reelection victory back in 2004. Let's get some perspective. Joining us, Wayne Slater, a writer for "The Dallas Morning News." And co-author of "The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for Absolute Power."

Now, someone would read that headline and say -- that book title -- and say here's a real critic of Mr. Rove. But when you look -- you can say he's the brain, you can say he's the architect. Where's he leaving President Bush? At the low point in his entire presidency and popularity with the United States, some historic lows. Can he be called a success?

WAYNE SLATER, "DALLAS MORNING NEWS": Well, I think what he can be called is someone extraordinarily successful in the politics of politics. Basically, there have been few political figures inside the White House in the last century closer to a president, few people have been so crucial in Gorge Bush's, as president's political rise from the beginning. Election as governor, through the second term in the White House.

On the one hand he's brilliant as a political strategist. And yet, at the end, we have seen this colossal failure by the Bush administration, this collapse. He has to bear some responsibility for that as well.

CLANCY: As a governor of Texas, he came to the White House, one of the first things he said he would do was re-energize the debate over immigration, and try to make some changes here. Make the millions of Mexicans who come across the border, illegally, make them into some kind of guest workers, and this was a goal Karl Rove was supposed to be spearheading. Neither guy got even close.

SLATER: Absolutely. And it worked in Texas, in a small way, the few things the governor did when he was here. But it clearly was something that Rove, and the president, and others in the White House couldn't see. There was a blind spot. And, in fact, I blame in large part Karl Rove and his politics.

That's to say, that he approached the White House to win by division. To divide Republicans from Democrats, and in some cases, various elms within the Republican Party against itself. That strategy works and worked for a series of elections so long as you only wanted to win by a vote or two. You divide the field and conquer. You work with your wedge shoes and push the things you want. What it leaves you is incapable of effectively governing and that's what happened. The Republican base turned against George Bush on this issue.

CLANCY: What did he do to politics in general? He was -- as you say, he was divisive. The president who took office saying that he wanted to be the great uniter of the American people. And anything but -- a lot of people pointed the finger at Karl Rove.

SLATER: The president was a divider. He wanted to be in the first years. He was that kind of politician in Texas. But you are right. In the -- after the -- aftermath of 9/11, Karl saw that the approach that would be most successful would be a very sharp and ruthless division of the electorate around terrorism, but also around gay marriage, abortion, religious expression and other things that effectively left the architecture of the architect's dream of an enduring majority, really in doubt, and as we have seen, pretty much collapsing around him.

Wayne Slater, in a word, yes or no, does this signal the end of the Bush presidency?

SLATER: This is the end of the Bush presidency, absolutely. All lame ducks are lame ducks. This one with Karl Rove now turning out the lights is the most lame duck we have seen in a long time.

CLANCY: Wayne Slater, political writer for "The Dallas Morning News." I want to thank you for taking the time to be with us.

GORANI: For not mincing your words. Thanks very much.

Let's check the other stories making the news this hour.

CLANCY: We will begin in Iraq. Prime Minister Al Maliki, there, calling a crisis summit, trying so solve his country's deadlock. His own personal political crisis, he wants a Sunni bloc boycotting the government to come back in. He says if they do not he will find other Sunni ministers to replace them.

GORANI: Also in the headlines, the man accused of being Russia's deadliest serial killer goes on trial. Alexander Pitushkin (ph) claims to have murdered dozens of people in a park over several years. He says he would mark off his victims on a chess board, trying to fill all 64 squares.

CLANCY: Hollywood remembering this man. Merv Griffin, former talk show host, died of prostate cancer over the weekend. Griffin, probably best known for creating a game shows called "Jeopardy!" and "Wheel of fortune." The entertainer also built his personal fortune, acquiring luxury hotels and casinos.

GORANI: And Griffin was 82 years old. All those shows are all over the world, syndicated.

Also the head of a Chinese manufacturing company that's been the focus of a large American toy recall, has reportedly killed himself. State-run newspaper says he died just two days after China banned exports from the company because of excessive lead in the paint used on the popular toys. The U.S. based distributor, Mattel, recalled almost a million toys after the problem was discovered.

Now taking you back to Europe and to Germany. Where controversy surrounds the anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall. A document has surfaced that may explain the deaths of hundreds of attempted defectors. As Frederick Pleitgen reports, East German guards were under orders to show no mercy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERICK PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): For many Germans, the ceremonies commemorating those killed at the Berlin Wall have become a somewhat boring routine. But on this 46th anniversary of the construction of the wall, Germany is debating a document that for many drives home the brutality of the Communist regime like never before.

A memo from the East German secret service ordering border guards to shoot to kill, even women and children, trying to escape to the West.

"Do not hesitate to use your weapon, even if the illegal border crossing involves women and children. The traitors have often exploited women and children for their ends," the paper, dating back to 1973, reads.

It is causing many Germans' tempers to flare.

"I would just put the former East German leader up against the wall and shoot him," this many says. "Not just put these people in jail, shoot them."

Others want murder trials against those that gave the orders. Many of whom have never been investigated. Hundreds lost their lives trying to make it from East to West Germany, many of them in Berlin. The exact number may never be known.

On August 13th, 1961, the Communist regime began construction of the wall. A barrier to shield East Germany from capitalists infiltration, leaders said. But the border guards were aiming their rifles at their own people.

(On camera): This is what people in West Berlin saw when they looked at the wall; a 12-foot high concrete barrier. But the wall was more. It was a system of booby traps, of barbed wire and machine gun positions designed to kill anyone who tried to breach it.

(Voice over): The East German government always denied that shoot to kill orders existed. Lies, Guenther Nooke says he was an opposition leader in East Germany. He's now Germany's human rights commissioner. Nooke is against new trials against former Communist officials, but he says the document is important to keep the debate alive.

GUENTHER NOOKE, GERMAN COMM. FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: The authorities in the former GDR are involved in such an order. And that they were human rights violators, as many others today.

PLEITGEN: Human rights violations at this country continues to grapple with, almost two decades after the end of the Communist regime. Frederick Pleitgen, CNN, Berlin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CLANCY: Coming up on YOUR WORLD TODAY, they don't have passports and they may not have visas, but they have a destination -- Israel.

GORANI: Hundreds, perhaps even thousands of refugees from Sudan make a harrowing trek across the desert to reach the Jewish State.

CLANCY: But many will be facing a huge disappointment, Hala. We will have their story next. GORANI: And later, remembering The King; 30 years after his death, the legend of Elvis Presley lives on, strong as ever.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CLANCY: Hello everyone and welcome back to CNN International and YOUR WORLD TODAY.

GORANI: All the top news stories the world wants to know in this hour, in the United States as well. Now taking you to the Middle East and parts of Africa. They come by the thousands from refugee camps in Sudan, across the burning Sinai Desert -- and if they survive, usually wind up in an Israeli jail. Atika Shubert has more on Israel's growing crises.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN INTL. CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It's a long way from the refugee camps of Sudan to Israel. Yet, more than a 1,000 have made the journey, often on foot. Many end up here in prison. Waiting for Israel to decide what to do with them.

MARK REGEV, ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER: This whole issue of people crossing the border at Sinai, people from Africa, it is a new issue, and it has taken us a while to get the government to respond.

SHUBERT: Since the beginning of the year, an estimated 2,800 Africans have crossed from Egypt into Israel. Almost half are believed to be refugees from Sudan. The rest, Israel says, are economic migrants.

(On camera): Israeli government is now trying to determine who stays and who goes, making the wait even longer. Some Israeli citizens are taking matters into their own hands.

An army of volunteers is working to place Sudanese in family homes across Israel. Often, in Israel's agricultural communities, where they can find work. The government's plan to keep them in prisons is not working, they say.

ELISHEVA MILIKOWSKY, VOLUNTEER: They don't have a place to be. And so it was unbelievable that Israel puts them in jail.

SHUBERT: Israeli student Elisheva Milikowsky put her degree on hold to become a volunteer. She takes us to an apartment where she placed 11 Sudanese men. So cramped they have to queue to make space for their Muslim prayers. They asked us not to show their faces fearing reprisals on their families back home.

AHMED, SUDANESE REFUGEE: I was sought to come to Israel because when we came we were just looking protection, but we didn't get enough protection for us.

I was thinking it was better, but until now I'm not seeing things as enough protection.

SHUBERT: When asked to pick the one place in the world to live, the answer was immediate.

AHMED: I wish there was space in Darfur, and there is a new government. And I return back to my home country, because there is no place like home.

SHUBERT: The next best thing, they say, is a temporary home here, if Israel will let them stay. Atika Shubert, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GORANI: And this is a big debate in Israel and elsewhere. Refugees coming from a region that some say is going through a genocide, going to Israel.

Would you like to have an impact on YOUR WORLD. You can, of course, check out our website at CNN.com/impact. We just make it easy for to you find links to organizations like CARE and Covenant House and other organizations dedicated to helping the world's refugees. There is also a link to a charity navigator, where you can find a more complete list of organizations.

CLANCY: A British parliamentary committee says the international community's refusal to deal with the Palestinian group Hamas is doing more harm than good. And a report released Monday the group said the policy of isolating Hamas and dealing only with Fatah will jeopardize peace in the long term

The report also says that London must consider ways of engaging with moderate elements within Hamas.

GORANI: Now, in the U.S. state of Minnesota, the weekend saw a double funeral for a mother and her daughter. They died in that interstate bridge collapse a few weeks ago. Two of the nine victims confirmed killed there. The tragedy of their deaths compounded by the story of their lives. Jeff Flock explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): They came to America from their native war-torn Somalia, to escape this very scene. Funerals in the wake of inexplicable and senseless tragedy.

IMAN HAMADY EL-SAWAF, MASJID AL-IKHLAS: Sometimes we think we're away from death. We think we've escaped death but, all of a sudden, we find death in front of us. Not to die in Somalia, and not to die somewhere else, but to die in the United States of America, in Minnesota, and that tragedy of the collapse of the bridge.

FLOCK: Traveling across the W-35 bridge, Sadiya (ph) Sahal, and her daughter, Hannah, strapped into the back seat. Sadiya (ph) was also five months pregnant.

"We believe in destiny," her father tells me. "We must accept. It's part of a test for everyone." He explains that Sadiya's (ph) husband is too distraught to watch the burial of his wife and daughter. (On camera): Is there any part of you, Sir, that wishes you did not come to America?

AHMED SAHAL, VICTIM'S FATHER: I believe part of our tradition and belief system that we have, this will happen wherever I would go, if it was or if it were part of my fate and destiny created by God.

FLOCK: About a 100 men gathered for a traditional Muslim funeral. Women kept at a distance as is custom.

(On camera): Back in Somalia, she wouldn't even have been driving a car.

EL-SAWAF: Never, never, never. But here, you see her driving the car by herself, being totally independent.

FLOCK (voice over): The imans who knew her tell us Sadiya (ph) was also training to be a nurse. She taught at the Islamic Center and volunteered to helped Muslim women integrate into U.S. culture. The last anyone heard from her was shortly before the bridge gave way.

EL-SAWAF: Around 5:15, she made a call at home to just tell them know that she got trapped in the traffic, it was heavy traffic, she was over the bridge, and might be able to make it as soon as she can. But, of course, she couldn't.

FLOCK: But in a way, Sadiya (ph) Sahal did make it, managing to make a new life in her new adoptive home.

EL-SAWAF: She's a role model. She left a legacy behind her. We're so proud of her.

FLOCK: I'm Jeff Flock, CNN, Burnsville (ph), Minnesota.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CLANCY: Well, Hala, I'm all shook up. I'll tell you when I -- it's hard to believe the musical legend, Elvis Presley, the king, would be 72 today if he had lived.

GORANI: It seems the rock 'n' roll great has never truly left the building, at least not for his adoring fans.

CLANCY: That's right. Thursday, of course, marks the 30th anniversary of Elvis' death. His former home Graceland is busy hosting events this week in Memphis. Tennessee. Among the commemorations, they'll have a candlelight vigil that will go past Elvis' grave.

GORANI: All right, Presley died in Memphis August 16th, 1977. CNN plans special coverage Thursday.

CLANCY: You know, part of it, and it is really going to be special. Our own Larry King has a special planned. Here he is to explain. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY KING, CNN ANCHOR, "LARRY KING LIVE": Coming up Wednesday night, on "Larry King Live" inside Graceland, with Priscilla Presley, 30 years after the death of Elvis. Untold numbers of fans will make the pilgrimage to Graceland.

I'm going to take you inside with the woman that married Elvis and gave him a daughter. The king's widow, Priscilla Presley, live inside Graceland. The mansion where Elvis died. It's a once in a lifetime hour. Next Wednesday night; it's on "Larry King Live."

ELIVS (SINGING): Your kisses life me higher --

GORANI: All right, I will be certainly be watching that one. That's it for this hour. I'm Hala Gorani.

CLANCY: I'm Jim Clancy. Love Memphis, love Graceland, and --

GORANI: Love Elvis.

CLANCY: That's right. You are tuned to CNN.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.voxant.com