Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Italian Cruise Ship Tilts in Water; GOP Presidential Hopefuls Battle in South Carolina; Financial Planner Gives Advice on Stock Investment; British Physicians Suggest Guidelines for In Vitro Fertilization

Aired January 14, 2012 - 14:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM where the news unfolds live this Saturday, January 14th. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

New developments in the cruise ship sinking off the coast of the Italy. New pictures right now just in from Italian television. A local Italian prosecutor now saying that the captain of the luxury cruise ship liner is now under arrest. He is being investigated with manslaughter and abandoning ship related charges.

In these new pictures you actually see people in life jackets standing inside of the ship. The ship hit a sandbar or perhaps some rock, and then it listed and eventually tipped right over into the water. At least three people are confirmed dead. Many remain missing at this hour. Here is how one survivor described the ordeal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The boat tipped like he was turning, but it didn't return to level on the other side of the ship, which was the high side at this point. The lifeboats got stuck and there were people hanging -- well, in the life boats safely but hanging in midair for a long time. Children crying and screaming and people actually jumping. We heard that passengers jumped -- not passengers, but crew members jumped at the end into the water.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Reporter Barbie Nadeau is following the story from the port where the survivors have been taken and where the search is also being coordinated. So Barbie, what more can you tell us about the captain allegedly abandoning ship, leaving that ship before securing the rescue of all the passengers.

BARBIE NADEAU, JOURNALIST: That's right. From the very early hours of this story basically which heard that the captain had left the ship long before the last of the passengers. This is Captain Franco Skatini, an Italian captain from Sorrento or Livorno, we haven't been able to confirm which town he's from. But he has been officially arrested by the Italian police here for investigation into manslaughter and abandoning ship. Abandoning ship is a far more serious maritime offense, and the fact that he left the ship before all the passengers left the ship is a serious offense here in the Mediterranean basin, obviously.

He has been questioned all afternoon for his role in this accident as the rescue efforts are continuing on this ship which is now -- it's resting on a bed of rocks, but it's very low in the water. There's a big section of that ship underwater right now. And the divers are still right now taking a look to see if they can find any survivors -- sorry, any fatalities, any victims under that. They'll reconvene tomorrow morning to see if they can find any of these missing 51 people that are unaccounted for.

WHITFIELD: OK, because, Barbara, it is nightfall and the water is cold and the divers can only search for so long, certainly are investigators kind of underscoring the real complications for the rescue or recovery teams given the conditions?

NADEAU: Right. The investigators right now are basically saying that they will -- they anticipate that they will probably find bodies under the water level at this point. They won't be surprised if they find them there. They're using a lot of different terminology to say they anticipate there will be other bodies found in this.

But they don't think it will be 51. They do believe the bulk of that discrepancy comes from an administrative error in terms of the passenger lifts that were given. There are about 1,000 Italians on that cruise ship who may have come to the port of Santo Stefano, and just simply called a relative to pick them up. Those people may still be listed as unaccounted for but may be safe inside their own homes because of the fact that they work from Italy.

And so by tomorrow we're expecting to have a clearer idea of how many people are still missing, and if they can find a more clear sense of who is missing, who is not, and what those numbers are. Rescuers I spoke to this afternoon said they anticipate or certainly won't be surprised if they find more bodies under that water because of the fact that it happened so suddenly and there was a huge gash of 160 seats on the hull of the boat from hitting this very rocky sandbar. We've been calling it a sandbar, but it's a very rocky coastline there. So the sandbar is probably a mild description of what that would be. It's a very rocky coastline. There's no real sand as you might think of a sandbar.

So it makes sense. You can see when you see the ship, you can see rocks coming out of the water in that area. So the fact that the ship was gashed open like that, the water came in quickly, it's very possible that people were caught unaware down there in the lower berths, lower levels of the ship.

WHITFIELD: Barbie Nadeau, thank you very much for that update. Keep us posted as you get more information.

Also, there's new evidence of increasing tensions between the U.S. and Iran. U.S. Defense Department just released these images showing Iranian boats speeding towards U.S. military and coast guard ships in two separate incidents on Friday. One of these incidents took place in the Strait of Hormuz. And keep in mind, this comes as Iran threatens to close the Strait of Hormuz, which is the only outlet for oil being shipped out of the Persian Gulf. Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr says the Iranian may have gained important information from these encounters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: The thinking is the Iranians were not looking for a shooting match. They were going to break off but were going to cause a little heart stopping action before they did that.

One of the things here is, look, the Iranians gained intelligence by getting so close to U.S. Navy ships. They were able to gauge the U.S. military response as they came at those ships. That gives them valuable information if the next time it's not just a cat and mouse game.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: And word of the aggressive encounters with Iran comes as the United States recently rescued several Iranians at sea.

Former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour is now defending his decision to pardon more than 200 convicted killers. Barbour says he's surprised at the reaction. The judge has halted the prison releases and the legislature is considering changing Mississippi's constitution to take pardon powers away from the governor. Barbour says he is comfortable with his decision.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HALEY BARBOUR, (R) FORMER MISSISSIPPI GOVERNOR: The historic power of gubernatorial clemency by the governor to pardon felons is rooted in the Christian idea of giving second chances. I'm not saying I'll be perfect, that nobody who received clemency will ever do nothing wrong. I'm not infallible and nobody else is. But I Am very comfortable and totally at peace with these pardons, including those at the mansion.

I have absolute confidence, so much confidence that I've let my grandchildren play with these fine men. I've let them ride their tricycles out in the driveway with them watching out for them. I have no question in my mind that these five guys are not a threat to society. But people like you can say what if, what if, what if till the moon goes down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: You heard Barbour mention the mansion. He's referring to prisoners who worked at the governor's mansion. Four convicted murders who worked there were pardoned, included Anthony McCray, who was convicted of killing his wife back in 2001.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody deserve a second chance in life.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think people should be angry at Governor Barbour?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, sir. He treated us like we his children.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Judge Mike Smith presided over McCray's murder case. Our Martin Savidge asked the judge about the pardon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was disappointed that he was pardoned.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Is there more to that, or is that as much as we're going to say?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope that the attorney general will be successful in having the pardon overturned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: In all, Barbour says he granted clemency to 215 people, and 189 of them had already finished their sentences and were out of prison.

And we've been telling you about a group of evangelical Christians meeting in Texas. We have just learned that group has thrown its support to presidential candidate Rick Santorum. The group says it heard pitches from surrogates for the Republican candidates and it chose Santorum after three rounds of voting.

Meanwhile five of the six GOP candidates are in South Carolina today at a forum hosted by one of the 2008 candidates. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is moderating the event. Ron Paul is the only candidate not participating.

Virginia's Republican primary will only have two names on the ballot. A judge ruled only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul met the requirements for the March primary. The judge says Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and Jon Huntsman waited too long to challenge Virginia's strict ballot laws. And 49 delegates are at stake in Virginia. And in his ruling the judge wrote that the four candidates, quote, "played the game, lost, and then complained that the rules were unfair," end quote.

And join us every Sunday afternoon at 4:00 eastern time when we dedicate an entire hour to the presidential contenders in this 2012 election.

On to South Africa now. An event five years in the making -- graduation. An important milestone for Oprah Winfrey and the girls she calls her daughters.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Finally, fuel oil for ice-bound Nome, Alaska is very close, just about eight miles away. It's taken 10 days for a Coast Guard ice breaker to lead the way for the tanker on board more than a million gallons of fuel oil for a city running pretty low. This is the first time Nome has been supplied in the winter by route of a frozen Bering Sea.

(WEATHER BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Checking international headlines, Taiwan's president is claiming a reelection victory today. You may see this as a critically important time for Taiwan's booming economy. Better relations with China have helped greatly. President Obama calls Taiwan, quote, "one of the great successes of Asia."

The school for underprivileged girls at Oprah Winfrey's school in South Africa graduated its first class. All 72 are headed to universities, all of them. The school opened five years ago for girls who had horrible obstacles to overcome -- violence, molestation, divorce, loss of a parent. Oprah says they are, quote, "free to soar."

Now is a great time to review the stocks in your 401(k) or other retirement plans. Financial planner Karen Lee joins us next.

But first, can you name the five categories of stocks?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Before the commercial break I asked if you knew the five categories of stocks. Here they are, income, blue-chip, growth, cyclical, and defensive.

So it is the number one issue in American homes, getting your financial house in order. Today in our weekly financial fix, making money in the stock market. Let's bring in the author of "It's Just Money, so why does it cause so many problems?" Karen Lee. We talked about building your financial house and having a strong foundation. When people talk about -- retirement planning was part of that, too. People are thinking about their 401(k)s and those long-term investments that come by way of stocks and investments. How do you assess?

KAREN LEE, FINANCIAL PLANNER: The reason I wanted to talk about this today is because the last decade has been pretty rough in the market. A lot of people are turned off saying I just can't make money in the stock market. This is about can the average Joe investor make money in the market. The answer is yes, absolutely.

WHITFIELD: People are nervous.

LEE: People are nervous. There are tried and true strategies we'll talk about today. It's a strategy called asset allocation based on modern portfolio theory, a Nobel Prize winning strategist in 1990. Absolutely you can make money. Let's talk about how to do it.

WHITFIELD: How do you do that?

LEE: The first thing -- let's talk about the 401(k) or a 529 or even a nonretirement investment. If you're picking which investments to get into, the first thing you need to do is evaluate your tolerance for risk. Now, recognize that there are different types of assets. There's cash --

WHITFIELD: High risk, low risk?

LEE: Right. You've got cash and bonds and then stocks. Cash and bonds are more conservative, stocks are more aggressive. But within each of those segments there's subsets, we have U.S. and international, large, small, medium sized companies. Once you determine percentage, make sure to spread it among the different asset classes and make sure you include some real estate and perhaps some commodities. Now you've got your percentages and which funds are going to be in, right?

WHITFIELD: So you're diversifying in this way as it pertains to diversifying all your investments.

LEE: That's correct. There was a time when I remember that one of the strategies was just invest in the S&P 500. That does not work. It just turned out that in the decade when that was said it would have been enough. In this last decade that wouldn't have worked. It would have come out zero. So you want to spread among these different investment classes. The second thing you want to do is you want to rebalance them at least annually.

WHITFIELD: You don't want to feel so comfortable with the selections that you made, let it go. Don't even check and just hope for the best. You do want to go back --

LEE: A minimum of once a year reallocate. You know what it does when you go back to the original percentages? It forces you to sell off some of the winners, sell high, and buy back into some of the asset classes that weren't doing so well, buy low. That's what we're supposed to do, right? Buy low, sell high, buy low, sell high. So don't sit back and do nothing.

WHITFIELD: OK. And you say you really want to keep investing.

LEE: One of the biggest mistakes investors make, the minute the market starts to go down, they either stop or they start steering their current contributions into the money market or the stable value fund. Big mistake, because think of it this way. As that market is going down and you're methodically buying in, you're buying those asset classes on sale. When it turns around, which inevitably does, what goes down is going to come up, that's going to make like a rocket ship your gains.

WHITFIELD: That's when you're underscoring -- through it all you have to remain patient.

LEE: Right. That was my final thing. I see people that just every three years jump out. And 10, 20-year time horizons are what I want these investors to be looking at.

WHITFIELD: All right, Karen Lee, always good to see you. Thank you so much for making us smarter.

LEE: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: And you can get more information by reading Karen's new book, "It's Just Money, so why does it cause so many problems?" or reach Karen at KarenLeeAndAssociates.com.

And later on CNN, if you want to go back to school or get a jump start your career, we may have information that might be able to help you out. At 4:00 our lifestyle coach Valerie Burton will have tips you need to know. So what do you think of the idea of going back to school while you're working or ditching the work to go back to school? Send me your thoughts on Facebook or Twitter.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Do the number of embryos use during in vitro fertilization put a baby's health at risk? Elizabeth Cohen has this week's "Health for Her."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: When doctors do fertility treatment, the goal is to have a healthy baby and avoid multiples if possible. The reason is that multiples are born early more often than single babies, and also mothers are more likely to get sick if they have twins or triplets or more.

So a group of British physicians decided to see how many embryos do you need to put inside a mom in order to get a live -- a healthy baby, a live birth, and avoid multiples if possible. And what they found is two embryos, either one or two embryos does the trick, and three embryos doesn't increase the chances of getting you a healthy baby.

So they developed these guidelines. What they say is they think women who are over 40, putting in two embryos at most is a good idea. For women under 40 they should only put in one embryo.

Now, in Britain they regulate medicine much more so than they do in the United States. The United States doctors we talked to, well, they don't like this idea very much. They say different women need different kinds of procedures and need different numbers of embryos. Some women over the age of 40 might need three or four or even possibly more than that. And they say it's not a good idea to have hard and fast rules for every woman.

Now, for more information you can go to CNN.com/empoweredpatient.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: The top story we're following, the captain of the use ship that ran aground off the coast of Italy is now under arrest. An Italian prosecutor says the captain is being investigated for manslaughter and abandoning ships. There are reports the captain left the ship before the passengers. At least three dead, dozens more missing. And stay tuned to the top of the hour. I'll take to "TIME" magazine's Michael Shearer about the power of super PACs and the impact the ads have and the super PACs have as a whole on the presidential race come 2012.

"SOUND CHECK" with Brooke Baldwin starts right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)