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CNN Student News
Aired February 14, 2002 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: You're watching CNN STUDENT NEWS seen in schools around the world because learning never stops and neither does the news.
SUSAN FREIDMAN, CO-HOST: Get set for your Thursday CNN STUDENT NEWS. We'll lead things off with the U.S. visit of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. He's pledging support in the war against terror. From terror to war crimes as we turn to The Hague where Slobodan Milosevic challenges his tribunal.
MICHAEL MCMANUS, CO-HOST: I'm Michael McManus at the Winter Olympic Games. Join me later as we slide on over to Park City, Utah for a look at one of the newest Olympic sports.
FREIDMAN: And we'll check out puppy love just in time for Valentine's Day. Don't miss this warm and fuzzy tale.
Welcome to CNN STUDENT NEWS. I'm Susan Freidman.
President Bush is praising Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf as a leader of great courage and vision. The two leaders met yesterday at the White House with a number of topics crowding their agenda. Among them, the Afghan war, the Kashmir conflict, old debts, new deals and human rights. The two leaders also discussed the investigation into the missing "Wall Street Journal" reporter, Daniel Pearl.
CNN White House correspondent Kelly Wallace has more on their meeting.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The one cloud hanging over Pakistani President's Musharraf's White House visit, there is still no sign of "Wall Street Journal" reporter Daniel Pearl. Mr. Musharraf told reporters Pearl's kidnapping might be in response to Pakistan's crackdown on Islamic extremists but also added this optimistic note.
MUSHARRAF: I would really very much hope -- we all hope that he's alive. About getting him released -- well, let me say, we are as close as possible to getting him released.
WALLACE: Mr. Bush praised the Pakistani leader for his efforts to locate Pearl and thanked him for his help in the campaign against terror.
BUSH: President Musharraf is a great leader with great courage and vision.
WALLACE: The president is looking for Pakistan's continued support. And so, Mr. Musharraf got the royal treatment, an oval office visit, a military welcome at the Pentagon and a meeting on Capitol Hill with lawmakers. What the Pakistani president came looking for was financial assistance to silence anti-American critics at home. He got some help to erase $1 billion of his country's debt and promises of more economic aid, but no resumption of arms transfers just yet. The Pakistani leader said he was not disappointed.
MUSHARRAF: The relationship does not end today or it does not end with my visit. We have decided to cooperate.
WALLACE: Mr. Musharraf also came to encourage the president to mediate the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. But Mr. Bush won't do that unless India also calls for such a move.
BUSH: The best thing our government can do is to encourage there to be a -- to come to the table and start to have meaningful, real dialog and that's what we'll continue to press for.
WALLACE (on camera): Such a whirlwind state visit for the Pakistani president would have been unthinkable before September 11. After all, Mr. Musharraf seized power in a military coup in 1999. But the diplomatic rounds, a sign of the growing relationship between the two leaders and how each needs the other to accomplish his goals.
Kelly Wallace, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FREIDMAN: The young American accused of fighting with the Taliban pleads not guilty to all 10 charges against him. John Walker Lindh was arraigned yesterday in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. He's accused, among other things, of conspiring to kill Americans overseas. The judge in the case is pressing to go to trial as soon as August, and we could know more about that exact date tomorrow.
In the meantime, we have this report from CNN's Deborah Feyerick.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This prison just outside Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan, links two American families. Two sons on opposite sides of the war on terror: accused Taliban soldier, John Walker Lindh and CIA agent, Mike Spann, murdered inside that prison during an uprising, hours after questioning Walker Lindh.
The two families were drawn together in a Virginia courtroom. Walker Lindh, quietly and politely, pleading "not guilty" to terrorism and conspiracy charges. Before he was led out, he exchanged a big smile with his father, sitting two rows behind. Spann's widow, Shannon, sitting across the aisle, later called Walker Lindh a traitor.
SHANNON SPANN, MIKE SPANN'S WIDOW: He has certainly spent the last few years of his life with the belief that his extreme form of Islam sort of gives him the rights and the responsibility to wage jihad against the West, and specifically against Americans.
FEYERICK: After the arraignment, away from cameras, a dramatic moment in a courtroom hallway. Walker Lindh's father, Frank, came up to the Spann family. Extending his hand to father Johnny Spann, he said: "I'm sorry about your son. My son had nothing to do with it. I'm sure you understand."
Johnny Spann refused the handshake, turning his back as a court official tried to block Lindh from speaking to the family. Spann later saying the Taliban fighter bore responsibility for the September 11th attacks, and later, his son's death.
JOHNNY SPANN, MIKE SPANN'S FATHER: All of this is because of a group of terrorists, a group of terrorist thugs and their leaders and their followers, and their supporters.
FEYERICK (on camera): The defense team asked for a trial date of November, saying they would need time to go to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. Prosecutors said that would be all right, but the judge said no, saying this would go to trial in late August or early September; saying that would focus everyone's attention.
Both sides are expected to meet in court Friday afternoon to pick the trial date.
Deborah Feyerick, CNN Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FREIDMAN: Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is getting his chance to talk at his war crimes trial in The Hague, Netherlands. In his statement yesterday, he challenged the legality of his arrest and his trial. Milosevic is being granted more time today for his opening statement, which is expected to be lengthy.
Our Joel Hochmuth has more on this high profile case and the court system in charge of hearing it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOEL HOCHMUTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The legal proceedings under which former Yugoslavian leader Slobodan Milosevic is on trial are perhaps unfamiliar to many Americans. The International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia or ICTY was established by the United Nations Security Council in 1993. It was set up specifically to prosecute crimes committed during the various Balkans conflicts during the 1990s. It is the first international criminal court since the military tribunal set up for Nazi and Japanese leaders after World War II. But while those proceedings were sometimes criticized as -- quote -- "victor's justice," experts say that's not the case this time around.
JOHAN VAN DER VYVER, PROFESSOR OF INTL. LAW, EMORY UNIVERSITY: It is the absolute highest standards of criminal justice that one could imagine. And proving guilt beyond reasonable doubt, the onus being on the prosecution to prove that guilt beyond reasonable doubt, that is all part of the scenario of the ICTY.
HOCHMUTH: The ICTY has 16 permanent judges who represent the main legal systems in the world. As in the case in Milosevic's trial, they serve in a panel of three judges each. There is no jury.
VAN DER VYVER: The jury trial is not a holy cow, it's -- it is something that is peculiar to certain legal systems and that is not even the majority of countries in the world. It would, in a sense, be quite unpractical to have a jury trial on the international arena. The United States itself realizes that and therefore does not insist on having a jury trial in this kind of tribunal.
HOCHMUTH: Milosevic is charged with 66 counts, including crimes against humanity and genocide throughout the Balkans last decade. Prosecutors allege he was the mastermind behind the attempt to cleanse lands he believed belonged to ethnic Serbs of other ethnic groups. Hundreds of thousands were forced to move, thousands of others were killed or maimed in the process.
VAN DER VYVER: The proof of his participation will be essential for his conviction. Now his participation could exist purely of authorizing these acts to take place so they don't need to prove that he actually killed anybody, but that he, as dictator of his country, authorized or failed to take steps to prevent these killings knowing that they were happening while it was in his power to do so.
HOCHMUTH: Prosecutors say they will call 350 people to testify, including eyewitnesses to the atrocities as well as international officials who say they repeatedly told Milosevic about the killings and told him to stop. For his part, Milosevic is refusing to recognize the tribunal's authority and is refusing to formally appoint legal council. The court got an early taste of his defense.
SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC, FORMER YUGOSLAV PRESIDENT (through translator): Your prosecutor has proclaimed my sentiments and judgement and the prosecution has orchestrated a media campaign which, along with this unlawful tribunal, are there to play the role of parallel lynch process.
HOCHMUTH: There's also speculation he'll argue that atrocities were committed by all sides during conflicts in the Balkans, not just by the Serbs. But experts say history teaches that approach won't work.
VAN DER VYVER: In the Tokyo trials, for example, the Japanese war criminals quite often tried as a defense the fact that the allied forces, and particularly the United States forces, committed the same kind of crimes for which they were now being prosecuted. And the tribunal quite rightly decided that's no defense because the wrongdoing of A is no justification for the wrongdoing by B. HOCHMUTH: Both sides are anticipating a lengthy trial, perhaps as long as two years. Much of that is due to the lengthy list of witnesses and the anticipated detail of their testimony.
VAN DER VYVER: That is understandable, it's regrettable but it's understandable, because remember that the conduct of which he is charged must be proved in a court of law. You cannot convict him on the basis of what you read in the newspapers or what you see on CNN, you have to prove it through witnesses and documentary evidence that is produced in a court of law.
HOCHMUTH: If convicted, Milosevic faces the possibility of life in prison. In keeping with the rules established by the U.N. for the tribunal, capital punishment, even for the worst of crimes, is not permitted.
Joel Hochmuth, CNN STUDENT NEWS.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FREIDMAN: Every February, candy, flowers and gifts are exchanged between loved ones all in the name of Valentine's Day. Legend has it that St. Valentine was a third century priest who married young lovers in secret. Today, there are some who wonder if true affection is a matter of the heart or a product of your brain.
Scientists and psychologists say love could actually be dependent on a cocktail of pinnacles acting on the brain. They are dopamine, norepinephrine and phenylethyamine or PEA. These chemicals go to the limbic system of the brain, you feel euphoria and good feelings. We often call it love, but scientists say it's chemistry and they say that love's an addiction of sorts.
Another addiction, sweets. When it comes to your sweet tooth, it seems nothing will tickle a person's fancy faster than Cupid. Candy is always a big winner on Valentine's Day.
Our CNN Student Bureau has this report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KELLY JELINSKI, CNN STUDENT BUREAU (voice-over): Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate.
