Return to Transcripts main page

CNN 10

CNN Student News

Aired February 21, 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.

MICHAEL MCMANUS, CO-HOST: We have lots to cover this Thursday. First up, we'll introduce you to capitalists in China. Turning our attention to the U.S. High Court, we focus on the debate over school vouchers. Coming up in our "Perspectives" segment, we celebrate accomplishment with a look at the Trumpet Awards. Then in our "Science Report," the possible future of human identification.

Welcome to "CNN STUDENT NEWS". I'm Michael McManus.

President Bush wraps up his visit to South Korea talking with U.S. air troops at Osan Air Base. Mr. Bush also spent time yesterday at the world's most heavily defended border, the Demilitarized Zone. That's the long-standing buffer between the communist North and the U.S. allied South.

CNN's John King is with the president and has this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A look across the demilitarized zone from outpost Dullet, North Korea in his sights. Then a candid moment in a day that had been carefully scripted, because of the delicate diplomacy. The president was told of a North Korean peace museum just across the DMZ, and a display of two axes used to two kill two servicemen back in 1976.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is a peace museum there, and the axes that were used to slaughter two U.S. soldiers are in the peace museum. No wonder I think they are evil.

The day's goal had been to strike a more balanced approach, and to embrace the Sunshine Policy of South Korean president Kim Dae-Jung. Visiting the Du-Ra-Jon train station together was designed as a show of solidarity, and a shared commitment to peaceful Korean reunification.

KIM DAE-JUNG, SOUTH KOREA (through translator): I hope that the North Korean regime will accept our sincere proposal to dialogue at a very early date. KING: The railway ends at the DMZ, because the north hasn't built its end of the product, and Mr. Bush suggested North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il is afraid his people would learn the gifts of freedom.

BUSH: Korean people should never starve while a massive Army is fed, no nation should be a prison for its own people.

KING: After an earlier one-on-one meeting with President Kim, Mr. Bush said diplomacy was his first choice, but he called the north despotic regime, said the Untied States allow weapons of mass destruction.

(on camera): Visiting the troops in the DMZ is a ritual stop for any president while here in South Korea, but this trip took on all the more meaning, because of Mr. Bush's "axis of evil" line, and his tough talk that all options remain on the table when it comes to dealing with North Korea.

These bunkers looked out toward the north, one of many reminders there is a truce, but still no peace treaty 50 years after the Korean War. Mr. Bush calls it one of the most dangerous places on Earth, and his hosts in the south worry his use of the term evil again will discourage the north from resuming negotiations any time soon.

John King, CNN, Camp Bonafaste, along the DMZ, in South Korea.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: The third and final leg of President Bush's Asian tour is Beijing, China. Mr. Bush arrived there last night for two days of talks with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. He is expected to press the Chinese leader to respect human rights and religious freedom. Weapons proliferation and China's commitments to the World Trade Organization are also key issues.

There's a growing consensus in China that economic growth depends on U.S. markets and investment. There's also been a call recently to kick-start China's economy with capitalist methods.

Jamie Flacruiz explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE FLACRUIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Li Xiaohua works overtime to sharpen his aim. But on the way to work in his Ferrari, he goes into overdrive navigating the road between Chinese-style socialism and the principles of market economy. Li typifies the budding capitalist class tolerated by the Communist Party to help develop China's economy.

Now President Jiang Zemin wants to see them admitted into the party. But as Chairman Mao once declared, "aren't capitalists bloodsuckers of the working class?"

LI XIAOHUA, CHAIRMAN, HUAOA GROUP (through translator): That concept has changed, we are not exploiters because China's constitution and policies encourage us to get rich.

FLACRUIZ: Fellow millionaires agree.

CHEN PING, CHAIRMAN, TIOE-TIME-S GROUP (through translator): Entrepreneurs are the pillars of the state and society. We are the creators and managers of social wealth.

FLACRUIZ: Even so, these real estate tycoons say the state still discriminates against the private sector.

ZHANG XIN: You know, today, if you go to the bank no one would lend you any money, and you pretty much have to rely on your friends or relatives to gather a bunch of heat money for you.

FLACRUIZ: But if China is to compete globally as a member of the World Trade Organization, it will need more of these entrepreneurs.

And the Communist Party, whether it likes it or not, will have to take more credit for the economic boom by admitting captains of capitalism. Will they apply?

PING (through translator): Definitely, but I probably will not because the Community Party has its own set of beliefs. If you join them without a firm belief in Marxism, you may not feel very comfortable.

FLACRUIZ: But Li is enthused.

XIAOHUA (through translator): After I heard President Jiang's speech, I also want to join the Communist Party.

FLACRUIZ: That will put Li snuggly in the driver's seat of his private enterprise.

(on camera): To get rich is glorious, the late leader Deng Xiaoping declared some 20 years ago encouraging capitalism in China. Now President Jiang is taking it one step further. His new mantra, you can both be rich and red.

Jamie Flacruiz, CNN, Beijing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ONSCREEN: February 21, 1972. U.S. President Richard Nixon arrives in China for talks.

MCMANUS: The U.S. Supreme Court will now begin considering whether school vouchers are constitutional or not. Yesterday, the High Court began reviewing the program that allows tax dollars to be used for vouchers to private and oftentimes religious schools. The Supreme Court must now decide whether that violates the principle of separation of church and state.

CNN's Kathy Slobogin takes us to Cleveland where the case began.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KATHY SLOBOGIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is what the fuss is all about: Taxpayer dollars pay the tuition for more than half the students at this Catholic school.

Ninety-nine percent of the voucher students in Cleveland go to religious schools. It wasn't intended to be that way, but very few nonreligious private schools participate in the program or have tuitions a $2,500 state voucher can cover.

Sister Karen, principal of St. Francis, says parents choose her school for its brand of education, not its brand of religion.

SISTER KAREN, PRINCIPAL, ST. FRANCIS SCHOOL: We haven't add convert from any of a voucher parent or student that's come to our -- we haven't tried.

We have 20 children out of our 260 children who are Catholic. So we're not here to make more Catholics; that's not our purpose. We're here to educate children with a moral base.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Does anyone know what first commandment is?

SLOBOGIN: That means a half hour religion class every day, tailored to students' eclectic mix of faiths, but nevertheless, religion.

Parents here seem hungry for moral dimension they feel they can't get in public schools. Victoria Pope has four children at this school.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They really teach morals and values. They encourage the things that I'm trying to teach them at home. It gets reinforced here.

SLOBOGIN: For Sister Karen, the Supreme Court debate over vouchers, which is really about separation of church and state, misses the point.

(on camera): Is that really the central issue, from where you sit.

SISTER KAREN: Not at all. I think it is about children. I think it is about education. And I think it is about parent choice.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): For Linda Hardwick, principal at a public school just over a mile away, it is about money.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Less students, less money.

SLOBOGIN: Hardwick's school is a model school, but they scramble for every dollar. It doesn't help struggling inner city schools, say educators here, to have state aid diverted to private schools, private schools that, unlike public schools, can throw out any student who doesn't measure up.

Robert Bernetich has been teaching for 22 years. ROBERT BERENETICH, TEACHER: When you decide we want you because you do your homework, and we don't want you because you don't do your homework, we want you because you sit quietly at your desk, we don't want you because you have a couple of fights, it is not an equal playing field.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When they are let go from the voucher schools, where do they come? They come to the public schools.

SLOBOGIN: To add insult to injury, says Hardwick, the public school doesn't get the voucher money back.

Despite the odds, Cleveland public schools may be doing a better job than many voucher parents think.

(on camera): Vouchers were started in the first place as a ticket for poor children to a better education. But evaluators here compared the academic performance of voucher students to those in public school over three years and found there wasn't really any difference.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) equals 12.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): It may be the real conflict in Cleveland is not between church and state or between good schools and bad schools, but between a public which has lost faith in its schools and schools which need that faith to succeed.

Kathy Slobogin, CNN, Cleveland, Ohio.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: In today's "Chronicle," what kind of music would you expect to hear in Cuba? Maybe a little rumba, perhaps a touch of salsa. Well believe it or not, hip hop has become the rhythm of choice for some musicians with a political message.

Lucia Newman has that report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LUCIA NEWMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Doing a takeoff on the Cuban version of "Esta Vida Loca," this hip hop groups sings that they're sick and tired of la vida loca or "this crazy life," a song full of double meaning and thinly veiled criticism of many aspects of Cuban society.

Neither the sound, the look, nor the message are what you normally associate with Cuban music.

This group, called "Anonymous Advice" raps its commitment to the revolution before lashing out against police harassment of young people and lack of opportunities.

"Just let us live," they say.

Such candor in communist Cuba is unusual to say the least.

PABLO HERRERA, PRODUCER, HIP HOP FESTIVAL: The message is very critical that it's not antagonistic because it tries to constructively help society.

NEWMAN: Some rappers complain it's because constructive criticism is the only kind that's allowed.

ALEXEI VILLAFIRUELA, RAPPER (through translator): Sometimes I would like to say the real truths, to say why I don't have the right to buy a car or have a house on the beach. But I can't, because, if I do, I could be in real trouble.

NEWMAN: Other things distinguish Cuba's rap movement. Cuba's rap culture may look American but while it gets its inspiration from the streets, the streets of Havana are very different from those in New York.

EDGAR GONZALEZ, RAPPER: It's the same. I talk about the streets like most (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I don't know any rapper talks about the streets.

NEWMAN: What there is no shortage of is musical creativity. The Cuban rappers are adding salsa, son, and even Bolero to the mix in an effort to create a hip hop sound clearly identifiable as made in Cuba.

Lucia Newman, CNN, Havana.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHELLE WOODBY, FT. LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA: Hi, my name is Michelle Woodby and I'm from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. And I would like to know how the statue for the Grammy Music Awards got its name.

MICHAEL GREENE, PRESIDENT AND CEO, RECORDING ACADEMY: There was a contest back in the -- back in the late '50s right when the Academy started. And it was a national contest. Kind of knew what they wanted it to be, a gramophone with a needle and a -- and a turntable and a base. Pretty much looking like one of the old Edison devices. Old lady in New Orleans, Louisiana came up with the name Grammy, and that's where the name came from gramophone, and we've just never -- we've never changed it. We'll change the size, the weight and the physicality of the Grammy, but it pretty much looks the same as it did back in the late '50s.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Exploring our world, here now is "CNN STUDENT NEWS" "Perspectives."

MCMANUS: "A great idea," that's what CNN founder Ted Turner said when he was approached by Turner Executive Xernona Clayton. The idea was an awards ceremony to recognize the extraordinary contributions and achievements of African-Americans. The Trumpet Awards are in their 10th year. And as you're about to see, the inspiration continues.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TED TURNER, CNN FOUNDER: Well the Trumpet Awards, of course, were Xernona's idea.

XERNONA CLAYTON, TURNER EXECUTIVE: One of the things I'd hoped to do was to dispel the myths of racism.

TURNER: And she came in and said "what do you think of this idea?" And I said, "I think that's a great idea," because I did think it was a great idea.

CLAYTON: My hope, through this project was to dispel those myths. Supplant it with realism and truism and to bring out the real contributions our people had been making in spite of all the odds we've overcome.

TOM BRADLEY, FORMER MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES: And you're going to have people who will say to you, "it can't be done," or who will place obstacles in your path. My advice to you is never, never, never, never give in.

ROSA PARKS, CIVIL RIGHTS HEROINE: It's a great honor to be here, and I'm very pleased to see such a beautiful audience and a great turnout for the Trumpet Awards. I'm very grateful that I can still be here to join these wonderful occasions. It's a long way from Montgomery, Alabama during the days of a very cruel and inhuman, legally-enforced segregation laws.

TURNER: It was our honor and privilege to -- to support it and watch it grow into such a major event.

CLAYTON: To me this is more than just a television show, more than just a night of black glitz and glamour, which is all of that, but we're doing a lot to dispel myths and inspire young people and to change and augment our image.

We've been responsible for generating $1.5 million for charitable and scholarship educational opportunities.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's one of the most wonderful occasions as I have been a part of and I've been able to witness. I only wish that every teenager from every bayou, every slum, every ghetto in the country was here to see these wonderful people who I have seen tonight and come to admire.

CLAYTON: I also want to be sure that we give a positive image of Black Americans, which I think is still missing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From the 40 members of the Congressional Black Caucus and from our collective hearts, we say thank you for this singularly unique and special award.

BRADLEY: Wherever she goes, it's like a whirlwind around her. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Xernona, this fantastic name, that could only have been given to a woman that is so brave. You have to be brave to carry a name like that.

BRADLEY: She got me elected to the mayor's position in Los Angeles and then moved on to Atlanta, where she helped to do the same thing for Maynard Jackson.

CLAYTON: So I do everything I can to make life better. In the meantime, it's making me better. So I know the selfish thing is to take care of yourself first, I think while I'm sharing in helping the needs of others I'm really helping myself. So I think it all kind of comes out in the wash that I'm making myself so happy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: Take a look at this information behind me. The Trumpet Awards will air on Saturday, February 23, at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, 4:00 Pacific on Superstation TBS.

And stick around, we'll have more of the award winners all next week right here on "CNN STUDENT NEWS" as part of our Black History Month coverage.

You may have heard about a fairly new technology that helps you keep track of your pet. It's a tiny implantable chip that helps identify a dog or cat if it gets lost. Well imagine a human version of that chip. Researchers are experimenting with a new device that cannot only identify someone but also store critical medical information.

CNN's Ann Kellan has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANN KELLAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Richard Seelig is a guinea pig of sorts. Had two computer chips implanted in his body, one in his hip, the other in his arm.

DR. RICHARD SEELIG, APPLIED DIGITAL SOLUTIONS: It's right in this location here.

KELLAN: About the size of a freckle and called the VeriChip, it could one day store vital information easily read by a scanner. Why would anyone want a chip implant? Seelig was enticed after watching rescue efforts on September 11.

SEELIG: The fireman and rescue workers were using magic marker to write their social security numbers and their names on their bodies. They wanted to be sure that there was some method of identification for their families.

KELLAN: Even before 9-11, Applied Digital Solutions, the company Seelig works for, had been developing the human chip as a way to store critical medical information. But this tiny chip could also be used in more controversial ways, to identify people working in highly secured jobs like at nuclear power plants or identify prisons or parolees.

(on camera): Implanting chips in humans still needs FDA approval, but they've been implanting chips in dogs for about 10 years. As a matter of fact, here at the DeKalb Humane Society, no dog or cat leaves without a chip.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So this one was a stray so we can scan this one.

KELLAN (voice-over): That is if it's wearing the chip.

PAIGE O'NEILL, DEKALB HUMANE SOCIETY: It's wonderful because we can identify lost animals. We implant a little microchip so big under the back of their neck in their -- under their skin. It's subcutaneous, and it takes two seconds, virtually painless and it's in there for their life. Each animal has a different number and we identify them by number.

KELLAN (on camera): So the chip is right back here?

O'NEILL: You can't feel it.

KELLAN: You can't feel it (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

So what do you think about humans being chipped?

O'NEILL: No comment.

KELLAN (voice-over): A lot of people worry that implanting chips in humans is another step toward Big Brother watching and tracking our every move. The chipmaker says that's not their intention. Other than the proposed prisoner program, most implants would be done on a voluntary basis.

SEELIG: This is a matter of personal decision as to whether an individual chooses to have this technology made available to them or not.

KELLAN: At least for now its target audience will be people with implanted devices like pacemakers or artificial joints such as knees and hips. A chip would reveal critical information about their medical history, drug reactions and specifics about the device and it's with them all the time, scanned in an emergency for faster treatment and diagnosis.

Ann Kellan, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: In today's "Science Report," a space anniversary. It has been 40 years since astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. In 1998 at age 77, Glenn returned to space onboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, but he says that first mission in 1962 feels like only yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOHN GLENN, FORMER ASTRONAUT: It's remained so vivid and I've recalled it so often, people mention it quite often, of course, and it was so vivid at the time that it doesn't seem like 40 years, seems more like about 40 days would be more like it.

I think people felt that we were really on the way back, and there was sort of an outpouring, a national feeling and the national mood sort of changed I guess the way the sociologists have analyzed it since then. And we were sort of inundated with all this attention when we got back. It wasn't something we really expected.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCMANUS: For even more space news, check out our Web site, CNNstudentnews.com, for the latest images from the planet Mars and a really cool story on the morphing of language in space.

Well just one more scientific tidbit to share with you, something that hasn't happened in 891 years took place last night. Time became a palindrome, a perfect sequence of numbers. At 8:02 p.m. it was 2002 military time, the date was 20-02, that's February 20 the way most of the world abbreviates it anyway, and this falls all in the year, you guessed it, 2002. We'll have to wait another 110 years before something like this happens again. That will be in the year 2112.

The 1960s were a turbulent time in America as civil rights protests led to integration.

CNN Student Bureau reporter William Miller takes us back in time to a landmark moment in U.S. history. The year is 1964, the state is Georgia, the place is a white's only restaurant.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LESTER MADDOX, FORMER GEORGIA GOVERNOR: Get out of here now, you hear me. Get off of this property. Go from here.

WILLIAM MILLER, CNN STUDENT BUREAU (voice-over): July 3, 1964, Atlanta, Georgia, one day after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, black students from an Atlanta college gathered at the Pig Rig Restaurant (ph) to demand that Lester Maddox let them inside to eat. Maddox, waving a gun in the air, resisted them.

MADDOX: Go in there and get some more ax handles. All your customers -- tell your customers to go and get some more ax handles, plenty of them in the office.

MILLER: Local reporter John Pruitt watched the events unfold.

JOHN PRUITT, WSB-TV REPORTER: It was a time when there was great turmoil. And we were -- as a young reporter in those days I was aware that history was being changed and things were quite volatile.

MADDOX: I'll use as handles, I'll use guns, I'll use paint, I'll use my fist, I'll use my customers, I'll use my employees, I'll use anything at my disposal. MILLER: Lester Maddox became an icon in the fight against forced integration.

PRUITT: There was great symbolism in this act of defiance, and I think that made him the personification of southern resistance.

MILLER (on camera): Today Maddox says that history has him wrong, and he points to his accomplishments as governor as proof that he's not a racist.

MADDOX: One black had been in the National Guard for the first time, but when I left the governor's office my term there's over a hundred. And it was the most open, honest, sufficient representative government that this state's ever had before or since.

MILLER (voice-over): At 86 years old, Governor Maddox tells how he wants to be remembered and hopes to set the record straight.

MADDOX: I wasn't an animal. Never was in my life. See I never hated a human being in my life, and I've gotten into a lot of trouble for telling the truth but never for lying and that's sad. It ought to be your dishonesty that gets you in trouble, not your honesty. And I want to be remembered as being as real as I could.

MILLER: Maddox says judge him by his whole life not just that hot day in 1964.

William Miller, CNN Student Bureau, Atlanta, Georgia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ONSCREEN: "Where in the World?"

A Caribbean island nation.

Imports include petroleum, food and machinery.

Natural resources include nickel, salt and cobalt.

Can you name this country?

Cuba.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: And finally, an apology from Britain in invading Spain. No, this wasn't payback for the Spanish Armada attack on England back in 1588, this was for a military invasion that took place on Sunday, well sort of.

Residents of a Spanish coastal town watched in astonishment as the beach filled with combat ready British troops wielding mortar launchers and assault rifles. A local news agency reports the troops left after fisherman and police officials from the town told them they were on Spanish soil.

Well, it's good to see military action didn't need the U.N. or an act of Congress to intervene. Some direction from the local police and fisherman is all they needed.

I'm Michael McManus. We'll see you tomorrow.

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