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CNN Student News

Aired February 25, 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.

SHELLEY WALCOTT, CO-HOST: A new week of "CNN STUDENT NEWS" is underway. Topping today's news, the latest from the Middle East.

SUSAN FREIDMAN, CO-HOST: Then we reach into the military mailbag to read a few letters to our service personnel in Afghanistan.

WALCOTT: Later in "Perspectives," we sit down with Trumpet Award honoree and CNN founder Ted Turner.

FREIDMAN: We'll also explore the life and works of artist Jacob Lawrence.

WALCOTT: And welcome to "CNN STUDENT NEWS". I'm Shelley Walcott.

FREIDMAN: And I'm Susan Freidman.

Israel is relaxing travel restrictions imposed on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat three months ago, but Palestinians say that's not good enough. In response, they cancelled a planned security meeting with the Israelis Sunday.

WALCOTT: That's right, Palestinians had wanted all travel restrictions on Arafat removed, but the Israeli Cabinet decided Sunday to let the Palestinian leader move freely only in the town of Ramallah on the West Bank. He'll have to get permission if he wants to go anywhere else.

CNN's Jerrold Kessel has details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Israeli tanks around Yasser Arafat's office likely to be redeployed, but for now unlikely to move very far. After intense discussion Ariel Sharon's Security Cabinet eased a little the long siege, which has kept the Palestinian leader pinned up in his West Bank headquarters, but all he's allowed is to leave the compound. Even leaving Ramallah would require Mr. Sharon's personal permission. For Ariel Sharon, Yasser Arafat seems still to be on trial. He told his full Cabinet that the Palestinian leader must go further than his arrest of three militant Palestinian nationalists, who are suspected of assassinating an Israeli Cabinet minister last November.

"We will be following closely," say Mr. Sharon, "whether the arrest of all those involved in that assassination are real."

The arrest also, he added, of those involved in the Karine A armed boat smuggling affair.

There had been unity within Mr. Sharon's broad national coalition so long as Mr. Arafat was hemmed in. With the possibility of the siege being lifted, old division were resurfacing. Mr. Sharon is clearly intend, above all, on preserving his unity coalition. Palestinian leaders say the Israeli decision is mere humiliation.

SAEB ERAKAT, PALESTINIAN CABINET MINISTER: This is unacceptable and shameless decision by the Israeli government today, and it's a clear-cut message to all of us that this government has no political program and the only program they have is to continue on the path of war and destruction.

KESSEL (voice-over): Palestinians had hoped Israel would let Mr. Arafat out of his virtual house arrest after the two sides had moved to put a week of bloody violence behind them and have promised each other to try to contain fighting during the holiday period for Muslims and Jews alike.

(on camera): Despite the hopes for a temporary cease-fire tension is still palpable everywhere, like what's happening here on one of the so-called bypass roads in the West Bank.

(voice-over): Roads built to enable secure driving for Jewish setters and where settler cars pass freely while Palestinians are held up by the army. Here the soldiers told us there were special precautions because there was a warning of an imminent Palestinian attack in their sector.

A pregnant Palestinian woman on her way to give birth was seriously hurt at another checkpoint when troops opened fire. Israel maintains her car did not stop at the checkpoint, an incident, however, that undermines the declared attempts to get a limited cease- fire in place.

(on camera): A big question mark over whether this tentative understanding will hold even during the next few days of the holiday period. But of course the bigger question mark, what will happen once the holiday period is over.

(voice-over): A question even more acute now that while the tanks may yet move, Israel is not relinquishing its grip on Yasser Arafat's movements.

Jerrold Kessel, CNN, near Ramallah on the West Bank.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FREIDMAN: As the war on terrorism continues, a big question remains unanswered: Where is Osama bin Laden? Reports this weekend said bin Laden is likely alive and possibly in Afghanistan. That counters speculation he was killed in bombing raids, died of kidney disease or fled to Iran or Yemen.

For more perspective on the possible whereabouts of and the hunt for bin Laden, we go to our Joel Hochmuth.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOEL HOCHMUTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Reaction is coming in to new reports that Osama bin Laden is still alive and that he's probably still in the remote terrain straddling Afghanistan and Pakistan. The "New York Times" quotes senior administration officials who say they have fresh indications bin Laden survived the U.S. bombing assault on Tora Bora and other Afghan mountain regions. Though no one is claiming to have him cornered, some officials tell "The Times" they have -- quote -- "bounded his whereabouts." Experts are skeptical.

MAJOR GENERAL DON SHEPPERD (RET.), MILITARY ANALYST: If you followed the article that would mean -- that would lead you to believe that they've bounded him in Eastern Afghanistan. I doubt very seriously if we've got him bounded or if so, it's certainly breaking news, because it's fairly clear if we had him bounded that we would have air strikes and perhaps military operations going into an area right now. There's no indication that's taken place.

HOCHMUTH: The new report is noteworthy since it was just a week ago Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said during his visit to Washington that he believes bin Laden is probably dead. Still, U.S. military intelligence for months has quietly operated on the assumption bin Laden is alive since there's never been any compelling evidence he died.

GENERAL RICHARD MYERS, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: It's possible that he is -- he is no longer alive, but I think the odds are he probably is alive. We will get bin Laden, but he's not the only one we're searching for.

HOCHMUTH: The new reports surrounding bin Laden's whereabouts again fuel discussion about just how important it is to track him down and bring him to justice. In the days and weeks following the September 11 terrorist attacks, President Bush and his administration vowed to find him dead or alive.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: Whether it takes a day or a month or a year.

COLIN POWELL, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Whether it takes us one day, one month, one year, two years, we'll get him.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But when the dust clears, we'll find out where he is and he'll be brought to justice.

HOCHMUTH: Now it appears there may be some softening in that position.

MYERS: I wouldn't call it a prime mission. Obviously, we want to get the al Qaeda leadership, we want to get the Taliban leadership. Bin Laden is part of that leadership so we'd like to get him, and we will get him, but it's -- I wouldn't call it a prime mission, no.

DONALD RUMSFELD, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: It is a difficult task and we all know that. Everyone knew that when we started. The real test is is he able to manage effectively the al Qaeda network and engage in additional terrorist acts? Is he leading that? Is he raising additional money? Is he the power and force in recruiting more people? And the short answer is no, he is very busy -- if he's alive, he's very busy hiding.

HOCHMUTH: Still, many Americans would breathe a sigh of relief if bin Laden were captured. He and Mullah Mohammed Omar remain the top prizes in the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

For more on the search for the Taliban leader, we go to Nic Robertson.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the remote village of Sangihesir, Sayed Mohammad leads us to a house in which he says Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar once lived.

"He left seven years ago," he explains. "When he came, he was only a mullah. Now, he's a big guy."

Other villagers gather around when they hear Westerners asking questions about Omar.

"If I saw him now," Nasim says, "I'd tell the government to capture him."

Despite a bounty of $10 million, the reclusive leader has so far evaded arrest, in part, perhaps, because only a few pictures of him exist.

For his pursuers in rural Afghanistan, these two confirmed images give little away. He could be anywhere. Across a field is the religious school where Omar used to teach, and where the Taliban was founded. After the Taliban fled allied bombing last October, villagers stole everything, even the doors.

A lone Taliban we found, at first, didn't want to talk. Then, opening up, he told us the mullahs are gone. "The religious schools are closed," he says, "those worried about Islam will protect Mullah Omar." (on camera): No one knows for sure just how close Mullah Omar has come to capture. Most people here suspect his friends will keep him well hidden. However, they also say it is unlikely there will be an outcry if he is arrested.

(voice-over): In Kandahar, Omar's legacy can be measured in the crumbling economy, in the ambitious half-finished mosques, and in the less-than-aggressive manner with which the Afghan government officials have pursued him. Those at the forefront of the search, however, expect results soon.

ISMAIL GILANI, REGIONAL NEGOTIATOR: I hope we will find him soon, because there is a lot of leads are coming from everywhere, and some of them, they really want to help.

ROBERTSON: Reliable help, so far though, appears to have been in short supply. Nic Robertson, CNN, Sangihesir, Afghanistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Geoffroy Matthew from San Francisco, California asks: "What is the U.S. government doing to vaccinate citizens against potentially dangerous smallpox?"

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: The U.S. government has no plans to do mass vaccinations against smallpox. The government stopped vaccinating children in 1972, because the disease had been eradicated in the U.S., and it was determined that the risk of the vaccine outweighed the benefits. But since September 11, the government has stepped up its preparedness against biological terrorism.

In November, the Bush administration announced that it had signed a pharmaceutical company to purchase the vaccine, and so, by the end of 2002, the government expects to have enough vaccine for every man, woman and child in the United States. The vaccine will become a part of the national stockpile, and the doses will be used in case of a smallpox outbreak.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: Let's face it, it takes a certain kind of bravery to leave home and fight on behalf of your country, especially when most of the people you're fighting for are nameless faces. So imagine the gratitude felt by soldiers in the field receiving words of encouragement from people they've never even met.

Our Martin Savidge reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Have you ever written to a soldier, not someone you know in the military, someone you don't, one of those "Dear Soldier" letters, mailed to some far-off person in uniform in harm's way. And have you ever wondered if they get it, if they read it, did it matter? Here's what we've seen.

Outside one of the command tents is posted a letter from a boy known only as Tommy. It reads "Dear Hero, thank you for making our country safe. You are you some of the bravest people in the world. Because of you the children of today will live tomorrow."

Every soldier, every officer entering here has seen it.

UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER: It makes them move out a little quicker. It makes them feel a little prouder. It makes them keep their head a little taller and say, "hey, what I'm doing here is important and I'm doing the right thing."

SAVIDGE: Letters, cards, notes, banners. They hang everywhere in the terminal headquarters. Most are from children, where the age where words are few, but full of meaning and also, backed up with pictures.

SGT. HENRY SCHMITZ: Roses are red, violets are blue, Osama bin Laden stinks like poo.

(LAUGHTER)

SAVIDGE: We came across these soldiers opening Valentine's Day cards. The fact that Valentine's Day has been and gone doesn't matter.

SCHMITZ: To Service Person, Roses are red, violets are blue, take care of yourself because everyone wants you to.

UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER: I want to thank you and your troops for what you are doing in Afghanistan, for protecting us.

SAVIDGE: Do the soldiers write back, yes, definitely, yes, like to the boy who asked one, "why do you risk your life for me?"

SCHMITZ: And I just wrote him back a couple of days ago and told him that, you know, I have a little boy that's five, and I just wanted to make sure that those guys have the same chances, you know, as I had when I was a kid and I don't want, you know, to let people like these terrorists come into our country and just ruin that way of life.

SAVIDGE: The soldiers take the letters to their tents. They take them to heart.

So, back to where I started, the answer is yes. The cards, the photos, the posters matter. They matter more than I can ever tell and more than you will ever know.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

FREIDMAN: In "Perspectives" today, the Trumpet Awards. The 10th annual ceremony was recently held in Atlanta, Georgia. The Trumpet Awards recognize African-American achievement in many areas, including art, science and politics. Making the spotlight this year, actor Sidney Poitier and Cicely Tyson and many more.

CNN founder Ted Turner was given a humanitarian award for, among other things, his environmental work.

Here's this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is a stream of ideas, always thinking, visualizing and planning to meet new horizons.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has ideas that come so quickly. He has perceptions, he has recall, he has an intellect that I think is beyond the scope.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: While some were waiting for life to propel them to their destiny, Ted was creating his.

TED TURNER, CNN FOUNDER: Well I don't really believe in destiny. I believe in effort and hard work. I think those are the primary keys to success.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ted learned that from his father who owned a lucrative billboard advertising agency. Success, however, was overshadowed by tragedy when Ted's father took his life. This was the second time Ted suffered such extreme loss. As a teen, he sat with his sister, Mary Jane, until a rare illness claimed her young life. Ted's grief fueled his drive and his ambition.

TURNER: While I've had my share of sadness and hardship in my life with my family at times, it -- I -- you just can't -- quitters never win and winners never quit and you've just got to -- you know you've got to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. You've got to keep yourself psyched up and keep on trucking.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In 1970, Ted purchased a struggling UHF station. Six years later, he beamed the station's signal to a satellite, suddenly his programming was available to homes nationwide and so was the superstation concept.

XERNONA CLAYTON, TURNER EXECUTIVE: As CEO of a major corporation, recognizing in our America we've got a lot of injustice in the workplace, that unless someone has the courage to make changes happen they won't happen, and he is the man who leads without question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In 1976, Ted purchased the Atlanta Braves and hired Bill Lucas, the first black general manager of a major sports team and the only one for years.

TURNER: Everybody should have a chance, whatever their color, race, creed or point of national origin. It doesn't really matter. All people, I think, have equal value in the sight of God. One reason I'm pursuing this thing as strongly as I am is not just -- not just for us, but I think the people of America need this in-depth news service, and I'm willing and have been willing all along to risk everything that I had to provide that service.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ted was also willing to push diversity. Along with the launch of the world's first 24-hour news service in 1980 came the hiring of a woman and a black male anchor team.

TURNER: To have as much diversity as you can gives you the best chance of success because you get more viewpoints that way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who would watch a 24-hour news service? Everyone in the world. Wherever, whenever news was happening, CNN was there while it was happening. Soon, CNN became synonymous with integrity and trust.

JIMMY CARTER, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When there was a coup attempt against Gorbechev, the coup leaders called the president of Kazakhstan and said we have succeeded, Gorbechev has been replaced, we want you to join us. And the president Kazakhstan told me, I responded, you're lying, because I'm watching CNN. So I don't think there's any doubt that in a process of providing leaders with accurate information and also providing average citizens with information about the rest of the world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When native Americans protested the use of the tomahawk chop, Ted stopped it in his box. When African-Americans protested the confederate flag, Ted called for a flag that represented the pride of all Georgians. In 1985, Ted originated the Goodwill Games, a multi-sport, world class competition.

TURNER: Purpose of the Goodwill Games is to promote the strengthening of cooperation and goodwill amongst all the nations on the earth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Again with diversity in mind, Ted underwrote the delegation of 35 African-Americans to join him in Russia and again in Seattle to insure America's full representation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He gets a lot of accolades for what he's accomplished as a business person, but I think -- I think, to me, what he's given back to people is the most remarkable element of what Ted is.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's because Ted's money follows his heart. In 1997, Ted made a historic pledge of $1 billion to the United Nations for Health and Human Rights programs. In January 2001, Ted helped launch the nuclear threat initiative to which he gave $250 million for the reduction of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.

TURNER: It's time to get rid of hatred, it's time to get rid of prejudice. It's time to have love and respect and tolerance for each other, care about each other, work together to survive. I don't -- I can't believe that God wants us to blow ourselves to kingdom come. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A visionary, a pioneer, a maverick. Yes, Ted is all of these, but he's much more. He is a wise and generous humanitarian whose vision for the world is guided by his conscious and his heart.

TURNER: I'm still -- I'm still marching, like Xernona says. You know I'm still going as hard as I can to try and make it a better, more equitable, fairer kind of world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FREIDMAN: The late Jacob Lawrence was one of the most prominent black artists in American history. His work follows the African- American community. In his art, he tells stories of survival, humanity and the struggle against adversity. His work has been brought together in the most comprehensive, retrospective of his career.

Our arts correspondent Phil Hirschkorn files this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PHIL HIRSCHKORN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The black migration: More than 1 million African Americans fleeing poverty, racism and injustice in the American South. In the early part of the 20th century, they traveled -- mainly by train -- to northern cities: St. Louis, Chicago, New York -- a historical movement depicted in the paintings of Jacob Lawrence.

His entire migration series -- 60 panels in all -- on view at the Whitney Museum in New York. It's part of a 200-painting retrospective -- spanning seven decades of work, until Lawrence's death in 2000.

JACOB LAWRENCE: I'm part of the migration, my family's a part of it. I couldn't do one painting to tell the story. See, it had to be a number of works which I set out to do, and I did.

HIRSCHKORN: He even wrote the captions.

Lawrence also showed that life in the North had its own divisions.

HIRSCHKORN: Was that new -- the idea of doing a multi-panel narrative?

BARBARA HASKELL, CURATOR, WHITNEY MUSEUM: Absolutely. The idea of not only doing a multi-paneled narrative, but to combine image and text was something that had never been done before.

HIRSCHKORN: Lawrence always painted the world around him -- starting in Harlem, where he grew up in the 1920s and '30s. People at play and work -- the rhythm of urban life. Butcher shops, men who used to sell ice from a street cart, women who washed laundry. Lawrence found inspiration in everyday people -- riding the subway, coming home.

He captured life in bold, bright colors: yellow and red and blue paints that didn't cost a lot.

LAWRENCE: The primary colors were, like, 15 cents a jar in the five-and-dime. So I was dealing with very inexpensive material. And it suited me.

HIRSCHKORN: Lawrence gained critical acclaim by his mid-20s. But during World War II, he joined the Coast Guard and ended up a steward's mate -- serving meals to white officers. The segregation led to some of his darkest pictures.

HASKELL: He's using experiences within the African American community to really tell, I believe, a broader story about humanity and its struggle against adversity and its sense of overcoming the odds.

HIRSCHKORN: In the 1960s, Lawrence reflected the times: doors opening in higher education and clergy leading the fight for equal rights.

The famous civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama was the moment Lawrence chose for a painting commissioned for America's bicentennial.

How did he contribute his ideas to that movement?

HASKELL: He was very involved in civil rights as an individual and did a number of paintings about it, but they weren't, sort of, antagonistic -- pitting black against white. That wasn't his nature as a human being or as an artist.

HIRSCHKORN: Indeed, Lawrence gravitated toward dignified subjects like Harriet Tubman, who a century earlier, freed slaves through the Underground Railroad; or even contemporary track and field stars good enough to compete in the Olympics.

In his later years, Lawrence saw black and white working together.

HASKELL: Because he delivers a message that's so universally profound and so filled with love for humanity that that finally is what people take away from this exhibition.

HIRSCHKORN: Phil Hirschkorn, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: During the civil rights era, the Reverend Jesse Jackson marched side by side with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was just a young man then but grew into a national leader.

Our CNN Student Bureau caught up with Jackson in Houston, Texas, where he discussed a long journey for equality.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

YVETTE JOHNSON, CNN STUDENT BUREAU (voice-over): The Reverend Jesse Jackson is no stranger when it comes to fighting for people's rights. The civil rights activist who is working on abolishing social classes and color lines, says (ph) so much of his leadership and knowledge about issues of social justice came from the pattern set by the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

JESSE JACKSON, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: Well I was overwhelmed in his presence. He was such a dynamic man and yet such a humble man. And as I worked with him in the South, I got to know him much better and his true commitment to all people.

JOHNSON: During the 1960s, Dr. King and Jackson, along with the other members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, took over the south with countless sit-ins, boycotts and marches. Thinking back on the matter, Mr. Jackson says they had no choice but to fight.

JACKSON: The purpose was to fight for basic civil rights. At that time, African-Americans and Hispanics could not use a public toilet downtown. I was arrested trying to use a public library in 1960. We could not use the movie theater, we couldn't sit in a public park, so we fought to change those laws.

JOHNSON: As Reverend Jackson works hard towards peace and justice for all, he continues to carry on the legacy of one of America's greats.

DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation...

JOHNSON: Yvette Johnson, CNN Student Bureau, Houston, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

"Where in the World" has no formal Constitution, the lowest point of elevation is the Dead Sea, declared independence in 1948? Can you name this country? Israel.

FREIDMAN: Well the saying goes, water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink. But unlike the saying, apparently there is enough.

WALCOTT: The annual international water tasting contest was held in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia where a panel of judges picked what they thought was the world's best water. And the winners are:...

FREIDMAN: For purified water, Blue Moon Water Systems of Brandon, Canada. And for carbonated bottle water, Oaza Tesanj of Tesanj, Bosnia.

WALCOTT: For bottled water, Ice Mist of Morarp, Sweden took top honors. And for municiple water, Barraute of Quebec, Canada, my home, took the gold medal.

FREIDMAN: And speaking of medals, click on sportsillustrated.cnn.com for a complete wrap-up of the Olympic Games.

WALCOTT: That's right, the athletes head home today after two weeks of competition in Salt Lake City, Utah. And we head home now, too. We'll see you tomorrow. Bye-bye.

FREIDMAN: Bye.

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