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CNN Student News

Aired March 29, 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: Though the week has drawn to a close, CNN STUDENT NEWS has more to report. First up, we'll tell you what's happening at the Arab summit. Coming up in "Chronicle," meet the mathematician whose helping hands helped make a box office bonanza. And get a new "Perspective" on how to become financially fruitful. Finally, we end up in a country with intensely hot summers and short cool winters. "Where in the World" are we? See if you can figure it out.

And welcome to CNN STUDENT NEWS. I'm Michael McManus.

The Arab summit wraps up in Beirut with a road map for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Before adjourning yesterday, Arab leaders formally adopted a Saudi proposal for peace. The plan offers full diplomatic relations with Israel in return for Israel's withdrawal from Arab lands held since 1967. The peace plan also calls for a Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital as well as a right of return for almost four million Palestinian refugees.

Yesterday the most deadly suicide bombing in weeks cast more doubt on the cease-fire talks. It also puts renewed attention on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

We continue a debate now that began yesterday from the American University of Beirut. Brent Sadler sits down with six students to discuss their views on Arafat and Sharon and U.S. efforts toward peace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... when the United States says this country or this political party is a terrorist party, I mean, who is the judge in this world? Is it the United States? Do they claim who is a terrorist and who isn't? It's not fair.

They never said that Israel is a terrorist, and I do believe, and I think even you believe that what Sharon did in the past 20 years can be called terrorism. BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Let me talk about the United States-led war on terror, and Iraq, the axis of evil, according to President George W. Bush.

Waleed (ph), if that happens, and there have been many commentators in the Arab world talking about the United States, trying to clear the way to calm the situation between the Palestinians and the Israelis to clear the way for a possible United States-led attack against Saddam Hussein. How would that play, do you think, in the Arab world? What could we expect to see in response?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the central decision makers are the United States, but the secondary decision makers are the Saudis and the Gulf countries. I don't think they are ready to have Saddam Hussein's government fall down or his regime fall down, because a fall down of such a regime today will lead to the disassociation of the whole of Iraq and Iraq will become four or five sub-countries and there will be Shiites killing Sunnis and Sunnis fighting Shiites and that will make a problem to the Gulf countries themselves.

SADLER: Ramsey.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Arab leaders today may not be found appropriate for the Americans to build good relations with the Arabs, but the Americans are always afraid that in case those leaders are gone or overthrown, what kind of leaders will come after them.

I mean, they are afraid of Islamic fundamentalism that can easily come and replace those current leaders. So this is also the case of Iraq. Iraq today, if Saddam Hussein is overthrown, who is going to come after him? Nobody knows. It might be another crazy person, another...

SADLER: Let me ask you, in this environment in the Middle East, this very unpredictable, uncertain environment, what your visions are of Israelis your age, university students. Can you relate to them and their problems and their view of what they call terrorist actions, suicide bombings in the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Can you relate to their problems and their difficulties or not? And, vice versa, can they relate to yours, do you think?

Let me ask first of all Mark.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think fear of death and fear of terror and fear of killing is common everywhere. But what we need to do is communicate on peace, on our desire for peace.

This is the starting point for us and the Israelis. It's very easy to communicate. We communicate with the Americans, with the Europeans, with Arabs, so it's no different if their religion is a Jew. We can easily communicate with them.

Even if they are Israelis...

SADLER: You disagree? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I totally disagree. An Israeli civilian or an Israeli military man, I think they are equal. Let me explain. Just give ma second to explain this.

SADLER: Don't give a lot of background, because we're running out of time. Very quickly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If a European, a Jewish European, comes to Israel and knows that he is throwing a Palestinian out of his home, to sit in his place, he is no more a civilian. He is a settler, and not only a settler, he is a murderer. He is throwing people outside their house. He holds responsibility for the death of many people and for the refugees.

If I see a 21-year-old Israeli in Lebanon or any other country, I will kill him. If I see him outside, I won't talk to him. I can't talk to him.

SADLER: And how can you ever, with that kind of mentality, Waleed (ph), how can you ever hope to achieve peace with your enemy? Rana (ph) and then Saef (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't believe peace is achievable. I believe that there is a huge problem, an ideology problem, between the two countries.

Since Israel is based on the Zionist ideology, I don't think that we can acquire peace. It's a problem of two people living on the same land.

SADLER: Peace unachievable. Saef (ph)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I beg to differ. I'm going to quote Noam Chomsky on this. He says everyone wants peace, even Hitler wanted peace. But the question remains, on what terms.

And I think Israelis want peace, but they want the sort of peace -- or most of them, anyways, want the sort of peace by which they can expel most of us Palestinians out of our land.

I'd like to use this here, from CNN, and I know many Israelis are watching. I'd just like to tell them, we want to live in peace. But in order for us to be able to live in peace, in order for me to go to school and go to the university and have a decent education, I want to be able to live in my house, in my grandfather's land that was taken from us in 1948, and to live side by side by my neighbor, be him Jewish, Christian or Muslim, regardless of what his religion is, and just to live in equality.

Now, if you think that your state can live in peace with us, can provide me with peace with the current mentality that your state is built in, I think you have a serious problem. You have to reconsider the foundations on which our state is built and then you can come to us Palestinians and ask us why we're making your life miserable, or why we try to fight you. It's simply because you would not let us live in peace. The whole ideology in which your state if built is built on wrecking my life, wrecking the life of me and my grandfathers.

SADLER: Well, they would also say you are wrecking their life. The Arabs, the Palestinians, are wrecking their lives.

(CROSSTALK)

SADLER: The very final, final answer, Mark. You know that's a lot of strong comment there. They would say the same. Israelis would say the same. Not only wrecking, but causing heavy bloodshed. Very quickly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is why, they are saying the same and we are saying the same, but we should make it clear that both of us want peace, and having peace means standing up to whatever is causing the violence within our own communities, within our own societies. That's where it all starts.

When we go, we have the international resolutions 242 and 338 and 194. We discuss, we negotiate. But after each and every one of us stands and asks for peace within a democratic society which he lives in.

SADLER: All right, listen, we have to finish this debate right there.

Thank you very much indeed for joining us, each and every one of you.

As you heard there, a wide range of views, one of them that peace, she thought, was not achievable. Some very interesting discussion there about the United States-led war against terror. This debate could have gone on for many more hours.

Thank you for joining us. I'm Brent Sadler from this special edition of INSIGHT.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: An interesting discussion there.

Coming up in our "Week in Review," we'll bring you an overview of the Arab summit, those who showed up, those who didn't and what was accomplished. You can learn more about all of this on our Web site. That's CNNstudentnews.com.

March 28, 1975, the U.S. withdraws from Vietnam.

MCMANUS: And now the story of a woman with a major public relations mission ahead of her. Yesterday, we brought you a profile of Patricia Harrison. She's the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Kim Abbott introduces us to the woman trying to explain America abroad. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KIMBERLY ABBOTT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Tell me what cultural diplomacy is and why it's important?

PATRICIA HARRISON, U.S. ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL AFFAIRS: Well I think the most important thing for the young men and women who are watching today is that it's just a fancy word for people-to-people diplomacy. It is one person in one country having an opportunity to interact and talk with or learn from a person in another country and we believe whether it is through people-to-people diplomacy in our educational exchanges or cultural diplomacy.

Now what would that mean? That could mean sending our young jazz ambassadors throughout the world to play music from America. And after they're through playing the music, the audience typically will ask them something. Right now we have a group, the Aaron Thurston Trio (ph), and they're traveling throughout the Middle East. Some of these people have never ever heard an American jazz group play before. And so they spend some time and they talk to people who are interested in music or just interested in life in the United States and they just have a conversation. That's cultural diplomacy.

ABBOTT: Why is that important?

HARRISON: I think the more you have conversation, the more you have a chance for mutual understanding and mutual respect, two people don't seem so strange to each other. You find common values. And even though you may not speak the same language, and this is where cultural diplomacy works, because you don't need translation when you send art abroad or you have music or you have photographs, people can relate to those things immediately.

ABBOTT: What are some of the projects you've started since September 11 using that sort of cultural diplomacy and where's the focus then?

HARRISON: We're bringing over young people so that they can see what life is like here. We want to bring over more journalists from the Middle East so they can see how the press operates in a free society. We're also bringing religious leaders over, Emoms (ph), and they can see religion in a free and open society. All of this is to show our country in a way that perhaps doesn't get communicated. Sometimes it's just through our movies that people get an impression about the United States and don't really know who we are as a people.

Through this bureau, we are bringing over a people who are going to be able to teach Arabic in universities, who will be able to talk about culture, who will be able to talk about the Muslim faith in a way that promotes dialog because fear of the unknown can be a very dangerous fear.

ABBOTT: You came into this office after September 11.

HARRISON: Yes, I did. ABBOTT: And tell me how the relevancy of this department has changed since then, because at first glance, you might say well, you know, why would you put money into culture and education when it should be in defense right now (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

HARRISON: Right.

ABBOTT: But has it become that much more important since September 11?

HARRISON: Yes, I think since September 11. When people are not talking, you have an increase in not mutual understanding, mutual misunderstanding in fear, in misperceptions. And right now while we have this coalition against terrorism, as the Secretary of State has said, as we fight the scourge of terrorism, we must also look for partnership opportunities to increase peace, prosperity and democracy. And that's what public diplomacy can do.

ABBOTT: Any message to young people who may feel like places like Afghanistan are just so far away and there's nothing that they can do?

HARRISON: It is really the responsibility of the young person while they're surfing the Net, you know, and sending e-mails back and forth, just take two minutes and pop in those words, State Department or a country you might be interested in, or our embassies all have these wonderful Web sites, and start reading and start thinking and visualizing yourself as a public affairs office talking for our country. Exchange changes your life. Going to another country changes your life in ways you have no idea when you start on this journey. It's one of the most exciting and satisfying things you can do. And if you think about it now, who knows, maybe one day you'll be Secretary of State.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: Speaking of education and cultural, Math Education Month kicks off next week. It begins April 1. No fooling. And in our "Chronicle" report today, we focus on math and its role in the hit movie "A Beautiful Mind." The producers of the movie wanted the complex problems you see to be as realistic as possible. What to do? Bring in, well, a truly beautiful mind.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Oscar-winning film, "A Beautiful Mind," is based on the life of a real mathematician, John Nash. But there is another real mathematician behind the film. He was a consultant to check the math in the movie, and his hands were used in several scenes to write out complex equations.

He is Dave Bayer, a professor of mathematics at Barnard College in New York City. The story of this real mathematician has nothing to do with mad genius or schizophrenia, but it could still be titled, "A Beautiful Mind." What's on the chalkboard is evidence of how his mind works. How Bayer says human minds have worked since early man invented the wheel.

DAVE BAYER, MATH PROFESSOR: There is no distinction for me between mathematics done on a blackboard now and somebody staring at a shape and saying, "Well if it was a little rounder, it would roll better." And that's mathematics. I mean, mathematics shapes our identity as people.

NISSEN: That may be hard to prove to all those people who hit the wall in math comprehension some time after Algebra. For most people in the world, higher mathematics is complex, confusing, confounding.

BAYER: I mean, it happened to me too. When I first had trigonometry, it was like, "What is this?"

NISSEN: But Bayer worked through all the hard angles, reached a higher plane where mathematics is an art form, classic, elegant.

BAYER: Mathematicians have a vision of how they like to see things. In artists it's the same thing. I mean, a painter has a particular vision that they're fulfilling.

NISSEN (on camera): But instead of paints you use?

BAYER: Symbols.

NISSEN (voice-over): Just as many people say they can't understand modern art, many can't understand this chalk mural. Ask, and Bayer will tell you the center panel depicts the relationships between sisergies (ph) and graph colorings, using cellular resolutions and hyperplane arrangements -- right. The other two panels have to do with how to represent mathematically the shape of things: a ball, a doughnut, a universe.

BAYER: What does the universe look like? You know, does it just keep going in all directions? Part of what I'm interested in is representations, computer algorithms for manipulating descriptions of possible shapes of space.

NISSEN: While most people think of mathematicians working at chalkboards -- when they think of mathematicians at all -- this is the truer picture. Bayer does most of his work on computer.

BAYER: And so in some sense, all of mathematics is being reinvented so we can understand how to do it on the computer.

NISSEN: Computers may help with some of the great unsolved mathematics problems. Problems that have puzzled the keenest minds for decades, for centuries. Yet each new generation of mathematicians, including Bayer's, keeps seeking answers.

BAYER: It's like searching a woods and people just span out. And somebody is lucky and tries the right thing. You spend part of your time working on things you know you can do, and you spend part of your time working on things you should know you can't do. NISSEN: Yet know you must try to do anyway, to advance human knowledge, to elevate civilization, because that is what the mind is for at its beautiful best.

Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

MCMANUS: Do you have something you consider to be your lucky charm, a rabbit's foot or maybe a lucky T-shirt? You know, the one you wore when you aced your chemistry final. Well, if you don't have a symbol of good fortune, consider fruit. Yes, a certain fruit just may be the key to your financial future. That's at least according to Chinese custom.

CNN's Andrew Brown sorts it out for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDREW BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Today, we take money for granted. At the market, live chickens are readily sold for cash.

Of course, it wasn't always like this. Hundreds of years ago, farmers simply used livestock as currency, swapping chickens for cows and vice versa.

It wasn't a great system.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You decided, well, 500 chickens equals one cow. It's rather easy to lead one cow back home, but the poor guy who took the 500 chickens has got a problem.

BROWN: And that's one of the reasons why money was invented in the first place, so that instead of having to cart around hundreds of live animals, a buyer and a seller could simply agree a price and then exchange coins.

Now there's something even more convenient, so-called smart cards that store money in electronic chips. Some industry experts believe they are the beginning of the end of cash.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's going to take about 10 - 15 years for shifting from a purely cash based transaction to a fully digital capabilities for doing those transactions.

BROWN: That will certainly make spending money a lot easier, but will we ever be able to completely trust smart cards the way we trust cash?

Not surprisingly, smart card manufacturers say yes. They are building encryption technologies they claim will protect us from fraud. Machines will always verify buyers are who they say they are before authorizing a transaction, which is a source of controversy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have these fringe groups who are absolutely convinced that the move towards digital cash, especially digital cash that requires identity, is actually a control move. It's a move, I mean, they refer to it as the rival of the beast. You know, the idea of having a number printed across your forehead.

BROWN: Even that is not an entirely new idea. In Hong Kong, chickens are tagged as soon as they are sold, and a copy of the tag is given to the customer.

Want to know what the monetary system of the future will be based on? You're looking at it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

The Chinese New Year Celebration starts with the New Moon on the first day of the New Year and ends on the Full Moon 15 days.

MCMANUS: The White House is welcoming the Arab League's endorsement of the Saudi peace plan for the Middle East. The proposal, as we told you earlier in the show, was endorsed yesterday at the Arab summit.

Our Joel Hochmuth brings us an overview of the summit and the unified stand that those in attendance took away.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOEL HOCHMUTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): That the Arab League would reach a unanimous decision on the Saudi proposal seemed unlikely, if not unthinkable, as their summit got underway Wednesday. Delegates assembled amid an Arab disarray. Nearly half the leaders of the Arab League stayed away, including two key supporters of peace with Israel, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah.

The most conspicuous absence was Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat who was afraid if he came Israel wouldn't let him back in to the West Bank. Then the Palestinian delegation that was there walked out in protest when Lebanon's President Emile Lahoud pulled the plug on a televised speech Arafat was to deliver to the conference.

NABIL SHAATH, PALESTINIAN CABINET MINISTER: He was -- he was prevented from doing that. No, I do not. By the president of this conference.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why did this happen?

SHAATH: You should ask him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is the solution?

SHAATH: I don't want to go into nawya (ph) intentions. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do you need to see so that you will join the conference?

SHAATH: Mr. Arafat has to be allowed to address the conference live.

HOCHMUTH: Lahoud's official explanation was that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon might try to interrupt the broadcast to address the conference himself.

Amid the confusion, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah addressed the conference and laid out his land for peace proposal. But in a bold diplomatic move, his remarks were intended at least as much for the Israeli people as the delegates. It was an apparent attempt to sidestep Sharon and sway public opinion directly.

CROWN PRINCE ABDULLAH, SAUDI ARABIA (through translator): I would further say to the Israeli people, that if their government abandons the policy of force and oppression and embraces true peace, we will not hesitate to accept the right of the Israeli people to live in security with the people of the region.

HOCHMUTH: Events in Israel threatened to derail the summit as well. A suicide bomber killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 170 at a hotel in Netanya where a festive meal was underway ushering in the Jewish Passover. Hamas, a Palestinian fundamentalist group, claimed responsibility but denied the timing had anything to do with the Beirut summit. Officially, the Palestinian Authority tried to distance itself.

SAEB ERAKAT, CHIEF PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR: We condemn what happened in Netanya last night. We issued a very strong statement. President Arafat is condemning what happened in the strongest possible terms.

HOCHMUTH: Despite the distractions, Arab leaders gathered again on Thursday. With the Palestinian delegation back in attendance, all 22 members adopted the Saudi proposal during a closed-door session. It marks the first time the Arab world has collectively offered Israel recognition, security and normal relations in exchange for a full withdrawal from Arab lands held since 1967.

ERAKAT: I believe the United States, Europe must take this development and the seriousness it requires. I believe that this could facilitate and open the road for a historic event to take place in terms of instituting a historic comprehensive and lasting peace in the region.

HOCHMUTH: The Israelis, on the other hand, are expressing reservations. Among other things, they're concerned about letting Palestinian refugees return to lands they lost in Israel.

EHUD BARAK, FORMER ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: It's not enough to recognize Israel. The need is to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. We are not supposed to be just totally on democracy, the only one in the Middle East that will turn gradually into by national state and along a generation into another country of state with Muslim majority and Jewish minority.

HOCHMUTH: Despite those reservations, the proposal from the Arab summit is a rare ray of hope in an otherwise bleak situation.

Late Thursday, there was another potentially positive development. Arafat said he's ready to implement the so-called Tenet cease-fire proposal without conditions. It remains to be seen whether the two are related and whether they turn out to be a breakthrough or just another road to nowhere.

Joel Hochmuth, CNN STUDENT NEWS.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: It's Easter on Sunday and one of the most holy days on the Christian calendar, a time marking the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus. Holy Thursday services were held at the Vatican yesterday. And for the first time in his 23 years as head of the Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II was unable to fully take part in the ceremonies. The pontiff has been in frail health for years.

So Easter also signals the end of the holy season of Lent.

CNN's Student Bureau looks at how Christians in one Mississippi community observed those 40 days of Lent.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ETHAN ZUBIC, CNN STUDENT BUREAU (voice-over): These Christians are preparing for the resurrection, the day the holy Bible says Jesus Christ rose from the dead. For many Protestants and Catholics, Lenten is the season of sacrifice.

WARREN GOFF, CATHOLIC DEACON: Jesus fasted for 40 days in the desert to prepare himself for this ministry, and we do the same with Lent. You know it's a time for purification, a time of really trying to change our lives and become more like Jesus. And that's what we're truly all about.

ZUBIC: For many Christians, Lent is about giving up something personally significant to them. It is a sign of empathy towards Christ's plight.

MEGAN RICHARDSON, AGE 16: I just do it for personal benefit and for spiritual belief, because I think God died for us and I think we should give up a little something for him.

ZUBIC: This year, Megan has given up gossip.

RICHARDSON: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) gave up for Lent. Thank you very much for asking.

ZUBIC: She says sometimes it's a tough task, but refraining from the rumor mill makes Megan feel better about herself.

(on camera): All Catholics who observe Lent give up eating meat on Fridays. That's why you'll find fish fries, like this one, all across the country.

(voice-over): High school senior Jessica Lawless hasn't been too successful in her sacrificing so far this season, but she'll still passionate about the purpose of Lent.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's just a way for you to get closer to God. You know to pray a little bit more, to really talk to him, not, you know, just be like say that our Father and hail Mary and stuff but really talk to him and, you know, and just listen to him and let him talk back to you.

ZUBIC: Pastors and priests say the season of Lent often does wonders for attendance. Their prayer, of course, is for parishioners to flock here all year round.

Ethan Zubic, CNN Student Bureau, Pascagoula, Mississippi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

"Where in the World" natural resources include shrimp and petroleum, formation of political parties is illegal, attacked by Iraq in 1990? Can you name this country? Kuwait.

MCMANUS: Kuwait, a country in the news every single day for a little while about 12 years ago.

Well I'm Michael McManus. It's Friday. Have a great weekend. And we'll see you right back here on Monday.

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