Return to Transcripts main page
CNN 10
New Stimulus Plan Moves Through U.S. Congress; Cultural Scars Remain From Taliban Rule; New Tech Helps Read The Contents of Old, Locked Letters. Aired 4-4:10a ET
Aired March 09, 2021 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Hi, I`m Carl Azuz. As we get started on Tuesday`s edition of CNN 10, members of the U.S. House of Representatives are
preparing for a vote on a $1.9 trillion bill intended to stimulate the U.S. economy. The House first approved the bill in late February and it passed
in the Senate last weekend but that chamber made changes to the legislation.
For one thing, it eliminated the bills increase in the Federal minimum wage as political experts expected. So now the House must vote on the
legislation again before it can be sent to President Joe Biden`s desk for his signature.
This week`s House vote is expected to go along party lines like it did in the Senate. Democrats are likely to vote for the bill. Republicans are
likely to vote against it. Because Democrats control the House with the majority of seats there, the chamber`s expected to pass the legislation.
This would be the third major spending bill that the U.S. government has enacted to counteract the economic problems triggered by the coronavirus
pandemic.
10 Second Trivia. The name of the Taliban, Afghanistan`s former rulers, comes from what word? Students, base, supreme or task. In Afghanistan`s
official language of Pashto, Taliban means students.
The Taliban gained power in Afghanistan in the 1990s`. They`re a Muslim fundamentalist group that worked to establish a strict interpretation of
Islam in Afghanistan. They didn`t allow TV, movies or music and they limited the education that girls could get or banned it all together.
After the September 11th terrorist attacks in 2001, the United States led a group of other countries in removing the Taliban from power. They Taliban
had allowed Al-Qaida terrorists to live and train in Afghanistan and it refused to hand them over to America following the attacks. Twenty years
later, the Taliban remained a powerful force in the country and scars remain from their rule in the 1990s`.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A game of cricket underway with a few onlookers resting on rocky ground. A peaceful scene at the foot of a mountain with towering
cutouts where two Buddhist statues once stood, now filled with scaffolding and rubble.
This man says he was here 20 years ago when Taliban forces who had taken control of the province. Over the course of a few weeks obliterated the
statues as part of its campaign to destroy pre-Islamic artifacts they considered to be an assault on Islam.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE TRANSLATED: We were going to the bazaar when the Taliban picked us up on the way and then took us to the Buddhas. There were around
45 other people and the Taliban forced us all to carry the explosives. They told us to leave when the task was done and then they detonated the Buddhas
and dust filled the entire valley.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The monuments have been part of the landscape of Bamyan for about 1,500 years, surviving Genghis Khan and centuries of war. In
March 2001, the Taliban relentlessly hacked away at them with tank fire and explosives until they were shattered.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE TRANSLATED: We realized that nothing was left but an empty frame and an identity that had been destroyed. My feeling was that we
had a historical artifact that had been turn into such a miserable state.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the two decades since their destruction, some have tried to recreate the likenesses through technology. But to the people of
Bamyan, it is a towering loss of a piece of history reduced to boulders, dust and memories.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AZUZ: We first reported on Lynda Doughty a year ago. She`s a CNN Hero who helps rescue harbor seals in Maine. She started her own conservation group
after others she worked with closed down because they lost funding.
Despite the shutdowns made when the coronavirus pandemic hit, Doughty`s organization expanded and it was allowed to stay open keeping up its good
work.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LYNDA DOUGHTY, CNN HERO: Releasing a seal is really bittersweet and as much as I`m excited to see that animal be released. It`s also hard in the sense
of seeing the animal now gone. Growing up on the coast of Maine, I was exposed to marine mammals and wildlife in general.
Since our local area is really surrounded by water, you do a lot of things on the ocean. You see seals doing their thing and I just remember being so
amazed. What I love about seals is they really look similar to dogs and they also are really charismatic. It`s really neat to see them in their
natural environment and they`re very curious in general.
These animals are special to me. So I ended up become a marine biologist. I would say the biggest stress to these animals is human impact. We may have
an animal that may have been entangled or hit by a boat or injured from a prop wound. With the increase of the human activity on beaches, these
animals don`t get time to rest and regain their energy.
Taking selfies with seals can actually cause a lot of stress and harm for that animal. When harbor seal pups are born, they stay with their mom for
about four weeks. Mom usually goes off to forage for food and then come back again. If there`s any human involvement, there`s people that are
around that pup or pick up and move that pup. The mom may not come back and once that abandonment occurs, that seal pup is not going to survive.
Over the years, non-profits and state agencies for marine mammals response and rescue either closed down or lost funding and that`s where I decided,
we`re going to help. Good morning Mr. 64. Our organization runs a 24 hours reporting hotline for marine mammal strandings. 184 is currently the one
that is upside down. We cover approximately 2,500 miles along the coast of Maine.
Most of the animals that we respond to is about 90 percent seals. We only intervene if needed. When an animal comes into our center, we usually take
blood, start an IV and get a whole, kind of, diagnostics of what the animals dealing with and then come up with a medical plan. So he`s on fluid
therapy today to try to break up some of this pneumonia that he has.
I have attended every release because once you bring an animal into your center, I feel 100 percent responsibility for that animal. Oh you`re so
adorable. You want to see that animal be released because it not the finish of that animal`s story. I just want to welcome you to our seal release
today.
We have two harbor seals that we will be releasing. Both these animals came in really underweight and emaciated. They`re feeling fat and happy today
which is what we like. Five, four, three, two, one. It`s been now 20 years that I`ve been doing this but it seems like I just started yesterday and
the feeling has not changed me.
I love it now more than ever. I can`t imagine their not being a place in the state of Maine for these animals to have a chance to be cared for and I
will do that as long as I can. I feel this intense responsibility to help these animals and really this is what I was put on this earth to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AZUZ: So back in the day, like the 1600s`, letters were sometimes locked. They were intricately folded and sealed to become their own envelopes.
Hundreds of these locked letters that couldn`t be delivered between 1689 and 1706 were stored in a post master`s trunk in the Netherlands.
They were given to a museum in 1926 and conservators didn`t want to open and potentially damage them. But X-ray scanners and computer algorithms
were recently used to extract a letters words without actually unfolding the document.
It revealed a request from one cousin to another for the death certificate of a relative. Researchers don`t know why it wasn`t delivered but it`s a
new glimpse into the daily lives of people who lived ages ago. Makes you wonder what the others contained. Maybe an unpatented patent that`s now a
"patent" mystery.
Maybe an ungranted grant that would have "granted" rights to the letter. How many documents remain "locuments"? How many settlements remained
unsettled? Did a package get "packed" before it could ever make an "impact"? Did star crossed lovers ever to "envelope"?
These mysteries can now "unfold". Benton High School in Benton, Louisiana. Hello and thank you for your comment on our You Tube channel. I`m Carl Azuz
for CNN.
END
