WXXI-TV | Assignment: The World |


	• NEWS >> ATW Script 10 April 2003 Yearly Script Program Index -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OPEN/WELCOME Hi and welcome to Assignment: The World for the week of April tenth, 2003. I’m Elissa Marra. In our top story this week… American troops arrive in Baghdad. #1— IRAQ Dozens of U-S tanks rumbled through downtown Baghdad with crushing force on Monday, seizing one of Saddam Hussein's opulent palaces, toppling a 40-foot statue of the Iraqi ruler and nearly pushing his regime out of business. Some Iraqi soldiers jumped into the Tigris River to flee the advancing Americans. Others were captured and placed inside a hastily erected P-O-W pen on the grounds of the blue-and-gold-domed New Presidential Palace. Tank-killing A-10 Warthogs and pilotless drone planes provided air cover as Americans briefly surrounded the Information Ministry, as well as the city's best-known hotel, the Al-Rashid. Commanders characterized resistance as mostly disorganized. It was the third straight day the Army penetrated Saddam's seat of power. Marines encountered tougher fighting as they entered the city for the first time. Regime (n) a government in power. ATW FACT Fifty-eight per cent of Americans think it’s a good thing that reporters are embedded with allied military troops in Iraq. Thirty-four per cent do not favor reporters there. Source: USA Today April 7, 2003 INTRO REST OF THE NEWS In the rest of the news this week… -- Bush meets Tony Blair in Belfast… --the U-N Secretary General calls a special meeting... -- and finally, an update on SARS disease. #2— BUSH/BLAIR MEETING President Bush flew to Belfast, Northern Ireland Monday for a war council with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain. It was the third British-American summit meeting in as many weeks. The meeting coincided with news that American forces were attacking the presidential palaces and other symbols of Saddam Hussein's regime in the heart of Baghdad and that British soldiers had overcome resistance and taken control of Iraq's second city, Basra. Officials said that under discussion were the postwar administration of Iraq and the question — crucial to Europe — of what role the United Nations might play in it. President Bush also took the opportunity on his first trip to Northern Ireland to meet with the heads of the British province's political parties and with Prime Minister Bertie Ahern of Ireland, who arrived from Dublin. Coincide (v) to take place at the same time as another event. #3— U-N MEETING U-N Secretary General Kofi Annan scrambling to keep pace with the conflict in Iraq met with the 15 members of the Security Council Monday in an effort to secure a leading role for the U-N in the reconstruction of post-war Iraq. While the U-S-led invasion of Iraq has progressed with lightening speed into the streets and government palaces of Baghdad, the U-N and the White House have still not resolved differences over what role the U-N will play in Iraq once military strikes subside. Annan called Monday’s meeting on the same day that President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair met in Belfast to discuss post-war Iraq. The Bush administration proposed to set up its own interim body to govern Iraq after the war. That plan has raised concern among many Arab countries and other foreign governments that the White House will commandeer Iraq's oil resources to pay for the war effort and bolster American business interests in the Middle East. Reconstruction (n) the act of rebuilding. #4— SARS UPDATE Public health officials in the U-S and with the World Health Organization called the recent outbreak of SARS a “worldwide epidemic” and said that they are racing the clock to find a vaccine for the lung disease. The W-H-O reported over 26-hundred cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome worldwide with nearly one-hundred deaths so far. Three public health experts appeared before a Congressional committee to explain what was being done to locate the cause of the disease and to slow down, if not stop, the spread. Scientists believe that the virus probably developed in an animal species and then transferred to humans. Epidemic (adj) affecting many individuals at the same time and spreading from person to person POP QUIZ #1 In our story about Belfast, in addition to meeting with Tony Blair, with whom did Bush also meet? Was it… 1- Colin Powell 2- Bertie Ahern 3- Gerry Adams And the correct answer is number two… Bush met with Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern. OLD CLUE #1— NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA And now it’s time for the answers to our last clues in the news… Find the location of our first clue and you get New Orleans, Louisiana… site of this year’s N-C-A-A basketball championships. Syracuse University won its first ever basketball national championship Monday defeating the University of Kansas 81-78. The Orangemen were led by freshman sensation Carmelo Anthony who finished with twenty points, ten rebounds and seven assists. Syracuse led by as many as eighteen in the first half before holding off the Jayhawks in the second half. This was Syracuse’s third attempt at a national title. OLD CLUE #2—ALASKAN OIL Fill in the blanks of our second clue and you’d get, “Alaskan Oil.” Last week, the U-S Senate fell two votes shy of passing the legislation that could lead to removal of a forty-three-year ban on developing millions of barrels of oil from the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Bush Administration said they will not give up the fight this year to open the refuge to drilling. The White House is turning its attention to the House, which may still revive the issue as part of its upcoming energy bill. OLD CLUE #3—SPY SATELLITE And finally, unscramble our third clue and you’d get, “Spy Satellite.” Japan launched a rocket carrying two military spy satellites into low-level orbits last week. The satellites, which carry radar equipment and cameras, will allow Japan to monitor North Korea. North Korea test-fired two short-range missiles and warned that launching the satellites could prompt it to drop a five-year-old, self-imposed moratorium on long-range missile firings. American officials are watching North Korea’s missile program very closely because they are producing materials to build nuclear weapons. THIS WEEK IN WORLD HISTORY This week in world history… on April eleventh, 1968…President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1968, one week after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. FEATURE ECLIPSE FEATURE You don’t get the chance to see a lunar eclipse very often so we took the opportunity to check one out! (Wyatt) Here at the Strasenburg Planetarium in Rochester, New York Steve Fentress is educating kids about a unique experience in our solar system. A lunar eclipse. (Steve Fentress) We are about to do our planetarium show...The night of the eclipse at the RMSC Strasenburg Planetarium and when you come in and take a seat in the Star Theater and we will show you what an up-coming lunar eclipse looks like, why eclipses happen, what we can learn from eclipses and a few other odd facts about the moon. There are two different kinds of eclipses. Solar eclipses...a lot fewer people see. In a solar eclipse if you are just the right place you get to see the moon move in front of the sun and cover it up for a short time. The other kind is a lunar eclipse and a lot more people get to see those. In a lunar eclipse the moon passes through the shadow of the earth. So everybody on the night side of the earth when that is happening can see it. A lunar eclipse on May 15th will be visible a least partly all throughout the continental United States. It will take about 52 minutes to pass all the way through the shadow and then it will come back out and we will have the normal full moon again. (Wyatt) So is it possible to predict an eclipse? (Steve) yes, you can predict...its something called a sairos cycle where if you know the date of one eclipse you can predict the dates of other eclipses. Predicting eclipses is really a math problem where you have to figure out three different things, how long before the sun comes back to the same place in the sky, how long before the moon comes back to the same place in the sky and how long before an invisible point called the node of the moon's orbit comes back to the same place in the sky. (Wyatt) For ATW, I'm Wyatt Doremus ISN’T IT COOL! BAGPIPES Thousands of pipers and drummers gathered in New York City for the National Tartan Day Parade! The Tunes of Glory Parade down Manhattan’s Sixth Avenue was the fifth annual commemoration of the city’s Scottish roots. Since 1998, the U-S Senate has designated April 6 as National Tartan Day…it is also the date the Scottish Declaration of Independence was signed in 1320. ISSUE More than 200-thousand women serve in the armed forces for the United States. And unlike the 1991 Gulf War, women in Iraq fly combat missions and serve on Navy ships, though women are still barred from submarines, Special Forces and the Army’s infantry, armor and artillery divisions. Three women serving in Iraq have been taken captive since the war started, one returned, one died and Army Cook, Shoshana Johnson is still missing. Some Americans still struggle with the idea of women soldiers. Some people feel women aren’t as strong or emotionally conditioned for war as men may be. A 2001 poll showed a slim majority of Americans support women serving as ground combat troops—and nearly seventy-five per cent say they should be allowed on submarines. Yet many people interviewed one week ago had changed their tune and answered that they “were no longer sure” about women serving in the dangerous positions. Well, we’d like to know what you think…”Should women serve as ground combat troops?” Discuss this issue with your classmates after the show and then write to us with your opinion. MAILBAG We received nearly four hundred responses to our issue question, “Should students have to take a second language?” The majority of you, fifty five percent, say yes, you should take a second language. Thirty eight percent say no, you should not. Seven percent are undecided. Many of you feel taking a second language shouldn’t be mandatory. Stephen Q. of Mequon (Mek-won), Wisconsin writes, “If the job they want has nothing to with another language it is a very big waste.” Colin H. of Pittsford, New York agrees and writes, “If a kid doesn’t want a job that has to do with another language … they shouldn’t have to learn one.” Erika N. of Long Valley, New Jersey adds, “Some students are overwhelmed by (a) new language.” The majority of you, however, feel learning a second language is a good thing. Taylor K. of Verona, Virginia writes, “I think if you learn a foreign language some day … it will come in handy.” Casey R. of Keene, New Hampshire writes, “Second languages help kids and adults to communicate with other countries. With these skills, kids will have more opportunities … later in life.” Seth S. of Henderson, Nebraska adds, “It helps you know the other countries culture.” And finally, Josh M. of Loudonville, New York says “I recently learned that children in Puerto Rico have to learn Spanish, English and French before high school…I felt embarrassed that while (they) were learning our language, we … are too arrogant to learn another language.” MAILBAG CLOSE We look forward to receiving your responses to our two latest issue questions… “Should the media have complete access to the troops in Iraq?” and “Should women serve as ground combat troops?” If you would like to receive an Assignment: The World Press card, please enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope. You may write to us here at Assignment: The World, Post Office Box three-zero-zero-twenty-one, Rochester, New York… one-4-6-zero-3… or you may contact us at the A-T-W website at http://atwonline.org./ We also read e-mail at atw@wxxi.org. POP QUIZ #2 In our story about SARS, what do scientists believe may be the origin of the disease? Was it… 1) animals 2) infected water 3) insect bites And the correct answer is number one... scientists suggest that the disease came from animals. NEW CLUES And now it’s time for next week’s clues in the news… Our first clue is a location… 09 Degrees, 12 minutes north latitude 07 Degrees, 11 minutes east longitude Our second clue is a fill-in-the-blank, it’s two words… _ A _ _ H _ A _ And finally, our third clue is a scrambled letter, it is two words… E O M Y N G T E M I E N S These are clues to stories we think will happen in the coming week. You can find the answers on radio and television newscasts and in newspapers and newsmagazines. We’ll reveal the answers on next week’s show. Good luck! GOOD-BYE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And that’s it for this week’s show. From all of us here at Assignment: The World, I’m Elissa Marra. We’ll see you again next week. © 2003 WXXI-TV/ Assignment: The World. All Rights Reserved.