Return to Transcripts main page

STUDENT NEWS

Dispute Over Islands; Syria`s Civil War

Aired December 14, 2012 - 04:00:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACKSON LEGOS: New York name is Jackson Legos (ph) of Rockland High School in Rockland, Wyoming, representing Miss. Stuckey`s current events class.

C.J. SMITH: And I`m C.J. Smith.

So fasten your seat belts and throw in your helmets, it`s CNN STUDENT NEWS time. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CARL AZUZ, HOST: A big thanks to Jackson and C.J. for getting things started today. They`re ready to go and so are we.

It`s Friday, I`m Carl, and this is CNN STUDENT NEWS.

Senkaku and Diaoyu -- two different names for the same set of islands at the center of some tension between China and Japan. You can see those two countries on this map. And right in between them, that`s where you`ll find these islands in the East China Sea.

There`s not much to them. They`re rocky. They`re not near much else. No one lives there.

So why is there tension?

Well, China and Japan each say the islands belong to them. Yesterday, this was seen near the islands -- a Chinese plane. China said it was there to carry out a patrol.

Japan launched its own planes in response, including eight fighter jets. The Chinese plane was gone by the time the Japanese jets showed up. And while China and Japan have been kind of wrestling over these islands for a while, this was the first time aircraft were involved.

Next up, a story from Syria`s civil war. Some of the images from this conflict are difficult to watch. Some people might find them disturbing, so we want to make you aware of that, because this story includes footage of a Syrian woman who had been shot by a sniper while she was walking down the street.

We`re showing it to you because of what happened next.

A Syrian teenager, 17 years old, crawled out into the street to try to save her. He isn`t her relative or neighbor. They`ve never met. He crawled out through the gunfire and put his own life at risk because he said he knew he had to save the woman or die trying.

He was able to help get her out of the street. He wasn`t able to save her life.

Later, he talked with CNN`s Arwa Damon.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: "We wanted to save her, to get her to a hospital. I am not a hero. I am just like anyone else."

(END VIDEO TAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is this legit -- decibels are a measure of mass.

Not legit. Decibels measure the intensity of sound, especially loud sounds.

AZUZ: All right, think about when you`re watching a TV show. If you were measuring the speaker`s dialogue with a decibel meter, it might look something like this, a normal speaking voice. But then a commercial comes on and suddenly the volume jumps to this.

Take a look at that decibel meter now.

It`s not a problem you`d run into with our show, but the U.S. government gets thousands of complaints from people who say that the advertisements they see are significantly louder than the shows they`re watching.

Congress passed the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation, or CALM Act, in 2010. It basically says that TV stations, both network and cable, have to have commercials that are at the same volume as the shows they`re airing.

Now, not all business owners are on board with this. They say the whole point of advertising on TV is to get people`s attention and they`re concerned that the CALM Act might make that more difficult.

The fastest growing drug problem in the United States, you`re looking at it -- prescription drug abuse. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one American dies from a drug overdose every 19 minutes. A pharmaceutical industry representative says the problem here is balancing those patients who abuse prescription drugs with those who use them responsibly, and, therefore, get the medical benefit from them.

I spoke about this with CNN`s Dr. Sanjay Gupta recently.

He had some suggestions for avoiding the dangers of prescription drugs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: Dr. Gupta, we`ve talked about the dangers of prescription medications on CNN STUDENT NEWS.

When are these things OK to take?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There are situations where your doctor is going to prescribe you these types of medications, uh, and, you know, presumably, in most cases, that`s going to be OK to take. I think that one of the points we try to make is that we give a lot of pain medications out in this country and we don`t always try other things first.

So I think the doctor is going to make a judgment, but you, as a patient, or whoever is watching, needs to decide, as well, do I really need to take narcotics?

Could this be something that could be helped with something less powerful or -- or just, you know, something like just stretching and massage?

AZUZ: Let`s say a student does feel like he needs it. Maybe he has a sports injury or something that causes a lot of pain. Maybe he`s given 10 pills, only needs three or four of them.

What does he do with the remaining pills?

GUPTA: Well, you know, there is -- this is a -- actually, a very interesting topic. The medications themselves, you don`t want to sort of get them out there in the general supply, you don`t want them sitting around in your medicine cabinet, you don`t want them to flush down the toilet.

Uh, you -- the best thing you could -- you could probably throw them away. But even better than that, there are some what are known as take- back programs, where the DEA will actually come and take these medications back. Eventually, they burn them, which is the right thing to do with these types of medications.

But don`t leave them in your medicine cabinet. People get tempted. Someone else may take them and that can be a real problem.

AZUZ: The same hypothetical student who`s injured has a brother who gets a similar injury.

Is it ever OK for the brother to take his medication?

GUPTA: It`s -- it`s really not. And -- and, you know, people do this all the time, I -- I know. And people watching may say that happens in our -- in our own home.

The problem is that, you know, everybody is different. How the medication may react with somebody could be different. If they`re taking other medications, those medications could interact. That could be a problem.

But I think psychologically, if you`re just sort of getting some pills from another family member, you may not take it as seriously.

These are -- these are potentially dangerous pills, and, you know, so you have to treat it as such.

AZUZ: Especially if they`re taken recreationally, as some people might take them, to get a buzz.

What are the dangers of doing that?

GUPTA: The -- the biggest danger and these types of medications, they -- they affect a part of the brain that actually makes your body breathe. We`re all breathing like this.

(breathing)

GUPTA: We don`t think about it much. But let`s say you go to sleep and that part of your brain has been tinkered with a little bit. You may start to lose the urge to breathe and that`s the concern -- you just stop breathing.

And when we say someone dies every 19 minutes, that`s -- I -- I`ve just described most -- most likely how it occurs.

The -- the biggest danger with something like this is that you start to take more and more. It just doesn`t work as well, so you`re taking more and more. It`s not treating your pain or whatever reason you took it for in the first place, but it is still impairing your breathing.

So all of a sudden you start to build up that -- that potentially life-threatening effect of these pills.

AZUZ: Dr. Gupta, thank you for helping us understand these things better, helping us understand how they can hurt us.

GUPTA: Hope it helps.

Thanks a lot.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today`s Shout Out goes out to Coach Bradley`s world history class at Portland High School in Portland, Tennessee.

Wayne Rooney, Abby Wambach and Sergio Ramos are all known for accomplishments in what sport?

Here we go.

Is it baseball, soccer, horse racing or auto racing?

You`ve got three seconds.

Go.

(clock ringing)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Rooney, Wambach and Ramos all found fame on the soccer field.

That`s your answer and that`s your Shout Out.

AZUZ: This past Sunday, Lionel Messi did something that none of those players have done. In fact, it`s never been done at the top level of soccer before. Messi, who plays professionally for Barcelona and plays on Argentina`s national team, kicked his 86th goal of 2012 -- 74 for Barcelona, 12 for Argentina.

That broke a record that`s been around for 40 years. And Messi may not be done yet. Barcelona still has a few more matches to play in 2012.

When Messi or any player scores in the future, soccer officials want to make sure the ball crossed the goal line.

Alex Zolbert looks at some technology that could help out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEX ZOLBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So this is how the GoalRef technology works. Here`s the soccer ball. Under the skin, you have three coils around the ball.

On the goal post, you have a magnetic ring around the goal post. When the ball goes through the goal post on this watch that the ref wears, you see goal.

From a confidence point of view, this system will work during the next games, as we always expected it and as we saw it during the tests.

ZOLBERT: Then there`s Hawk-Eye. It uses a series of cameras to capture the ball`s path, which can then be reviewed within seconds. Tennis fans know the Hawk-Eye technology well.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And right near the sideline, Karl Good (ph).

ZOLBERT: The technology doesn`t come cheap, though. FIFA is spending roughly $1 million U.S. to use the systems here in Japan before giving the nod to one company for next year`s Confederations Cup in Brazil, ahead of the World Cup there in 2014.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

AZUZ: It`s almost time for us to run.

But before we do, it`s time for this little guy to walk. Nothing like a little kiddy cardio to get the blood pumping.

Obviously, it`s not an outdoor cat if it prefers to be on a treadmill. When the pace picks up, the cat does a pretty good job of keeping up, although it does hop off for some quick breaks in here.

It`s nice to see a pet support its owners workout efforts. Otherwise, it might just be milling around.

And if you`re thinking of forcing your pet to get on for a few miles, you`d better make sure it`s in a good mood, because otherwise, I`d tread lightly.

It`s a long way to go for that one pun.

But a quick congratulations to Coronado High School in Henderson, Nevada. A student there got our social media question right.

We hope all of you have a great weekend.

For CNN STUDENT NEWS, I`m Carl Azuz.

END