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CNN NEWSROOM

Manhunt in California; Australian Report Claims Widespread Drug Use in Sports; Historic Storm Forecast for US; Smuggling Sperm Out of Prison;

Aired February 7, 2013 - 12:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAEL HOLMES, ANCHOR, "CNN NEWSROOM": Welcome back to Newsroom International. I'm Michael Holmes, filling in for Suzanne Malveaux.

We are taking you around the world in 60 minutes as we always do.

Now, right now in California, police looking for an ex-cop who allegedly went on a rampage, still is, shooting three Los Angeles-area police officers early this morning. One of them has died.

Authorities warn that Christopher Jordan Dorner is armed and dangerous. He's 6'0" tall, about 270 pounds. He may be driving a blue Nissan Titan pickup. It's got license plate 7X03191.

Dorner is also accused in the double killing in Irvine over the weekend.

Well, coming up in 30 minutes, Los Angeles police will be holding a news conference updating us on the hunt for Chris Dorner. We will bring that to you live when it happens.

In Washington, more concerns about cyber-security after the Federal Reserve says hackers accessed a limited amount of its data. That is what they ever saying.

A spokesman says the incident did not affect critical operations. No word from the Fed on which specific website was compromised or what the hackers actually got their hands on.

But Reuters is reporting the Fed notified bankers earlier this week that e-mail addresses, phone numbers and other contact information had been stolen and published.

The group Anonymous is claiming responsibility for the attack.

All right, in Australia, a shocking report today of widespread drug use across multiple sports. The drugs are said to be linked to organized crime and may have resulted in match fixing.

According to the Australian Crime Commission, criminal networks were involved in the distribution of performance-enhancing drugs. Australia's home affairs minister outlined the findings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASON CLARE, AUSTRALIAN HOME AFFAIRS MINISTER: The findings are shocking and they'll disgust Australian sports fans.

The work that the Australian Crime Commission has done has found the use of prohibited substances, including peptides, hormones and illicit drugs, is widespread amongst professional athletes.

The evidence to date indicates this is not the majority of athletes, but we're talking multiple athletes across a number of codes. We're talking about a number of teams.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: And Don Riddell of CNN World Sport joining us now to talk about this.

Don, the thing that's most extraordinary about this -- well, first of all, we don't have that much detail. We don't have names, events, dates and all of that at the moment, because of the ongoing police investigation.

But what is being alleged is so broad.

DON RIDDELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL WORLD SPORT: Absolutely. We're talking about widespread use, and the justice minister has just said that there are multiple athletes across a number of codes.

Let's just put this into context for what this means in Australia. You're a pretty typical Australian bloke, right?

HOLMES: Yeah.

RIDDELL: I'll turn the tables on you. Would you agree that Australian's identity and culture is defined through sports?

HOLMES: Well, it largely is. Absolutely. Australia is a sports-mad nation and proud of it.

RIDDELL: Australia's biggest events are sporting events.

HOLMES: Absolutely.

RIDDELL: Absolutely.

HOLMES: There's no doubt about it.

RIDDELL: Australians would define their standing in the world through sports, largely?

HOLMES: Yes, it's a way Australia, a small nation with a small population, that ranks well on international sporting levels -- be it cricket, or rugby, or swimming, or whatever. In the Olympics ...

RIDDELL: Golf. Tennis, the Olympics in Sydney in 2000. HOLMES: Exactly. That's a way of sort of getting over the cultural cringe and saying we are small and don't matter, what we do in the sports world at least.

And then this happens.

RIDDELL: This is really -- I don't mean to sort of gloat as a Brit.

HOLMES: Well, you're English, so you no doubt will gloat over this.

RIDDELL: Well, this is very, very embarrassing for Australia, but this is a big deal for international sport.

I mean, at this press conference today, they said this could happen anywhere. And we have seen examples recently of how this is on the rise.

HOLMES: You and I have talked about this. We were talking about it with football, the other day, the match-fixing. Here you had Lance Armstrong.

When you're looking at professional sports, in general, what damage is being done?

RIDDELL: A huge amount of damage to the reputation of professional sport. With match-fixing the other day, we were saying if match- fixing is a big deal in football, and it appears that they do have a problem, that's the end of the game as you know it.

HOLMES: Because you can't trust it.

RIDDELL: Yeah, because why would you care? Why would you go to the games if you think it's going to be a fix?

But this really is becoming a very, very big deal. And as you say, no names, no sports, no teams mentioned yet, because this investigation is ongoing.

The Australian government is really, really worried about it. They have given the anti-doping authorities extra measures so that they can proceed with this investigation.

HOLMES: And on the same level, you've got Lance Armstrong, who we touched on there, who is -- what -- is an ongoing matter, the investigation into him, legally, as well.

RIDDELL: It sounds like he might now be prepared to cooperate with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

HOLMES: He's running out of options.

RIDDELL: Previously, he'd really kind of thumbed his nose at them and basically said -- he accused them of a witch-hunt, a vendetta. He'd never cooperate with them.

It sounds like he now will cooperate. Travis Tygart the CEO of USADA has said very recently, I've spoken to him. We get the sense he wants to cooperate.

We've given him another two weeks to get his facts straight and his details organized and then he's going to come to us. And, hopefully, he's going to spill all the beans so that cycling can get to the bottom of what went on there.

HOLMES: It's a mess, as you say. One of the things with the Aussie situation is, Australians being such sport-lovers, they also abhor a cheat.

And this is an allegation of across your major sporting codes of cheating, above all else.

RIDDELL: And one of the quotes from this press conference that really stood out for me, these athletes aren't just cheating. It's much worse than that. They're cheating with the help of criminals.

HOLMES: Yeah. Yeah, once you get criminal -- organized crime involved, then the whole match fixing thing becomes ...

RIDDELL: But you know what? That's also the point when authorities really start to take it seriously.

If you didn't think there was a criminal element, you could perhaps say, well, it's only sports. Let them do their thing.

But once you've got criminals involved, it is serious. And that's serious for everybody.

HOLMES: And it does go without borders.

It seems like every time, you know, I'm talking to you or one of the other guys from World Sport, it's about match-fixing or racism in football or something negative.

It's such a -- it's just such a shame. Once the trust goes, then what's the point in professional sports?

RIDDELL: I agree. I'd rather be here talking about sports. Let's do that tomorrow, shall we?

HOLMES: Let's do that. Let's do that.

Don, good to see you, and thanks for not gloating to much.

As somebody pointed out our cricket team can't be doping because they are not very good at the moment.

RIDDELL: You said it.

HOLMES: Well, no, my boss said it, so I'll let him say that. He's English, too.

Don Riddell, good to see you.

All right, take a blizzard that could end up in the record books. It's a massive snowstorm barreling toward the East Coast.

Chad Myers is going to pop out and have a word.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Welcome back everyone.

In the Solomon Islands, five people died after a tsunami rolled ashore. It was a three-foot wave that had been triggered by a powerful earthquake that hit off the coast. This is in the South Pacific you can see there.

Among the dead, four elderly people and one child. The tsunami also damaging villages and flooding an airport runway.

Here in the United States, a massive snowstorm about to hit millions of people in the Northeast. Some areas could get two-and-a-half feet of snow. And yes, 60-mile-per-hour wind gusts to go along with it.

Chad Myers in the CNN Weather Center, they are saying this could break records, Chad. What will go on?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: We have a storm in the Great Lakes region, and we have rain in the Southeast. Those two systems are going to try to combine into one just off the coast of New England.

There's the snow. There's the rain. They will try to come together up the East Coast.

The rain continues all the way along the coast all the way to Richmond, when it gets to the colder air. That's the problem. Cold, warm, coming together in one spot.

Let me show you how this happens. With blizzard watches across Boston, Hartford, Providence, we are going to have winter storm advisories all across this area.

The mayor of Boston -- I just watched a press conference from him -- said be off the road by noon and our schools are closed tomorrow, city schools in Boston, because of this.

Here's the first storm, it's coming across making snow even for Toronto into Ottawa, Montreal, but the second storm comes up into this cold air and makes a big snow event.

If they combine perfectly like this model says, Boston will have approaching three feet of snow. You may never even see three feet of snow because you will have a seven-foot drift, and then you're going to be able to see the grass next to it because the winds are going to blow at 50-miles-per-hour.

And I've heard a lot of people say, now, wait a minute. A couple days ago, you said it could be from one-to-20 inches? What are you possibly talking about? Pick a number.

Let me show you why we've been talking about this. And we were talking about this 48 hours before the storm started.

Here's New York City proper. There's Manhattan. Here's northern New Jersey. Down here two-to-three inches of snow. You get north of New York City by 30 miles, that's 20. So that's two, that's 20 in about a 45-mile range.

If this storm turns left or right by 45 miles, you're talking two-to- 20. We still quite don't know yet. Even by tomorrow when it starts, we still may be somewhere between six-and-10, maybe a little more.

The models are so left and right with this because this is such a big event. I think some models can't believe it's going to be such a big event. That's why we're seeing some of the numbers, but 30 inches is a big event for Boston.

HOLMES: Yeah, that's insane when we're talking about areas that just got whacked by Sandy back in October, too, so, yeah.

Keep an eye out for us. Let us know what's going on there, Chad. We appreciate it. Chad Myers.

All right, well, reporting live from inside of the Arab Awakening isn't for the faint of heart at times.

Our reporter on the ground in Tunisia, Dan Rivers, is going to show you what it was like today to be smack dab in the middle of a Tunisian riot and the authorities don't like you very much.

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HOLMES: Now back to one of the hour's top stories. That is the growing protest in Tunisia. A CNN crew is there in the capital, Tunis, had cameras rolling when police started launching tear gas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A kid in a Superman t-shirt kicking a tear gas can out of the way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Now let me give you a bit of context here. Now, that's CNN's Dan Rivers, a face full of tear gas. I can tell you from experience, that is not pleasant. He's running for cover, along with protesters, and he's actually shooting that on his iPhone. Why? Well, authorities took CNN's cameras. Dan was telling me earlier on CNN International that the authorities are not looking kindly on the media as they try to cover these crowds, these angry crowds that are packing public spaces, shouting their frustration at the government for what they say was an assassination of an opposition leader. And so authorities are treating, Dan says, the media as if they are the protesters and took our camera gear, hence Dan turning to the trusty phone camera.

And remember the Arab Spring of two years ago. That began with protests in Tunisia. It all began there. And since then, the new Islamist led government has been accused of keeping down individual freedoms. Tunisia's prime minister fired his cabinet over all of this and called for new elections, but, you know what, his vice prime minister, his deputy, said that the party hadn't agreed to that and it might not even happened. So there's political, as well as street turmoil in Tunis. And our crews there right in the middle of it.

All right, let's go into the Middle East now where Palestinian women are somehow getting their husbands' sperm smuggled out of Israeli prisons. The proof, well, it's in the babies. The wives of several high security prisoners are turning up pregnant. Now Sara Sidner is in the West Bank with details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, ABC CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dalal Ziben says the boy sitting on her lap is her husband's son. "When they arrested my husband, I was 18 years old," she says.

For 16 years, she has hoped for her husband's release from prison. It hasn't happened. He is serving 27 life sentences for helping plan a deadly bombing in a Jerusalem market. Palestinian prisoners jailed for terrorist attacks are not allowed conjugal visits. But Dalal Ziben says she managed to get pregnant while her husband is in prison another way, by having his sperm smuggled out of a high security prison.

"Why does the wife of a prisoner have to suffer and stay like this without children and a family? It's our right to meet our husbands and our right to have children," she says.

She is one of five Palestinian women making the same claim. Rimah Salawi is one month pregnant. Her husband is also serving multiple life sentences. She and the others will tell you all about their babies or pregnancies, but not a word about how exactly their husband's semen was smuggled out of a high security Israeli prison in the 24 to 48 hours doctors say it's still considered viable.

"I'm not going to tell so I won't ruin it for any other people," Rimah Salawi whispers in response to our question.

This medical clinic in the West Bank town of Nablis (ph) is performing the artificial inseminations. Doctors tell me they now have dozens of samples from prisoners.

SIDNER (on camera): How is it coming to you?

DR. SALIM ABU KHAIZARAN, RAZEN IVF MEDICAL CENTER DIRECTOR: A lot of things. Many things. Maybe in cups. In ointment containers.

SIDNER (voice-over): The head of the fertility center says he can't verify the sperm is actually from their husbands in prison. Instead, he requires close relatives from both the wife and husband's side of the family to sign papers saying it is. He also encourages the women to let their community know, too, so they do not face ridicule for being suspected of cheating on their imprisoned husbands.

KHAIZARAN: We are (INAUDIBLE) society. We are an eastern society. Our woman (INAUDIBLE) husbands (INAUDIBLE) long sentences in prison, they have no choice but to wait for their husband to get free. And as you know, really, the female reproductive life is really limited.

SIDNER: He says the torment prisoner's wives face is they can never have children if their husbands never leave prison. And if their husbands do get out of prison and they can no longer get pregnant, the husbands may leave for another woman who can.

KHAIZARAN: Really, the one who pay the price, the heavy price, is the women. I -- if I can do anything (INAUDIBLE) to help these women, I will do it.

SIDNER: So he and his staff are giving prisoner's wives the fertility treatment for free, calling it an act of humanity.

SIDNER (on camera): We spoke to Israeli prison officials. A spokesperson for the Israeli Prison Authority told us they very much doubt the technical ability for sperm donation because of the strict controls inside the prison. But, he added, it's hard to fathom, but who knows.

SIDNER (voice-over): We spoke with two fertility specialists in the United States who told us it is actually possible for sperm to survive up to 48 hours in clean, unconventional containers, if kept at room temperature. The women say what is most important is they and their families know the truth. They still hope one day sperm smuggling from prison wouldn't be necessary.

Sara Sidner, CNN, in the West Bank.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: Do stay with us here on NEWSROOM INTERNATIONAL. Coming up in a few minutes, Los Angeles Police, we've been telling you about this, they're going to be holding a news conference to update us on the hunt for Chris Dorner. We will be bringing that to you live when it happens. A lot more to come on the other side of the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Welcome back.

In Washington, song and prayer this morning. That's Andrea Bocelli at the National Prayer Breakfast. President Obama calling for humility from those in power.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let us pray to God that we may be worthy of the many blessings he has bestowed upon our nation. Let us retain that humility, not just during this hour, but for every hour. And let me suggest that those of us with the most power and influence need to be the most humble.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Now, this was Mr. Obama's fifth appearance at that annual breakfast.

A disturbing development in Japan saying it scrambled military fighter jets after two Russian jets approached a disputed island chain. The island and their air space have been under dispute since the end of World War II. Japan says the Russian jets quickly left the air space. There was no actual incident. Japan filing a formal compliant with Russia. Russia says it's jets never did enter the area.

Well, with tensions flaring with their neighbors to the north, South Korea's marines are getting down to business. We'll show you what they're training regimen looks like.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Welcome back.

We're going to take you to the resort town of Pyeongchang in South Korea, as you see here. There's hundreds of U.S. and South Korean marines training shirtless in the snow in a joint military drill today. They did pushups, some ice diving, as one does. Also as you saw there, some weapons training. All of it in extreme cold temperatures. It's actually minus two degrees in South Korea. The exercises are going to continue through mid-February.

That will do it for me, but NEWSROOM continues with Mr. Don Lemon.