Evening Exchange; 2215; South Africa, Weekly News Analysis, Wireless Phones

Yes. An award winning reporter's take on life in South Africa they're everywhere but still trouble some cell phones and the controversy over Senator Trent Lott's remarks all next. And evening the exchange. Hi I'm college Anandi in South Africa gained majority rule in

1994 there was a kind of glow about the country over how majority rule was achieved over its heroic leader Nelson Mandela and over its prospects for the future. Today South Africa is still the continent's industrial leader but with the onset of the AIDS pandemic combining with the country's longstanding racial and economic inequities the glow seems to be wearing off of South Africa. However it's one thing to say that looking in from the outside it's another thing to be on the inside. As an American an African American a journalist a veteran journalist winner of several prestigious journalistic awards widely traveled and then make a decision to make South Africa your home. And that's what Kenneth Walker has done and why we thought that makes him uniquely positioned to talk about South Africa in ways that you won't often see or hear. So welcome old friend. And I want to do it was a pleasure to be here. You know I didn't mention that you are the

only journalist I know who has won major awards in radio television and newspapers. When I met you working for The Washington Star some 30 years ago. Did you ever see a career for yourself in radio television. I know but that goes to show you if you live long enough almost anything is possible. I didn't know that. That journalism was what I do and what I wanted to do and when the Washington Star closed in 1981 and ABC News asked me to drop come aboard and I did and of course started to do some radio for them but mainly did television for them and then went from there to a number of different positions but finally for most of the last three years as the Africa bureau chief for National Public Radio so you kind of take it one day at a time one step at a time and before you know it you have covered a lot of ground. Will people know you for a lot of things but I suspect that most people in public know Kenneth Walker from the Nightline reports on South Africa that started in the early nineteen eighties. How did you come to do that.

Well I had first gone to South Africa for the star in 1901 and then upon them that my series was the last one they ran the last day the paper closed the day after the series ended and then when I went to ABC I began almost immediately. Suggesting to the executives at ABC you know there's a great story in South Africa and you really ought to cover it I mean most of the people there's a racial angle. Most of the people speak English at least in the cities you've got some violence here I'm sure if you look hard enough you can vibe to sex but it's a great story there anyway it took me about four or five years along with other people inside ABC News but they finally agreed in 1985 to to do a weeklong series of broadcasts there. And that's how it came to be that week long series is memorable for a number of things Nelson Mandela was still incarcerated at the time we had heard of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and others. But as I recall and I'm sure many others the. The face of the resistance movement in South Africa. After that Nightline

scene these became Winnie Mandela Winnie Mandela was the face even before then. So tenacious was the gripper of the apartheid government on resistance both in the churches in the labor unions and anywhere that that whinny and to a larger extent her daughter's Inzi Mandela were actually the only actor visible faces of resistance that you could find it when I went there in 1981 when he was in and internal exile in a place called Brown for the 1950 equivalent of program for County Mississippi. And so her daughter Zanzi Mandela was left with the role of maintaining the morale and the spirit of resistance by moving around the country giving speeches. A role she told me she was totally unsuited for we were driving between speeches and some of the Interior said you know the only thing I ever wanted to do was to listen to R&B and talk to my girlfriends who were about boys. But I was never able to do that. And but but she'd get out of that car and go up on a stage at some campus

and she would report for duty and and so in many ways. Winnie and her daughter and then later Archbishop Tutu and others began to assume a public role but for much of it many of those years they were in it. So in a way for many Americans at that point Winnie Mandela in the I guess I guess the fullest expression of her beauty at the time became the metaphor for the struggle in South Africa and I want to use that metaphor to talk a little bit about the difference between South Africa then and South Africa now because after that Nelson Mandela emerged literally from prison and went from history into legend even though while still alive and Winnie Mandela in terms of the American public has virtually disappeared from view in their view in disgrace. What is the situation like for Winnie Mandela in South Africa today we know of the divorce. We know of problems with the law and problems within the ANC. Well yes she has all those problems as you point out.

I tend to think of Wendy there are people in a time of war and that is what they had there in the struggle against apartheid at a time of war who are fabulous warriors who inspire the people rally the troops and lead them to the ramparts. Many of those people are not ideally so ideally suited for peace. I think I suspect Winnie may be one of those. She's had and still has I think there are pending fraud charges involving some bank dealings and this and that. I suspect in the aftermath of 1994 there were a zillion people who came to Winnie with a zillion get rich quick schemes. And I suspect she fell for some of them. She is having continuing to have those kinds of difficulties. She does however command still command tremendous respect and support among many black South Africans. Well you know it's said that you can chew gum and walk at the same time and it seems that the South African people have both been able to deal with the pain of the divorce between Winnie and

Nelson Mandela and with his remarkably huge image. And at the same time with her maintaining influence politically in the country going on at the same time her influence is less institutional within the ANC although she continues to lead the ANC Women's League than it is with in terms of popular support Winnie. Much of the leadership with the ANC is at odds with Winnie these days there is a current measure by the ANC dominated parliament to censure her in connection with some not reporting financial concerns they had and and she does and President Mbeki also is known to have some difficulty with her but she remains as I said quite influential with many in the populace and these days she seems to be trying to mend fences with the current ANC leadership. But they they did they know she continues to command support.

One of the things that impressed the world about majority rule in South Africa was the way the post majority rule period was dealt with specifically the Truth and Reconciliation Commission even though inside South Africa that commission was then I guess I'm asking you right now does it remain quite controversial or has it been essentially laid to rest. Well some of it is laid to rest. Part of it. Part of the results of the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was that certain victims of apartheid should receive reparations from the government. Those have not yet been paid and there are great. The frustration concerning that among a number of South Africans this kind of been overtaken by the suits that litigation filed both in the US and Switzerland I believe against foreign including American corporations demanding reparations payments for their support of the apartheid regime. But the idea of reconciliation I think has been. More or less digested by the populace. There is a small base a small number of right

wing party people running around. Just a few weeks ago it detonated nine bombs in Soweto. The police just a few days ago arrested six of the so-called let ringleaders of this of this group and so there are still. People insist small number of Afrikaner speaking whites who want to go back to the good old days wealth not only whites but I guess. The Post majority rule expectations of black South Africans were pretty high. How do black South Africans feel about life in South Africa today given the fact that there are still racial inequities. There was a poll just done just last week which suggested that that that a majority of South Africans including blacks believed that life under the apartheid regime was better. I have find that highly suspect. It is true that unemployment. Certainly among black South Africans

is higher many many of the companies in the isolated economy of South Africa before sanctions were lifted have disappeared. Globalization is as is taking its effect in South Africa so there is a lot of unemployment but the government is moving I think conscientiously to to deal with what is called delivery issues both in terms of jobs and equity they have they're taking each sector of the economy and passing empowerment charters. Just finished with the mining sector in which they legislate that by a certain time say within 15 years a certain percentage of ownership of mid management of the climate of upper management or board level of procurement contracts will be done with black South Africans now after some initial resistance by many by sectors in the economy. I think they've taken a harder look at Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and decided that this is a better deal.

So so that's moving and the government has provided electricity to millions of homes that didn't have it before 94 provided homes for millions who didn't have it before 94 so I think they're moving conscientiously to to satisfy what you would expect would be hugely pent up demands for these kinds of services and see why I use the phrase veteran journalist before he took me where I wanted to go before I even got there on that list with Zimbabwe my next question was do you think the situation in South Africa can devolve deteriorate in quite the same way it did in Zimbabwe. Apparently your answer is Well no because it's happening in Zimbabwe. The reality is that that that. On that Robert Mugabe has been there too long 20 years is too long for any one person I think he's only interested in retaining power and he's using violence and intimidation and other negative ways to to hold onto it on this land issue he's absolutely right. The reality is when I first went back to a two to Africa to cover Africa three years ago I

was the question that there was in my mind was how can Africa in terms of resources be the richest continent on the earth yet have the poorest people I now have a big part of the answer to that question and that is that Africans own nothing whether it's the oil in Nigeria the golden diamonds in South Africa the coffee in Kenya or the cocoa in Cote d'Ivoire. Other people own it. And until that issue is addressed unresolved Africans will continue to have the richest continent on the face of the earth yet the poorest people so this land transfer of it. Mugabe is doing. I'm sure we can all think of perhaps better ways to do it I think is fundamental and essential to the to the problem of African poverty and even as those other people mostly European think the US sometimes redefined themselves as Africans. That's not the way the native African populations do that. It is not and in fact while you know when Mark Shuttleworth went up into space on this Russian rocket there was this huge debate about the first African in

space in all of this and the reality is that just say five years ago if you'd had if you'd have suggested that a white person and living in Africa was an African they would have been insulted. Having said that I am. I am actually happy to see some white living there on a genuine level begin to rediscover their African ancestry when I was young I used to believe that wherever the world was headed racially speaking the United States would get there first. I was wrong. I am much more convinced today that whites in South Africa have a much better opportunity to climb down from notions of white supremacy than whites here in the United States. So in that sense there is something to this that is white African business it's and I think it's getting more and more legitimate every day. Why did you decide to make South Africa your own. Well is that we do not know about life in South Africa because we only see the news and that means we only see what's going wrong. Exactly. That's part of the problem. Even at the height of apartheid in 1981 Kojo I went there and I said Now if you stood on the table and looked at this a little sideways.

Actually this could be a kind of interesting place to live and the reality is that after 1994. I resolved to go back to South Africa to live why because I believe that that South Africa and Nigeria if they can get it right will lead the way in ending the marginalization of African people around the world. I think they're getting it right is essential to the fuller African-American liberation in this country being a part and a direct witness to that experiment is just too exciting to pass up. When I first went there in 1901 I was probably the only African-American in the country today. There are more African-Americans in South Africa than in some parts of Washington D.C. and not one of them is thinking about coming back here. Part of that has to do with what Jesse Jackson called the Black tax every day here. It must be paid some days it's a penny. Some days it's the pot. And I think for all of these growing number of African-Americans living in not only South Africa but other parts of the continent it's their own personal

Boston Tea Party and that people are just fed up with wasting energy wasting creative time on on on a daily basis often in minor ways but sometimes in major ways on the science fiction called race. It takes being away from here for a while in Africa and then coming back to visit. To realize how relatively stress free your days are. How many more opportunities you may have you can be as one African-American friend in Johannesburg says a normal person. Well you hail from Washington D.C. and every little thing you go into South Africa we've been reading about all that crime that violent crime in South Africa of course it will be ironic for people in Washington D.C. to do something that nevertheless. How do you deal with those kinds of stories. Before I went back three years ago my mom calls me from Oakland she says Son I've been reading about all this crime in South Africa. I mean are you sure you're going to be alright. I said Mom I live in Trinidad. Which of the time had the highest murder rate in town at a time

when Washington had the highest murder rate in the country. I said they also have the highest drug related violent crime rate I said a good week is when we don't have any automatic gunfire. Those guys in South Africa have nothing I haven't seen and in point of fact I have never been safer. I felt safer there than I ever was within sight of the US Capitol. Well people would say hell but the problems with the HIV pandemic in South Africa as in other parts of Africa. Obviously we've had the red that it's had an effect on the economy. What effect has it had on life in South Africa. Well. If you really look at the numbers. The HIV infection rate in South Africa which has the highest infection rate in the world begins to rival the HIV infection rate of high density urban African-American Hispanic populations here. If you just isolate those populations have heard that said before and so and so and so in that sense it's not terribly different you're not

living in a much different environment in that I don't think you I don't think you are. Now. Now you know when you and I were coming up I mean basically you. Messing around would not turn into a capital offense but these days I mean people are having lifestyle issues that they have to confront I think the government of South Africa for example could do a better job I think. President Mbeki has. Perhaps wasted a couple of years in controversy over remarks and comments that he's made about AIDS but I have to say this about that. Prior to under the apartheid regime there was an experimental program participated in by the apartheid government the CIA and Israeli Mossad called Project Coast biological and chemical weapons mainly but among the projects. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission revealed was whether or not you could target AIDS genetically. Now just after just before the 94 election the CIA and the Mossad came and

destroyed most of the records about their participation in that what was left has gone on to an optical disk in the office of the president still exist in the office of President Mbeki his office these days now. I don't I'm a journalist and you have to show me about any kind of theories or conspiracy theories but because I know President Mbeki to be a very intelligent man he is not gratuitous or flip. I have to believe that some of what we believe these controversial off the wall statements he's made about AIDS are informed by what's on that disk. So I think that we have never seen reported here so we've never had the opportunity to discuss it just one of the reasons why we thought kind of local would bring a unique perspective to life in South Africa today and the reasons he has chosen to live there we never actually got to talk about love but maybe we'll talk about that off the air. We're going to take a short break when we come back our new then assign a new U.S. military doctrine and on Senator Trent Lott. We'll be right back.

Welcome back it was a week in which the U.S. announced a new military doctrine stop the North Korean vessel with Scud missiles meant for Yemen only to let it go again. But the

really big story in Washington this week the last stage of which is yet another apology from Senator Trent Lott. But are the words enough we'll see what our news analysts think about what is more important in this town. Jack White of the Howard University School of Communications and TIME magazine is with us. So is George Curry of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service and black press USA dot com. Henry champ of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and chemist Walker has decided to stay with us you know who hears you saw him in the first segment. Thank you very much for staying with us kind of with Senator Trent Lott had another news conference this is either his second or his third apology. He has announced that he will be working more closely with leaders of the black community. And he named two such joy in this resort Roy Innis of the Congress of Racial Equality and Bob Johnson Bob Johnson of Black Entertainment Television where would it be if we were to begin with this I mean if you forgive a really bad plan he had a lot to apologize for maybe that's why he has to keep

Jesse forward. And I thought this this apology on Friday came across as even more insincere than the ones he's been making ever since he committed this gaffe. It strong thermos 100 birthday party service celebration of more than a week ago. He had to wait until the present United States castigate him until almost every conservative commentator in the land suddenly discovered a streak of political correctness that they never knew they had before and have been CO and been criticizing him one of them even referred to his incandescent idiocy of his remarks. So this is all done under pressure and most importantly he has not. Resigned. Isn't the dart majority leader of the US Senate where he can continue to do the same kind of damage he's been doing for a long long time. George Curry if this were an isolated incident a slip of the tongue it was not consistent with. Reckon you say OK the man made a mistake but this is exactly what almost word for what he said 20 years ago. So this is it was an accident a plant accident you know and this is what his record has been a man. You look at the people who are caught.

He scored 12 percent it is not in my heart you know if you came never to make a deal to live he's gone. You talk about Strom Thurmond. They both have terrible civil rights records but strong as well the report they support states the Voting Right Act moderately hardly the trip it was against. So is it consistent with his record not only Israel not only his record his previous pronouncements he has supported and appeared before and spoken and raised money for the successors to the white citizen councils down there. We know what they are they were the political face for the group but you know hopeful is a champion of that and he's made statements about the you know Bob Jones University policy against interracial dating given its tax exempt status. He committed the cardinal sin of modern Southern Republicans and that is to give voice really to what really is on his mind and in his heart about about oh about African-American people they have learned uniformly since Reagan since Reagan's first initial appearance in Philadelphia Mississippi not to give voice to these things and he committed that sin and that's just

showing the kind of stress on your face that you didn't walk in here with that you don't have to deal with this kind of thing very much in South Africa where I can't wait to get back and you go with you. He's not out of the woods yet by any stretch of the imagination third apology notwithstanding. I think the president and the White House in particular indicated and signaled by the statements yes it's true the president wanted to distance himself from the issue of racism in the Republican Party but I think also there are many people at the White House who don't like Trent Lott they think he's a terrible majority leader. They didn't like what happened with Jim Jeffords and they're not going to lift a finger to save him and I think the first few voices that may come out this weekend on the various Sunday talk shows from the Republican Party's attacking Lott. Could be decided that he'll be on his way out the door. It only takes one senior Republican in the Senate to come out and do what any time so I do this is for him to lose his I think and I think that's unlikely but this is this is let's look at one other aspect of this which is the phoniness of the Republican and

conservative outrage about Trent Lott's mysteries. These people are trying to act as though Lott is the only one. The fact of the matter is these guys have got a track record of exploiting white resentment of blacks that goes back at least until 90s 64 when Barry Goldwater came out who was a presidential candidate you came out against the Public Accommodations Act. They've been running to the right on race to go to the George they've taken a straight out of George Wallace's playbook ever since that time. They've but not none of them none of them has acknowledged that they've castigated a lot but they've tried to at fact confine the criticism to Lott alone is the way it didn't affect the entire getting back to his future just just very briefly getting back to his future the fact that we're having this conversation in the manner we're having it now. I spoke to someone who the Democratic Party who said I hope the Republicans keep Lott. 9 percent of African-Americans voted for Bush in the last election said this individual. Will be able to cut that down to 2 or 3 percent.

President can't afford to keep what you have got a Michael Steele lieutenant governor of Maryland you've got a J.C. Watts who was in the Congress and who is now leaving both of them and others say the Republicans have been trying to reach out to minorities and maybe reached out but it's been far Nick since that's the problem. You can't name one. Black Republican who can win a black district in this country. J.C. Watts you know them always. And Gary Frank district of 90 95 percent white. They are told repeatedly not you know that's the sad thing about this is J.C. Watts like to discredit people equally conservative people like Armstrong Williams who criticize Trent Lott. J.C. Watts actually sprung to his defense so I don't think I have a good day if he if he if J.C. Watts is going to be the spokesman or the person is going to bring black Americans into the Republican point I think you can have I have a bigger problem here with the news media this Trent Lott made these statements a week ago Wednesday.

And in fact in most of the initial reporting of that particular section was omitted. What he had to say about wishing first of Strom Thurmond's victory in the presidential election of 1948 and really only two days later in the day in the aftermath of criticism from. African-American politicians and leaders that that the press then began to focus on this on this why are all the reporters in the room hundreds of people in the room. Why is it that there was almost this this conspiracy of silence about that issue. No one in the room understood that what he was saying was that he was indorsing a segregated future for this country. You have been away from Washington that long that you don't remember that there was a certain kind of clumsiness to the establishment in Washington and that that establishments is not only a political establishment through the press and includes the press in Washington as he particularly the press you would think that that would be an important function to get a story. It wasn't just the press a lot of white Democrat leadership also was was slow to pick up Tom Daschle and get ready to get ready and ready to forgive him until the put continued pressure from blackball to continue this. You got you got

cowardliness on the racial issue permeates the political system in this country it's not just it's not just Republicans. It's well it's a challenge for this is a Republican. It's not just a matter of how are they going to deal with it you can't have Trent Lott maintain leadership at the same time saying we want to be more inclusive I mean even George Bush say he's a compassionate assertive he doesn't have the record to match that he be compassionate toward another well-known Republican conservative sitting on the Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas spoke out a rare occasion for him this week during a hearing before the Supreme Court on a Virginia law that would prohibit cross burning. Justice Thomas coming out to say that cross burning as far as he was concerned was a symbol of violence and a symbol of hate and that at the very least it was in this the strong as a symbol as as a bullet or a gun or something of the Thank God he recognizes the significance of cross burning and made it's been a while since he said anything at all on the bench and I'm glad I'm glad to see this finally made an impression with the law however

I think is a questionable law I think there are ways in that you can prosecute people who burn crosses without reference to a law that restricts first people's First Amendment rights and I think that what's really at work here is a Clarence Thomas like so many other pro government conservatives on the Supreme Court is willing to see people cut the people's civil liberties cut back. At the behest of the government. I think that's really trying to suspect one other possibility Jack and that is. Maybe even on a cellular level. Every now and then. Clarence Thomas has to remember who he is and where he came from and might not jump out that often. But but but when I read that when I read the reports of his remarks on the U.S. Supreme Court. Something just deep inside the ship he really well could have been gone too long he remembered gone too long because he got so you'll have this one also can still call the Dr Alice is not class time and he votes with Scalia more than anyone else and I think the issue here is that I'm not I'm a little

First Amendment absolutely absolute about but absolute comes to burn a cross I see nothing wrong with them having a bill to burn a call they want to have a rally but you don't use it as a form of the termination and I think the prostaglandin that's why either Clarence Thomas had speech. Freedom of fair as guaranteed by the Constitution it seems to me it's a pretty simple openside case freedom of fear freedom from fear from fear from here is guaranteed by the constant seems like a pretty open and what case and that's the deal that's the basis on which Thomas seemed to want to ask his questions saying that this is a symbol of intimidation. And people feel you know one of the point if we can remember is that. Clarence Thomas once said referring to black people who are up in terrible circumstances and in jail they are but for the grace of God go I. In the end it went right out and endorsed the ruling that says it's perfectly constitutional to doctor your teeth out. You know just really as he says.

Passionate from the best and there is no necessarily less an indication of where he's going to come out on this case. And no no not necessarily an indication of the real motives are. Well we'll have to see how the Court and Justice Thomas ultimately votes on the case. The there was a ship going from North Korea to Yemen which the U.S. was aware of for quite a while that it was carrying scud missiles to Yemen. Initially the U.S. had approached Yemen about this and Yemen said we don't know what you're talking about when the U.S. and Spain finally intercepted this vessel and found out that it was indeed intended for Yemen the government of Yemen says we have a right to build this because this was on order before we made an agreement that we won't be doing this anymore. And so the U.S. finally decided to let the ship go and now we find out that North Korea because of a cut off of fuel from the United States is going back into the nuclear business again this is all becoming extremely complicated here. A White House spends every day trying to deliver a small message to the American people about the trouble so that there is with Iraq and the troubles in the region the Middle East and they got this win badly mixed

up. Their new friends the Yemenis who were practicing. If you don't have to say anything don't say anything other not our weapons and when they found out they were. Actually left the United States with very little opportunity but to them and just as we had allies in the war against terrorism at this point he didn't mind the embarrassment also extends to the fact that when you're talking about weapons proliferation in the region of the Middle East who is the greater proliferator. But isn't the United States. They sell more weapons and more missiles to countries. North Korea is true but you know part of this also raises the question about the manner of the U.S. war against terrorism what does Yemen need Scud missiles for. They had already agreed to stop buying missile technology from the North Koreans. They have no perceivable enemy threat that would be involved or involve the use of Scud missiles. Be interesting to me to see where those Scud missiles ultimately wind up the US has been forced or is trues and chosen to get in bed with with a lot of

unsavory characters and people in pursuit of this and this primary war on terrorism and and I think they're going to find more and more often that some people that the US thinks are friends and allies are not all that allied with the cause. Here you've got North Korea essentially in a position to crank up its nuclear technology and to develop nuclear missiles again. As we talk about it attacking Iraq here you've got Yemen from which terrorist attacks have been States telling the U.S. You better do this or else what's going on. Guy I don't know if it's the but it is interesting right now that the North Koreans are threatening to restart an old Soviet era nuclear plant which the United States thinks could be part of a of a of a nuclear weapons program they will say will you know we will we've said we've tried to get them to to back away from Lebanon but I don't think they're going to. And you have that you have this funny since you want this funky situation where you have a country that's on his list of Axis of Evil Axis of Evil that.

Either has or is close to having nuclear weapons but we're not going to threaten them. Yet you have an Iraq as a country did that. That evidently does not yet have nuclear weapons and may not be close to getting it when we are going in there so what is the you know with total confusion. We haven't missed an approach and we put it all the emphasis on Iraq when we have threats on the whole region and so even when you talk about how we fight a war on terrorism is our primary full of function has to do is focus on Iraq and going to terrorism in India to leave them related and it's going to hurt. I can't begin to tell you how much the United States is losing support around the world especially in the. And countries or peoples of color. South Africa over the 20 years I've been going there for South Africa across the board have this unique identification for an admiration of Americans. And today that is almost turning hostile just at your goal so President Mandela appeared on the White House lawn to praise President Bush in his prosecution of the war in Afghanistan in just a month ago. President Mandela described the United States as a threat to world

peace. I can't begin to tell you how much the United States is suffering in terms of its image all around and we are now promulgating a military doctrine that says No longer are we going to depend on mutual tolerance as we did for so many years during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. But we now have a doctrine of preemption if in fact we believe that some nation or some terrorist group in collaboration with a nation is getting ready to do something to us. We reserve the right to go in and strike against that nation. It looks like we're fighting on so many fronts. We've also added to that this week it's been revealed a doctrine that says if you threaten us with weapons of mass destruction we reserve the right to use anything in our arsenal to L'Oreal you including nuclear weapons that's a threat aimed directly at Saddam Hussein or even if there's a suspicion that you may get. Weapons of Mass Destruction. You don't even have to have them just that you may have told me. So listen we don't have the same right to say right. So we have to take you first in

the world. But people are asserting that right in Britain not yet to attack the United States but to settle old scores. Even Robert Mugabe has used it again to use this this this clarion call of anti terrorism against his domestic ponens of course President Putin in Russia is also doing the same thing and I think you will see an increasing attempt by just every imaginable kind of country to justify every imaginable kind of atrocity. And the chant this is looking increasingly like a foreign policy quagmire or rather then and easily understandable for the American people. Foreign policy in the wake of 9/11 going into Afghanistan easily understandable pursuing al Qaeda easily understandable but it would appear as if in the effort for a confrontation with Iraq we have been led into a kind of foreign policy a military doctrine that is becoming increasingly difficult for the American people and the rest of the world to understand. No question about that there's almost at the White House a daily frenzy that you see just in this morning's newspapers for example the New York Times officials apparently

telling the New York Times. That well start first with The Washington Post the headline there in the Washington Post saying that. It's escaped me now I'm sorry. I think the basic point you know in terms of you know both both New York Times and Washington Post recently have indicated I have reported these almost daily changes and fights within the administration between within the national security team and about their most of these battles are seem to being won by the hardliners and and there's actually no even though it's no desire to even explain it worldwide and it is that there's a conference going on in London this week among Iraqi opposition groups sponsored by the United States. If this is your aim is to design a plan for a post-Saddam Iraq. Now what's intriguing about this is the British government which is our only

ally a morally prominent ally in the war against Iraq in the argument against Iraq is not supporting this because they don't support the idea of regime change in Iraq. They're only up to disarming it with just arming them. So even when our closest allies is disagreement about when I aims I have got my headline story that OK. It didn't really let you go saying the post saying that. Inspectors are being pressured and that emissaries are being sent to the Security Council to make sure that the inspectors take scientists out of the country and talk about them. In the times the same sort of thing that is being discussed there. The question of whether or not the pressure was being brought on inspectors from another totally different issue. Protests in Chicago against the Reverend Jesse Jackson. It's his home base that's where he has generally operated with the exception of a brief period in Washington D.C. even he

was thinking of becoming a U.S. senator but that never occurred. You know he thought to be the president remember back in this regard. And now we're seeing that groups of black protesters against Jesse Jackson what's going on. We see some people who don't have that much of a follower you see Hamlet thing you object to him they call a leader. You see him in L.A. salmon off our sea because what you said about barbershop I mean look I mean Jesse Jackson you made his name you know you talk about most of the people you talk about. And there's nothing they can do to change yes ejections stature. You know any more about this than we do. I don't think there's much more to know about it other than the fate of this and people trying to get it here lad's a Jesse's expense. I mean this is funny because Walker George and I all covered Jesse Jackson's campaign back in 1984 is like a week. Well it would appear that these people are also making the claim that Jesse Jackson well-known for chastising corporations for not having enough minority franchises his sons own a Budweiser franchise in Chicago when they

say look everything this guy is doing he seems to be doing for the benefit of us found out there's any credibility for the first class not to I was a Saint Louis boycott against but as a matter of fact blood is a good thing. Yes he is. Sure it is a major distributor so long years after people around him leading an operation but breadbasket they certainly benefited from this but somebody has walked through the door and I see nothing wrong with that although they've only deals with more than three or four didn't release three. Yeah I mean this is my new information. OK well much ado about nothing in that situation maybe this is much ado about nothing to I'm reading an op ed piece in The Washington Post by Mike Kelley and he's listing all of these liberal commentators who are pointing to a conservative bias in the media and he lists one Jack White of Time magazine. Recht. Gone back to time I guess I have I have I'm sorry to do Mike I'm sorry I have missed your column but what was the argument that you will make.

No I was on C-SPAN with Brian Lamb a couple of weeks ago. And a caller called in and started. Bashing the liberal press and I made I made a comment sort of a light hearted comment saying that I'd like to let you know now that I don't like that I laughed at him. I like that comment saying that I thought it was about time for the the the people who bash the liberal press to go ahead and declare victory because they'd beaten a liberalism matter the best part of a long time the Army has it ever really exist anymore and that and that there is no network or which is blatantly pro conservative or blatantly liberal I should say as the Fox News Network is lately conservative. Now this is now the Media Research Center. Michael Kelly and others a bit of have gone crazy about this because in addition to me saying it much more import people be have been saying it like Al Gore. And E.J. Dionne in The Washington Post yes. And. There's an attempt by liberals like me to fight back against this conservative bias that we see emerging in the press and playing a very unfair

merging. You know but I don't think it is dominant throughout which you wish it were counts who are part of our earlier story why the major press didn't turn and said that's drawn Thurmond birthday party gave gave Trent Lott a ride a free pass on it. I think even raising and debating some of these issues are on terrorism viewed from afar. It's hard to see any dissent. Hard to see any criticism arising in the mainstream press on this role in this whole war against terrorism thing it is thoroughly dominated. It was a professor at Stanford University did a study about liberal versus conservative he found out that a person who's a defense alert was twice it's unlikely he did a fad a search rather than a conservative. Back to some of the plans a lot for a second whose Friday press conference apparently ended with a disruption by an individual allegedly who was a supporter of else shocked and you heard that Senator Lott said that he has been having conversations with Roy Innis of the Congress of Racial Equality and Bob Johnson of BTV like to issue a public invitation to Senator Lott to come to speak to the viewers of evening exchange for a further

explanation of his views we guarantee it won't be disrupted and you welcome any time. Thank you gentlemen for joining us. When we come back your cell phone and your future. We'll be right back. What can you say about cell phones well they're so convenient they're so annoying

they can do so many things. Who needs all that stuff they can do. They're now so small and like they're so small I can't see the stupid numbers. And the list goes on for a more comprehensive look. Day in day Walton has this report. Using the pay phone is rapidly becoming passe. Sometimes for people like SYDNEY WHITE Oh Yugi using a house phone is not the best way to communicate either. Often the cell phone is the device of choice even when making a super long distance call to have a lot of friends or family that are located outside of the country. And it has a good plan for me to call internationally I can call back home if I travel to Europe or Africa. No one disputes the convenience of a cell phone. But there are some concerns you. More than one hundred twenty eight million people use cell phones. And a recent survey conducted by Harvard researchers suggest there are more car crashes are cars now because of the

weekly bill. Oh you see. Some people ever. Disagree. Kimberly Cuomo is the spokesperson for the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association there are a couple of important studies that were done last year that show there are other distractions that actually cause more accidents basic things like talking to another passenger inside your car and being distracted by an outside event or or or something happening outside your car you look away. Simple things like eating and drinking. New York State banned the use of handheld driver cell phones last year. Six other states have some type of regulations regarding driving and talking. It made me very nervous and it makes me a little annoyed when I see someone who's driving and talking on the phone and they're swerving because if I can take the time and get a headset to try to be a little safer I thought they can too. This device a headset is often thought to make it safer to drive and talk. But there are other safety concerns.

Some studies suggest that holding an antenna too close to the head can lead to cancer. These studies also advise using a headset to avoid the possibility of future health risks. There's really been no conclusive scientific studies that that say you know there's any link. There have been actually three court cases just in this past year. You know in Baltimore actually was a recent one where. A plaintive claims that his cellphone use caused cancer and that was dismissed by a federal judge just because there wasn't enough scientific evidence there to make that link. Outside of health and safety issues some people have expressed concern about the privacy of a cellular call. Wireless is actually probably more private and secure even than a lot of Internet. The wireless industry has been urging. Believe it or not government and regulators to at a formalize the privacy principles while these concerns are still on the table cell phone users

cite the ability to report crime and car breakdowns quickly as great reasons to have a cell phone. And then there are the really important things like can you pick up some cheese on your way home for evening exchange. I'm Julian de Walton. Joining us now is jub cyber technology writer for The Los Angeles Times always good to see you. And Howard Willey is vice president for federal relations with Horizon and while Les Welcome to you. Thank you. Howard will you be heard that over 100 million Americans have cell phones too a lot of every three adults in the country have cell phones it's a growing industry yet for some reason or the other the industry seems to be losing tens of millions of dollars each year. How come a device that is so popular can't seem to make more money where for instance is the Microsoft of the cell phone industry right. Well Verizon Wireless were the leading companies and I guess using your analogy that would be the sort of the Microsoft we are we are

the industry leader. And what you get what you have in wireless is a hyper. Competitive environment most Americans 75 percent of the customers can choose from five or more competitors and it does make. The margins a little tighter than that. Then they might be and another type of industry so that it does make competition the competition is has been driving down the prices and driving down profits and driving down the profits and some instances but by pursuing that kind of business model the less you run the same risk is the dot com industry get on the Internet by offering free shipping or discounted merchandise and then when it comes time to raise prices there's a lot of resistance from consumers to that kind of market. We'll have to see how the trends go in our business were very responsive to the consumer and over time some of these things will work the

work will work out. Obviously one of the things that's been discussed a lot in the industry is that there's the potential for consolidation and I think I think that maybe that may be coming but right now consumers are really benefiting from from the competition and that's why you've seen such a growth in the usage and I think we're we're going to continue to have a very have a very good business what would consumers need to be worried about is creeping taxes and fees local governments and federal government mandates have put on put on their bills and I think that's something that they really need to worry about because if you look at it we've brought down prices and then destroyed 32 percent over the last five years. But unfortunately the taxes and fees have gone up approximately 18 percent during that time so some of the value that we're bringing to the to the customers being lost not your rates a little bit higher than your competitors with this very successful campaign you've had you know can you hear me now because you've had

such widespread coverage in the comp in the country. You're able to charge a premium for having that kind of service coverage. Some people have said in evaluating the the. Evaluating the service of different companies like any other service you kind of get what you pay for. And we do pride ourselves on having a very effective network and a very reliable network. And that's why you have the CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW commercials because we actually do have people in the company who are the test man and they go around and test that network. And for some consumers that's something that reliability is something that is worth it is most important when Let's talk reliability for a second because cell phones have been around now for more than a decade and yet a lot of consumers complain that sort of as a star when you get dropped calls you get busy signals people even complain about billing errors they're complaining about poor reception. Is there a

point in the future when cell phones can become as reliable as wired phones. We are working to get. As many and tennis sites and places where you do have some of these dead spots and some of the same people who are concerned about. Having dropped phones drop calls and things. I also don't want the cell phones in their backyard and the cell cell towers in their backyard so. I think as you see as the technology gets better and we get and we deploy more of what we call stealth and tennis sights sights that blend into the and to the environment things like that I think you'll see a more more reliability from from some of our competitors we believe that we have fairly reliable a very reliable network. At this point there remains a fair amount of resistance to these antenna sites even the bit they've been disguised as palm trees and everywhere else. Are they getting smaller or are or are

city governments becoming more accepting of this. Knowing that the technology can bring other economic benefits I think is. As people have become more interested in the safety aspect that was alluded to in your in your previous segment. They want these antenna sites and place because they want that 9 1 1 call to go through. They don't want they don't want that call they get dropped and so I think the the the security or homeland security aspect of this has become become very prevalent. And people realize the importance of being able to make that call and have that call go through. Recently there's been a great deal of talk about 3G wireless which can allow you to do to get data access on your cell phone could you explain exactly what that is and what its usefulness will be. Sure we have deployed some of the early stages of

3G wireless we have what's called the 1 x network and we can put a chip in your laptop that would allow you to get your internet bursts of 144 kilobits per second and average speeds that are competitive with your current dial up speed. And so that's that's sort of the first iteration of the 3G we are working on faster speeds that that you will have access to. But right now in a lot of our smaller phones like the phone that we're demonstrating here today you have internet access and the ability to download games and applications and things. Yes since we are indeed talking about the future let's take a look at the phone we have here today. Tell us what that is that we're looking at and why it represents the future. What you're looking at there is one of our or newer models that is very popular right now. The Motorola 720 and

what you have there is it's a device that is an Internet access device. It's a cell phone and it's a way to access our service that we call get it now which uses what's called the brew technology to download games you can download Tiger Woods golf or Boeing or whatever your favorite game is and there are other more serious applications that you can download one quickly. With this with this phone this phone is also GPL escapable for local location technology. On nine one one calls all those references to 3G sound wonderful but as you notice from the graphic there where your hands are dwarfs the phone. There's a lot of functionality is sort of lost in trying to do to navigate the internet and answer e-mail when you have a keyboard is smaller than your finger and trying to tap down e-mail which is the industry going to do to take advantage of this high speed 3G network when you have a device so small that

it's hard to surf the net. Well this is not the only device that we have as I mentioned earlier we can put. One X chips into your laptop which which has which gives you the full functionality that you like in a laptop and you can travel in airports or be in a car and you can be surfing the net wirelessly at a high speed using our one X network we also have other or PDA devices that are larger than this that will give you the bigger keyboard and give you the ability to see things on a larger on a larger screen. We talk about can you hear me now but it seems as if as Jill pointed out already there is so much resistance to cell phone towers going up in certain parts of the country. Are you or any of your competitors considering an advertising campaign to try to persuade consumers that since you use these things so much then maybe we would welcome your suggestions about how they might be best positioned so that they don't as far as you're

concerned be an eyesore be an environmental hazard in your neighborhood because it seems to me that you're going to keep getting that kind of resistance we have wherever we have put a tower we've tried to reach out to the community get the community's views. I'm aware of one in the site that we've worked on. That was reviewed by several agencies but also reviewed by the Fine Arts Commission to make sure that it fit in with the environment that it was going to be put in to. And so we try to be responsive to the communities we know their communities represent our customers and and we want them to be happy with the service and happy with us as the towers are being designed by artists not just engineers now. Absolutely. If you want to ask you a question about the health concerns about cell phones which has been an ongoing issue people are concerned about it causing cancer contributing to cancer. What is the how has the industry been impacted

by by those concerns. From our perspective what we've done is we have we have made the information the available information. Readily acts accessible to our customers on our website right now. Dubba dubba dubba dubba Brize Well it started come under consumer information. We we direct you directly to the Food and Drug Administration and the FCC websites that have all the available information right now and thus far as was reported in your earlier segment. There's no there's been found to be no link between wireless phone use and negative health effects. But from our perspective the best thing is for the consumer to to get to those websites and get all the information that they have for the consumer also to be able to make a choice about whether the they want to put the cell phone up to his or her ear or whether they want to get a device that allows you to hold it

at a distance away from you those are all of a lable and ask any person of the female gender they know all of those devices and would to use them. I would really thank you for joining exit Jim Savile did see it here. Our thanks to all of our panelists for joining us most of all thanks to you for watching. Stay well. Good night.