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STUDENT NEWS

Nigerian Protest and Campaign in Social Media to Bring Abducted Schoolgirls Back Home; Possible Origin of MERS; Inventing Super Repellent to Defeat Malaria; Students Talk about Their Teachers on Teacher Appreciation Week

Aired April 6, 2014 - 04:00:00   ET

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


CARL AZUZ, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you for taking ten minutes for CNN STUDENT NEWS. I`m Carl Azuz. It`s great to see you.

We are following up on a story we told you about before. It happened in the West African country of Nigeria. Police there say 223 girls are still missing after a terrorist group kidnapped them from their dormitory on April 14. Many Nigerians don`t think their government is doing enough to rescue the girls. Hundreds have been protesting in the city of Lagos. Their nation`s president says his government would find and free the kidnapped teenagers. Meantime, people around the world are trying to spread the word about this atrocity.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAMUEL BURKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Almost 200 schoolgirls missing for more than two weeks. How did that happen? Nigeria`s no stranger to problems with militant groups, but they`ve never seen something like this before. This militant group, Boko Haram, their name means western education is a sin. They went into a high school filled with girls, took them out and many of them haven`t been seen since. Moms, dads, grandparents - villages are going out into force and they are not seeing the Nigerian government, they are not seeing the Nigerian military, they are not seeing the people who they expect to be out there looking for their girls.

The Nigerian armed forces say they will keep on looking for the girls until they find them, but they admit that they are being inundated with information they believe might actually be a ploy to try and distract them, but the people - they are frustrated, they are upset and many of them feel that they have nowhere else to turn except for social media.

All you have to do is type in a few letters, BRI and immediately, #bringbackourgirls pops up. Not just Nigerian, but people from America to Australia hoping to get the attention of their governments, maybe they can do something to try and find these girls.

So, I was just looking at the CNN Facebook page and saw Nigerian after Nigerian asking for more attention, pleading to send just another reporter so that these story can be seen by everybody. And that these girls can be found.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: You just heard that Boko Haram is the group responsible for the kidnapping. It`s a militant Islamist organization with ties to the al Qaeda terrorist group. A video released on Monday shows a man who claims to be Boko Haram`s leader. He says he kidnapped the girls, that he plans to sell them and that Western education should end. He then encourages girls to get married instead of getting an education. One student who spoke to CNN says that`s not what most of the girls themselves want.

(BV)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And we need to go to school so that we can be who we want to be, because many girls - if you - if I wish you could talk to many of us, we are going to (INAUDIBLE) their dreams. I want to be a lawyer. I want to be a nurse. And it`s very - I think you can get only like 2 percent that will tell you, I just want to marry and just be a mother, just be a housewife.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ: Moving east to the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is where most cases of MERS have surfaced. MERS standing for Middle East respiratory syndrome. It`s a dangerous virus that has sickened hundreds of people and killed more than 100.

For the first time, someone was diagnosed with MERS in the U.S. He`s a health care provider who`d traveled to Saudi Arabia in late April. He checked into an Indiana hospital with symptoms on the 28. Doctors say he`s recovering well and should be able to go home soon, and that there are no other known cases in America.

But what did this virus come from in the first place?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We don`t know exactly where this virus comes from. They believe it made a jump from camels to humans. About three quarters of single-humped camels in Saudi Arabia have the antibodies to this particular virus, they`ve even found the virus itself in camels over there. But exactly how it gets transmitted, is it from droplets in camels spit, could it be camel meat or even unpasteurized camel milk, they just don`t know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ: All right. Quick bit of trivia for you. Who is the world`s longest reigning monarch? Here`s a hint: it`s not Britain`s Queen Elizabeth. For the answer, you have to look toward Thailand. Like the U.K., it`s a constitutional monarchy, and like the U.K.`s queen, Thailand`s Kind doesn`t have significant governmental power. But King Bhumibol Adulyadej is deeply revered in his country. It`s illegal to criticize him. His birthday is Thailand`s national holiday. Thousands turned out yesterday wearing the king`s color: yellow to celebrate the 64 anniversary of his coronation. King Bhumibol is not in good health. He hasn`t been for years, but he still attended the celebration along with citizens who see him as Thailand`s father. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just the facts: the disease malaria is caused by a parasite. It can be transmitted to humans when they are bitten by a mosquito that carries that parasite. Symptoms can include a high fever, sweating, shaking, chills and malaria can be deadly. There are a number of treatments for it, but there is no vaccine yet.

So, if you are watching in the U.S. it`s unlikely you`ll have to worry about malaria. But in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, India, Haiti, this disease is more of a threat. And in poor countries where doctors may not be able to treat malaria as effectively or as quickly, malaria kills more people. That`s where some scientists hope their insect repellent could save lives.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAURENCE J. ZWIEBEL, PH.D., CHAIR IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES, VANDERBUILT: It turns out that if we found the world`s greatest mosquito repellent no one would care. So we needed to find something that would work against all insects. Agricultural pests, disease factors, even nuisance insects that make us crazy in our backyards.

These are anopheles gambiae, it`s literally the most dangerous animal in the planet.

A child would die of malaria every 30 seconds today. Malaria is a very real problem for most of the world.

Most of the commercial insect repellents that people come in contact with are basically targeting the insect`s olfactory system, to make mosquito not find you. We decided to take a more aggressive approach and rather than turn off the mosquito`s olfactory system, we`ve looked for something that would turn it too far off. To see if we could design a new generation of insect repellents based on overloading their smell system, their olfactory system.

They hate just like we hate overstimulation. They will move away from too much smell.

We know that these chemical which we call VUAA1 has the ability to turn on insect organ (ph) receptors from every insect we`ve tried. Not just mosquitoes. We are just now in the process of doing the toxicity. So far we don`t see any toxic effects.

Our hope is that we are able to help develop a product that can be sold for profit in the developed world and use that profit to leverage the distribution in a developing world

We`ve finished the discovery phase and we`ll have an opportunity to develop the product that we are interested in. Our hope is that every time we spray on a mosquito repellent here in America, we are subsidizing malaria reduction in Africa and Asia.

Flying high with the falcons today on the CNN STUDENT NEWS "Roll Call" We`ll start in Texas with the Timber Creek High School Falcons. Glad to have you all watching in Fort Worth (ph). Now, it`s north to Wisconsin, the Falcons of Salem are watching. We found them at Westosha Central High School. And on East Coast, it`s the falcons of Crain`s Creek Middle School. They are online in Carthage, North Carolina.

CNN STUDENT NEWS appreciates all the world`s teachers. Here`s what some of your students are saying this teacher appreciation week.

Adam writes, his favorite teacher is Mrs. Hutchings, because she always tries her hardest and never gives up. Kyoko says it`s Mr. Lenihan, an English teacher in Japan. "He always makes me laugh." For Chazz, it`s Mr. Kammer. "He`s been the greatest social studies teacher I`ve ever had." Luiz says, "Since Mr. Ortley was transferred to my high school, he`s challenged us to think outside the box." And from Alex, "Mrs. Gasper from Ellensburg High School in Ellensburg, Washington. "She`s an awesome teacher because she challenges us and prepares us for the future.

Sometimes you call upon to lend a helping hand. After getting stuck in an elevator recently, a man decided to lend his back. A team of moving men was trapped with an elderly lady. She said she couldn`t stand for long periods of time, so one of the man got down on all fours, so she can have a seat on his back, and he stayed like this for 30 minutes. It`s a tale of kindness, chivalry and you can see why the 23-year old`s mom says she`s so proud.

By landing his back, he refused to turn his back. Maybe one day he`ll lead the company, he`d make a great chairman. After all, they say chairing is caring, and though this wasn`t a planned seat-in it`s a story that seems to sit well with everyone. We`ve got to move. I`m Carl Azuz. We hope you`ll have a seat for CNN STUDENT NEWS on Wednesday.

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