CNN news 2011-11-07
CARL AZUZ, CNN ANCHOR: I will take it away. Thanks to those students, and thanks to all of you for spending part of your Thursday with CNN Student News. I`m Carl Azuz. And first up today, we are heading to France.
That`s where President Obama and other world leaders are spending the next couple days there, at a meeting of the G-20. This is a group that represents different economies from around the globe.
AZUZ (voice-over): Originally, the G-20 members were planning to talk about a deal that the European Union had reached that would help the nation of Greece with its debt crisis.
But the G-20 had to scramble and hold an emergency meeting after Greece`s prime minister announced Tuesday he wants his citizens to vote on whether or not they want the European bailout.
AZUZ: So there are some questions for those leaders to address. You might have some questions, too. What is the G-20? How did it start? Who`s in it? We`re going to bring in Michael Holmes to fill in some blanks for us. Michael?
MICHAEL HOLMES, ANCHOR, INTERNATIONAL DESK: The G`s really started back in 1975, when you had six countries get together. That was the G-6. And there you had the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, Japan and Italy. And they were the first. They were the six.
And they got together, actually, to talk about what was then the oil crisis that was going on and to have a bit of a confab about it. And then from there, it became an annual thing. They thought why not continue this on? They found it worthwhile. The next year they added Canada, so it became the G-7. And then a little bit later on, Russia came along and was admitted. And there you have your G-8.
The groups have always attracted critics, and in many cases, as we`ve seen in the past, violence as well, protesters from trades unions to environmentalists and anarchists as well.
A lot of the more extreme protesters blame the members of the G-8 for pretty much all of the world`s ills, from debt and poverty in Africa, all the way through to global warming. And they show up pretty much to make their voices heard, and say that it`s an anachronistic group, an elite group that, actually, far from solving some of the world`s problems, is causing a lot of the world`s problems.
Another criticism the G-8 has faced is that it`s not really representative of the world`s great economies. There are those who say, well, you`ve got Canada in the G-8. But at the same time, you don`t have India. You don`t have China.
The cause, partly, of that criticism, we saw in 1999, the formation of the G-20. They added in another 11 countries, and to be more inclusive, countries like Australia. There`s a bunch of others. But -- and 11 and 8 equals 19. What`s the 20th? The European Union. They came along for the ride as well.
AZUZ (voice-over): United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is scheduled to be at the G-20 meeting today. Yesterday, he was in Libya. Ban and the current president of the U.N. General Assembly met with representatives from Libya`s National Transitional Council. This is the group that`s running Libya`s government, now that the country`s civil war is over.
AZUZ: The fighting hasn`t completely stopped. Different militias who fought against former leader Moammar Gadhafi`s troops are now facing off against each other. Some of these militias are rivals. Some don`t trust others. Settling those disputes is a top priority for Libya`s new leaders.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Today`s first Shoutout goes out to Ms. Westgard`s geography class from Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton Junior High in Dilworth, Minnesota. What is the current cost of a first-class U.S. postage stamp? You know what to do.
Is it 27 cents, 35 cents, 44 cents or 50 cents? You`ve got three seconds, go.
Right now a first-class stamp will cost you 44 cents. That`s your answer, and that`s your Shoutout.
AZUZ: Stamps are one way the U.S. Postal Service makes money. But since fewer people are using the government service, it`s ended up in some pretty bad financial shape. Yesterday a group of lawmakers released a plan aimed at saving the Postal Service.
AZUZ (voice-over): It would close some post offices, cancel Saturday mail delivery and let the Postal Service buy out thousands of employees, meaning they`d give them some money to leave their jobs.
These ideas have come up before. People have gotten angry at the idea of their local post offices closing. And postal worker unions don`t like the buyout idea. Congress would also have to pass the plan. That could be a long way off.
AZUZ: It`s been five days since a massive snowstorm hit the northeastern United States. Thousands of people still don`t have power. Utility companies are rushing to get things running again, but some folks are getting frustrated.
SYDNEY SULLIVAN, RESIDENT: Cold. Our food went bad. Like our power went back on for a few minutes and then it -- like the transformer box blew.
We want our home back and just to be able to stay in our house and let our kids play there.