Today's show begins by explaining what the INF Treaty is, why the U.S. and Russia decided to leave it, and how China might factor in. An in-depth look at the U.S. government's jobs report follows. And whether you call it a whistle pig, a woodchuck, a marmot or a groundhog, it's making a widely watched prediction about the weather.
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TRANSCRIPT
CNN 10
International Withdrawal From INF Treaty; Jobs Report Being Watched Closely; Season Prediction from A Groundhog
Aired February 4, 2019 - 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 10 ANCHOR: Monday, February 4th and we hope your week`s off to a good start. I`m Carl Azuz for CNN 10 and today`s first topic concerns the United States and Russia. On Friday the U.S. government announced it`s plans to pull out of the international agreement that concerns nuclear weapons. On Saturday, the Russian government announced it was also suspended it`s participation in the agreement. The deal we`re talking about it more than three decades old. It was signed when Russia was the dominant part of the Soviet Union.
It was called the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty or INF Treaty. What the U.S. and the Soviet Union did was agree to stop making missiles that could be launched from land and could travel between 300 and 3,400 miles. The treaty did not cover missiles that could travel the same distances but are launched from planes or ships. Why was the treaty made? Because both sides were developing dangerous weapons that could carry nuclear warheads and placing these missiles in Europe.
There were concerns that all this was bringing the U.S. and the Soviet Union closer to war. The treaty remained in place after the Soviet Union broke up in 1991 but in 2014, the U.S. government under the Obama Administration, publicly accused Russia of violating the agreement. And late last week, the Trump Administration said the U.S. would leave the deal unless Russia came back in line with it within six months. Russia has repeatedly denied that it was violating the treaty but there`s another country, China, that may also factor into what`s taking place.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The United States announcing today it is suspending one of the last remaining nuclear arms treaties between the U.S. and Russia.
SECRETARY SCOTT POMPEO: We`ve provided Russia an ample window of time to mend it`s ways and for Russia to honor it`s commitment. Tomorrow that time runs out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty or INF was signed by President Ronald Reagan and then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. For the past several years, the U.S. has accused Russia of violating the treaty by developing and deploying medium range nuclear ready missiles.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We can`t be put at the disadvantage of going by a treaty, limiting what we do when somebody else doesn`t go by that treaty. OK?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Trump Administration says Russia has placed battalions of missiles near the borders of Europe, not allowed by the treaty`s terms. The missile is called the 9M729. Russia recently showed off the system but not the missile itself to journalists and claims that it does abide by the INF.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE TRANSLATED: Russia has implemented and continues to meticulously implement the requirements of the treaty this Russian general said and does not allow for any violations to happen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The goal of the treaty was to prevent the two sides from developing land based, medium range nuclear weapons. NATO who`s members are the most threatened by the Russian moves expressed it`s full support of the U.S. pulling out. While some experts, including former Secretary of State General Colin Powell, told Jake on State of the Union it`s a wrong and dangerous thing to do.
FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE, COLIN POWELL: Not there are a lot of people now (inaudible), well look we`ve got to get out of this treaty. We`ve got to get out of this treaty. Bad, terrible mistakes which we will regret because they don`t make sense.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The biggest concern, today`s move could spark an arms race not just with Russia but with China which has not been constrained by the treaty and has grown exponentially more powerful over the past three decades.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: China is already developing these capabilities as well as strategic nuclear capabilities. You`ve got the North Koreans and of course the Russians have not only been developing these intermediate range missiles but hypersonic and more strategic nuclear capable missiles as well. So we`re already in a bit of an arms race now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARL AZUZ: 10 Second Trivia. Which of these U.S. government organizations is oldest? Office of Management and Budget, Bureau of Energy Resources, Bureau of Labor Statistics, or Department of Commerce. Established in 1884, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is the oldest organization on this list.
On the first Friday of every month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases a jobs report. It`s seen as one measure of how the U.S. economy as a whole is doing. One thing the report looks at is how many new jobs were added or lost the month before. So in January, the U.S. economy grew by 304,000 jobs. That`s considered to be a sign of strong jobs growth and it came at a time when some economists predicted that only 170,000 would be added. January was the 100th month in a row that jobs grew in America. Wages also went up last month, increasing by one-tenth of 1 percent. That`s less than the three-tenths of a percent that was expected but it`s still a sign of continued wage growth over the past 12 months.
The Labor Department says the partial government shutdown that recently ended but was the longest ever in U.S. history did not have a noticeable impact on hiring and wages. But it did cause a slight increase in the unemployment rate, the percentage of the American workforce that doesn`t have a job. In December that rate was 3.9 percent. In January it was 4 percent. Jobs, wages, and unemployment are three highlights of the report but there`s a lot more to it than that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s the Super Bowl of economic statistics. The monthly jobs report, known technically as the Employment Situation Summary or Non-Farm Payrolls. Two statistics receive the most attention of course the jobless rate, currently near the lowest in a generation and the number of net new jobs created. Now the jobs report is actually two different surveys. One of employers asking them how many employees they have and one of regular people asking if they are working.
Every month we learn where people are working in America`s hospitals, factories, shopping malls and put together the data show how big the American labor market is. Right now about 163 million people. How many people are unemployed? About 6.3 million and how many people are not counted in the labor force, millions more. Oh, but there`s a lot more in there. Jobless rates by age, race and gender. The share of workers who would like to be working full time but can only find part-time work.
The unemployed, the underemployed and the not even counted, think stay at home parents, retirees, students. There`s something called the Labor Force Participation Rate. It`s the percentage of the population older than 16 years old either working or unemployed but looking for work. This is an important statistic. It`s around 63 percent. Now the jobs report outlines who is working, where, and for how much. Wage growth has been slow in the recent recovery, so economists have been carefully watching the wage component recently climbing above 3 percent.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Six more weeks of winter to go. He and I just basically go eye to eye and if you see some positive vibes or some not positive vibes. Look at me. Phil. Phil. Punxsutawney Phil, the seer of seers, prognosticator of all prognosticators was awakened at sunrise from his burrow.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 1,000 waiting to worship a rat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back when we did this, if we got 400 to 500 people come we thought we had a lot and now what`s happened is it just got bigger and bigger and bigger. The movie has give us a lot of attention.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How many people were there this past February?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had over 8,000 people.
(END OF VIDEO)
CARL AZUZ: Looks like spring`s going to come early this year for America that is if you trust a Pennsylvania groundhog to predict it accurately. Punxsutawney Phil came out of his burrow Saturday morning and did not see his shadow. What that means, as far as the legend goes, is that spring is on the way. This actually dates back to ancient methods of trying to predict the weather.
A sunny sky on February 2nd was said to mean that six more weeks of stormy, winter weather were ahead. A cloudy sky meant spring was coming early. The groundhog in question is not accurate. The U.S. government says he`s right about 40 percent of the time. His counterpart in Georgia, General Beauregard Lee is said to be slightly more accurate and he saw his shadow indicated more cold could still be to come.
You might be able to beat your little brother at Jinga but could you beat a robot? Engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have built one that uses a gripper, a sensor that detects force and a camera. It`s purpose, to dominate the tower game of 54 blocks. OK, but so what. Well the makers say their robot could eventually help out in assembling the things we buy or separating recyclable objects from trash.
So is this a "towering" achievement. Will it "topple" the human champion? Will it "loosen" a whole other level to the game that brings it to new "heights"? We "wooden" know right now and we haven`t "jingot" enough time left to "extract" an answer. But we can say it "stacks" up the "block" party. The puns have come "crashing" down on CNN 10. I`m Carl Azuz.
