(CNN Student News) -- February 17, 2010





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• Afghanistan • Iran





Transcript





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





CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS ANCHOR: This Wednesday, February 17th, CNN Student News begins with a big story out of southeast Asia. I'm Carl Azuz, reporting from the CNN Center in Atlanta!





First Up: Taliban Leader Arrested





AZUZ: First up: What could be a major defeat for the Taliban. Pakistani officials say the Taliban's second-highest leader has been arrested.





Details, right after some fast facts on the Taliban: This is a militant organization that used to control Afghanistan. It allowed the al Qaeda terrorist group to live and train there. A U.S. led coalition knocked the Taliban out of power in late 2001, after the September 11th attacks on America.





Now, Pakistani intelligence says Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was caught several days ago in Pakistan, which borders eastern Afghanistan. Baradar's capture could be a huge victory for the U.S. because America has been hunting him for years and he could have some incredibly valuable information about both the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists. American officials are saying this could be a turning point in the war in Afghanistan. But there is a hitch: the Taliban deny that Baradar's been caught. They say he's still working for them and that reports of his arrest are designed to hurt the Taliban's morale. That is important to them right now because America, along with other coalition forces, are currently fighting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. In the town of Marjah, a stronghold of the Taliban, U.S.-led forces are making progress. Marines took over a police headquarters there yesterday.





New Nuclear Power Plant





U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We are announcing roughly $8 billion in loan guarantees to break ground on the first new nuclear plant in our country in three decades.





AZUZ: And it would be an expansion of this nuclear facility in the eastern part of Georgia. The Obama administration claims the two, new nuclear reactors would create more than 3,000 construction jobs and 850 permanent jobs at the nuclear plant. The White House also says the power it would generate would be enough for more than half a million homes. Republican leaders, including both of Georgia's senators, like this idea. Sen. Saxby Chambliss says it's a step in the right direction, adding, the power generated by the Burke County Facility -- that's the one that's already there -- is safe, reliable, emissions-free and environmentally responsible. But some Democrats are against it, along with nuclear power critics. One of those, energy analyst Ben Schreiber, says, "The last thing Americans want is another government bailout for a failing industry." Schreiber went on to call nuclear power "unsafe and dirty."





Iran's Warning





AZUZ: Iran's nuclear plan is worrying diplomats at the United Nations. And Iran's leader is warning the U.N. Security Council not to punish his Middle Eastern nation for its nuclear program. At a news conference yesterday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he wants the U.N. to "move in the spirit of cooperation." But if it doesn't, he says Iran would react in a way that would put the U.N. to shame. To the international community, those are very unwelcome words. The U.N. wants Iran to stop enriching uranium, because enriched uranium could help Iran make an illegal, nuclear weapon. Iran continues to argue its program would be used only to help provide power to civilians. The global community doesn't believe it.





Cybersecurity





AZUZ: There are attacks going on in the U.S. that most people never hear about probably because most of the time, they fail. We're talking about cyber attacks. And many times, they come from other countries, testing our electronic systems -- they might target cell phone companies, power companies, Internet companies. Yesterday, a panel of former government workers got together in a cyber-attack drill to work on ways the U.S. could
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