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On AMANPOUR. today, we look at the human cost of rapid economic development in India. A booming India has provided millions in Mumbai, Bangalore and other cities the good life: jobs in call centers and high tech, lifestyles scripted out of a Bollywood romance. But behind the urban prosperity lies an ominous reality; 600 million people eking out a living on parched lands, so indebted that for many people suicide seems the only way out. A growing divide - between urban plenty and rural poverty - has come together in a battle over electricity, where India’s wealthiest man is attempting to expand a power plant on the fragile ecosystem just outside Mumbai, despite community resistance and court orders limiting his influence. A globalizing India desperately needs the power, but will the world’s largest democracy ignore the plight of local farmers, and what does this mean for hundreds of millions who live off the land? There are also some other important issues in the news tod ay as well. Here are perspectives on some other headlines today.
Tom Evans
Sr. Writer, AMANPOUR.
AFGHANISTAN – How could a Jordanian double-agent kill 7 CIA officers and a Jordanian intelligence official so easily?
– New questions about security breach at a CIA base in Khost on December 30th when a suicide bomber, a Jordanian national, entered the outpost
– Senior U.S. official tells CNN bomber was an intelligence source who had provided information about high-value terrorist targets in the past
– Former intelligence official says bomber was met off base by U.S. officials who failed to search him before they put him in a car
QUESTION: How vulnerable to attack are U.S. and NATO intelligence officers operating outside the military chain of command and with their own security rules in Afghanistan and elsewhere?
YEMEN – Does reopening of U.S. embassy indicate security concerns in Yemen have eased?
– U.S. says “successful counter-terrorism operations” conducted by Yemeni security forces have addressed specific concerns and embassy has reopened
– Sr. State Dept. official says Yemeni authorities have helped American authorities with additional security precautions at the embassy site
– British and French embassies resumed operations Tuesday, but remain closed to the public due to continuing Al Qaeda threat
QUESTION: How strong is Al Qaeda in Yemen and is it gaining strength there?
SOMALIA – What can the world do to help alleviate the food crisis in Somalia?
– United Nations World Food Programme says recent attacks and threats have made it almost impossible to get food to hungry people in southern Somalia
– WFP has partially suspended food distribution in much of southern Somalia, leaving more than one million people there in peril
– Al Qaeda linked group al-Shabaab warned WFP to buy food from Somali farmers or stop sending aid to the impoverished country
QUESTION: What are the potential humanitarian costs of a continued suspension of food aid and how will that impact the conflict between militants and the U.N. backed government in Mogadishu?