Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Hezbollah Pushes Protests; Green-on-Blue Attacks Growing; Chinese Protest Island Sale; India Addresses Need For Toilets; Barack Obama Speaks in Ohio; Women Disappearing in Mexico

Aired September 17, 2012 - 12:00   ET

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

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to NEWSROOM INTERNATIONAL. I'm Suzanne Malveaux. We're taking you around the world in 60 minutes. Here's what's going on right now.

Violence still erupting in the Arab world right now. It is spilling over into Lebanon. I want to get right to it.

Just moments ago, we saw the leader of Hezbollah come out in the streets of Beirut to demand more demonstrations against Americans. In a rare appearance, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah came out, pushing for more protests, saying that freedom of speech will not protect America from insults against Muhammad. His speech comes just days, as you know, after violence erupted outside American embassies around the world, after an anti-Islam film went viral.

Hala Gorani, she's joining us to talk a little bit about this.

And put this into perspective.

HALA GORANI, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR & CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

MALVEAUX: Put this into context for us. Because you've got the head of Hezbollah now saying, get out there, more protests, more violence.

Is this something that he said before? Why now? Why is it taking --

GORANI: Well, it's interesting why now because it's coming only a few days after some of the protests we saw in other parts of the world that led to the tragic death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, for instance. Hassan Nasrallah even made a public appearance in person in the middle of the crowd. That is rare since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war for fear of assassination. He'll usually limit himself to television appearances.

He is saying that America needs to hear us. Don't insult our prophet.

He is trying to present himself right now. This is the leader of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah as a unifier of all Muslims. It's an opportunity for him perhaps to try to regain some of that street cred he has lost over the last several years.

MALVEAUX: How powerful is he as a figure head? Is he a symbolic leader? Is he really a very practical on the grounds motivator? GORANI: No. He is the CEO and the chairman of Hezbollah, the most important political and militant faction in Lebanon.

Look at it in the regional context here. He is allied and is, of course, in existence, thanks to the support of Iran, allied as well with the leadership and the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Why did he lose some of his street cred and why potentially is he trying to regain it today? Because when the Arab Spring erupted, he supported the Shia opposition in Bahrain against the Sunni royal family, but they conveniently also allied himself or aligned himself, I should say, with the regime of Bashar al-Assad against the protesters there. He, instead of being seen as this kind of, you know, rock star in the way that he was seen after the war with Israel, he is now seen as a sectarian leader.

This might be an opportunity for him to try to regain some of that popularity and flex his political and military muscle in Lebanon.

MALVEAUX: Hala, do people listen to him? When he says go out there and protest, are we going to see protests?

GORANI: Absolutely. You know, when I say with some degree of confidence that this is going to be peaceful, it's because Hassan Nasrallah says act within the law. It's because he says allow this to be a peaceful demonstration against America that has allowed this film to be produced and insult our prophet.

He is making practical recommendations. You know, criminalize blasphemy, for instance, calling on the Organization of the Islamic Conference to do that. He has a lot of power.

But I do want to say one thing before I go, which I think is important because some magazine covers, for instance, which I won't name are calling this Muslim rage. We need to put this in perspective in terms of numbers. We're talking a few thousand people across the entire Muslim world.

MALVEAUX: Sure.

GORANI: You know, so it makes good headlines. It's good TV, but in terms of the percentage of people who have actually felt the need to go out in the street, it's still pretty small.

MALVEAUX: Very, very small. You're absolutely right, Hala. You look at the pictures. They're dramatic. That's the really important point to put this into context.

GORANI: Yes.

MALVEAUX: All right. Hala, thank you.

GORANI: Thank you.

MALVEAUX: Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he weighed in this weekend, on all the flare-ups that are going on in the Middle East. He scolded the United States for not being more involved in containing Hezbollah's major backer, Iran.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: This is not an electoral issue. It is not based on any electoral consideration. I think that there's a common interest for all Americans, of all political persuasions, to stop Iran. This is a regime that is giving vent to the worst impulses that you see right now in the Middle East.

They deny the rights of women, deny democracy, brutalize their own people. Don't give freedom of religion. All the things that you see now in these mobs storming the American embassy is what you'll see with a regime that would have atomic bombs. You can't have such people have atomic bombs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Netanyahu's comments come as his relationship with President Obama has chilled. Now, there are some critics that say that the president is refusing to meet with Israeli prime minister at the upcoming U.N. General Assembly.

The White House says that's not true. There hasn't even been a request for such a meeting.

Well, now the notorious film that insults Islam has sparked new protests today in Afghanistan. We've got hundreds of demonstrators who turned on Afghan police. They attack officers along a major road that is leading to the U.S. embassy in Kabul. It set two police vehicles on fire, and they said at least 15 Afghan officers were hurt in all this.

What is more alarming are the attacks this weekend on NATO forces. At least six American troops were killed in Afghanistan. Four of them in the latest apparent insider attack by Afghan forces. Such attacks, they are generally known as green on blue, because the uniforms worn by NATO and Afghan forces.

I want to bring in Anna Coren, who spent -- spoke to an Afghan man who admits actually gunning down his American trainers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In a small house in a Taliban controlled village is a man who claims to be responsible for a green on blue attack. With his face covered to hide his identity, he pulls out his police uniform. Something he hasn't worn since the attack on the 2nd of October, 2009.

On patrol with U.S. forces in Wardak province in central Afghanistan, this father of two said he waited for an opportunity to launch his premeditated attack.

"The Americans went inside the nearby school for a break," he explains. They took off their body armor and put their weapons down. At that moment, I thought it was the right time, so I took my gun and shot them."

Two soldiers were killed: 25-year-old Sergeant Aaron Smith and 21- year-old Private First Class Brandon Owens. Three others soldiers were injured, including Captain Tyler Kirk.

When asked why he turned his gun on the U.S. soldiers training him, he said -- "Because Americans were oppressing people in my country. They were burning copies of the Holy Koran and disrespecting it."

Having escaped from the scene, he claims he was later catch by the Taliban who thought he was a policeman.

"When I told them I had killed Americans, they took me to a safe place, give me new clothes, then they drove me to Pakistan where the Taliban welcomed me very warmly like a hero."

He says he later moved to Iran for three years, returning to Afghanistan only recently after being told it was safe.

"They said Americans were not everywhere like they used to be. That Taliban had brought security and I should return home. I'm happy to be back in my country."

(on camera): Green-on-blue or insider attacks, as they are known within the military, have sadly increased this year here in Afghanistan. It's an alarming trend that has causing forces extremely worried. And every single time there is an attack, the Taliban immediately claims responsibility.

COL. TOM COLLINS, U.S. COALITION FORCES: The Taliban lie and we know they lie. We think they overstate their influence on these tragic incidence incidences. We think somewhere around 25 percent of them are insurgent-related to some degree.

COREN (voice-over): The majority of attacks, according to the coalition, are related to personal grievances, cultural differences, and the psychological fatigue of an 11-year war that is about to enter its 12th year and where trust has been undermined, forcing new measures to be put in place to protect international troops, the Afghanis are determined to ensure these insider attacks don't derail this vital partnership.

SEDIQ SEDIQI, AFGHAN INTERIOR MINISTRY SPOKESMAN: We continue to work together. We have been working for the last 11 years. We have built a very good relationship together and this will continue despite any effort by the Taliban to make us separate. That will not happen.

COREN: But for this 30-year-old Afghani, he believes these attacks won't stop.

"I know they will increase. I know more people will do what I did."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: Anna Coren joins us from Kabul. Anna, first of all, I mean, it's very disturbing to see what is taking place here. I was in Afghanistan a year ago, invited by the military, embedded with the military because they were so proud of their training of these Afghan forces, police forces and soldiers, that they brought to the frontlines.

They're turning over weapons. They're training them with weapons. They're teaching them how to read here. But there was a lot of frustration from some of these soldiers who I talked to who said, look, we're afraid they're going to abandon their post, that they're not reliable here.

But clearly, they did not fear -- they did not feel or fear that these guys were going to turn their weapons on them. I mean, this has gotten extraordinarily into a very bad situation.

What can be done now?

COREN: The situation has turned bad, Suzanne. There's no doubt about it. Something has definitely shifted here in Afghanistan, whether it'd be the Taliban infiltrating certain parts of the army or police, or whether people are just fed up and they want the coalition forces, the American forces, to leave, as we heard from that Afghan soldier in my piece.

But as far as what the U.S. can do to try and prevent these attacks, they thought they had already taken the measures a couple of weeks ago. You know, when I arrived, there was news that the U.S. had actually suspended recruits -- they had suspended training of recruits to re-vet, to make sure that there weren't any bad seeds in the bunch.

And then, of course, they introduced this Guardian Angel program, where there are extra coalition forces armed, making sure that they could, I guess, pinpoint those bad situations and prevent these catastrophes, these tragedies from happening. Suzanne, as we could say on the weekend, there were another, you know, bunch of -- there were another two attacks, I should say, of these green on blue attacks where four soldiers were killed, four American soldiers were killed on Sunday, and then two British on Saturday. This is obviously a very alarming trend.

MALVEAUX: Absolutely, and just want our viewers to know what they were watching there. That was training video essentially. They had these exercises practice exercises to really help them work side-by- side, the Afghan forces and American forces so that they could turnover their security to their country. Now, you are seeing these attacks against American soldiers actually responsible for training the Afghans.

Anna Coren, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Some parts of India, now it is more common to actually have a cell phone than to have a toilet. It is creating a very real health risk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No single toilet? You go to the railway track?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Lawyers for Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton, they were in Paris in a courtroom today. They are trying to keep the Duchess from being published anymore. They want the photographer to face criminal charges.

Now, a magazine in France, Ireland, now Italy have released the photos of Kate sunbathing. France has much stricter privacy laws than either Ireland or Italy.

Well, thousands are taking to the streets in dozens of cities across China. Why is this happening? Well, they're protesting the sale of disputed islands in Japan.

You're looking at pictures here. This is from Beijing. Now, some Japanese factories located in China have been closed because of all damage by the protesters.

This was sparked when three islands in the South China Sea were sold last week. Japan bought the islands for $26 million from a private Japanese family. China also claims ownership, says that the sale is illegal.

Now, the U.S. is stepping into the fray. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is urging the two countries resolve this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEON PANETTA, DEFENSE SECRETARY: It's in everybody's interest -- it's in everybody's interest for Japan and China, to maintain good relations and to find a way to avoid further escalation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: I want to bring in Michael Holmes.

Michael, you have been following the story. And one of the things that we heard from Secretary Panetta is that when he referred to these islands, he used the Japanese name and not the name by the Chinese. Is there any significance to that? Is he trying to sway this either way and to give a message? This is the side of the U.S.?

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR & CORRESPONDENT: I don't think so. I don't think the U.S. wants to buy into this in the open way of saying, hey, the islands are Japanese. I think they just want these guys to talk about it.

You know, in some ways, it shouldn't be an issue. They've had a long- standing agreement to just leave it alone and at some point in the future resolve this.

MALVEAUX: Why is this happening now? HOLMES: Well, the history is fascinating too. It goes back to 1895 and the Japanese war when the islands were seized by Japan, and then way back in 1932, the Japanese government sold them to a businessman. Then you had the second world war, the U.S., of course, was the occupier now. When they left in 1972 when they handed over that part, they gave them back to Japan.

Why this has come up now, I think the Japanese government was blindsided by it. The governor of Tokyo, who is always wanted these islands to be Japanese officially, he went and started an appeal to raise funds to buy them from Japan off the businessman who owned them for all those years.

Now, the government then is like, oh, great, now we've got to get into this. So, they ended up having to buy it. What could they do?

China, of course, saying I thought we had a deal here. This was an unresolved issue. We'll deal with this at some point in the future.

Now the two countries have had a long history of being mad at each other, and so now here's another excuse.

MALVEAUX: I like how you act out the whole thing between the Japanese and the Chinese.

Why are they so important? I mean, are they valuable? Do they have? Are there minerals?

HOLMES: No, no. They're a couple of lumps in the ocean. I think there's like five actually in all islands, and there's three reefs. Yes. We're talking about resources.

China and Japan don't need an excuse to talk about territory either just for the sake of it. But there is a sense that there's oil, gas -- certainly gas reserves that could be in these islands, territorial waters. So, that's an important thing as well.

But I think a lot of this is just about, you know, it's mine. No, it's mine.

MALVEAUX: It's pride. Pride.

HOLMES: On the sidelines, by the way, Taiwan is saying, no, it's ours.

MALVEAUX: They're trying to get into the action as well.

HOLMES: The fear is -- Japan -- China has sent some military ships to the area, which have now left. The fear is that, you know, it could trigger something here. Now, you don't want anybody accidentally pulling the trigger on this, literally, and having some sort of dispute between the two.

The other way this dispute could go is the trade war, huge business between the two. China is Japan's biggest trading partner. Japan is China's third biggest trading partner, $340 billion worth of trade. Factories are getting attacked and all these sort of things.

MALVEAUX: Now, the protest.

HOLMES: It could spiral. You don't want to just sort of get it out of control.

MALVEAUX: All right. We'll be following that closely. Michael, thank you. Appreciate it.

HOLMES: Yes.

MALVEAUX: More than 30 prisoners in a small West African country of Gambia were told by their government that they were going to be executed. Well, the Reverend Jesse Jackson is trying to save them. He's going to join us to talk about it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Foreign policy fast becoming a critical issue in the upcoming election. Mitt Romney, President Obama have very different views on how to deal with the world powers, China and Russia.

Jill Dougherty, she's bringing it down for us -- Romney versus Obama.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On Russia and on China, Barack Obama made cooperation his motto.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In an interconnected world, in a global economy, nations, including our own, will be more prosperous and more secure when we work together.

DOUGHERTY: But with the Kremlin's increasing authoritarian outlook and with Beijing's growing assertiveness in Asia, he's found that approach more difficult.

OBAMA: After a decade in which we fought two wars that cost us dearly in blood and treasure, the United States is turning our attention to the vast potential of the Asia-Pacific Region.

DOUGHERTY: With his pivot to Asia, Mr. Obama made a strategic decision for the U.S. to play a larger, long-term role in Asia. And facing a more than $200 billion trade deficit with China, he brought suits against Beijing at the World Trade Organization.

OBAMA: We're going to continue to be firm in insisting that they operate by the same rules that everybody else operates under.

DOUGHERTY: He fended off Republican and Democratic demands to designate China a currency manipulator. Concerned it would start a trade war.

Angering Beijing, he signed off on arms sales to Taiwan, but refused to sell them advanced F-16 fighter jets.

But Mitt Romney vows to take off the gloves.

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And so if I'm president of the United States, I will finally take China to the carpet and say, look, you guys, I'm going to label you a currency manipulator and apply tariffs unless you stop those practices.

DOUGHERTY: China, Governor Romney says, is a cheat.

ROMNEY: China is stealing our intellectual property, our patents, our designs, our know-how, our brand names.

DOUGHERTY: Romney says he would sell more arms to Taiwan. And he'd confront China on its human rights record.

With Russia, Obama tried the reset button.

HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: We want to reset our relationship.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's do it together.

CLINTON: So, we will do it together. OK?

(LAUGHTER)

DOUGHERTY: He won a new START arms control agreement, got Vladimir Putin's green light opening crucial supply lines for coalition forces in Afghanistan, and canceled the Bush administration's plan for putting missile defense components in Poland.

Mitt Romney blasts Obama's approach.

ROMNEY: Under my administration, our friends will see more loyalty and Mr. Putin will see a little less flexibility and more backbone.

DOUGHERTY: Romney says if he's elected, he'll ditch Obama's reset button. Russia, he says, is --

ROMNEY: Without question, our number one geopolitical foe.

DOUGHERTY: Romney vows to reevaluate that arms control treaty and to confront the Kremlin on its human rights record.

But would Mitt Romney substantially change U.S. policy toward Russia or China?

Four years ago, Barack Obama took a harder line, too. Once in office, he tempered that with diplomatic calculus.

(on camera): Right now, Moscow and China opposed U.S. efforts to remove Bashar al-Assad in Syria. But Washington needs their help on other challenges like Iran and North Korea. Debates over Russia and China often are black and white. But seen from inside the White House, there's a lot more gray.

Jill Dougherty, CNN, the State Department. (END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: For people living inside Syria's capital, life continues on even with the sound of explosions in the distance.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: President Obama speaking live in Cincinnati, Ohio. Let's listen in.

(BEGIN LIVE FEED)

OBAMA: Thank you. Thank you so much.

It is good -- it is good to be back in Cincinnati.

(APPLAUSE)

It is good to be in Ohio. It is great to be in this beautiful setting. I -- you know, it seems like we should have a picnic.

Who's got the chicken? No chicken. No potato salad? Baked beans? Who said bean (ph)?

It is beautiful. Can everybody please give Andrew a great round of applause for that wonderful introduction? Was it great?

Let me say, first of all, we could not be prouder of Andrew's service to our country as a veteran. We are grateful to him. Obviously, we're very proud of the work he is doing and the work he does with his union. But the thing I am most proud of is the fact that he's got triplets, and he's still standing.

I had a chance to meet his wonderful wife. Triplets, that's serious. You cannot play man-to-man defense. You got to go into a zone. So we're very proud of him.

And we also have, here your outstanding mayor, Mark Mallory, is in the house.

(APPLAUSE)

And it is great to see all of you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Now you may have heard that there's an election going on. Over the past couple of weeks each side has been able to make its case. They had their thing down in Tampa. We had our thing. Now just 15 days from now Ohio starting on October 2nd, you guys can start voting and you have a big choice to make. I honestly believe it's the clearest choice anytime in a generation.

It's not just between two candidates or two political parties. But it's a choice between fundamental different missions for how we move forward as a country. And our vision, our fight is for that basic bargain that built the greatest middle class on earth and the strongest economy the world has ever known. It's a bargain that says if you work hard, that hard work will pay off. That a responsibility will be rewarded and everybody should get a fair shot. Everybody should do their fair share; everybody should play by the same rules from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington D.C.

Four years ago I ran for president because I saw that basic bargain eroding. Too many jobs getting shipped overseas. Too many families who are struggling with the cost of everything from groceries to gas to college to health care, racking up more and more debt just to keep up with expenses because paychecks weren't going up the way costs were. Then because of that debt, it made things that much harder and when that house of cards collapsed in the worst recession since the great depression, we saw millions of Americans lose their jobs, homes, life savings, and we're still fighting to recover from that tragedy.

Now, the other side, they're more than happy to talk about what they think is wrong with America. They won't tell you how it started. But they're happy. They're happy to talk about what's wrong. They don't do much to tell you what they're going to do to make it right. They want your vote. They don't want to tell you their plan. And the reason isn't because the plan they've got is the same one that they've been offering for decades, tax cuts.

A few regulations, and then let's try more tax cuts. Tax cuts in good times. Tax cuts in bad times. Tax cuts when we're at peace. Tax cuts when we're at war. You want to make a restaurant reservation or book a flight? You don't need the new iPhone. Try a tax cut. Want to drop a few extra pounds? Try a tax cut. They have one answer for everything.

Now, I've cut taxes too for folks who need it, middle class families. You're paying about $3,600 less in federal taxes since I have been president. I cut taxes for the middle class like I promised. Small businesses, I have cut taxes 18 separate times. But I don't think another round of tax breaks for millionaires will bring good jobs back to Ohio or pay down our deficit. I sure don't believe firing teachers or kicking students off of financial aid will help grow our economy or compete with countries like China that are producing engineers and scientists.

After all that we've been through does anybody actually believe that rolling back regulations on Wall Street are some how going to help the small businesswoman in Cincinnati expand or the construction worker that's been laid off? Let me tell you, we have been there. We have tried that. We are not going back. We are not going back. We're not going back to trickle down. We're not going back to top down; you're on your own economics. We're not going to tell folks that you're on your own because we believe we're all in this together. We don't think that the economy grows from the top down. We think it grows from the middle out, from a strong middle class. From strong working families.

When people are doing well at the middle, then everybody does well. What happens when you got a little more money in your pocket? You spend it. That means businesses have more customers. That means they make more profits. Then they hire more workers. We get a virtual cycle going up, going forward. We are not going backwards. We're moving forward. That's what this election is about. I want you to know Cincinnati I have never promised that the path we're on is going to be quick or easy.

As Bill Clinton reminded us at the convention, it's going to take more than a few years to solve challenges that have built up over decades. Let me tell you something. I know we will get there. When I hear some of these folks from the other party talk about a nation in decline --

(END LIVE FEED)

MALVEAUX: President Obama out of Cincinnati, Ohio, at a campaign rally. For many of the poor who are living in India, their only bathroom is the train tracks. That is creating health crises.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: The dignity of a toilet. It is one of the many things people in India need more than anything else. About only half of India's 1.2 billion people have access to toilets. It's a delicate subject to discuss. Some might find the images uncomfortable, but it is a public health problem across many developing countries. India's government is now finding ways to address it. Sumnima Udas Reports.

SUMNIMA UDAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In search of a better life. Twenty four year-old Kalaisel Vt moved to New Delhi a year ago. Little did she know she would be struggling to find the most basic of facilities in the country's capital.

KALAISEL VT, INDIA RESIDENT: Not a single toilet?

UDAS: You go to the railway track?

Every day at the crack of dawn residents gather by the railway tracks to do what most would only do in private. It's among the few remaining open spaces in an increasingly crowded country. India's vast railway system carries 11 million passengers a day. It's often called the lifeline of India, but even one government official is dubbing at something else.

JAIRAM RAMESH, MIN. RURAL DEVELOPMENT/DRINKING WATER AND SANITATION: The Indian railway is really the largest open toilet in the world.

UDAS: Kalaisel says women suffer the most.

KALAISEL VT: I really feel ashamed, so gents and ladies nearby near, so really it is very difficult conditions.

UDAS: According to the latest government census, nearly half of India households do not have access to toilets. Take this town for example there are more than 3,000 people living here. They have all kinds of things. They've got satellite TV. They've got refrigerators. They've got mobile phones. But not a single household here has a toilet. It's the irony of development in India. Figures from the World Health Organization show 626 million Indians still defecate in the open, but more people here own a mobile phone. While airwaves have become dirt cheap, sewer systems remain expensive and scarce.

BINDESHWAR PATHAK, FOUNDER, SULABH INTERNATIONAL: Out of the 7935 towns, only 162 have sewage treatment plants.

UDAS: Bindeshwar Pathak has been working to provide low cost environment-friendly toilets to India's poor for more than 40 years. Why are there so few toilets in India?

PATHAK: Because of the cultural constraints. They need to build a house. Everything all provisions, but not a toilet.

UDAS: Pathak says many Indians, especially in rural areas, consider toilets to be unclean and should not be indoors. Now Pathak's organization is stepping in. He has built thousands of public toilets, as well as some 1.2 million household toilets based on an innovative and affordable concept.

PATHAK: There are two pits. Just see, this is the one, and this is the second. So this pit is used so when this is full, it is switched over to the other one, and after two years it becomes a fertilizer.

UDAS: Though elaborate sewer system is required.

SHAKUNTALA, PRESIDENT (via translator): Before we used to go to the jungles, we use to get bitten by the mosquitoes and get very sick. This is before this arrived and everything has changed and it is much cleaner and a lot better, she says. The government is also recognizing the problem allocating tens of millions of dollars to building toilets around the country. Steps that activists hope will make scenes like these a thing of the past.

CNN, Sumnima Udas, New Delhi.

MALVEAUX: Joining us from New York, "New York Times" columnist Anand Giridharadas, he is the author of "India Calling an Intimate Portrait of a Nation for making." it's great to see you as always here. Help us understand this, because India has made tremendous progress on so many fronts. That is in medicine, technology, and all these things. And yet it lacks toilets. How does that happen?

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS, AUTHOR, "INDIA CALLING:" There's a simple difference between all the stuff you cited that's working well and toilets. The stuff that's worked well in India, cell phones, most notably, are privately provided. Companies innovate and provide them to citizens, and they push to get the costs down and the efficiency high, and so India has had a cell phone revolution, and it is still waiting to have a toilet revolution because toilets are something that are publicly provided in general. They require -- you can't go build a good toilet on your own. You require government to build sewage and other things.

MALVEAUX: So how do the residents -- how do the citizens of India actually force their government to do more in that regard?

GIRIDHARADAS: The good news is this is actually already started to happen. There is some indication that the kinds of things that made cell phones go from kind of Michael Douglas's rich banker character in the 1980s to something that the poorest people in the world have today, that kind of revolution may be happening with toilets. So Bill Gates is starting to push this idea of we need to get rid of the western toilet model and innovate new toilets designed for poor countries that are cheap costs per flush, which don't require elaborate multi billion dollar sewage systems, and that actually in some cases are solar powered and convert the waste into fuel, into things that can actually power the toilets at night when the solar power is gone.

MALVEAUX: That's all -- it all sounds very interesting. You've written extensively about India's economic and social transformation. As you know, this is a public health problem across many developing countries, the lack of toilets here. Is India in some way trying to lead the way in resolving this issue? Will it actually be seen as a model in some ways?

GIRIDHARADAS: You know, the exciting thing about India, for all its challenges, is that it has both some of the worst problems in the world and some of the smartest people and best institutions living side-by-side. And the fact that India has more cell phone access than flush toilet access is actually also true globally. More people around the world have cell phone access than flush toilet access. So there's hope that people like the entrepreneur you just showed and others, people like the Gates Foundation, could use India as a place to innovate a toilet that is actually designed for the developing world, rather than trying to bring in something that was designed for industrialized countries in Europe in 1775 when the first toilet was patented.

MALVEAUX: All right. And, thank you so much. I've learned so much more about toilets than I ever even imaged. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Good to see you as well.

GIRIDHARADAS: Pleasure. Great to be with you.

MALVEAUX: When the women of Juarez, Mexico, go missing, some don't come back and some say the government really is not doing enough to stop the abductions.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Women and girls are disappearing off the streets of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Some of them are never seen again. Some of them are found dead months later. The government doesn't seem to think it is an urgent problem. Our Nick Valencia is investigating.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Every week since his daughter disappeared more than a year ago, Gasper Mendoza has waited outside the state prosecutor's office in Ciudad Juarez looking for help.

GASPER MENDOZA, FATHER OF MISSING GIRL (through translator): I have been searching all over the state for the last three months. VALENCIA: Homicides are down in the city once dubbed the deadliest in the world. But there's been an increase in the number of teenage girls and women who are missing, known locally as (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

MENDOZA: It seems like the air has swallowed her up or she's on Mars. I just don't know.

VALENCIA: Mendoza's 18-year-old daughter is one of at least 180 women in Juarez who have disappeared in the last year alone. Like so many others, she was last seen in downtown Juarez. They've disappeared from nightclubs or bars. Some even outside of their workplace at the (INAUDIBLE) or local factory that have flourished with a U.S. business that came here as a result of the NAFTA treaty. According to the Red Mesa de Mujerez, a human rights coalition in Mexico that tracks missing persons cases, this is the second wave of deadly abductions targeting women in Juarez. The first started in 1993, the group says, claiming more than 400 victims were killed, often after being beaten and raped.

ILIANA ESPINOZA, RED MESA DE MUJERES (through translator): We've had a total regression when it comes to disappearances of women.

VALENCIA: It's not clear what's behind the renewed aggression against women, but Iliana Espinoza, director of the Red Mesa coalition in Juarez, says one factor is a dysfunctional Mexican justice system. Many crimes go unsolved, she says, and others are inadequately investigated or documented. Chief among them, the violent oppression of women.

ESPINOZA: There are cases where women have disappeared in downtown Juarez, and the authorities have done nothing. They have already had the details, testimonies, people they have spoken with, and like I'm explaining to you, there's no follow-up, there's no justice.

VALENCIA: In downtown Juarez, the faces of the missing are plastered on every street corner. Testimony to the grief and desperation of their loved ones, who, like Gasper Mendoza, wait helplessly, but not without hope that one day they will find their missing child.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: Nick joins us. I mean, it's really sad. It's kind of hard to even watch this piece and realize what's going on. What is -- first of all, I mean, what is behind this? Why is this happening?

VALENCIA: Well, there's various factors at play here. One is this culture of impunity that's been created because of the drug cartel violence there. A lot of these other issues are being swept under the rug. One of them being gender oppression. You have to remember, Suzanne, Mexico is a very machismo society, very masochistic society and gender roles. A lot of men don't see women as their equals, and that's one of the factors at play here.

MALVEAUX: And why are they -- why are they killing women, though? I mean why are they actually taking them and killing them? VALENCIA: Well, the (INAUDIBLE), for instance, these factories, some of it has to do with job competition. When a woman gets a job over a man, there's some jealousy there and there's attacks. Other things, though, when I mention in the piece, this luring the downtown, some women are given these opportunities under the guys that they'll have opportunities to work in downtown Juarez and they end up being lured into the sex trade and beaten, sometimes raped and even killed.

MALVEAUX: Why is the government not doing more?

VALENCIA: Well, what you have to understand, the characteristics that sort of tie all these characters together, these missing women, they either come from poor areas, they come from impoverished families. A lot of times 90 percent of the crimes in Mexico don't go solved. So the last thing the authorities are going to focus their attention on is helping the impoverished communities.

When you ask the authorities, when you talk to the authorities, they say these women are leaving on their own accord, they're running away from their families. But when you talk to the families, they say that's not the case. They're being lured, again, under the guise that there are opportunities for a better life, only to be dragged into something a little more sinister.

MALVEAUX: Nick, it is such a sad story, but we are so grateful that you're bringing it to us.

VALENCIA: Thank you.

MALVEAUX: And, obviously, we'll be following up on that. Thanks again.

VALENCIA: Thank you.

MALVEAUX: We're going to take a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: There's a new giant panda cub at the National Zoo in Washington. Zookeepers, they're watching the panda cam -- this is pretty cool -- to monitor this new cut since it was born late last night. Check it out.