"Slumdog" Actress Shocker: Dad Tried to Sell Young Actress; New Orleans Getting the Lead Out
HARRIS: Nine-year-old Rubina Ali dazzled the world with her debut in "Slumdog Millionaire" but there are new allegations her father tried to cash in on her popularity by selling her to what he thought was a wealthy Dubai couple. Sara Sidner has this new slumdog story from Mumbai.</s>SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Call it "Slumdog: The Sequel." No dancing, no singing.; just shouting and shoving. A mom and a stepmom and their little girl. This little girl. Latika in the film, nine-year-old Rubina Ali in the real life. A girl we fell in love with on the silver screen and Oscar's red carpet. She and her friends won our hearts and made the makers of "Slumdog" a small fortune. Slumdog actors were paid a fee and a trust fund was set up, but did Rubina's dad try to make a buck himself? A British tabloid says he did. This is video purportedly showing Rubina's father, Rafiq Qureshi, on the right with a couple posing as wealthy Arabs. The father allegedly agreeing to offer Rubina for adoption in exchange for nearly $300,000. But there's no sound on the tape and Qureshi says he did no such thing.</s>RAFIQ QURESHI, RUBINA'S FATHER (through translator): They said the sheik's wife wanted to take Rubina. But I said, no, I could never give my child away.</s>SIDNER: Rubina agrees.</s>RUBINA ALI, ACTRESS, "SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE": I talked to them in the room. My dad said I could meet people if I want to, but I will never give my daughter away for any amount of money.</s>SIDNER: Back to the fight. It was mom who complained to police after seeing the news reports. The stepmom took exception to the accusation. The tabloid stands by the story. Authorities are on the case. Figuratively and literally, the blow by blow. And somewhere in the fight, in this slum, in this story, a little girl waits for the kind of Hollywood ending that lingers even after the lights come back up. Sara Sidner, CNN, New Delhi.</s>HARRIS: You know what? Toxic pollutants could lurk in the ground you walk on, the soil your children play and even your own backyard. On this Earth Day, photo journalist Ken Tullis (ph) looks for answers in New Orleans where they're getting the lead out yard by yard.</s>MEL CHIN, FUNDRED.ORG: This is a problem not brought in by a storm. It's brought in by time and industry and history. In this soil is lead. Lead at quantities that we've measured in this yard to be almost 3,000 parts per million.</s>CHIN: This is a safe house. It houses the most important part of the project which is the fundred bills. Here's an amazing portrait of Martin Luther King. I asked what would it cost for the solution? I would told it would cost about $300,000,000 to transform the city of New Orleans. The immediate thought was, we probably won't be able to raise that much money, but we can make that much money.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are going to design this dollar bill exactly how you want it to look.</s>CHIN: Because lead readily is absorbed, it goes to the brain and the blood, the bones of a child.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are trying to gain attention with the amounts of lead that are found here in our city.</s>CHIN: Lead affects mental capacities, it creates aggressive tendencies, it creates lifelong medical issues.</s>ANDREW HUNT, ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENTIST: Many of the homes have been painted with lead-based paint. It was very popular up until the '70s. Especially on the outdoors and that sort of flakes off, gets into the soil, contaminates it.</s>CHIN: And if it comes from the exhaust from automobiles, pre- 1978 where they used to add lead to the gasoline.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To solve the problem, the treatment is add ago mineral to the that will trap the lead into a stable molecule that cannot be digested.</s>CHIN: This entire wall represents 3,000 bills, a thousand of these walls is what we intend to pick up, and then we will take all the bills to Congress where we will ask for an even exchange of $300 million real dollars to put into transforming the conditions that we find in New Orleans.</s>HARRIS: And here is what we are working on for you next hour. It is a throwback to the Depression and it appears to be working. Our Brooke Baldwin reports on a town that's keeping local shop keepers in business by printing its own money. There's Brooke. A Senate report out today with new revelations about harsh interrogation tactics on terror suspects. Dana Bash has the reports and details. And Taliban forces take control of an area just 60 miles from Pakistan's capital. Live reports from the region, including CNN's Ivan Watson in Islamabad.