'Mumbai's crude symbolism'
Updated on 27 November 2008
The morning meeting considers the implications of last night's terror attacks in India's financial centre.
"The audacity and the discriminatory nature of the attacks makes it a huge story.
"In a crude way the symbolism of this happening in Mumbai is an even bigger story than the number of dead.
"Unlike the train attacks, this seems to have been specifically geared towards stopping Mumbai from establishing itself as a rich and prosperous city."
The series of attacks in India began late last night and have killed 101 people. A further 287 people were injured after the attackers used grenades and automatic weapons.
About 40 were believed to being held hostage.
"Today I think we need to be braced for commandos storming the hotels where the hostages are held.
"Although it's still not entirely clear whether they are hostages or under siege.
"We need to get a siege expert lined up as a guest; we'll also need to get a Hindi speaker in to help with our bidding - otherwise we'll just end up with westerners talking about it.
"There should be some strong eye-witness stuff coming through today too."
We will need a timeline to explain the report; amid suggestions there were up to 19 separate attacks.
"This is almost every version of terrorism in one day - all forms of panic.
"I don't think we should get too bogged down in speculating on who has done this yet - the fact is it has happened and there will be an impact.
"It is difficult to draw a distinction between internal threats and international terrorism anyway. The lines are blurred between the two."
Elsewhere on the news-list, we will be keeping an eye on Woolworths today after the administrators were called in.
The struggling retail outfit also has a big distribution arm so we'll be checking on the fallout from the high street firm's demise.
We also have a team in Zimbabwe, to cover the cholera outbreak.
While closer to home the Shannon Matthews trial continues.
