Indian Army officer arrested for role in Malegaon bombing

New Delhi, Nov 5 (IANS) An Indian Army officer has been arrested for his suspected involvement in the Sep 29 bomb blast in Maharashtra's Malegaon which killed five people and was blamed on a Hindu militant group, a defence official said here Wednesday.This is the first case of a serving Indian Army officer being taken into police custody for terrorism related activities.

Mumbai's anti-terrorism squad arrested Lt. Col. Srikant Purohit late Tuesday, said the defence official, who pleaded anonymity because his service rules do not allow him to speak to the media on record.

Purohit, said to be a founding member of the Abhinav Bharat, a radical Hindu right-wing group, was being questioned for his "links" with other suspects of the Malegaon blasts.

Members of the Abhinav Bharat have been linked to the deadly bombing in Malagaon. The police suspect that Purohit helped bomb blast accused Sadhvi (Hindu missionary) Pragya Thakur, retired army Major Ramesh Upadhyaya and his associate Sharad Kulkarni in procuring explosives used in the blast. The three are already in police custody.

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Army denies arrest of Lt. Colonel Purohit in Malegaon blasts case

New Delhi, Nov 5 (ANI): The Army today denied arrest of Lieutenant Colonel Srikant Purohit by Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) in connection with the September 29 Malegaon blasts.

The army officer, who came under the scanner for his alleged role in the blasts, was stationed at the Army Education Corps Training College and Centre at Pachmarhi in Madhya Pradesh. He was doing a course in Arabic at the Army Education Corps College.

The officer is not under arrest. He has been accordingly detained by the ATS for the questioning. The Army Headquarters will take a further view on the matter based on progress of investigation by the ATS an availability of additional evidence, if any, said Veerendra Singh, APRO Army.

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Alarm as Indonesia thumbs nose at West over bird flu

Indonesia stopped sharing the samples with the World Health Organisation (WHO) in December 2006 on fears pharmaceutical companies would use them to make vaccines that are too expensive for poor countries.

The initial move by Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari earned international plaudits for taking on an unfair global system, but with WHO negotiations at an impasse, Supari's increasing belligerence is raising alarm.

The minister has broadened her critique of an "unfair, neocolonialist" global health system, raising the possibility earlier this year the United States was using the virus to develop biological weapons in her book "It's Time for the World to Change: Divine Hands Behind Avian Influenza."

Supari told a rapturous crowd at a book discussion last week that rich nations were creating "new viruses" and sending them to developing nations in order create markets for drug companies to sell vaccines.

"Indonesia sends a virus to the WHO but it suddenly it ends up with the US government. Then the US government turns the virus into dollars and we don't know what kind of research," Supari said.

"Then the virus is turned into vaccines (that are sent to) Indonesia and Indonesia has to buy them and if they don't buy them, it turns and turns again, and in the end developed countries make new viruses which are then sent to developing countries," she said.

"The conspiracy between superpower nations and global organisations isn't a theory, isn't rhetoric, but it's something I've experienced myself."

Bird flu scientists abroad and in Indonesia have raised concerns that while Supari seeks to reshape the global order, time is being wasted in understanding a virus that could potentially kill millions if it mutates into a form transmissible between humans.

Indonesia announced in August that 112 people have died from the virus, out of more than 240 worldwide since late 2003. Only a handful of samples and genetic sequences have been shared with the WHO and researchers.

The health ministry also earlier this year stopped publicly announcing bird flu deaths, only releasing information information weeks or months after victims have died.

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Afghan president wishes he could down U.S. planes

As Western dissatisfaction with Karzai has grown over his failure to crack down on corruption and govern effectively, the Afghan president, facing elections next year, has hit back over the killing of dozens of civilians in foreign air strikes.

In recent weeks, Karzai has repeatedly blamed the West for the worsening security in Afghanistan, saying NATO failed to target Taliban and al Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan and calling for the war to be taken out of Afghan villages.

"We have no other choice, we have no power to stop the planes, if we could, if I could ... we would stop them and bring them down," Karzai told a news conference.

He said that if he had something like the rock attached to a piece of string, known as a chelak in Dari, used to bring down kites in Afghanistan, he would use it.

"If we had a chelak, we would throw it and stop the American aircraft. We have no radar to stop them in the sky, we have no planes," he said. "I wish I could intercept the planes that are going to bomb Afghan villages, but that's not in my hands."

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Thanksgiving check on America's food

In an open letter to whoever would become our next President -- or "Farmer in Chief," as he put it in the Oct. 12 New York Times Magazine -- Pollan wrote:

"It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food. Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration - the last time high food prices presented a serious political peril...
 
"But with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact - so easy to overlook these past few years - that the health of a nation's food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention."

In 2007, before the financial meltdown had even struck, some 32 million Americans -- at least one in nine households -- had trouble putting enough food on the table.

Now, according to the Wall Street Journal, food banks across the country are struggling to meet a surge of people uncertain about their next meal. They've seen a 20% increase in demand -- middle class families, they say, account for most of the growth.

And the day before our annual Thanksgiving binge, the Washington Post reported, "The number of Americans on food stamps is poised to exceed 30 million for the first time this month, surpassing the historic high set in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina."

Contrast this with the big bucks being shelled out in the recent $307 billion farm bill, much of it going to massive agribusinesses -- "A welfare program," as Time Magazine  described it, "for the megafarms that use the most fuel, water, and pesticides; emit the most greenhouse gases; grow the most fattening crops; hire the most illegals and depopulate rural America." 

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Report suggests CIA covered up role in missionary's death

A top-ranking Republican said he will call for a new federal inquiry into an alleged CIA cover-up in the 2001 military attack on a small plane in Peru that killed an American missionary and her infant child.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., the ranking Republican on the House Select Committee on Intelligence, said the attack that killed Veronica and Charity Bowers can be traced to a reckless CIA-sponsored drug interception program that already had downed numerous other planes.

Hoekstra also said the CIA may be responsible for a widespread cover-up designed to hide embarrassing details about the Bowers' deaths and similar incidents in the skies over Peru between 1995 and 2001.

A new report from CIA Inspector General John Helgerson accuses the agency of running a reckless air interception program for illegal drugs and ignoring regulations and procedures designed to protect innocent air travelers.

That type of disregard for procedure might have led to the unnecessary downing of several private planes during the six-year life of the "Narcotics Airbridge Denial Program," culminating with the Bowers tragedy, Hoekstra said.

"To say these deaths did not have to happen is an understatement," said Hoekstra, who also represents the Bowers' hometown of Muskegon.

"The CIA knew about repeated serious issues with this program but took no corrective action, which could have prevented this needless tragedy. Making matters worse, the inspector general found continuous efforts to cover the matter up and potentially block a criminal investigation."

The CIA has admitted that proper procedures were not followed during the April 20, 2001, attack on the missionary plane carrying the Bowers family, according to Hoekstra.

The attack, by a Peruvian Air Force jet, resulted in the death of Veronica "Roni" Bowers, 35, and the Bowers' 7-month-old daughter, Charity. Her husband, Jim Bowers, the Bowers' young son, Cory, and pilot Kevin Donaldson survived.

The couple had been working in Peru with the Pennsylvania-based Association of Baptists for World Evangelism when the attack occurred. Jim Bowers, who has remarried and recently was working as a missionary in Africa, could not be reached for comment.

CIA officials claimed the tragedy was an isolated incident and its air interception program had been operating smoothly and legally to that point.

Hoekstra, however, said the report suggests that approximately 10 other private planes were shot down over Peru in the years before the Bowers tragedy.

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