Bastawade gives account of how Koda siphoned money

RANCHI: Enforcement directorate officials questioning Anil Bastawade for the past two days have got vital clues on how the close aide of former chief minister Madhu Koda siphoned off money through the hawala channel. The mining kingpin allegedly involved in the Rs 4,000 cr scam, was arrested from Indonesia and brought to India on Tuesday.

According to Times Now reports, Bastawade had confessed to his links with Koda and his two other aides Sanjay Chaudhary and Manoj Punamiya before the ED sleuths. He has also admitted that the money was diverted and invested in mines in the name of making payment for coal imported to India. In reality, the coal never reached India but the payments running in crores of rupees were made to siphon off ill-gotten money for investment in foreign countries.

Sources in the ED told TOI that Bastawde is allegedly feigning illness to avoid interrogation by the officials, yet they have managed to link some important transactions which were done through hawala channel by him to invest the money generated by Koda and his aides in Jharkhand. The ED has taken him on a 10-day remand from the special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court of RK Choudhary to tie up the loose ends of the scam, in which Koda and his associates were allegedly involved.

"Bastawade has been charged with receiving money from Koda through hawala and investing it in real estate and mining projects in foreign countries during 2006 and 2008. Documents show that he siphoned off around Rs 250 crore out of Rs 3,500- Rs 4,000 crore generated by Koda and his associates," said a source. "He is very smart and whenever we try to quiz him he shows that he is very sick and cannot tolerate the interrogation session. Despite all his ploys we have managed to get good links that can help in exposing the nexus and siphoning of ill-gotten money to foreign countries by Koda and his associates through Bastawade." said the source after two days of interrogation on Saturday.

The mining kingpin, who had a red corner notice against him by the Interpol, was detained by the Indonesian police on January 21 in Jakarta and later handed over to ED officials who produced him before the special PMLA court on Wednesday. A notice for appearing before the special court was pending against Bastawade since January 25, 2012.

Sources in the CBI, which is also investigating the scam, said they would interrogate Bastawade once the ED completes its interrogation. "We are waiting for the ED to reach to conclusion on basis of the information provided by Bastawade before we start his interrogation," said a CBI officer.

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Pictures We Love: Best of January

Photograph by Dieu Nalio Chery, AP

The magnitude 7 earthquake that struck near Port au Prince, Haiti, in January 2010 so devastated the country that recovery efforts are still ongoing.

Professional dancer Georges Exantus, one of the many casualties of that day, was trapped in his flattened apartment for three days, according to news reports. After friends dug him out, doctors amputated his right leg below the knee. With the help of a prosthetic leg, Exantus is able to dance again. (Read about his comeback.)

Why We Love It

"This is an intimate photo, taken in the subject's most personal space as he lies asleep and vulnerable, perhaps unaware of the photographer. The dancer's prosthetic leg lies in the foreground as an unavoidable reminder of the hardships he faced in the 2010 earthquake. This image makes me want to hear more of Georges' story."—Ben Fitch, associate photo editor

"This image uses aesthetics and the beauty of suggestion to tell a story. We are not given all the details in the image, but it is enough to make us question and wonder."—Janna Dotschkal, associate photo editor

Published February 1, 2013

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Body of Missing Mom Reportedly Found in Turkey

The body of an American woman who went missing while on a solo trip to Turkey has been pulled from a bay in Istanbul, and nine people have been held for questioning, according to local media.

Sarai Sierra, 33, was last heard from on Jan. 21, the day she was due to board a flight home to New York City.

The state-run Andolu Agency reported that residents found a woman's body today near the ruins of some ancient city walls in a low-income district, and police identified the body as Sierra.

Rep. Michael Grimm, R-NY, who with his staff had been assisting the Sierra family in the search, said he was "deeply saddened" to hear the news of her death.

"I urge Turkish officials to move quickly to identify whomever is responsible for her tragic death and ensure that any guilty parties are punished to the fullest extent of the law," he said in a statement.

Courtesy Sarai Sierra's family

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The New York City mother, who has two young boys, traveled to Turkey alone on Jan. 7 after a friend had to cancel. Sierra, who is an avid photographer with a popular Instagram stream, planned to document her dream vacation with her camera.

"It was her first time outside of the United States, and every day while she was there she pretty much kept in contact with us, letting us know what she was up to, where she was going, whether it be through texting or whether it be through video chat, she was touching base with us," Steven Sierra told ABC News before he departed for Istanbul last Sunday to aid in the search.

Steven Sierra has been in the country, meeting with U.S. officials and local authorities, as they searched for his wife.

On Friday, Turkish authorities detained a man who had spoken with Sierra online before her disappearance. The identity of the man and the details of his arrest were not disclosed, The Associated Press reported.

The family said it is completely out of character for the happily married mother, who met her husband in church youth group, to disappear.

She took two side trips, to Amsterdam and Munich, before returning to Turkey, but kept in contact with her family the entire time, a family friend told ABC News.

Further investigation revealed she had left her passport, clothes, phone chargers and medical cards in her room at a hostel in Beyoglu, Turkey.

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VA study finds more veterans committing suicide

Every day about 22 veterans in the United States kill themselves, a rate that is about 20 percent higher than the Department of Veterans Affairs’ 2007 estimate, according to a two-year study by a VA researcher.

The VA study indicates that more than two-thirds of the veterans who commit suicide are 50 or older, suggesting that the increase in veterans’ suicides is not primarily driven by those returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“There is a perception that we have a veterans’ suicide epidemic on our hands. I don’t think that is true,” said Robert Bossarte, an epidemiologist with the VA who did the study. “The rate is going up in the country, and veterans are a part of it.” The number of suicides overall in the United States increased by nearly 11 percent between 2007 and 2010, the study says.

As a result, the percentage of veterans who die by suicide has decreased slightly since 1999, even though the total number of veterans who kill themselves has gone up, the study says.

VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki said his agency would continue to strengthen suicide prevention efforts. “The mental health and well-being of our courageous men and women who have served the nation is the highest priority for VA, and even one suicide is one too many,” he said in a statement.

The study follows long-standing criticism that the agency has moved far too slowly even to figure out how many veterans kill themselves. “If the VA wants to get its arms around this problem, why does it have such a small number of people working on it?” asked retired Col. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, a former Army psychiatrist. “This is a start, but it is a faint start. It is not enough.”

Bossarte said much work remains to be done to understand the data, especially concerning the suicide risk among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. They constitute a minority of an overall veteran population that skews older, but recent studies have suggested that those who served in recent conflicts are 30 percent to 200 percent more likely to commit suicide than their ­non-veteran peers.

An earlier VA estimate of 18 veterans’ suicides a day, which was disclosed during a 2008 lawsuit, has long been cited by lawmakers and the department’s critics as evidence of the agency’s failings. A federal appeals court pointed to it as evidence of the VA’s “unchecked incompetence.” The VA countered that the number, based on old and incomplete data, was not reliable.

To calculate the veterans’ suicide rate, Bossarte and his sole assistant spent more than two years, starting in October 2010, cajoling state governments to turn over death certificates for the more than 400,000 Americans who have killed themselves since 1999. Forty-two states have provided data or agreed to do so; the study is based on information from 21 that has been assembled into a database.

Bossarte said that men in their 50s — a group that includes a large percentage of the veteran population— have been especially hard-hit by the national increase in suicide. The veterans’ suicide rate is about three times the overall national rate, but about the same percentage of male veterans in their 50s kill themselves as do non-veteran men of that age, according to the VA data.

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Apple is tops in US in mobile phones: surveys

SAN FRANCISCO: Apple dethroned Samsung as the top US mobile phone vendor in the final quarter of last year, claiming a record share of 34 per cent, research firm Strategy Analytics reported Friday.

Apple shipped an estimated 17.7 million iPhones as "robust demand" for Internet connections on the move caused overall shipments of mobile phones to grow to 52 million in the United States, up four per cent from the same three-month period in 2011.

"Apple has become the number one mobile phone vendor by volume in the United States for the first time ever," Strategy Analytics said.

"Apple's success has been driven by its popular ecosystem of iPhones and App Store, generous carrier subsidies, and extensive marketing around the new iPhone 5 model."

South Korea-based Samsung shipped 16.8 million mobile phones in the US in the quarter, seeing its share of the market increase five per cent to 32 per cent but "not enough to hold off a surging Apple," according to Strategy Analytics.

Samsung had been the number one mobile phone vendor in the US since 2008 and will "surely be keen to recapture that title," the research firm said.

A separate survey highlighted Apple's top share of the smartphone market in the United States.

Industry tracker NPD Group said Apple held 39 per cent of the US smartphone market, even though its lead narrowed over Samsung, which boosted its market share to 30 per cent. A year earlier, Apple had 41 per cent to 21 per cent for Samsung, NPD figures showed.

"Even taking into account the tremendous sales growth of the Galaxy III and other Samsung smartphones, the iPhone is still king of the US-market hill," said NPD analyst Stephen Baker.

"In addition to strong US sales of iPhone 5, Apple has been bolstered by strong and continued demand for older, less-expensive iPhone models."

NPD said the iPhone 5 was the most popular smartphone in the US market in the past quarter, followed by the Samsung Galaxy S III.

The older versions of Apple's smartphone, the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4, were in third and fourth places, respectively, followed by Samsung's Galaxy S II, NPD said.

- AFP/jc

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Time has come to think in terms of high-speed trains, Bansal says

NEW DELHI: Railway minister Pawan Bansal on Friday said it was high time to think of high-speed trains to cater to the increasing demand of faster inter-city travel in a growing economy.

Considering the monetary constraints and high cost involved, Bansal stressed on the need to develop financial models for high speed train services to make them inclusive and a win-win proposition for all stakeholders.

Bansal called the project "aspirational" which involved very high cost but refused to give any timeframe for the launch of cost intensive bullet trains. "It will be difficult to say when we will have bullet trains. But we have started some preliminary work on it," he said.

"High speed train running at 350 kmph is our aspirational project. We have selected Mumbai-Ahmedabad route as a pilot project. But the cost involved in the 534-km long project is very high. It is estimated to cost about Rs 63,000 crore," Bansal said.

The minister argued that bullet trains should not remain confined to a particular class but should be "affordable for all".

"The experts will have to work on a financial model which will be win-win situation for all stakeholders. While these high-speed services are premium services, the Indian model needs to be worked out which makes it more affordable to bulk of the customers," Bansal said.

The railways has identified six high-speed corridors for techno-economic feasibility studies that includes Delhi-Agra-Patna, Howrah-Haldia, Chennai-Bangalore-Thiruvananthapuram and Pune-Mumbai-Ahmedabad.

The government has already identified Mumbai-Ahmedabad as the pilot project. A project steering group has been constituted to examine the options available for the project and suggest mechanisms for quickly moving forward.

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Best Science Pictures of 2012 Announced

Image courtesy Pupa U.P.A. Gilbert and Christopher E. Killian, U.W. Madison via Science/AAAS

A micrograph, or microphotograph, of a sea urchin's crystalline tooth won first place and people's choice for photography in the 2012 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

Colors applied with Photoshop reveal the interlocking crystals that form the choppers of Arbacia punctulata. The biomineral crystals, captured by biophysicists from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, grow and intertwine to reinforce and sharpen a sea urchin's teeth. Made of calcite, which is also found in limestone and seashells, the crystals are tough enough to grind holes in rocks to create shelters.

"These winners continue to amaze me every year," said Monica M. Bradford, executive editor of the journal Science, in a statement. "The visuals are not only novel and captivating, but they also draw you into the complex field of science in a simple and understandable way."

Sponsored by Science and the National Science Foundation (NSF), the international competition honors recipients who use visual media to promote understanding of scientific research. Judging criteria included visual impact, effective communication, freshness, and originality. (See some of the 2011 winners.)

—Lacey Gray and Katia Andreassi

Published February 1, 2013

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Secret Video Shows Bomb Dogs Failing Tests

A new government investigation suggests that the Transportation Security Administration is not collecting enough detailed information to know if its bomb dogs are well trained and capable of finding bombs at the nation's airports, and includes secret video that shows the dogs failing tests to detect explosives.

TSA has been testing bomb dogs in Miami and Oklahoma City and will be testing them at Dulles airport, outside Washington, D.C., this month.

A GAO report released this week, however, says that the passenger-screening canines have not been adequately tested, and included secret video shot over the past year that showed the dogs failing to detect explosives properly at the test airports.

"As part of our review," wrote the GAO, "we visited two airports at which PSC teams have been deployed and observed training exercises in which PSC teams accurately detected explosives odor (i.e., positive response), failed to detect explosives odor (i.e., miss) and falsely detected explosives odor (i.e., non-productive response)."

Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images

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The report also said that "TSA could have benefited from completing operational assessments of PSCs before deploying them on a nationwide basis to determine whether they are an effective method of screening passengers in the U.S. airport environment."

In a statement, the TSA said it "acknowledges the need to further examine the data collected over a longer term. To that end, the National Canine Program (NCP) will reestablish annual comprehensive assessments. Beginning in March 2013, TSA plans to expand the Canine Website to improve functionality and reporting capabilities addressing a GAO recommendation."

It also said that this month it would complete effectiveness assessments at Miami, Oklahoma City and Dulles airports, and that it would identify the proper places for the dogs to be deployed at 120 airports by the end of fiscal 2013.

The cost of keeping bomb-sniffing dogs on the government's payroll has almost doubled in the past two years, from $52 million to more than $100 million. Each TSA dog team costs the taxpayers $164,000 dollars a year.

"They want to do the right thing," aviation expert Jeff Price told ABC News, "but the homework hasn't been done. A lot of money gets spent before they know something works."

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Wall Street Journal says hit by Chinese hackers too

WASHINGTON: The Wall Street Journal said Thursday its computers were hit by Chinese hackers, the latest US media organisation citing an effort to spy on its journalists covering China.

The Journal made the announcement a day after The New York Times said hackers, possibly connected to China's military, had infiltrated its computers in response to its expose of the vast wealth amassed by a top leader's family.

The Journal said in a news article that the attacks were "for the apparent purpose of monitoring the newspaper's China coverage" and suggests that Chinese spying on US media "has become a widespread phenomenon."

"Evidence shows that infiltration efforts target the monitoring of the Journal's coverage of China, and are not an attempt to gain commercial advantage or to misappropriate customer information," said a statement from Paula Keve of Journal parent Dow Jones, a unit of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

The Journal gave no timeline for the attacks but said a network overhaul to bolster security had been completed on Thursday.

"We fully intend to continue the aggressive and independent journalism for which we are known," Keve said.

On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that hackers have over the past four months infiltrated computer systems and stole staff passwords.

The effort has been particularly focused on the emails of Shanghai bureau chief David Barboza, the newspaper said.

According to a Barboza story published on October 25, close relatives of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao have made billions of dollars in business dealings.

"Chinese hackers, using methods that some consultants have associated with the Chinese military in the past, breached The Times' network," the newspaper said, citing a wealth of digital evidence gathered by its security experts.

The newspaper said the IT consultants believed the attacks "started from the same university computers used by the Chinese military to attack United States military contractors in the past."

The hackers stole corporate passwords and targeted the computers of 53 employees including former Beijing bureau chief Jim Yardley, who is now the Times' South Asia bureau chief based in India.

The Times said Bloomberg News was also targeted by Chinese hackers, after publishing in June a report on the wealth accumulated by relatives of Xi Jinping. In November, Xi was elevated to leader of the Chinese Communist Party.

In a related development, CNN said its international service went down for several minutes in response to its reporting on the hacking at the New York Times.

"CNNI went dark for 6 minutes," said a tweet from CNN International anchor Hala Gorani. "#China blacks out CNN for @HalaGorani interview on hacking of @nytimes."

In Beijing, China dismissed any notion that it was involved in any hacking.

"The competent Chinese authorities have already issued a clear response to the groundless accusations made by the New York Times," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters in Beijing.

"China is also a victim of hacking attacks," he said. "Chinese laws clearly forbid hacking attacks, and we hope relevant parties take a responsible attitude on this issue."

The US online security firm Symantec, cited by the New York Times for having failed to prevent the infiltration, issued its own statement deflecting any blame.

"Advanced attacks like the ones the New York Times described... underscore how important it is for companies, countries and consumers to make sure they are using the full capability of security solutions," the company said.

"Turning on only the signature-based anti-virus components of endpoint solutions alone are not enough in a world that is changing daily from attacks and threats."

- AFP/jc

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Manmohan assures Pawar over Telangana, says still to decide on timing

NEW DELHI: Formation of Telangana appeared that bit closer on Thursday after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reportedly said the government only has to decide upon the timing of the announcement.

NCP chief and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar told reporters that Singh indicated to him that the ongoing deliberations in Congress were only about when to announce the decision. Pawar's comment was interpreted as an indication that the government may have already decided to create Telangana.

Pawar said he had raised the Telangana issue with the PM after the meeting of the Cabinet and had told Singh that an early decision will help Congress. According to Pawar, Singh agreed with him and assured that only the timing of the announcement remained to be clinched.

It marks the strongest confirmation of what Congress announced a day earlier to settle all doubts on which way the vexed issue was headed. AICC spokesman PC Chacko had on Wednesday said that the ruling party was committed to statehood for Telangana and the only delay was on account of fulfilling constitutional obligations and deciding when the decision for statehood be made public.

The agitation-prone region has been roiled in fresh turbulence after the Centre failed to meet the deadline given by home minister Sushilkumar Shinde to clinch the issue. Shinde had in December last week told an all-party meeting that the Centre would close the protracted debate by January 28.

The fresh agitation, led by Telangana Rashtra Samithi, has brought Congress MPs and MLAs from the region under pressure to quit.

While the PM's reported assurance to Pawar suggests the fate of united Andhra is decided, it also indicated that there appeared a growing unanimity in the ruling coalition on the tricky subject. A meeting of UPA can be called soon to seek a final stamp of approval.

The NCP chief said he had met Singh to stress on early creation of the new state. "A delay will not be helpful to us," Pawar said, reminding Congress that UPA had made pro-Telangana commitment in its common minimum programme in 2004.

Pawar added that NCP would back the demand for separate Vidarbha out of Maharashtra if there was a popular sentiment in its favour.

The growing chorus for division of Andhra Pradesh seems to be the last chapter in a battle of wits that has paralyzed the Andhra government for three years since the death of anti-Telangana Congress strongman YS Rajasekhara Reddy.

A section of Congress and other state parties is opposed to division of AP. Congress is confident that it may be able to deal with resultant backlash in the Coastal and Rayalaseema region. The party is seeking to cut its losses in Telangana where it is at the receiving end of a popular sentiment for new state. The rebellion of YSR's son Jagamohan Reddy has put Congress on the defensive in other regions and Congress believes it can position itself strongly in at least Telangana by being on the right side of its aspiration.

Congress had announced Telangana on December 9, 2009, but then made a U-turn days later, triggering agitations that have not ceased ever since.

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