Indian Principal Arrested in Food Poisoning Scandal; Pope Francis Visits Aparacida
KRISTIE LU STOUT, HOST: I'm Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong. And welcome to News Stream where news and technology meet. Now Indian police arrest the principal of a school where 23 students died after eating school meals. A U.S. politician in trouble for sending explicit text messages admits that he did it again. And we'll tell you what's behind Apple's drop in profits. Now police in India have arrested the principal of the school that served poisoned food to students, killing 23 of them. The meals are part of a free lunch program at a school in northern India's Bihar State. And tests later showed pesticide in the food and cooking oil used to prepare the meal. Now let's go live now to CNN's Sumnima Udas who is following developments for us from New Delhi. And Sumnima, it took awhile to track her down, but tell us what led to the arrest?</s>SUMNIMA UDAS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Kristie, the principal of that school really has been the most wanted person, or woman in that state for quite some time. But after eight days in hiding, the head mistress - her name is Meena Kumari actually was on her way to the court to surrender when police, the local police, got wind of what she was doing and arrested her before she made it to the court. Now what will happen is they will be questioning her tonight. And they will be presenting her in front of the local court tomorrow. Now, of course, she is the only - she and the cook were the only two adults involved in this tragedy. All of the rest were children. The police have already questioned the cook. The cook had said to the police that she had suspected there was something smell - the smell was strange of that cooking oil that she had used. And she had expressed a concern to the head mistress, but the head mistress told her to use that oil anyway. So the police will now be questioning the head mistress as to why exactly this happened, how the oil got there, and how the pesticides got into the oil in the first place. And most importantly whether any of this was deliberate or accidental.</s>LU STOUT: Yeah, the headmistress or the principal, again has been arrested. She'll be facing police questioning. Her husband is still on the run. Do we know if any other arrests have been made?</s>UDAS: No other arrests have been made so far, Kristie. But as you mentioned, the police all still looking for the husband. He is not one of the accused, but they would still like to question him about - you know, about the case as to how the pesticides got there, if he knows anything more about the pesticides and the cooking oil that was used in that meal.</s>LU STOUT: Now news of the arrest, it must be welcome news to the families of the victims. Now last week, we know that when you were reporting there in Bihar state, the doctors, they were trying so hard to save the two dozen poisoned children. Any update on their condition?</s>UDAS: Those children, actually, are doing fine. There were two dozen of them. And then of course one of the cooks, as well. They were all in that hospital for the past eight days. And they are still there. And they are doing fine. Of course, when they were brought there eight days ago, they were - a lot of them were vomiting. There were - some of them were fainting right then. There was a lot of froth coming out of their mouth. And that's how the police actually detected - sorry, the doctors detected that there was something strange here, that this was just not a normal food poisoning story, that there was some possibly some sort of chemical involved. And now we know that this compound of the chemical, or pesticide called organophosphorous was inside that cooking oil, or mixed with the cooking oil. And according to the police, there was huge amounts of this pesticide. It was actually five times the amount found in a regular commercial bottle of that pesticide - Kristie.</s>LU STOUT: Well, news of this arrest, it's nice to hear and see some movement on this case and perhaps eventual justice for the families. Sumnima Udas, thank you so much for your reporting. Now, Pope Francis is scheduled to head for one of Brazil's holiest cites in this hour. Now he is visiting the National Basilica of Our Lady of Aparacida, said to be the largest Marion shrine in the world. Now there will be no wrong turns on this trip. The pontiff is traveling by helicopter. But security is still a concern. Now a small, homemade explosive device was found during police training near the shrine on Sunday. Now Vatican officials say that Pope Francis asked to visit the shrine because of his personal devotion to the Virgin Mary. And Miguel Marquez is following the pope's visit to Brazil for us from Rio de Janeiro. He joins us live. And Miguel, tell us more about what is on the pope's agenda today.</s>MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kristie. Well, he is often running already without a problem, getting from his house here in Rio to the airport in Rio. It went very, very well. We understand that federal authorities are stepping up their role and actually taking over parts of his security.</s>MARQUEZ (voice-over): This morning, Pope Francis on the move. He's a man taking little down time even on what was supposed to be his day off. A special moment at the residence where he's staying in Rio, a private mass given by the pontiff himself. This as questions about how the pope's car ended up in the wrong lane, exposing him to hundreds of adoring followers but also possible harm. The pope himself calm throughout the incident, at one point, even kissing a baby. Here are at Rio's operations center, officials say there are typically three routes for getting the pope from point "A" to "B", but that can be changed in an instant. Some officials blame miscommunication between federal and local officials. Others have suggested a lone public servant failed to properly direct the pope's motorcade. Officially, no answers for now. "We will not talk about the past," he says. "We will only talk about the days ahead." This as World Youth Day finally gets started. Also as a security concern, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims. (on camera): This is the opening ceremony and the opening mass of World Youth Day. And despite a pretty miserable evening here in Rio, tens of thousands have showed up, the main stage about a half mile from where I'm standing.</s>PHIOEBE PHAM, PILGRIM FROM ORLANDO, FLORIDA: I'm emotional. I might want to cry.</s>MARQUEZ (voice-over): The crowds will only grow by week's end, millions of pilgrims looking to Pope Francis for leadership.</s>MARQUEZ: Now the estimates are that 400,000 to 500,000 pilgrims showed up to that mass last night. And the pope wasn't even there. I'm looking at live pictures of Aparacida right there. There are tens of thousands of people waiting in town for him there. It is raining there today. So they may have some problems with the weather as well. But the pope has a big day ahead of him. And Aparacida, keep in mind, it's also important to him. It's important to Brazilians because of the mysticism that this - the revered Virgin Mary has here. This is the black Virgin Mary with the history of slavery here. This is seen as a national shrine. It also goes back to his roots and a lot of the work he laid before becoming pope for what he now sees as his role in running the church - Kristie.</s>LU STOUT: Now the pope is in Sao Paulo today, but he will be returning soon to Rio. And when the pope greets all the crowds at Copa Cabana, the scene behind you, when he's there on Thursday, what should we expect?</s>MARQUEZ: You should expect a very, very big scene. I mean, we're expecting over a million people to line Copa Cabana here. It was about half of what they've prepared for so far, the number of screens. There's about 25 giant screens that go all the way back. It is going to be a spectacle, to be sure. We also expect protests throughout this city. There were some on Monday night. We expect that to pick up through the week as well. It seems to me that the way that he got from his house or the residence that he's staying here to the airport today was so smooth and without incident, they clearly have worked that out. We may also see the pope being less public here in Rio, because the number of people who want to touch him, who want to see him, who want to sort of venerate him just - it is just - it's an incredibly wild scene. And I think we're going to see a lot of energy here when he makes his appearance on Copa Cabana Beach - Kristie.</s>LU STOUT: All right, looking forward to see your reporting on that. Miguel Marquez joining us live from Rio, thank you. Now, four people, including two children, have died after a boat believed to be carrying asylum seekers capsized off the coast of West Java. At least 160 people were on board. It is not clear where the boat set off from or where it was headed. Indonesian officials have suggested that the boat was trying to make it to Australian waters. And just last, Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd announced asylum seekers arriving by sea would no longer be resettled in the country.</s>KEVIN RUDD, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: All of our agencies are actively following this and ensuring that everything that can be done, is being done. This underlines the need for policy changes in Australia on asylum seekers policy, which sends a very clear message to people smugglers to stop sending people by boat to Australia. We are seeing too many drownings. We are seeing too many sinkings, too many innocent people being lost at sea.</s>LU STOUT: Now rights groups accuse the government of shirking its responsibilities. And Indonesian officials have transferred the survivors to temporary shelters or clinics and continue to search for more. Now authorities in Mexico say that they have rescued 94 migrants crammed into a hauling truck in sub-human conditions. They say that the group included people from Latin America, Nepal and Bangladesh. And authorities say each person paid thousands of dollars to be smuggled into the United States. And the driver of the truck is being investigated for human trafficking. Now also ahead right here on News Stream, he came, he waved, and now he needs a name. We'll bring you up to date on the first two days of Baby Cambridge's life. And a UK judge has ruled that a man accused of ordering the murder of his wife during their honeymoon can be extradited to South Africa to face trial. And enough is a enough. As China's leaders impose a five year building ban on government buildings.