theSun | FRIDAY DECEMBER 19 2008
news without borders
land operations
growing international resolve to
rid the waters of the increasingly
deadly attacks.
Russia had already suggested
in November that a land operation
should be carried out, while Nato
has been considering what role it
might play against piracy in the
future.
“You don’t stop piracy on
the seas. You stop piracy on the
land,” top alliance commander US
General John Craddock said last
month, although he insisted he has
not been asked to study any land
operation.
Tanguy Struye, politics
professor at Belgium’s Louvain-
SEC under fire
Cox told reporters after an agency
meeting.
He said he was still troubled
that the securities watchdog did
not catch the scandal earlier.
“I was very concerned to learn
this week that credible allegations
about Madoff had been made over
nearly a decade and yet never
referred to the commission for
action,” Cox said.
Staffers at the market watchdog
apparently saw Madoff as one
of their own. He made regular
appearances at the SEC and
served on agency advisory panels.
Madoff was accused in a
criminal complaint last Thursday
of defrauding hundreds of wealthy
investors in a Ponzi scheme.
volcano. That quake was deep,
at 130km below the surface,
and GNS Science said it was
likely to be felt in the Bay of
Plenty, Gisborne and Hawek’s
Bay regions.
The other North Island
quakes measured 4.7 and 2.4,
while two shakes of 4.9 and
4.1 magnitude were recorded
near Hanmer Springs in the
South Island. – dpa
Too much fog
causes pilot to
abandon landing
LONDON: The pilot of a British
passenger plane balked at land-
ing at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle
airport because there was too
much fog, the airline said on
Wednesday.
Budget airline Flybe said the
la-Neuve university, said he could
envisage “a Franco-American
commando operation, with France
and the United States present
in Djibouti and both having the
necessary experience.”
He said they “would be best
placed to act militarily” in the
region.
“The operation could be put
together quite quickly, but first they
would need intelligence that only
Somalia’s friends of convenience
would be able to provide,” he said.
Struye said an EU or Nato
operation would simply take too
long to mount, but he agreed with
the assessment of other experts
Under a Ponzi scheme, later
investors’ funds are used
to pay returns to initial
investors. He faces up to
20 years in prison and a
maximum fine of US$5
million (RM18 million)
if convicted.
A rewrite of US
regulations to prevent
a relapse of the Madoff
fiasco will be high on
the agenda of the new
US Congress, said US Rep.
Paul Kanjorski, who chairs
the House Capital Markets
Subcommittee. He said he
will convene a congressional
inquiry in early January.
– Reuters
pilot was not qualified to land
in fog and – minutes from
touching down in Paris
– returned to Cardiff,
in Wales, from where
Tuesday’s flight had
taken off.
“The Flybe
pilot who flew BE
1431 from Cardiff
International
Airport to Paris
Charles de Gaulle
is an experienced
aviator with more
than 30 years com-
mercial aviation
experience flying
a number of dif-
ferent passenger
aircraft types,” a
spokeswoman
for the airline
said. – dpa
that the only way to overcome
the problem of piracy definitively
would be to help reduce poverty in
Somalia itself.
Senior EU advisor on African
affairs, Jean-Christophe Belliard,
said last week that, ironically,
the piracy problem has focused
international attention and could
ultimately help stop it.
“One of the results of this
multiplication of piracy acts is
that there is an awareness that it
can’t just be business as usual in
Somalia. Now the international
community ... is pushing for
something strong to be done,” he
said. – AFP
REUTERSPIX
Madoff ... fitted with
an electronic ankle
bracelet and will only
be allowed to leave
his home for
appointments
prearranged
with
authorities.
Greek activists call for
Europe-wide protests
ATHENS: Activists called for dem-
onstrations across Europe yesterday
in solidarity with those planned in
Greece, as Greek students marked
their 12th day of protests that have
shaken this Mediterranean nation.
Their demand was written on a
banner pinned at the base of Athens’
landmark Acropolis on Wednesday,
while a second banner nearby sim-
ply declared “Resistance” in several
languages, including Greek.
The student march yesterday
will be followed by a separate
demonstration against a European
Union agreement cracking down on
immigration.
Also on Wednesday, police ar-
rested a number of illegal immigrants
in Athens, accusing them of pillaging.
But demonstrators denounced the
move, and called on the foreigners
to join their cause.
Meanwhile, separate syndicate
action is adding to the govern-
ment’s headaches.
Several thousand ac-
tivists from the Commu-
nist PAME trade union
marched in Athens in
the evening behind a
banner reading: “The
plutocracy must pay
for the crisis!”
The civil serv-
ice trade union
Adedy also
organised a
demonstra-
tion and
a three-
hour
work
stop-
page
œ 15
EPAPIX
yesterday, three days before lawmak-
ers vote on the budget. Yet another
union has called on supporters to
gather before the parliament today.
Earlier in the day, protesters
pitched molotov coctails at an
anti-riot police van near the police
headquarters in the capital, setting
it alight. Nobody was hurt.
The events underscore ongo-
ing anger at the police killing of a
teenager earlier this month that has
shaken the government and report-
edly damaged the Greek economy
during a larger global downturn.
In Athens, some 70 self-pro-
claimed “outraged workers” invaded
the headquarters of the country’s
main union, the General Confedera-
tion of Labour (GSEE). The building
remained occupied as of early
evening. Earlier in the day, youths oc-
cupying Athens Polytechnic and also
set fire to a newspaper kiosk, police
said. The unrest was not limited to
the capital.
Student protest leaders claim
that some 600 schools across the
country remain occupied since un-
rest first flared Dec 6 over the police
shooting of 15-year-old Alexis Grigo-
ropoulos in Athens. Authorities offer
a far lower figure of about 100.
Students also continued to
occupy several universities. In the
northwestern Greek city of Ioan-
nina, some 50 youths took over the
town hall for several hours, while 20
others entered the main local radio
station and started broadcasting
their own programmes. And in the
second largest city of Thessaloniki,
three gas bottles exploded in front
of a bank and four others in front of
a public building. – AFP