8 theSun | THURSDAY DECEMBER 11 2008

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Clashes outside parliament as strike grips Greece

ATHENS: Protesters threw fire bombs
at police outside parliament yesterday
during a general strike which para-
lysed Greece and piled pressure on a
conservative government reeling from
the worst riots in decades.
Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis
announced financial support for busi-
nesses damaged in five days of rioting.
He also pledged to safeguard people
from violence, but did not say how.
Government sources have denied
rumours emergency measures were
being considered.
“Government murderers!” demon-
strators shouted, furious at the shooting
of a teenager by police on Saturday
which sparked riots fuelled by simmer-
ing public anger at political scandals,
rising unemployment and poverty.
Witnesses said the officer who
fired the shot took deliberate aim, but
his lawyer said yesterday a ballistics
report showed the boy was killed by
an accidental ricochet.
“The investigation shows it was
a ricochet ... In the end, this was an
accident,” lawyer Alexis Kougias said.
Riots have raged in at least 10 cit-
ies and the cost of damage to shops
and businesses in Athens alone is
estimated at about 200 million euros
(RM900 million), the Greek Commerce
Confederation said.
“In Athens, we had 565 shops suffer-
ing serious damage or being completely
destroyed,” said Vassilis Krokidis, vice-
president of the federation.
In a televised message, Karamanlis
announced subsidies, loans and tax
relief measures to help those affected.
“The government is determined not only
to make citizens feel safe but to support
businesses which suffered damage.”
Thousands marched on parliament
yesterday in a union rally at economic
and social policy, which quickly turned
violent. Police fired teargas and pro-
testers responded with stones, bottles
and sticks, a Reuters witness said.
The opposition socialist party has
said the government, which has a
one-seat majority and trails in opinion
polls, has lost the trust of the people
and has called for elections.
“Participation in the strike is total,
the country has come to a standstill,”
said Stathis Anestis, spokesman for
the GSEE union federation which
called the 24-hour stoppage.
Foreign and domestic flights were
grounded, banks and schools were
shut, and hospitals ran on emergency
services as hundreds of thousands of
Greeks walked off the job.
Unions say privatisations, tax rises
and pension reform have worsened
conditions, especially for the one-fifth
of Greeks who live below the poverty
line. – Reuters

REUTERSPIX
briefs
Toddler becomes Indonesia’s
113th bird flu victim
Hongkong Health workers
pack dead
chicken at
a wholesale
poultry market
in Hongkong

begins mass
yesterday.
JAKARTA: A two-year-old Indonesian girl has
died of bird flu, the country’s 113th fatality from
the disease, the World Health Organisation said
yesterday. A spokeswoman said the toddler from
east Jakarta contracted the deadly strain of the
virus on Nov 18, was hospitalised on Nov 26 and

cull of birds
died three days later.
“Laboratory tests have confirmed infection
with the H5N1 avian influenza virus. Initial inves-
tigations into the source of her infection suggest
exposure at a live bird market,” the WHO said in
a statement. – AFP

Employers fined for providing HONGKONG: The spectre
of workers in protective suits
substandard accommodation slaughtering chickens by the
SINGAPORE: Singaporean courts have prosecuted tens of thousands returned to
1,052 employers in the first 11 months of this haunt Hongkong yesterday as a
year for providing sub-standard accommodation worrying new outbreak of bird
to their foreign workers, reports said yesterday. flu was confronted.
The city-state’s Manpower Ministry found More than 60,000 birds were
hundreds of dormitories that failed to meet culled at the farm where the
health and safety standards, The Straits Times city’s first outbreak in six years
and Channel News Asia reported. was detected and thousands
Checks by the ministry found that some sites more were killed at a nearby
were overcrowded and located in areas with a farm and a wholesale market.
high prevalence of dengue fever and the viral And while Hongkong’s
disease chikungunya, while others were illegally health secretary insisted the
converted dormitories at factories. – dpa outbreak was under control,
scientists were puzzling over
China announces how chickens vaccinated
against the virus had fallen
‘import alert’ on US food prey to bird flu.
BEIJING: China, which has weathered a series of scan- The new scare in the city
dals over food safety, has put 12 US food products on that saw the first human deaths
a 90-day import alert after they were found to contain from bird flu in modern times
a banned dye or excessive additives or preservatives. in 1997 began when it was
The products undergoing tightened checks include announced on Tuesday that
chocolate, almonds, lemon juice, cheese, herbs and 200 chickens had died of the
health care tablets, China’s quality watchdog said on H5 virus at one farm.
its website (www.aqsiq.gov.cn). Workers in protective
Earlier in the week, China’s General Administration suits and masks killed 3,000
of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine chickens on Tuesday evening
(AQSIQ) impounded and destroyed Italian brandy, and returned to cull the
Spanish dairy products, Belgian chocolate and sea- remaining 60,000 birds at the
soning from Britain. – Reuters farm in the Yuen Long district
yesterday morning.
Role model for Muslim Another 10,000 chickens
Australians loses lustre
SYDNEY: A Muslim leader and former government
adviser told an Australian court yesterday that
she lied to her drug dealer because she didn’t
want him to know that she was using cocaine
Indian police release details of Mumbai attackers
during the holy month of Ramadan. MUMBAI: Indian police have
Iktimal Hage-Ali, 24, who is suing the state provided new details about the
for wrongful arrest, admitted she had a cocaine brazen militant attacks in Mumbai,
habit but denied she was an addict. releasing the names of the gunmen
Hage-Ali, who was a personal adviser on Is- and their hometowns across the
lamic issues to then prime minister John Howard, border in Pakistan.
was arrested in 2006 for drug possession. She The information appeared to
was released without charge and just days later bolster India’s insistence that a
accepted the award for New South Wales state’s Pakistan Islamist guerilla group,
Young Australian of the Year. – dpa Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), helped to
finance the assault and train the at-
tackers whose siege left 172 dead
Durex offers fun job and more than 300 wounded.
for laid off Kiwis Pakistan has repeatedly de-
manded proof of the Indian claims.
WELLINGTON: New Zealand workers laid off in the But under international pressure to
current recession were offered a job yesterday – test- act, Pakistan authorities say they
ing a new sex toy for condom manufacturer Durex. have arrested 16 people since
It does not pay but promises a lot of fun, said Saturday, including a senior LeT
David Rae, New Zealand manager for the company, member.
who advertised for 100 “sexecutives” – who must be Mumbai police chief Rakesh
at least 16 years old – to test the product. Maria, in charge of the Indian
“It’s important we get regular feedback so we investigation, said on Tuesday that
can continue to develop products that will enhance details about the gunmen were
enjoyment.” he said. – dpa obtained from Mohammed Ajmal
were due to be culled
at a nearby farm and
a wholesale market in
the area, officials said,
saying they hoped to
complete the slaughter
Wednesday.
Hongkong health
secretary York Chow
said yesterday morning
the outbreak was “under
control.” Inspectors had
visited all local farms in the
area and found no further
signs of infection, he said.
Chow said government
scientists were examining
why the H5 virus had
apparently been able to infect
birds vaccinated against
bird flu and would consider
whether alternative vaccines
were needed.
Currently, Hongkong uses a
Dutch-made vaccine to protect
chickens against the virus
whereas some experts say the
city should switch to a different
vaccine used in mainland
China.
“We have to be rely on
scientific experts’ opinion on
which vaccine we should use
and how we should use it,”
Chow told reporters.
Amir Iman, the only man captured
alive and who is now in police
custody.
“All of them were given aliases
during training to prevent them
from knowing each others’ original
names,” Maria told reporters.
According to police, Iman, from
Okara, Punjab, opened fire on com-
muters at Mumbai’s main railway
station on Nov 26 with Ismail Khan
alias Abu Ismail, from Dera Ismail
Khan in restive northwest Pakistan.
Maria also gave the names of four
other people who attacked the Taj
Mahal hotel, two who attacked a
Jewish cultural centre, and two
who attacked the Oberoi/Trident
hotel. All were said to be from
Pakistan.
The youngest of the group was
20 and the eldest was 28, Maria
said, adding that three had been
involved in previous attacks. He did
not elaborate. Tensions between
Tests were meanwhile
continuing yesterday to
establish whether the birds
infected in the new outbreak
were infected by the H5N1
strain of bird flu that more
easily jumps the species
barrier to humans.
Six people died and 12
others were infected in
an outbreak of bird flu in
the two countries have been high
over the attack and Indian officials
say Pakistan, which banned the LeT
years ago, had not done enough to
enforce that ban.
Pakistan now says it has ar-
rested 16 people in the past few
days, including LeT’s operations
director Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and
the head of another Islamic group
fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah
Mehmood Qureshi said on Tuesday
that his country did not want war
with India, which has declined to
rule out military action, including
air strikes, on militant camps in
Pakistan.
But he added that Pakistan
was “fully prepared in case war is
imposed on us” and said those ar-
rested were part of Pakistan’s own
probe into the attacks.
“Even if allegations are proved
against any suspect, he will not be
Hongkong in 1997 that led to
the culling of 1.2 million birds.
Millions more birds were
slaughtered in outbreaks in
2001 and 2002.
Hongkong subsequently
implemented strict controls on
markets and chicken imports
and escaped any human
infections when bird flu swept
the region in 2006. – dpa
handed over to India. We will pro-
ceed against those arrested under
Pakistani laws,” he said.
India and Pakistan have fought
three wars since independence
from Britain in 1947 and nearly
came to a fourth in 2001 after an
attack on the Indian parliament
that was also blamed on the LeT.
The gunmen who stormed
the two luxury hotels in Mumbai
singled out US and British citizens,
witnesses said at the time. Ameri-
cans were among the 26 foreigners
killed. Pakistan moved on Sunday
against the Jamaat-ud-Dawa char-
ity, which has close links to LeT.
Also arrested was Maulana
Masood Azhar, head of the Jaish-
e-Mohammed rebel group. He was
captured in Indian Kashmir in 1995
but freed by New Delhi in 1999 in
return for the safe release of pas-
sengers on a hijacked Air India jet.
– AFP