GREEK JOURNALIST’S WHO LEAKED SWISS DATA ON TRIAL
ATHENS: A Greek investigative journalist was due to stand trial on Thursday after publishing names from an alleged list of Swiss bank accounts that the government is accused

of failing to investigate. Costas Vaxevanis, a 46-year-old veteran television journalist who now publishes a magazine, insists that he was doing his job while ministers responsible for vetting the list for possible tax evasion did nothing for two years. Greek lawyers have called a strike on Thursday over austerity reforms, but Vaxevanis’ legal team would be allowed to represent him, a judicial source said. Vaxevanis’ Hot Doc magazine on Saturday published the names of more than 2,000 Greeks, allegedly from a controversial list of HSBC account holders that was originally leaked by a bank employee and passed to Greece in 2010 by France’s then finance minister Christine Lagarde. Vaxevanis, briefly arrested on Sunday and released to prepare his defense, has been charged with breach of privacy and faces a maximum three-year prison sentence if convicted. He has accused the Greek state of hypocrisy and says the justice system is bowing to a corrupt political system.

S. KOREA PRESIDENT’S BROTHER PROBED
SEOUL: The brother of South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak appeared before a special prosecutor on Thursday over alleged irregularities in a project to build the president’s retirement home. Lee Sang-Eun, 79, was called to testify about a $542,000 loan he gave to his nephew and the president’s only son, Lee Si-Hyung. The case centers around the joint purchase last year by the president’s son and the presidential security service of a plot of land on the southern edge of the capital for a now-scrapped retirement home project. Aside from a house for the president, who leaves office at the beginning of next year, the site would have included facilities for security personnel. But the cost was allegedly not split evenly, with suggestions that the security service paid too high a price for its share, while Lee’s son got a below-market rate for the residential plot.

MYANMAR UNREST COULD DEVELOP INTO TERRORISM
YANGON: Communal bloodshed in western Myanmar risks developing into “armed terrorist acts”, the government said, after security forces were targeted by homemade firearms in deadly fighting. Myanmar said that 180 guns were seized during the new wave of clashes between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine state, which has killed dozens, displaced tens of thousands and seen whole neighborhoods razed. Several people had been arrested on suspicion of making the weapons. Decades-old animosity between Buddhists and minority Rohingya Muslims exploded in June after the apparent rape and murder of an ethnic Rakhine woman sparked a series of revenge attacks. The latest clashes have caused more than 32,000 people to flee their homes this month, the government said, adding to the 75,000 people already crammed into overcrowded camps after the earlier fighting.
AFP