Dozens arrested protesting California education cuts

SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) - Dozens of protesters angry over fee hikes and budget cuts at California's public universities were arrested on Monday night during a boisterous but peaceful demonstration inside the state Capitol building.

The arrests capped a day in which hundreds of students and others marched on the statehouse and rallied outside the Capitol before many of the activists moved the demonstration inside the building, clogging hallways in and around the rotunda.

One group chanted, "No cuts, no fees. Education must be free," as they sat crossed-legged on the black-and-white tiled floor of the statehouse.

The California Highway Patrol, which provides security for the building, said the demonstrators had a permit to protest inside the Capitol until 5:30 p.m. local time, and then were ordered to leave.

Police warned the protesters seven times after the building closed at 6 p.m. that they faced arrest for trespassing if they failed to disperse, and officers moved in to begin taking the demonstrators into custody at about 7:30 p.m.

"We wanted to give them every opportunity," CHP Captain Andy Menard said, adding that the estimated 45 to 50 demonstrators arrested were all given one last chance to leave the building before they were taken into custody.

"The ones who didn't are going to jail," he said.

The demonstration drew words of support from Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, who issued a statement saying the protesters "are reflecting the frustration of millions of Californians who have seen their public schools and universities eroded year after year."

He urged public support for a ballot initiative in November calling for a temporary tax increase to raise additional revenues for public education in the state, which is facing a $9.2 billion budget shortfall.

Some of the demonstrators also sought to collect signatures for a petition to put a measure on the ballot that would impose an extra 1 percent tax on individuals with annual incomes of $1 million or more.

(Additional reporting by Adam Weintraub; Editing by Steve Gorman and Tim Gaynor)

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Interpol says 25 suspected Anonymous hackers arrested

PARIS (AP) — Interpol said that 25 suspected members of the loose-knit Anonymous hacker movement have been arrested in a sweep across Europe and South America.

The international police agency said in a statement Tuesday that the arrests in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain were carried out by national law enforcement officers working under the support of Interpol's Latin American Working Group of Experts on Information Technology Crime.

The suspects, aged between 17 and 40, are suspected of planning coordinated cyberattacks against institutions including Colombia's defense ministry and presidential websites, Chile's Endesa electricity company and national library, as well as other targets.

The arrests followed an ongoing investigation begun in mid-February which also led to the seizure of 250 items of IT equipment and mobile phones in searches of 40 premises in 15 cities, Interpol said.

In Chile's capital, Subprefect Jamie Jara said at a news conference that authorities arrested five Chileans and a Colombian. Two of the Chileans are 17-year-old minors.

The case was being handled by prosecutor Marcos Mercado, who specializes in computer crime. He said the suspects were charged with altering websites, including that of Chile's National Library, and engaging in denial-of-service attacks on websites of the electricity companies Endesa and Hidroaysen. The charges carry a penalty of 541 days to five years in prison, he said.

Jara said the arrests resulted from a recently begun investigation and officials do not yet know if those arrested are tied to any "illicit group."

"For now, we have not established that they have had any special communications among themselves," he said.

Jara said authorities were continuing to investigate other avenues, but gave no details.

Gen. Carlos Mena, commander of Colombia's Judicial Police, said no one was arrested in Colombia, but he noted that some Colombians had been arrested elsewhere, including Chile. He said he hadn't confirmed a report that one of those arrested in Argentina may have been from Colombia.

Mena did hint that there might be arrests in Colombia. He said other nations have been providing information and Colombian authorities are looking into it, but so far haven't arrested any hackers.

"You have to leave them alone, so when we have all the evidence, and the prosecutor makes the decision, we will be all over it and capturing them," he said.

No official statements have been released yet in Argentina. An Argentine media website based its story on the Interpol statement, which it quotes as saying that 10 people were arrested in Argentina.

Earlier Tuesday, police in Spain announced the arrest of four suspected Anonymous hackers in connection with attacks on Spanish political party websites. These four were among the 25 announced by Interpol.

A National Police statement said two servers used by the group in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic have been blocked.

It said the four included the alleged manager of Anonymous' computer operations in Spain and Latin America, who was identified only by his initials and the aliases "Thunder" and "Pacotron."

The four are suspected of defacing websites, carrying out denial-of-service attacks and publishing data on police assigned to the royal palace and the premier's office online.

Interpol is headquartered in Lyon, France. The organization has no powers of arrest or investigation but it helps police forces around the world work together, facilitating intelligence sharing.

Anonymous, whose genesis can be traced back to a popular U.S. image messaging board, has become increasingly politicized amid a global clampdown on music piracy and the international controversy over the secret-spilling site WikiLeaks, with which many of its supporters identify.

Authorities in Europe, North America and elsewhere have made dozens of arrests, and Anonymous has increasingly attacked law enforcement, military and intelligence-linked targets in retaliation.

One of Anonymous' most spectacular coups: Secretly recording a conference call between U.S. and British cyber investigators tasked with bringing the group to justice.

Anonymous has no real membership structure. Hackers, activists, and supporters can claim allegiance to its freewheeling principles at their convenience, so it's unclear what impact the arrests will have.

Some Internet chatter appeared to point to a revenge attack on Interpol's website, but the police organization's home page appeared to operating as normal late Tuesday.

One Twitter account purportedly associated with Anonymous' Brazilian wing said the sweep would fail.

"Interpol, you can't take Anonymous," the message read. "It's an idea."

___

Associated Press writer Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.

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Interpol says 25 suspected Anonymous hackers arrested

PARIS (AP) — Interpol said that 25 suspected members of the loose-knit Anonymous hacker movement have been arrested in a sweep across Europe and South America.

The international police agency said in a statement Tuesday that the arrests in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain were carried out by national law enforcement officers working under the support of Interpol's Latin American Working Group of Experts on Information Technology Crime.

The suspects, aged between 17 and 40, are suspected of planning coordinated cyberattacks against institutions including Colombia's defense ministry and presidential websites, Chile's Endesa electricity company and national library, as well as other targets.

The arrests followed an ongoing investigation begun in mid-February which also led to the seizure of 250 items of IT equipment and mobile phones in searches of 40 premises in 15 cities, Interpol said.

In Chile's capital, Subprefect Jamie Jara said at a news conference that authorities arrested five Chileans and a Colombian. Two of the Chileans are 17-year-old minors.

The case was being handled by prosecutor Marcos Mercado, who specializes in computer crime. He said the suspects were charged with altering websites, including that of Chile's National Library, and engaging in denial-of-service attacks on websites of the electricity companies Endesa and Hidroaysen. The charges carry a penalty of 541 days to five years in prison, he said.

Jara said the arrests resulted from a recently begun investigation and officials do not yet know if those arrested are tied to any "illicit group."

"For now, we have not established that they have had any special communications among themselves," he said.

Jara said authorities were continuing to investigate other avenues, but gave no details.

Gen. Carlos Mena, commander of Colombia's Judicial Police, said no one was arrested in Colombia, but he noted that some Colombians had been arrested elsewhere, including Chile. He said he hadn't confirmed a report that one of those arrested in Argentina may have been from Colombia.

Mena did hint that there might be arrests in Colombia. He said other nations have been providing information and Colombian authorities are looking into it, but so far haven't arrested any hackers.

"You have to leave them alone, so when we have all the evidence, and the prosecutor makes the decision, we will be all over it and capturing them," he said.

No official statements have been released yet in Argentina. An Argentine media website based its story on the Interpol statement, which it quotes as saying that 10 people were arrested in Argentina.

Earlier Tuesday, police in Spain announced the arrest of four suspected Anonymous hackers in connection with attacks on Spanish political party websites. These four were among the 25 announced by Interpol.

A National Police statement said two servers used by the group in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic have been blocked.

It said the four included the alleged manager of Anonymous' computer operations in Spain and Latin America, who was identified only by his initials and the aliases "Thunder" and "Pacotron."

The four are suspected of defacing websites, carrying out denial-of-service attacks and publishing data on police assigned to the royal palace and the premier's office online.

Interpol is headquartered in Lyon, France. The organization has no powers of arrest or investigation but it helps police forces around the world work together, facilitating intelligence sharing.

Anonymous, whose genesis can be traced back to a popular U.S. image messaging board, has become increasingly politicized amid a global clampdown on music piracy and the international controversy over the secret-spilling site WikiLeaks, with which many of its supporters identify.

Authorities in Europe, North America and elsewhere have made dozens of arrests, and Anonymous has increasingly attacked law enforcement, military and intelligence-linked targets in retaliation.

One of Anonymous' most spectacular coups: Secretly recording a conference call between U.S. and British cyber investigators tasked with bringing the group to justice.

Anonymous has no real membership structure. Hackers, activists, and supporters can claim allegiance to its freewheeling principles at their convenience, so it's unclear what impact the arrests will have.

Some Internet chatter appeared to point to a revenge attack on Interpol's website, but the police organization's home page appeared to operating as normal late Tuesday.

One Twitter account purportedly associated with Anonymous' Brazilian wing said the sweep would fail.

"Interpol, you can't take Anonymous," the message read. "It's an idea."

___

Associated Press writer Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.

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Former executives, bankers arrested over Olympus fraud

TOKYO (Reuters) - Four months after one of Japan's biggest corporate scandals, police and prosecutors on Thursday arrested seven men, including a former Olympus Corp president and ex-bankers, over their role in a $1.7 billion accounting fraud at the medical equipment and camera maker.

Tokyo prosecutors arrested the company's ex-President Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, former Executive Vice President Hisashi Mori and former auditor Hideo Yamada on suspicion of violating the Financial Instruments and Exchange Law, officials said.

Also arrested were former bankers Akio Nakagawa and Nobumasa Yokoo and two others suspected of helping hide huge investment losses through complex M&A deals.

The three former executives had been identified by an investigative panel, commissioned by Olympus, as the main culprits in the fraud, seeking to delay the reckoning from risky investments made in the late-1980's bubble economy.

The arrests come as investors focus on who will run the once-proud company when its management steps down at an April 20 shareholders meeting, and whether Olympus will seek a capital tie-up to fix its balance sheet.

Olympus is banking on that April meeting marking a turning point in the scandal, with at least six of its 11-member board, including current President Shuichi Takayama, set to resign.

His successor is likely to be one of three board members the panel said were not responsible for the cover-up -- Masataka Suzuki, Kazuhiro Watanabe and Shinichi Nishigaki -- said a source familiar with the matter, who did not want to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.

"The arrests of former executives won't impact possible tie-ups with Terumo, Sony, Fujifilm and others," said a sell-side equity manager at a Japanese firm, who did not want to be named as he is not authorized to talk to the media.

"Olympus continues to be very attractive to other companies because of its endoscope business."

Last year, the investigative panel found Kikukawa, Mori and Yamada had played leading roles in a 13-year scheme to hide the losses, and they are among 19 executives Olympus is suing over the scandal.

The panel said it found no evidence of involvement by organized crime, despite speculation that "yakuza" gangsters were somehow involved in the cover-up scheme.

An Olympus spokesman said the company would cooperate fully with the investigative authorities. It is also under investigation by law enforcement agencies in Japan, Britain and the United States.

Kikukawa's condominium house was among 20 sites raided in December by prosecutors. Kikukawa, who took over as president in 2001, was reportedly aware of the details of the cover-up.

Nakagawa, who began his banking career at Nomura Securities, was a founding member of the Axes group, which was awarded a huge $687 million advisory fee for Olympus' acquisition in 2008 of UK medical equipment firm Gyrus that was at the heart of the scandal.

Yokoo, another ex-Nomura banker, ran a consulting firm, Global Company, which was hired by Olympus in 2000 to scout for new businesses and steered investment into three small money-losing Japanese firms.

The scandal was exposed last October by then-chief executive Michael Woodford, a rare foreign CEO in Japan, who was sacked by the Olympus board after questioning dubious M&A deals that were later found to have been used to conceal the losses.

The affair also fanned concerns about lax corporate governance in Japan generally.

Olympus in December filed five years' worth of corrected financial statements plus overdue first-half results, revealing a $1.1 billion dent in its balance sheet, triggering talk it would need to merge or forge a business tie-up to raise capital.

On Monday, it forecast a $410 million full-year loss due largely to its ailing camera operations, but its core endoscope business appeared unscathed by the scandal, and its president said the firm might not need outside capital.

Olympus shares closed down 2.4 percent at 1,273 yen on Thursday in an overall market that slipped 0.3 percent. Shares in Olympus, currently worth around $4.5 billion, have halved in value since the scandal unfolded.

($1 = 78.3350 Japanese yen)

(Additional reporting by Mari Saito, Writing by Linda Sieg and Chris Gallagher, Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

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