MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Spanish police arrested a well-known Basque politician linked to the armed Basque separatist group ETA on Tuesday, along with nine suspected collaborators, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
Former leader of banned Basque party Batasuna Arnaldo Otegi after his arrest.

Former leader of banned Basque party Batasuna Arnaldo Otegi after his arrest.

The politician, Arnaldo Otegi, is a leader of the former Batasuna party, outlawed for its ties to ETA, which is blamed for more than 800 deaths in its four-decade fight for Basque independence.

Otegi and the others were arrested in northern Spain for trying to regroup the leadership of the so-called Basque left movement in order to "carry out ETA's orders," the statement said.

Otegi and four others were arrested during a meeting at an office of the Basque union LAB in San Sebastian. Two others were arrested on the street in the nearby town of Hernani, and three others were arrested in Pamplona, including one for allegedly possessing documents from another suspect's home in an attempt to avoid having them seized by police, the statement said.

The operation is being directed by anti-terrorism Judge Baltasar Garzon of Spain's National Court, and the suspects were due to be taken to Madrid to appear before him in the coming days, the statement said.

Otegi has been in trouble before with the law. In 2007, he was arrested shortly after Spain's Supreme Court upheld a lower-court's conviction of him in 2006 for glorifying terrorism at a memorial in December 2003 for a dead ETA leader.

Otegi was sentenced to 15 months in jail. But at the time of his 2007 arrest, he had been free on $300,000 bail in a separate terrorism case of inciting violence.
Don't Miss

* 'Most-wanted' ETA suspects seized at ski resort
* Bombing wave marks ETA campaign's 50th year
* Spain: Tourists safe from ETA attacks

A senior government source who insisted on anonymity said last month that officials had been expecting Otegi to try to step forward soon as an interlocutor promising to help end ETA's violence and negotiate a deal with the government.

The aim, according to the source, was to permit a rebranded Batasuna to run for local office again, on the promise it would seek to end ETA's violence once it had regained elected government positions.

But government officials have said publicly there can be no further talks with ETA, which is listed as a terrorist group by Spain, the European Union and the United States. Video Watch background behind ETA's decades-long struggle »

When ETA declared a unilateral "permanent" cease-fire in March 2006, the government began steps toward a peace process, but ETA then bombed Madrid's airport in December 2006, killing two men and causing extensive damage.

ETA in 2007 called off its cease-fire, which the government had already considered finished.

The government has said since then that the only way to end more than 40 years of violence will be for ETA to renounce its campaign and lay down its arms or face its demise through a police crackdown.

Yet ETA has continued its killings and bombings, including fatal attacks in the Spanish island of Majorca in August.
advertisement

But police in Spain and in neighboring France -- ETA's traditional rearguard base -- have cracked down hard, arresting dozens of ETA suspects, including four of its alleged top leaders.

The arrest of Otegi and others on Tuesday comes two days after police detained two of the most-wanted ETA suspects in France. They were allegedly involved in ETA logistics and police later found weapons and material to make car bombs, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has been asked to investigate whether Panama tortured an Ecuadorian citizen who was being held as an illegal immigrant, an official hemispheric human rights organization said.

Jesus Tranquilino Velez Loor was arrested November 11, 2002, and deported to Ecuador on September 10, 2003. During that time, he was held without receiving procedural guarantees, the right to be heard and the right to present a defense, said the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

"The case also involves the lack of investigation of complaints of torture presented by Mr. Velez Loor before the Panamanian authorities, as well as the inhumane conditions of detention under which he was held in several Panamanian penitentiaries," the human rights commission said in a release Tuesday.

The human rights panel, which is part of the 35-nation Organization of American States, said it referred the case to the court last week because Panama did not adopt sufficient measures to address issues raised in a previous commission report.

Velez Loor "was sentenced to a prison term for having repeatedly entered Panama illegally. ... Panamanian law provides that foreign nationals, who repeatedly enter Panama, without the necessary papers, will be imprisoned for two years and then deported," Panama said in a 2006 report.

Velez Loor admitted he had gone into Panama without proper papers or visas.

The commission said it received an e-mailed complaint from Velez Loor on February 10, 2004, "in which he claims to have undergone torture, forced isolation, and mistreatment at the hands of Panamanian police officers at two Panamanian detention centers without being given the opportunity to defend himself, without the benefit of any court of law, without being allowed to make a telephone call and while being deprived of all medical care."

Panama denied those allegations in the 2006 human rights commission report.

Officials at the Panamanian embassy in Washington did not return a telephone request Tuesday from CNN for comment on the latest development.

The human rights commission consists of seven members who act in a personal capacity, without representing any country, and who are elected by the OAS General Assembly.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. John Kerry said Tuesday he will offer a new explanation and clarification of a $7.5-billion Pakistan aid bill that has prompted a firestorm of anti-American sentiment inside Pakistan.
A member of an Islamic fundamentalist party protests the aid bill October 2 in Pakistan.

A member of an Islamic fundamentalist party protests the aid bill October 2 in Pakistan.

Opponents say the United States is meddling in Pakistani affairs.

Kerry, D-Massachusetts and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stood beside Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday afternoon to announce that he and other congressional leaders would release what Kerry called "report language with the force of law" to clear up questions about the nonmilitary aid bill.

The explanation would accompany the bill, which was passed unanimously by the House and Senate, when it is formally sent to President Obama to sign into law, something that could happen in coming days.

"If there are misrepresentations, we're going to clarify this," Kerry told reporters after he and Qureshi met in private.

The United States says the aid bill makes no new demands on Pakistan, but some Pakistani politicians say it will result in American micromanagement of Pakistan civil and military affairs.

Kerry said the multibillion-dollar aid package would provide "deeper, broader, long-term engagement with the people of Pakistan." He said the aid is a sign of friendship and was never intended to interfere with Pakistan's government.
Don't Miss

* Pakistani military jets strike Taliban targets

Kerry and the Pakistani foreign minister are set to meet again Wednesday. The statement of clarification will probably be submitted jointly by Kerry; Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee; and Rep. Howard Berman, D-California and the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- The economic might of India may bring to mind technological savvy and overseas call centers. But to understand the Indian economy, a visit to a roadside dentist like Raj Kishore is more illuminating.
The Indian economy is fueled by independent workers such as Radha Kumar.

The Indian economy is fueled by independent workers such as Radha Kumar.
Click to view previous image
1 of 2
Click to view next image

"I can extract, I can fill up, I can scale, I can make dentures, I can make bridge metal or non-metal." Kishore said as he fitted dentures for a customer.

One thing he can't do is show a license to practice -- like many roadside dentists sitting on sidewalks awaiting customers.

While information technology and outsourcing has earned India the nickname as "the world's back office," the sector employs a fraction of India's population -- only 2 million of India's more than 500 million workers, according to NASSCOM, an IT and business process outsourcing trade organization.

So where do the majority of people work in India? The International Labor Organization and economists say as many as 95 percent of the workforce makes a living in what is known as the informal or unorganized sector.

"Roughly today about 50 percent of the production is from the unorganized sector," says New Delhi-based economics professor Arun Kumar, referring to jobs and services that exist without a storefront, union to represent the workers, or corporate structure.

Although things are changing and the economy has boomed in recent years, Indians are still emerging from poverty. Finding employment can be tough so people have literally created jobs out of sheer necessity, such as roadside dentist Kishore.

Kishore says he learned his trade from a dentist and a dental course but he does not have a degree in dentistry. He and those around him provide a service to customers who couldn't dream of affording a licensed dentist in an office.

That is just one of thousands of jobs that make up India's informal economy.
Don't Miss

* Timely matters for Bombay Stock Exchange

Radha Kumari is a Mehandi artist. She uses henna to make intricate traditional designs on women's hands and feet. It's an old art that is steeped in tradition and is typically worn by brides the day before the wedding ceremony but is also popular during other Indian holidays and with tourists. She learned the trade from her sister at age 10 and started working as a teenager.

"I started doing this work because I was needy. I have no parents; my sister has done everything for me so it was very important for me to work," said Kumari, a mother of two, while she swirled henna on the hand of a customer.

She makes 25 to 50 rupees (50 cents to $1) per hand, she said. She and other henna artists are often "troubled" by city authorities or police who come to kick them off of the sidewalks or ask for bribes -- technically Kumari and others are breaking the law by setting up shop on government property.

City government authorities showed up while CNN was interviewing Kumari, causing the henna artists around her to pack up and run away.

It's a tough life. "If there can be anything better, I would definitely love to do it," she said. "Here there is no certainty. Today I'm allowed to sit here, tomorrow I may not be." But Kumari says it's better than nothing at all.

Experts say the informal economy helped keep India out of recession, since it is not tied to the global markets. While the ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit has help the Indian economy growing, the largely unregulated workforce promises to have negative impacts on the Indian economy as well, as transactions are often in cash and difficult to trace and tax.
advertisement

But the working conditions and low pay leave millions living in poverty.

"Their conditions are very poor because they have no protective gear of any kind, they have no real social security of any kind," said Arun Kumar, an economics professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University. "They face a lot of hardship of all kinds in terms of their existence, where they stay, what do they do, their health conditions, et cetera."