Athens News Agency: News in English, 05-11-11

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Draft bill against money-laundering tabled in Parliament

[02] PASOK showing improvement in all qualitative indicators, spokesman says

[01] Draft bill against money-laundering tabled in Parliament

The bill was drawn up by the finance and justice ministries and establishes an independent authority called the National Authority Combatting the Legalisation of Income from Criminal Activity.

The new authority will be comprised of a president and 11 members appointed for three years, while the president will have a rank equivalent to a Supreme Court judge or public prosecutor.

The bill also places the onus on financial institutions to vet suspicious transactions that may be funding terrorist organisations and to take all measures possible to avoid legalising income from criminal activities.

As well as instituting a series of penalties for the various kinds of offences in this area, with a base sentence of up to 10 years, it also introduces prison sentences of up to two years for intentional failure to report a suspicious transaction, or for providing false or misleading figures.

[02] PASOK showing improvement in all qualitative indicators, spokesman says

Athanassakis said that all the opinion polls carried out with a ballot box show marginal differences and a clear improvement for PASOK. The PASOK spokesman said that the DIMEL company showed a difference of 0.9 percent, ALCO 1.2 and METRON 0.6, adding that even VPRC is showing a decrease in the difference by two percentage points from June until today.

According to Athanassakis, the polls register the overcoming of the "story" that only the government and not the prime minister have wear and tear and suggested that polls should be read correctly.

The spokesman made special reference to the movement of voters between the two mainstream parties, saying that the poll by Metron Analysis shows a 5.6 percent move of voters from the New Democracy party to PASOK, compared to a 2 percent move from PASOK to ND.

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