Spain: Officials say captured man is ETA's leader / Colombia: Seven are arrested in investment scheme / Ireland: Flight attendant helped pilot land 767

SPAIN

Officials say captured man is ETA's leader

A man arrested this week on suspicion of being chief of commando units for ETA is actually the Basque separatist group's top leader, Spanish officials said.

Police said they were preparing for retaliation from ETA over the arrest of 35-year-old Mikel Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina, whose alias is Txeroki, or Cherokee in Basque.

Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said in an interview with Cadena Ser radio that Aspiazu was ETA's top leader, in charge of overall strategy. He did not say how or when authorities had discovered that he held that role.

COLOMBIA

Seven are arrested in investment scheme

Colombia ordered the arrest of seven people accused of a pyramid scheme which, with other financial scandals, prompted riots and threatened to damage the economy by causing millions of dollars in lost investments.

President Alvaro Uribe moved quickly to contain the crisis as thousands of families lost their savings on scams that promised astronomical interest rates, sweetheart real estate deals and debit cards to get electronic goods for free.

Prosecutors ordered the arrest of seven bosses of DMG, one of the main companies accused by the government of money laundering and other financial wrongdoing.

IRELAND

Flight attendant helped pilot land 767

An Air Canada copilot having a mental breakdown had to be forcibly removed from the cockpit, restrained and sedated, and a flight attendant with flying experience helped the pilot make an emergency landing in Shannon, Ireland, an investigation found.

The plane, with 146 passengers and nine other crew members aboard, was bound from Toronto to London.

The unidentified 58-year-old copilot was removed from the Boeing 767's cockpit by attendants. He spent 11 days in Irish mental wards.

-- times wire reports