UK verdict may jeopardise Blair’s terror policies

LONDON, Dec 17: British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s security strategy, a central plank in his re-election bid, looked in trouble today after a landmark legal ruling against a vital part of his anti-terror policy.

The fate of 11 foreign terror suspects held indefinitely without trial under draconian measures brought in after September 11 was also unclear after Britain’s top court ruled the powers breached international law.

"All of the Government’s terror legislation will come under greater scrutiny now," said Justin Fisher, head of politics at Britain’s Brunel University. "It will force security a little bit on to the back burner — at least in the next six months before the election."

Britain’s law lords yesterday ruled in favour of an appeal by nine of the 11 men held under an emergency anti-terror law rushed through in the wake of the 2001 attacks on the United States, saying it was discriminatory and excessive.

The law allows police to indefinitely detain foreigners suspected by Britain of involvement in terrorism, but crucially does not apply to British nationals.

The lords’ verdict is not binding on Britain but puts the onus on parliament to amend the law so it conforms to the European convention on human rights.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke said there was no question the detainees, some held for as long as three years in what rights’ activists describe as "Britain’s Guantanamo bay", would be freed before the law was reviewed in the new year.

"We will be studying the judgment carefully to see whether it is possible to modify our legislation to address the concern raised by the House of Lords," he said.

Clarke was responding on his first full day as Home Secretary after taking over from hardliner David Blunkett, who had directed Britain’s tough anti-terrorism agenda.

Blunkett’s resignation after weeks of lurid stories about his affair with a married woman, added to Blair’s woes over security policy.

Yesterday’s verdict leaves the Government with a difficult choice.

Releasing the inmates, who include Syrian cleric Abu-Qatada —accused of being the spiritual inspiration for the main September 11 attacker — would provide ammunition for Blair’s opponents.

However, amending the law to encompass British nationals would vex civil rights groups.

The other option of formally charging the men could prove too complicated. Much of the evidence against them — including intelligence allegedly obtained by the United States using torture at the Guantanamo bay prison camp — would be inadmissable in a British court.

Human rights campaigners said the Government had no option but to free the detainees.

"If Parliament passes a new law to keep these detainees in prison, then it will be aiding terrorism," human rights lawyer Louise Christian said.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of liberty, added: "By acting as judge, jury and jailer, the Government has flouted the very values it claims to defend. It must now act honourably and charge or release all those currently held without delay."

Analysts said Thursday’s verdict was a serious blow to Blair’s security strategy — a major part of his bid for a third term at a general election expected next year.

Blair’s Government is planning a raft of new security measures should it win the next election, including introducing identity cards and further beefing up existing anti-terror laws.

"This is a very major setback for the Government strategy on these matters," said politics professor Wyn Grant.

"Blair’s analysis is that other parties of the centre-left in Europe have been outflanked on the right on security issues and therefore he has always been very anxious to prevent that happening in the UK." (AGENCIES)

FOMC in Nov said US fiscal discipline needed

WASHINGTON, Dec 17: Policy-setting members of the US federal reserve felt at their November meeting that the economy was poised for steady growth in 2005 but worried whether Government spending will be brought under control.

"Members stressed the importance of fiscal discipline to facilitate a better balance between net national saving and investment and thereby promote an adjustment of the imbalance in the current account of the balance of payments," according to minutes of the federal open market committee’s Nov 10 meeting, which were released on Thursday.

The FOMC said that, with the expiry of some expensing provisions in the tax code, the economy would get less fiscal stimulus next year but still foresaw growth ‘’at a rate a bit above its longer-run potential,’’ which is broadly taken to be around 3-1/2 per cent a year.

"Looking forward, economic fundamentals appeared to be favorable for continued solid growth, and while the fiscal stimulus would abate next year, a flattening out of energy prices...Would bolster economic expansion," the FOMC concluded.

The fed raised interest rates for the fourth time this year by a quarter percentage point at the end of its Nov 10 meeting, and for a fifth time at a succeeding meeting last Tuesday to bring the federal funds rate to 2-1/4 per cent.

In addition, on Tuesday the fed said it will speed up release of the minutes from FOMC meetings, publishing them three weeks after each meeting rather than waiting until after the following meeting.

Financial markets praised the move as a positive nod toward making the minutes a more timely and useful indicator of policymakers’ thinking.

"Having the discussion a little sooner will increase its value and perhaps add to the market’s ability to forecast future changes beyond the horizon of the policy statement," economist Brian Fabbri of Bnp Paribas said of the fed’s announcement on Tuesday.

In November, the FOMC members conceded there were "significant uncertainties" about prospects for energy prices and for fiscal policy. President George W Bush, at a conference to stress white house economic priorities, said on Thursday that "tough choices on the spending side" lay ahead and pledged that would be evident in the budget to be sent to Congress in February.

Since Bush took office in 2001, the United States has run up record deficits on Government spending, trade and in its current account that measures trade in both goods and services and capital flows, helping to weaken the US dollar.

The FOMC said the dollar decline was boosting demand for some exporting firms — by making their products cheaper for overseas buyers — but that faltering foreign demand meant that trade was likely to be "a continuing drag" on US expansion, "one implication of this outlook was that US external indebtedness relative to GDP (Gross Domestic Product) would be increasing further," the minutes said.

Mounting US debt, which is financed by selling US Treasury securities to foreigners, is considered a key factor in the dollar’s declining value and a point of increasing vulnerability since it represents American dependency on others to send their investment capital to the United States.

FPMC members saw scant inflation pressures. The minutes said wage and price demands were "generally still modest" while companies said they had difficulty making higher prices stick. It did note there were "upside risks" from further dollar depreciation or higher energy prices.

The minutes said policy actions might become "increasingly dependent on incoming data and their implications for future activity and prices" — an indication of the fed’s wariness about potential inflation.

The fed has been gradually raising rates after cutting them 13 times to a 1958 low of 1 per cent to help the economy through 2001 and a soft recovery. The fomc said it might need to follow "a more gradual path of tightening" or it might "firm policy more rapidly" depending on the data.

The minutes said the fed felt it had "considerable flexibility" to follow whatever course it decided upon and that its public statements should have left no doubt about that. (AGENCIES)

Aviation evolving to a low-cost industry: IATA

GENEVA, Dec 17: The airline industry’s global body has said that increased use of information technology and more efficient management should enable carriers to reap further cost reductions.

Airlines are expected to cut non-fuel cost by three per cent in 2004, an improvement over last year’s 2.5 per cent reduction, said the International Air Transport Association (IATA) which represents over 270 airlines comprising 95 per cent of international scheduled air traffic.

Use of electronic ticketing, Common Use Self Service Kiosks (CUSS) for check-in, bar code boarding passes and radio frequency identification for baggage management can collectively save airlines at least three billion dollars.

Each e-ticket saves nine dollars, each CUSS will save 3.5 dollar and each bag that is not mishandled saves up to 100 dollars, said Mr Tom Murphy, senior vice-president for IATA’s industry distribution and financial services business unit.

Over 80 airlines are on a fast track, he said, towards e-ticketing and the target is to achieve 100 per cent coverage.

Better and more efficient air routes saved carriers 1.1 billion dollars in 2004, he said. For further reductions, Mr Murphy said, airlines could secure cost savings of 2.7 billion dollars by saving one minute from every of the estimated 27 million flights per year.

Airlines would also save 1 billion dollar by driving paper out of air cargo, he said. However, the IATA official was highly critical of Government policies related to open sky regimes, security, and high air traffic control and cumbersome management of airports and terminals.

"We don’t care who owns the airport so long as the result is an efficient partner. Airport monopolies are achieving margins exceeding 25 per cent while airlines lose billions is not acceptable anymore," Mr Murphy said.

He also put the spotlight on the huge cost differences in air navigation services such as those between Europe and the United States.

Passengers carried by global airlines are expected to reach 1.8 billion in 2004, up 14 per cent over last year, and mark a turnaround for the 350 billion dollar-a-year industry. But a return to profitability for the troubled airline sector has been stalled by the recent hike in fuel prices.

"Fuel is the enemy this year that will steal a return to profitability," said IATA Director General and CEO Giovanni Bisignani. He said the fuel bill will be 62 billion dollars or 15 billion dollars more than 2003.

IATA is working with airlines and industry partners to establish and adopt industry data standards, make fuel management technology more effective, affordable and easier to deploy, and take advantage of shared services where permissible.

Many airlines find difficult and expensive to access credit for fuel hedging purposes. To enable extension of new or additional credit and to reduce the costs associated with risk premiums, IATA is working with leading banks worldwide to use the IATA clearing house for settlement of hedging transactions.

According to Mr Bisignani, today’s world fleet is about 70 per cent more efficient per passenger kilometre than in the 1960s. Between 1990 and 2000, fuel efficiency improved by 17 per cent. In 1998, the world’s airlines consumed about 160 billion litres of fuel. This is equivalent to 4.8 litres for every passenger transported over 100 km.

The latest aircraft flying today often match the fuel consumption of modern passenger cars and in some cases — depending on speed and distance — even of high-speed trains.

"As technological and operational advances continue, a fuel consumption as low as three litres per 100 passenger-km is no longer uncommon."

IATA members plan to achieve an additional 10 per cent fuel efficiency improvement in their total fleet between 2000 and 2010. "This could reduce the total release of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere in this period by almost 350 million tonnes compared to a scenario in which year 2000 efficiency levels would be frozen," Mr Bisignani said.

Besides new technologies, the most significant fuel savings are most likely to come from enhanced Communications Navigation and Surveillance/Air Traffic Management Systems (CNS/ATMs) which would permit more direct routings and the use of more efficient flight conditions such as optimum altitude and speed. Governments play a key role in the accelerated implementation of such systems.

IATA studies have demonstrated that by 2010, improved air traffic management could yield gains of up to nine per cent in system-wide fuel efficiency. Similarly, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has calculated that aviation’s greenhouse gas emissions could be cut by six to 12 per cent. (UNI)

Macau gains stature as China model of unification

HONG KONG, Dec 17: Once upon a time, Hong Kong was such a thriving and shining British colony that China decided to showcase it as a model for eventual unification with Taiwan.

A strip of water away, Macau was a sleepy Portuguese enclave that hardly seemed to thrill China’s communist rulers, a tiny backwater plagued by crime gangs and dotted with a few seedy casinos.

That was then.

Now, under Chinese rule, Hong Kong is reeling from economic woes and political turmoil highlighted by big protests this year, and possibly another on new year’s day, while Macau has blossomed economically and is politically stable.

On Sunday, Chinese President Hu Jintao flies to Macau for the fifth anniversary of the city’s reversion to China after centuries of Portuguese rule.

Hu has never, in his present capacity, visited Hong Kong, which returned to the fold in 1997, and some are questioning whether China now attaches more importance to Macau as a model than Hong Kong.

"Hu’s Macau visit is clearly a form of commendation. Macau has been faring well in the past few years," said Timothy Wong, a political analyst at the Chinese university of Hong Kong.

While Hong Kong is just an hour’s ferry ride away, Hu has not announced any plans to visit Hong Kong on the same tour. Hong Kong leader Tung-Chee-Hwa will go to Macau on Monday to give hu a routine briefing on Hong Kong’s developments.

Citing unidentified sources, Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper said this month Hu is expected to deliver in Macau a major speech on Taiwan, which broke away from the mainland after the nationalists lost the Chinese civil war to the Communists in 1949.

The newspaper said he would focus on the "one country, two systems" formula devised by late Chinese patriarch Deng Xiaoping for eventual unification with Taiwan.

"This will be the first time that President Hu spells out in full his thinking on Taiwan," the Straits Times said.

"The Chinese leader has chosen Macau instead of Hong Kong as the venue to make his pitch at Taiwan because of the former’s success as a unification model," the newspaper said. "However, post-1997 Hong Kong has yet to prove the model a success."

Hong Kong’s oriental daily news said on Friday Hu would also take advantage of his Macau visit to make his first formal comments on a proposed reunification law covering Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau soon to be presented to Parliament for study.

Hu will also give Beijing’s latest views on unification with Taiwan, the paper quoted unidentified sources as saying.

Shortly after Hong Kong’s handover, the Asian financial crisis pierced the property and stock bubbles and crumbled the economy, which has never fully recovered. Unemployment and bankruptcies repeatedly hit record highs.

Politically, people moan about shrinking freedoms, lack of democracy and signs of Beijing’s intervention in the city’s matters.

Grievances build up. Demonstrators took to the streets in huge processions to vent their frustration and they are preparing yet another protest march on new year’s day.

In Macau in contrast, the once Moribund economy is booming with rising tourist numbers and casino takings since the Government allowed more investors to run casinos, the city’s economic turbine.

Law and order have improved in Macau where, under Portuguese rule, corruption and violent crime used to be rife.

Nevertheless, analysts say Macau could not possibly take over from the Asian financial hub of Hong Kong as the poster child for Beijing’s "one country, two systems" formula promising the cities a high degree of autonomy under Chinese rule.

"Macau’s too small. People may not think such a small place has a reference value," Wong said.

Hong Kong’s seven million population is about 15 times that of Macau’s 450,000. Hong Kong’s gross domestic product is about 21 times that of Macau. (AGENCIES)

CIA has run secret prison at Guantanamo: Washington Post

WASHINGTON, Dec 17: The Central Intelligence Agency has run a secret prison for valuable Al-Qaeda captives within the Pentagon’s detention complex at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Washington Post reported today.

Citing military officials and current and former intelligence officers, the newspaper said the CIA facility was built over the past year within a larger complex where the defense department houses high-value detainees and those awaiting military trials.

Officials said the CIA buildings were shrouded by high fences covered with thick green mesh plastic and ringed with floodlights, according to the report.

The post said it was unclear whether the CIA facility was still in operation. But it cited sources as saying that detainees from Pakistan, West Africa, Yemen and other countries have been housed there under the strictest secrecy.

An unidentified US official who visited the base in recent months was quoted as saying: "People are constantly leaving and coming."

Officials for the CIA and the Pentagon were not immediately available for comment.

The US military is holding at Guantanamo more than 500 people detained during the 2001 US war to oust Al-Qaeda and the ruling Taliban from Afghanistan and in other operations in the US war against terror.

The CIA is believed to be holding about three dozen Al-Qaeda leaders in undisclosed locations, the Post said, quoting US national security officials.

The report said current and former US intelligence officials say the agency holds the most valuable Al-Qaeda leaders and many mid-level members with knowledge of the group’s logistics, financing and regional operations. (AGENCIES)

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