Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Israel to seize Arab land near Jerusalem

Poll says majority of Israelis oppose Jerusalem sharing plan

JERUSALEM: Israel has ordered the confiscation of Arab land outside east Jerusalem, a newspaper and Palestinian officials said on Tuesday, reviving fears that the occupied West Bank could be split in two.

Issued late September, the order covers 110 hectares (272 acres) in four Palestinian villages between east Jerusalem and the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim, said Hassan Abed Rabbo, a senior official at the Palestinian local government ministry.

The land could create a bloc of settlements incorporating Maale Adumim and nearby Mishor Adumim and Kedar, and “prevent Palestinian territorial continuity” between the West Bank and Jordan Valley, he said.

The army orders given to landowners, a copy of which was seen by AFP, justified the expropriation on “military grounds” and for “measures designed to stop terrorist acts”. Israel’s Haaretz newspaper said the land was earmarked for a new road that would connect east Jerusalem with the West Bank town of Jericho.

“That in turn would ‘free up’ the E-1 area between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim, through which the current Jerusalem-Jericho road runs, for a long-planned Jewish development consisting of 3,500 apartments and an industrial park,” Haaretz wrote.

The Palestinians heavily criticise the project because it would effectively split the West Bank and separate the territory from east Jerusalem.

“We condemn this Israeli decision to confiscate Palestinian land at a time in which we are trying to revive the peace process,” chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP.

Israelis oppose Jerusalem sharing: More than 60 percent of Israelis oppose sharing sovereignty over Jerusalem with the Palestinians as part of a final peace deal, in a poll published on Tuesday.

Asked if Israel should agree to “any sort of compromise on Jerusalem” as part of a final deal, 63 percent said no, compared with 21 who said yes, according to the poll published in the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot daily.

Sixty-eight percent oppose transferring Arab neighbourhoods in occupied east Jerusalem to Palestinian sovereignty, compared with 20 percent who are in favour.

Asked who should have sovereignty over the holy places in the Old City, 61 percent said Israel alone, 21 percent favoured international sovereignty, and 16 percent supported joint Israeli-Palestinian sovereignty.

On whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government has a mandate from the public to reach a permanent status arrangement on Jerusalem, 52 percent said yes on condition that 80 MPs in the 120-seat parliament supported such a move. afp

from
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C10%5C10%5Cstory_10-10-2007_pg4_3

Home Office: Cost of fighting terrorism triples to £3.5bn by 2010

By Andy McSmith

Published: 10 October 2007

Fighting terrorism continues to be one of the fastest-growing items in the Government's budget. By the end of this financial year, the whole cost of anti-terrorist initiatives, taking in everything from education programmes to undercover police work, will have risen to £2.5bn a year. By 2010-11, that figure will be up to £3.5bn – more than three times what it was at the start of the decade.

The size of the anti-terror budget is one sign of how government priorities have changed since the 11 September and 7 July attacks. Another is yesterday's announcement about who will control the money.

In a break with Whitehall tradition, anti-funds will not be allocated to individual government departments in the usual way, but will be disbursed by a Cabinet committee headed by Gordon Brown. The budget covers money for the police, the intelligence services, and programmes designed to persuade young Muslims not to be drawn into in violent extremism. It includes an extra £220m a year for the Home Office's counter-terrorism and security budget. The security services have been told their budget will continue growing by 9.6 per cent a year.

"The funding will improve our ability to tackle the immediate threat to the UK, strengthen our security measures to protect the UK from attack, allow the development of new technology which will enable us to keep ahead of the terrorists, and put in place longer-term programmes to counter radicalisation," the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, said.

Another £37m a year from the same budget will go to the Foreign Office, for programmes to discourage radicalism in the Middle East. The Foreign Office funds the BBC World Service, which is to get £15m to launch a Farsi language television channel, broadcasting to Iran. Its 12-hour-a-day Arabic language television station is to expand to a 24 hour service. The overall Home Office budget will rise by the equivalent of 1.1 per cent a year from £9.2bn now to £10.3b in 2010-11, which means that Mrs Smith did slightly better than expected out of yesterday's announcement. It includes money for 9,500 new prison places, 8,500 of which will be ready by 2012, and over £11m a year to establish a National Fraud Strategic Authority and National Fraud Reporting Centre.

According to the Howard League for Penal reform, the UK holds a higher percentage of its population in prison than any other western European country, and 12,000 prisoners are being held two to a cell designed for one. The numbers of prisoners has risen from 42,000 in 1993 to 80,000 today. The Home Office insists that the increase is a sign of the government's "robust approach to serious and violent offenders".

The Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, added that yesterday's announcement "demonstrates the priority the government gives to tackling fraud, an issue that has had too low a priority in the past".

from

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3043768.ece

Home Office: Cost of fighting terrorism triples to £3.5bn by 2010

By Andy McSmith

Published: 10 October 2007

Fighting terrorism continues to be one of the fastest-growing items in the Government's budget. By the end of this financial year, the whole cost of anti-terrorist initiatives, taking in everything from education programmes to undercover police work, will have risen to £2.5bn a year. By 2010-11, that figure will be up to £3.5bn – more than three times what it was at the start of the decade.

The size of the anti-terror budget is one sign of how government priorities have changed since the 11 September and 7 July attacks. Another is yesterday's announcement about who will control the money.

In a break with Whitehall tradition, anti-funds will not be allocated to individual government departments in the usual way, but will be disbursed by a Cabinet committee headed by Gordon Brown. The budget covers money for the police, the intelligence services, and programmes designed to persuade young Muslims not to be drawn into in violent extremism. It includes an extra £220m a year for the Home Office's counter-terrorism and security budget. The security services have been told their budget will continue growing by 9.6 per cent a year.

"The funding will improve our ability to tackle the immediate threat to the UK, strengthen our security measures to protect the UK from attack, allow the development of new technology which will enable us to keep ahead of the terrorists, and put in place longer-term programmes to counter radicalisation," the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, said.

Another £37m a year from the same budget will go to the Foreign Office, for programmes to discourage radicalism in the Middle East. The Foreign Office funds the BBC World Service, which is to get £15m to launch a Farsi language television channel, broadcasting to Iran. Its 12-hour-a-day Arabic language television station is to expand to a 24 hour service. The overall Home Office budget will rise by the equivalent of 1.1 per cent a year from £9.2bn now to £10.3b in 2010-11, which means that Mrs Smith did slightly better than expected out of yesterday's announcement. It includes money for 9,500 new prison places, 8,500 of which will be ready by 2012, and over £11m a year to establish a National Fraud Strategic Authority and National Fraud Reporting Centre.

According to the Howard League for Penal reform, the UK holds a higher percentage of its population in prison than any other western European country, and 12,000 prisoners are being held two to a cell designed for one. The numbers of prisoners has risen from 42,000 in 1993 to 80,000 today. The Home Office insists that the increase is a sign of the government's "robust approach to serious and violent offenders".

The Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, added that yesterday's announcement "demonstrates the priority the government gives to tackling fraud, an issue that has had too low a priority in the past".

Home Office: Cost of fighting terrorism triples to £3.5bn by 2010

By Andy McSmith

Published: 10 October 2007

Fighting terrorism continues to be one of the fastest-growing items in the Government's budget. By the end of this financial year, the whole cost of anti-terrorist initiatives, taking in everything from education programmes to undercover police work, will have risen to £2.5bn a year. By 2010-11, that figure will be up to £3.5bn – more than three times what it was at the start of the decade.

The size of the anti-terror budget is one sign of how government priorities have changed since the 11 September and 7 July attacks. Another is yesterday's announcement about who will control the money.

In a break with Whitehall tradition, anti-funds will not be allocated to individual government departments in the usual way, but will be disbursed by a Cabinet committee headed by Gordon Brown. The budget covers money for the police, the intelligence services, and programmes designed to persuade young Muslims not to be drawn into in violent extremism. It includes an extra £220m a year for the Home Office's counter-terrorism and security budget. The security services have been told their budget will continue growing by 9.6 per cent a year.

"The funding will improve our ability to tackle the immediate threat to the UK, strengthen our security measures to protect the UK from attack, allow the development of new technology which will enable us to keep ahead of the terrorists, and put in place longer-term programmes to counter radicalisation," the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, said.

Another £37m a year from the same budget will go to the Foreign Office, for programmes to discourage radicalism in the Middle East. The Foreign Office funds the BBC World Service, which is to get £15m to launch a Farsi language television channel, broadcasting to Iran. Its 12-hour-a-day Arabic language television station is to expand to a 24 hour service. The overall Home Office budget will rise by the equivalent of 1.1 per cent a year from £9.2bn now to £10.3b in 2010-11, which means that Mrs Smith did slightly better than expected out of yesterday's announcement. It includes money for 9,500 new prison places, 8,500 of which will be ready by 2012, and over £11m a year to establish a National Fraud Strategic Authority and National Fraud Reporting Centre.

According to the Howard League for Penal reform, the UK holds a higher percentage of its population in prison than any other western European country, and 12,000 prisoners are being held two to a cell designed for one. The numbers of prisoners has risen from 42,000 in 1993 to 80,000 today. The Home Office insists that the increase is a sign of the government's "robust approach to serious and violent offenders".

The Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, added that yesterday's announcement "demonstrates the priority the government gives to tackling fraud, an issue that has had too low a priority in the past".

Home Office: Cost of fighting terrorism triples to £3.5bn by 2010

By Andy McSmith

Published: 10 October 2007

Fighting terrorism continues to be one of the fastest-growing items in the Government's budget. By the end of this financial year, the whole cost of anti-terrorist initiatives, taking in everything from education programmes to undercover police work, will have risen to £2.5bn a year. By 2010-11, that figure will be up to £3.5bn – more than three times what it was at the start of the decade.

The size of the anti-terror budget is one sign of how government priorities have changed since the 11 September and 7 July attacks. Another is yesterday's announcement about who will control the money.

In a break with Whitehall tradition, anti-funds will not be allocated to individual government departments in the usual way, but will be disbursed by a Cabinet committee headed by Gordon Brown. The budget covers money for the police, the intelligence services, and programmes designed to persuade young Muslims not to be drawn into in violent extremism. It includes an extra £220m a year for the Home Office's counter-terrorism and security budget. The security services have been told their budget will continue growing by 9.6 per cent a year.

"The funding will improve our ability to tackle the immediate threat to the UK, strengthen our security measures to protect the UK from attack, allow the development of new technology which will enable us to keep ahead of the terrorists, and put in place longer-term programmes to counter radicalisation," the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, said.

Another £37m a year from the same budget will go to the Foreign Office, for programmes to discourage radicalism in the Middle East. The Foreign Office funds the BBC World Service, which is to get £15m to launch a Farsi language television channel, broadcasting to Iran. Its 12-hour-a-day Arabic language television station is to expand to a 24 hour service. The overall Home Office budget will rise by the equivalent of 1.1 per cent a year from £9.2bn now to £10.3b in 2010-11, which means that Mrs Smith did slightly better than expected out of yesterday's announcement. It includes money for 9,500 new prison places, 8,500 of which will be ready by 2012, and over £11m a year to establish a National Fraud Strategic Authority and National Fraud Reporting Centre.

According to the Howard League for Penal reform, the UK holds a higher percentage of its population in prison than any other western European country, and 12,000 prisoners are being held two to a cell designed for one. The numbers of prisoners has risen from 42,000 in 1993 to 80,000 today. The Home Office insists that the increase is a sign of the government's "robust approach to serious and violent offenders".

The Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, added that yesterday's announcement "demonstrates the priority the government gives to tackling fraud, an issue that has had too low a priority in the past".

Home Office: Cost of fighting terrorism triples to £3.5bn by 2010

By Andy McSmith

Published: 10 October 2007

Fighting terrorism continues to be one of the fastest-growing items in the Government's budget. By the end of this financial year, the whole cost of anti-terrorist initiatives, taking in everything from education programmes to undercover police work, will have risen to £2.5bn a year. By 2010-11, that figure will be up to £3.5bn – more than three times what it was at the start of the decade.

The size of the anti-terror budget is one sign of how government priorities have changed since the 11 September and 7 July attacks. Another is yesterday's announcement about who will control the money.

In a break with Whitehall tradition, anti-funds will not be allocated to individual government departments in the usual way, but will be disbursed by a Cabinet committee headed by Gordon Brown. The budget covers money for the police, the intelligence services, and programmes designed to persuade young Muslims not to be drawn into in violent extremism. It includes an extra £220m a year for the Home Office's counter-terrorism and security budget. The security services have been told their budget will continue growing by 9.6 per cent a year.

"The funding will improve our ability to tackle the immediate threat to the UK, strengthen our security measures to protect the UK from attack, allow the development of new technology which will enable us to keep ahead of the terrorists, and put in place longer-term programmes to counter radicalisation," the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, said.

Another £37m a year from the same budget will go to the Foreign Office, for programmes to discourage radicalism in the Middle East. The Foreign Office funds the BBC World Service, which is to get £15m to launch a Farsi language television channel, broadcasting to Iran. Its 12-hour-a-day Arabic language television station is to expand to a 24 hour service. The overall Home Office budget will rise by the equivalent of 1.1 per cent a year from £9.2bn now to £10.3b in 2010-11, which means that Mrs Smith did slightly better than expected out of yesterday's announcement. It includes money for 9,500 new prison places, 8,500 of which will be ready by 2012, and over £11m a year to establish a National Fraud Strategic Authority and National Fraud Reporting Centre.

According to the Howard League for Penal reform, the UK holds a higher percentage of its population in prison than any other western European country, and 12,000 prisoners are being held two to a cell designed for one. The numbers of prisoners has risen from 42,000 in 1993 to 80,000 today. The Home Office insists that the increase is a sign of the government's "robust approach to serious and violent offenders".

The Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, added that yesterday's announcement "demonstrates the priority the government gives to tackling fraud, an issue that has had too low a priority in the past".

Pre-Budget: Counter-terrorism funds up 10pc

Security spending has already doubled from around £1bn before the 9/11 attacks on America.

MI5 has recruited hundreds more staff and aims to have a complement of around 3,000 by next year - twice its size in 2001.

It is not immediately apparent what difference a single budget will make to the fight against terrorism.

It will be more difficult to discover where the money is going because the intelligence budget is already opaque and not broken down.

While the counter-terror budget has gone up, the overall spending on law and order has been frozen in real terms.

Both the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice were locked into their existing budgets for the next three years.

The Government said the squeeze has come on after a period that saw a 50 per cent rise in spending on public order and safety since 1997.

The big problem for the Ministry of Justice is how to deliver a promised extra 9,500 prison places with no extra money.

There has also been a big cut of more than three per cent in the law officers' budget, though victims' programmes will be protected.

The Government has set out new targets for cutting violent crime, reducing alcohol and drug abuse and controlling immigration

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said: "The public expect more from public services in tackling crime, alcohol and drug abuse, security, antisocial behaviour and managing migration. We will be able to invest in improving performance, rolling out neighbourhood policing and delivering our major projects."

this article is from this website

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/09/nbudget109.xml


TEXT-Fitch on Terrorism Risk Insurance Extension Act

(The following statement was released by the ratings agency)

Oct 9 - The current extension of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Extension Act (TRIA) is set to expire on Dec. 31, 2007. Discussion in Congress is ongoing regarding another extension and recently the House of Representatives passed a bill which would extend TRIA. Below, Fitch will discuss the credit implications for the commercial real estate industry in general, and commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS) specifically, should TRIA expire. These include a review and potential downgrading of a specific set of CMBS transactions, and a broad reduction in lending, possibly leading to greater defaults and downgrades across the broader CMBS universe.

Historically, coverage for losses related to terrorism was included in standard all-risk property damage policies, also known as casualty policies. Following the extraordinary claims that resulted from the destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, most insurance companies either stopped offering terrorism coverage or offered only limited amounts at high rates. Although many market participants believed that a private market would naturally develop to offer terrorism coverage, this did not materialize in a significant enough size to make the coverage generally available at commercially reasonable rates. Many insurance industry experts contend that a private market has not developed as insurers do not have enough data to reliably estimate the magnitude of a loss due to a terrorist act. TRIA requires that all insurance companies offer terrorism coverage as part of casualty policies. This effectively provides a federal backstop which limits insurance company exposure to casualty from a terrorist event, a protection otherwise unavailable in the private market.

Insurance coverage for terrorism is important because it helps facilitate the flow of debt capital to the real estate industry. In general, debt providers write their loan documents to place the risks and costs of property ownership with the borrower/owner. One such risk is the risk of casualty. Real estate lenders require that borrowers obtain full replacement cost insurance so that should a casualty occur, their loan can be repaid in full. However, if TRIA is not renewed, Fitch believes the market availability of terrorism insurance would be limited. If a property owner obtains insufficient insurance, the risk of a casualty resulting from terrorism is effectively transferred to the lender.

As we experienced in late 2001, if the casualty risk were transferred to property lenders, fewer lenders would be willing to make new loans on properties which lack these insurance protections. Such restrictions in new lending could force many existing loans into default upon maturity of their insurance policies. Also, existing loans could simply become more risky as they would bear the terrorism risk previously borne by the borrower and insurance company.

As a subset of the commercial mortgage lending industry, the CMBS industry would be directly and immediately affected if TRIA were not in place. Fitch's methodology for rating CMBS transactions assumes insurance coverage, including casualty resulting from terrorism, for the full loan amount. In fact, Fitch has declined to rate some transactions which it believed did not have adequate terrorism insurance.

With respect to currently existing loans, if TRIA were to expire, Fitch would expect to take similar rating actions as it did in 2002, when coverage for terrorist acts was not widely available. At the time, Fitch placed 29 classes from 13 transactions on Rating Watch Negative, indicating that if coverage were not provided, we would view the underlying assets, and the bonds issued based on them, as riskier and no longer as creditworthy as their then current rating indicated. Generally these were transactions that had a single property, or several properties owned by a single borrower. Ultimately, after TRIA was enacted, all but one of these transactions obtained insurance and the ratings were affirmed. Since 2002, volume in the CMBS market has expanded greatly such that Fitch would likely need to take more negative rating actions across its CMBS portfolio of approximately $450 billion of CMBS bonds. In addition, if the lack of terrorism insurance was to make loans more difficult to obtain, and a large number of maturing loans were not able to be refinanced, CMBS multiborrower transactions could also come under review for downgrade.

thi article is from

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/09/nbudget109.xml