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

Greatest fear is terrorism

TERRORISM and immigration are people’s greatest fear according to a new survey.

The poll also shows that one in seven adults (15 per cent) is reluctant to have children and one in four (27 per cent) less inclined to plan for the future because of world troubles.

Terrorism is people’s greatest fear - 70 per cent say they are most worried about that, while immigration worries 58 per cent of people.

Environmental issues are less of a concern - only a third are worried about climate change (38 per cent) and a quarter by the threat of a natural disaster (23 per cent).

The YouGov survey, commissioned by the Mental Health Foundation ahead of World Mental Health Day on Wednesday, found that world events left some people feeling powerless (56 per cent), angry (50 per cent), anxious (35 per cent) and depressed (26 per cent).

To help cope with their worries, more than a third of respondents said they sought to find out more about an issue (38 per cent).

Almost the same number said that talking to family and friends provided relief (33 per cent).

A quarter said voting helped, while 12 per cent found comfort in a religious or spiritual belief.

Clinical psychologist Dr Michael Reddy said: “As social animals, we are sensitive to dangers from other humans that are intentional, such as terrorism.

“Accidental dangers, such as natural disasters, fail to motivate us in the same way.

“Immigration ranks highly as a worry because humans identify themselves as belonging to particular groups who share the same values and codes of behaviour this is one of our main ways of feeling secure."

from

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article313015.ece

In the UK, Possession of the Anarchist's Cookbook Is Terrorism

Anonymous Terrorist writes
"Back in the midsts of time, when I was a lad and gopher was the height of information retrieval I read The Anarchist's Cookbook in one huge text file. Now it appears the UK government considers possession of the book an offense under the Terrorism Act 2000 and is prosecuting a 17 year old boy, in part, for having a copy of the book. 'The teenager faces two charges under the Terrorism Act 2000. The first charge relates to the possession of material for terrorist purposes in October last year. The second relates to the collection or possession of information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism.'"

this article is from
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/10/08/0348253.shtml

"Funkaerobics," Belly Dancing Get Beaver Hills Fest Shaking

Nicole Allan Photo"You want every extra bit of flesh to be shaking around!" Amanda "Muneerah" Hilton shouted over her shoulder, wiggling her hips.

read more | digg story

NSW launches Terrorism and Homicide Victims Day

NSW will become the only state to mark an annual day of remembrance for victims of terrorism, the Bali bombings and other homicides after the Federal Government refused a request from victims' families.

The State Government will now go it alone, agreeing to requests to commemorate the anniversary of the 2002 Bali bombings.

The Daily Telegraph has learned that this Friday will now become the official NSW Terrorism and Homicide Victims Remembrance Day.

Premier Morris Iemma is believed to have agreed to the event after pressure from victims's groups and families, in particular Elaine Dawson whose sister and brother-in-law were murdered and nephew seriously wounded in 2000.

Ms Dawson has been lobbying the Federal Government for two years to have a national day of remembrance for victims of murder and terrorism.

Ms Dawson, who wrote to Prime Minister John Howard to no avail, has been snubbed by every state. Mr Howard told her a national remembrance day was something the states would have to do individually.

Since February Mr Iemma has been urging his state counterparts to agree to a nationwide day.

"If it brings additional peace to just one victim's family, then it is worth it," Mr Iemma said.

"NSW has discussed this proposal on a national level before and we would invite any other interested jurisdictions to join us in a formal declaration of October 12. This day marks the anniversary of the 2002 Bali bombings.

"As the anniversary of the first Bali bombing, October 12 is the most suitable date to remember those who died or were injured as a result of terrorism or violence."

Martha Jabor from the Homicide Victims of Crime Support Group said she had been negotiating with the Bali families who claim they have been waiting for this day.

Australian-born Natalie Juniardi, who lost her Indonesian husband John in the 2002 bombing, will mark the day with her two young sons in Bali. Since the bombing, she has stayed in Bali and is not leaving the place she has spent all her adult years. "I love it here. It's my home," she said.

from
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22548256-421,00.html