Traffic chaos, armed police lining streets, security screens at church entrances, scuba divers in New York’s East River, back-packs banned for pedestrians, no-flight zones – it is business as usual as the US prepares to welcome Pope Benedict XVI tomorrow at the start of his American visit.
– The Guardian
China has arrested nine monks for a bomb attack on a government building in Tibet last month, an official said yesterday.
Tibetan support groups warned that it was impossible to verify the claims because the authorities do not allow independent observers into the region.
The state-run Xinhua news agency alleged that the monks from the Tongxia monastery – around 850 miles east of Lhasa – fled after their homemade bomb exploded in Gyanbe township but later confessed to planting it. There was no mention of casualties or damage.
– The Guardian
Cabinet ministers are split over the need to force through new laws to extend the maximum detention of suspected terror suspects from 28 to 42 days without charge – a month before ministers could face a bruising defeat by up to 30 votes in the Commons over the issue.
Jack Straw, the justice secretary, has privately expressed doubts about Gordon Brown’s determination to insist on 42 days because he fears it could lead to further tensions in the Muslim community and paradoxically could lead to less intelligence being supplied to the authorities from Muslim sources. Straw, who has a big Muslim community in his Blackburn constituency, will be publicly backing the policy and voting for the government, a source said yesterday. But this does not mean he agrees with the necessity to do it. He has remained conspicuously silent in public in pushing the policy.
– The Guardian
The Home Secretary was accused of desperation last night for quoting five-month-old figures to support the case for detaining terrorism suspects for 42 days.
Jacqui Smith used an interview to re-emphasise the threat posed by extremists, and claimed MI5 is monitoring 2,000 individuals in 200 networks and a total of 30 active plots.
– The Telegraph
The world’s poorest countries face starvation and civil unrest if global food prices keep rising, the head of the International Monetary Fund has said.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in Washington that “hundreds of thousands of people will be starving”. “Children will be suffering from malnutrition, with consequences for all their lives,” he said.
– The Telegraph