UK Prime Minister Tony Blair won the support of Parliament Friday for a new anti-terrorism law, allowing the government to act swiftly against eight foreign terror suspects who have been granted bail.
The House of Lords approved new powers to order house arrest, impose curfews and use electronic tagging for terror suspects without trial, after the government made concessions to end a bitter parliamentary deadlock.
The Prevention of Terrorism Bill, which also allows the government to ban terror suspects from meeting certain people or traveling, and to restrict their access to the Internet or telephone, later received the formality of royal assent to become law.
The new control orders are likely to be used immediately against the eight foreign nationals, including radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada who has alleged links to al-Qaeda. The men have spent three years in a high security prison without charge but were granted bail at a special commission on Friday.
The law under which the men were detained, and which allowed the judge to set such bail conditions, expires on Monday. The government urgently wanted its new powers cleared by Parliament and had warned that without new legislation the men could have walked free.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke said he would sign control orders Friday night for the 10 men held under the current terrorism legislation that expires Monday.
Parliament was deadlocked for almost two days over the bill, which will apply to both foreign nationals and Britons, with both the government and opposition refusing to make concessions.
The main opposition Conservative Party said the legislation would infringe civil liberties and had demanded a so-called sunset clause guaranteeing that the law would expire a year after being passed. The government refused, saying such an amendment would send a message that Britain was soft on terrorism.
Seeking to end the standoff, the government produced a timetable for Parliament to review and amend the law and promised Parliament time to draft more wide ranging legislation later in the year.
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
RESPONSE: The transit sends a message that China’s alignment with other countries would not deter the West from defending freedom of navigation, an academic said Canadian frigate the Ville de Quebec and Australian guided-missile destroyer the Brisbane transited the Taiwan Strait yesterday morning, the first time the two nations have conducted a joint freedom of navigation operation. The Canadian and Australian militaries did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Ministry of National Defense declined to confirm the passage, saying only that Taiwan’s armed forces had deployed surveillance and reconnaissance assets, along with warships and combat aircraft, to safeguard security across the Strait. The two vessels were observed transiting northward along the eastern side of the Taiwan Strait’s median line, with Japan being their most likely destination,
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
The US has revoked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) authorization to freely ship essential gear to its main Chinese chipmaking base, potentially curtailing its production capabilities at that older-generation facility. American officials recently informed TSMC of their decision to end the Taiwanese chipmaker’s so-called validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing site. The action mirrors steps the US took to revoke VEU designations for China facilities owned by Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The waivers are set to expire in about four months. “TSMC has received notification from the US Government that our VEU authorization for TSMC Nanjing
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