British Home Secretary Charles Clarke won backing on Monday from the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to get his new anti-terror laws on to the statute book by the end of the year.
The deal was reached after an hour of talks at the Home Office during which it was agreed to set aside the renewal of the controversial "control orders" on terror suspects until the new year.
The opposition parties also agreed not to press for the introduction of phone-tap evidence in terrorist cases in this package of measures.
In return the home secretary agreed to look again at the language in his newly proposed offence of "indirect incitement to terrorism" and to clarify exactly who it is designed to catch.
The package also includes a new law clamping down on terrorist training camps and the creation of a new offence of planning a terrorist act.
It is expected the legislation will be published in draft in September and could now reach the statute book by December.
"We believe that this is the right way to go and we believe that it will enable us to address the threat we face with a unity and determination which is critical," Clarke said, with the Conservative spokesman, David Davis, and the Liberal Democrats' Mark Oaten by his side.
Davis said he welcomed the government's decision to accept his proposal to "decouple" the renewal of the controversial control orders on terror suspects and promised the Conservatives would ensure an easy passage for the legislation.
Oaten said he supported in principle the new offences of "acts preparatory to terrorism" and the measures to tackle the training of terrorists.
He said that following the London bombings it was vital for the three parties to reach consensus on anti-terror legislation.
The decision to put to one side the controversial issue of control orders means that the government has avoided a rerun of the divisive debate that dominated parliament earlier this year.
The control orders, which the government has promised to review, give the home secretary the power to order that a terror suspect should be tagged and tracked and kept under surveillance, up to and including being put under house arrest.
The politicians have now agreed to wait until December for a report by the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Carlile on the first year's operation of the control orders before they decide on their future.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the