To reduce the odds that terrorists will enter the US, the Bush administration is asking the EU to lift its objections to the sharing of airline passenger information with US intelligence agencies, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said.
On the fringes of a meeting of European interior ministers on Saturday, Chertoff argued that other countries, no matter how friendly, could not decide who entered the US. He plans to repeat the message before a committee of the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, on Monday.
"While we reassure Europe, we have to insist that we can't tie our hands in keeping dangerous people out of the United States," Chertoff said in an interview.
Under an interim accord between Washington and the EU, data that overseas passengers routinely give to airlines -- address, credit card, passport, phone and other information -- is now being used for screening on arrival at US airports.
But that agreement expires on July 31, and some European governments and data protection advocates have strenuously objected to what they see as an invasion of privacy and the possible misuse of personal information.
At the heart of the discussions between Chertoff and the EU is the issue of how Washington can screen passengers who as citizens of 15 European Union countries do not need to apply for a visa for stays of up to 90 days. The nations include Britain, France, Germany and Italy but not the most recent entrants to the EU, like Poland, Hungary and Romania.
The issue of British citizens of Pakistani origin has been of particular concern to Washington since the London transit attack in July 2005, in which three of the four suicide bombers were of Pakistani descent.
The British home secretary, John Reid, who was at the conference, said he was "opposed" to screening based on ethnicity.
The data system, established after Sept. 11 to build "risk assessments" of incoming passengers, runs the names of travelers and their data against lists of known or suspected terrorists.
A European delegate to the conference here said it seemed likely that a compromise could be worked out before the interim accord expired.
The European Court of Justice instructed the Europeans to complete an arrangement with the US by the end of July after determining that an earlier version violated data protection laws.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS