--- begin forwarded text Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 20:22:03 -0500 To: Philodox Clips List <clips@philodox.com> From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah@shipwright.com> Subject: Modern-day Bletchley Park to tackle terror finance networks <http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,5397312-111274,00.html> Modern-day Bletchley Park to tackle terror finance networks Patrick Wintour, chief political correspondent and Ashley Seager in Moscow Saturday February 11, 2006 Guardian Gordon Brown will next week announce plans to create a modern-day Bletchley Park of experts working at unravelling terrorist finance networks just as wartime codebreakers collaborated on cracking Nazi codes. The chancellor will emphasise that cutting off the cash flow that subsidises terrorism will play a vital role in preventing further attacks. He will commit new money to establish the centre, which will bring together some of the top financial experts in the country, and will announce new measures to close loopholes exploited by terrorist moneymen. "As chancellor ... I have found myself immersed in measures designed to cut off the sources of terrorist finance," Mr Brown will say. "And I have discovered that this requires an international operation using modern methods of forensic accounting as imaginative and pathbreaking for our times as the Enigma codebreakers at Bletchley Park achieved more than half a century ago." Since 9/11, the UK has frozen #80m in terrorist assets, including money in more than 100 organisations linked to al-Qaida. This week, America blocked the US assets of five people and four groups based in Britain for alleged collections to a group that Washington suspects has ties to al-Qaida. Mr Brown wants his fellow rich-world finance ministers to prioritise the battle with terrorist financing at this weekend's G8 meeting that Russia is chairing in Moscow. He has also written to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which spearheads action against the abuse of the financial system by terrorists, to propose that the UK takes over the presidency of the body next year. The main theme of Mr Brown's speech to the Royal United Services Institute on Monday, will be the balance between security and liberty and the gradual move to a framework of stronger laws and powers to tackle terrorists. Specifically, Mr Brown will announce: 7 a review of measures to stop charities being abused by those financing terror; 7 proposals to tackle terrorist abuse of bureaux de change and wire transfers; 7 guidance to banks and financial institutions on how to fulfil their obligations to tackle suspicious transactions; 7 a commitment to continue strengthening the pre-emptive asset-freezing regime, with a review of the need for further new legislation or a single asset-freezing office. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'