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Bob Quick, Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer, resigned on Thursday after he inadvertently leaked details of an imminent anti-terror operation shortly before police swooped on 12 suspects.
Boris Johnson, London’s mayor, said he had accepted the police chief’s resignation with “great reluctance and sadness’’. He said that Assistant Commissioner John Yates would take over the role.
Mr Quick, an assistant commissioner in charge of the counter-terror unit at Scotland Yard, had been photographed going into Downing Street on Wednesday carrying a dossier in full view. It clearly revealed details of co-ordinated raids to arrest alleged al-Qaeda-linked activists believed to be planning an attack in the UK.
Within hours of the picture’s release, the North West Counter-Terrorism Unit mounted raids in Manchester, Liverpool and Lancashire. Twelve men were arrested in seven locations under the Terrorism Act during a co-ordinated operation that started at 5.30pm. Hundreds of officers from the Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Lancashire forces raided eight addresses. MI5 officers were also understood to be taking part and searches were continuing last night.
After press photographers captured Mr Quick’s dossier, the media were requested not to publish the pictures in a rare D-notice issued by the Ministry of Defence to safeguard national security.
But there was speculation that the possibility of a leak of police plans, and even knowledge of Mr Quick’s arrival at Downing Street, had caused the police to accelerate the anti-terror operation for fear that the suspects could be alerted.
Mr Quick had gone to Downing Street to brief a high-level meeting, chaired by Gordon Brown, prime minister, about the anti-terror operation.
Among the papers under his arm was a white briefing document marked “secret”. The information it contained included the secret operation code, names of participating forces and senior officers, locations of the raids, the number of suspects sought for detention and details about the threat.
The Met said: “[Mr Quick] has openly said he made a mistake in leaving a document in open view and has apologised to the commissioner and colleagues.”
However, police refused to confirm links between the security breach and the raids.
On Wednesday afternoon armed counter-terrorism officers raided four addresses in the Cheetham Hill area of Manchester, including an internet café, while others targeted a building at Liverpool John Moores University, houses near Liverpool University and a guest house in Clitheroe, Lancashire. One suspect was detained on the M602 in suburban Manchester.
Det Chief Supt Tony Porter, head of the North West CTU, said: “Today’s action is part of a continuing investigation and we have acted on intelligence received.”
Police declined to confirm reports that those arrested were Pakistani nationals or indicate whether a terror attack had been imminent.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ecd3a872-2466-11de-9a01-00144feabdc0.html
Robert Gates, US defence secretary, unveiled a sweeping overhaul of defence priorities on Monday, taking an axe to several high-profile weapons programmes as part of his spending proposals.
Mr Gates said the Pentagon would place more emphasis on “irregular” warfare as he outlined a series of cuts and changes as part of President Barack Obama’s $534bn defence budget.
“We must rebalance this department’s programmes in order to institutionalize and finance our capabilities to fight the wars we are in today and the scenarios we are most likely to face,” he said.
While Congress will try to alter some of the plans, Mr Gates proposed dramatic changes, including cancelling a deal to build a presidential helicopter. Lockheed’s VH-71 helicopter programme, based on a design by AgustaWestland, the UK subsidiary of Italy’s Finmeccanica, has seen its costs soar since the companies won an initial contract in January 2005.
The initial contract, worth $3.8bn, was for nine helicopters, of which seven have already been delivered. Mr Obama signalled this year that the contract was in danger when he said it had “gone amok”.
Mr Gates also proposed ending production of the F-22 Raptor fighter jet at 187 aircraft. While that would affect Lockheed Martin, the company would benefit from a separate proposal to increase production next year of the F-35 Lightning II fighter jet, which will also be bought by US allies, including the UK.
The Pentagon chief also ordered major cuts in missile defence systems, while restructuring the overall programme to focus on threats posed by “rogue” missile threats such as from North Korea. Pyongyang this weekend fired a long-range rocket over Japan in a failed satellite launch.
Shares in the major defence contractors gained after the announcement. Analysts said investors saw the news as positive because it had put an end to months of uncertainty. Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman both saw gains of about nine per cent.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/651b8cec-22e5-11de-9c99-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
Employers will have to pay more into the Pension Protection Fund during good economic times to offset lower payments in a recession, under changes to the scheme set to be looked at by the body that provides the official safety net for pension schemes.
Alan Rubenstein, new chief executive of the PPF, said “counter-cyclical” insurance premiums could provide a break for businesses, adding that the fund was sympathetic to complaints from employers about the rising costs of pensions
“There is a thought that we should be much more counter- cyclical than we are now,” he said in his first interview since becoming chief executive last week. “If so, we would hold the levy – even in nominal terms – but raise it by more than the rate of inflation in future years.”
Mr Rubenstein said the subject was under discussion within the PPF and would have to be formally considered and approved by the full board.
If the board decided to adopt the proposal, he said, it would mean increasing premiums by more than inflation when times were flush but holding them in check when they were hard.
So far, the PPF has said it aims to hold the levy steady in real terms – rising only in line with wage inflation – until 2010-11. The fund raised £675m from employers last year and has said it would raise that to £700m this year, reflecting a 3.6 per cent rise in average wages. Holding that level into next year would mean a cut in employers’ costs in real terms.
The PPF was created to protect pension promises made by employers that later become insolvent, leaving behind an underfunded scheme. Currently, it has agreed to protect pension benefits for 31,191 people and is paying out benefits of about £4m a month.
However, the severe recession has raised concerns from some quarters that the PPF’s solvency itself is under threat. Last week, it assumed responsibility for its 100th scheme and there are another 290 schemes of insolvent employers being considered for admission.
Mr Rubenstein dismissed suggestions that the PPF was close to collapse as “nonsense”.
Because it is not a commercial insurer that can raise premiums when claims rise, the PPF is equally not bound by the requirement to have assets on hand at all times that are in excess of the sums it must pay out.
Although the PPF is carrying a deficit of about £500m, Mr Rubenstein scoffs at the idea that the spate of companies failing could sink the fund, saying: “I don’t believe another big claim tips us from solvency to insolvency.”
Moreover, the PPF’s liquidity is bolstered every time it guarantees the benefits of a scheme because the investments of the entrant are immediately added to its own.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5d67b92e-222e-11de-8380-00144feabdc0.html
2ND UPDATE: Sarkozy: G20 Results "Beyond His Expectations"
LONDON (Dow Jones)--French President Nicolas Sarkozy Thursday said the results of the Group of 20 leading industrial and developing nations' summit, which pledged to toughen up financial regulation and overhaul market supervision, were "beyond his expectations."
G20 countries Thursday agreed to reform the organization of the international financial system in depth, by regulating hedge funds and registering credit agencies, overhauling accounting rules and setting guidelines to cap bankers' pay.
The G20 nations also agreed to a crackdown on tax havens, asking the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to publish a list of tax havens, and promising to enforce sanctions on noncompliant countries. This was a long-standing demand of the French side.
France and Germany raised the stakes Wednesday in the run-up to the summit, saying an overhaul of global financial oversight was a "nonnegotiable" take away from the gathering and dismissing calls for further stimulus packages.
"We would never have hoped to get so much. This is not the victory of one camp against the other, but shows the growing awareness that the world needs to change", Sarkozy said.
"This was France's and Germany's priority, and it has been listed as the G20's second objective" in the final communique, he said.
Strengthening financial regulation is essential to restoring confidence, which in turn will fuel growth, the French president added, underlining that the G20 identified the shortcomings of financial supervision as the root cause of the current crisis.
"Controlling hedge funds doesn't create a job in the French textile industry...but this turns the page of the madness of all those years of deregulation," he said. "This is without precedent."
France and Germany have been reluctant to spend more to stave off recession at home due to deteriorating public finances, while countries such as the U.S and Japan have pushed for stimulus efforts to be stepped up to face the downturn.
Sarkozy said discussions had been tense at times during the summit, particularly on tax havens. France and Germany were adamant the G20 should clamp down on non cooperative centers by publishing a list of non compliant countries and spelling out sanctions, a move resisted by China in particular.
But it was unclear until the end of the summit whether both countries would get their way. The final communique fell short of publishing an actual list, yet called on the Organization of economic cooperation and development to do so - which Sarkozy said would happen within hours.
"The Chinese have a tradition of refusing to accept the rules of organizations they don't belong to...but the Chinese president was kind enough to note that referring to an OECD list in the G20 statement was establishing a link...which I consider as compulsory," the French president noted, adding that U.S. president Obama had helped him win over China to his position during the talks. China isn't a member of the OECD.
"The era of bank secrecy has ended," Sarkozy said.
Asked how Switzerland, which recently relaxed its bank secrecy rules, would rank on the OECD list, the French president said it would be on a "gray" list, with compliant countries featuring on a "white" list and noncompliant countries on a "black" one.
"If Switzerland didn't complete its move (towards more transparency), it would fall into the black list," Sarkozy said. He said OECD rules would also apply to Andorra, Monaco and Luxembourg, countries bordering France which have long cultivated bank secrecy.
The G20 also agreed to better regulate hedge funds, by forcing them to register and increase transparency on the way they invest, as well as by controlling banks' capital exposure to hedge funds. The G20 also promised to increase the oversight on credit rating agencies, which will have to register too.
Accounting rules will be reformed in order to reduce their procyclical impact and financial institutions will have to keep on their balance sheet a percentage of the securitized products they sell, which should exceed 5%, Sarkozy said.
World leaders at the G20 summit on Thursday are ducking the critical issue of cleaning up the toxic assets poisoning the banking system and risk prolonging the worst global recession in generations, the International Monetary Fund chief warned on Wednesday.
On the eve of a summit aiming to agree a “global plan for recovery and reform”, Dominique Strauss-Kahn told the Financial Times that the fund’s experience from 122 banking crises suggested “that you never recover before the cleaning up of the banking sector has been done”.
Taro Aso has dismissed Angela Merkel’s warnings about the risks of excessive public spending in the global downturn, saying Germany has failed to understand why strong fiscal action is vital for recovery.
The Japanese prime minister’s remarks – made in an interview with the Financial Times – underline the wide differences among world leaders as they head to London for Thursday’s G20 meeting on the global slump.
The Obama administration on Monday ratcheted up the government’s involvement in the US auto industry, raising the spectre of bankruptcy if debtholders, unions and executives at General Motors and Chrysler fail to make new sacrifices.
Condemning “a failure of leadership” from Washington to Detroit for the decline of America’s carmakers, President Barack Obama rejected the turnround plans GM and Chrysler presented to his administration last month. He said the government would fund GM for 60 days as it tries to put together a more aggressive restructuring programme. He gave smaller Chrysler 30 days to strike an acceptable rescue alliance with Italian carmaker Fiat.
President Barack Obama is voicing optimism that this week’s crucial G20 summit will set the framework for recovery, saying that world leaders know they must “deliver a strong message of unity” for the sake of the global economy.
Speaking to the Financial Times on the eve of what some believe will be the most fateful economic summit in decades – but which others dismiss as a talking shop that will do little to halt further global contraction – Mr Obama played down talk of a split between the US and the leading continental European economies, notably Germany and France.
Barclays’ loan book is in the final stages of an extreme stress test by City regulators as it weighs up whether it needs to seek taxpayer help by joining the government’s insurance scheme which ringfences toxic assets.
The Financial Times has learnt that the Financial Services Authority will conclude its detailed trawl through the bank’s books in the next few days and it has indicated that Barclays does not need any fresh capital.