UK to use extremist database to vet entries

The UK is to draw up a list of extremists who will face vetting before they will be allowed into the UK.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke told MPs that a global database of individuals would be created which would list what he termed "unacceptable behaviour". This will include radical views expressed either verbally as in preaching or in writing that may promote terrorism.

Mr Clarke confirmed that the identities of the London bombing victims had been confirmed, but he refused to rule out the possibility that there may be other victims and that the death toll could rise.

He told MPs that 27 people were still in hospital being treated for serious injuries. He also said that three of the four locations where bombs had exploded were still being treated as crime scenes.

The Home Secretary told the House that an agreement had been reached with Jordanian authorities over the extradition of Jordanian nationals suspected of supporting terrorism. Under this arrangement cleric Abu Qatada, a Jordanian by birth, may be deported.

He outlined the main principles underlying the recent tri-party agreement reached by the main UK political parties for legislation to be laid before parliament later this year. The legislation will outlaw preparatory acts, indirect incitement and giving or receiving training in connection with terrorist activities.

Today, London's Mayor Ken Livingstone pointed the finger at western policies in the Middle East since the First World War as the most likely motivation behind the London bombings.

Speaking in an interview for the BBC Mr Livingstone said: "I think you've just had 80 years of western intervention in predominantly Arab lands because of the western need for oil."

He also said that Osama Bin Laden had been recruited and trained by the US at a time when the Russians had occupied Afghanistan, without any thought that he might "turn on his creators."

Referring to Guantanamo Bay, Mr Livingstone said that a lot of young people see what he said were "the double standards" of Western governments' and think that there is no "just foreign policy".

The London Mayor denounced suicide bombers and "those governments which use indiscriminate slaughter to advance their foreign policy."

(SP/GB)