-Caveat Lector- From http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$E0MJCFAAA EX1PQFIQMFCFFWAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2001/11/09/wqat09.xml
}}}>Begin Qatar shooting heightens fear of attack By Charles Clover in Doha (Filed: 09/11/2001) DELEGATES from around the world arriving for a high-level trade meeting in Qatar discovered yesterday that the Gulf capital had been turned into an armed camp, with hundreds of armed men deployed on the otherwise deserted streets. Security fears for the five-day World Trade Organisation meeting were heightened after a gunman was shot dead on Wednesday when he opened fire on an airbase used by American forces. Despite claims from the authorities that the man was mentally deranged, diplomatic sources said he was a member of the Qatari air force. The incident has deepened American fears that the meeting might be attacked. Intelligence briefings to American delegates have suggested that Islamic extremists have penetrated the Qatari armed forces. Yesterday, the American navy's helicopter ship Peleliu and two other vessels with 2,100 Marines on board moved into the Gulf off Qatar to offer security for the WTO meeting. An official said it was a precautionary move. Meanwhile, the authorities in Doha say the investigation into the shooting on Wednesday was a purely criminal affair. Asked if the attack was related to Osama bin Laden, the Qatari Attorney General, Abdullah al-Mal, said: "I am not a political analyst. But for us it is a criminal investigation which we are carrying out." Many US congressmen, businessmen and officials had already decided not to attend the meeting. They were told during classified security briefings last week that terrorist cells might be operating in the tiny Gulf state. It was suggested that anti-American Islamic fundamentalists may have infiltrated the military and that a suspected terrorist with expertise in truck bombing had entered Qatar in recent months. Those attending the briefings laid on by the Bush administration were told that on arrival in Doha they would receive an emergency pack, including a gas mask, medical supplies and a radio device for communication if delegates had to be evacuated to a ship offshore. The meeting will be attended by a large British delegation, including Patricia Hewitt, the Trade Secretary, Baroness Symons, Trade Minister, Clare Short, International Development Secretary, and Michael Meacher, Environment Minister. They have been given a lengthy security briefing by the Foreign Office. Qatar was originally chosen by the World Trade Organisation as the venue to wrong-foot anti-capitalist protesters who reduced its Seattle summit to chaos two years ago. Expensive flights, the small number of hotel rooms and the emirate's off-putting security forces were thought likely to deter the hordes of peaceful demonstrators and small but violent groups of anarchists. In the event, the war in Afghanistan raised the issue of moving the meeting to a new location, or scrapping it altogether, but Qatari authorities rushed to reassure WTO officials that their country was safe and secure. The summit is due to resume talks on a new round of trade liberalisation after the collapse of the Seattle talks nearly two years ago. Some delegates, such as Miss Hewitt, have already tried to use the events of September 11 to urge on the process of globalisation. She has argued that the suicide bombing of the World Trade Centre was an attack upon global trade. "So we must respond by launching a new trade round," she told an audience at the Foreign Press Association in London. According to Miss Hewitt, a successful conclusion to the five-day talks would give a fillip to the world's economy, boosting it by about $400 billion (£333 billion) a year, of which $150 billion would go to developing countries, three times what they receive in aid. Defiance of terrorism may yet prove to be the mood at Doha, but according to insiders there are as many, if not more, differences of opinion as there were before Seattle, where nothing was resolved. Agreement in the WTO is by consensus, which means that one country, such as Japan, can block progress and the developing world plays a much more powerful role than it did under the forerunner of the WTO, the GATT. A failure to agree a new round of tariff reductions would be a blow to the global economy at a sensitive moment and to score such goals as reforming Europe's Common Agricultural Policy. The environment will also be an issue, with Michael Meacher, the only European environment minister who will be attending the conference, saying yesterday that it would have to decide which took precedence, the world's environmental agreements, such as the Kyoto climate treaty, or the WTO's rule. Many developing countries, with far fewer officials than the big delegations of the First World, are already convinced that the agenda has been fixed. © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2001. End<{{{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many generations. 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