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LONDON - Police are urgently hunting for four presumed would-be suicide attackers after a virtually identical repeat of the July 7 London bombings only avoided fresh carnage when the explosives apparently failed to detonate fully.

The swift succession of events on Thursday lunchtime, when bombers targeted three Underground subway trains and a double-decker bus, was a chilling echo of the July 7 attacks except that those happened in the morning rush hour.

Unlike the devastation of a fortnight before, when 56 people died and more than 700 were injured, Thursday's repeat attacks caused no casualties as the rucksack-borne bombs seemingly failed to detonate fully.

Witnesses reported hearing loud pops like guns or corks as smoke poured from the rucksacks, testimony which experts said indicated that the bombs' detonators went off but failed to ignite the main charges.

Comment: Four rucksack bombs, and they all failed to detonate?? Isn't that just a bit too lucky?

"Clearly the intention must have been to kill. You don't do this with any other intention," the head of London's Metropolitan Police, Ian Blair, said on Thursday.

Commuters warily returned to the Underground network, although the three stations involved in Thursday's incidents remained closed -- along with those stricken by the July 7 blasts.

Officers refused to give details of their investigation, but the evidence from witnesses strongly indicated that the latest attacks, like those of July 7, were planned as suicide attacks.

One London businessman recounted coming face to face with a dazed man lying on the floor on top of his smoking rucksack, seemingly in a state of shock at still being alive.

Abisha Moyo told the Daily Mail newspaper that he was on a subway train near Shepherd's Bush station in west London, the site of the first reported near-simultaneous train blasts, when he was startled by a loud bang.

He saw a young, smartly-dressed man lying face up on top of a rucksack.

"He had his eyes shut and there was a puff of smoke coming from the bag," Moyo said, recounting how the man eventually regained his senses and fled from the train.

At almost exactly the same time, passengers on trains at two other stations, Oval to the south and Warren Street in the centre, reported similar incidents.

Ivan McCracken, on the train at Warren Street, said fellow passengers described seeing a man carrying a rucksack which exploded.

"It was a minor explosion but enough to blow open the rucksack. The man then made an exclamation as if something had gone wrong. At that point everyone rushed from the carriage."

A similar event at Oval station sparked a dramatic chase during which the young presumed bomber wriggled free from pursuers on the platform before being tackled by a florist just outside the station but escaping again.

About an hour later, the driver of a Number 26 bus driving through Shoreditch, just east of the centre, reported hearing a loud bang on the top deck of the vehicle followed by a pall of smoke.

Fearing the worst -- 14 peopled died when a Number 30 bus was blown up on July 7 -- driver Mark Maybanks ventured to the top deck and found a small black rucksack, which he presumed was the bomb.

"I've never been so frightened as when I went up the stairs. After what happened earlier this month I didn't know what I would find," he was quoted as saying by the Sun newspaper.

According to a series of newspaper reports, police have recovered all four rucksack bombs, giving them a potentially huge boost in tracking down the perpetrators, as well perhaps as those who helped the four British Muslim suicide bombers who died in the July 7 attacks.

Officers refused to discuss the evidence, but police commissioner Blair said he felt "very positive" that the clues could give vital pointers.

"We do believe that this may represent a significant breakthrough in the sense that there is obviously forensic material at these scenes which may be very helpful to us," he said.

Comment: Again, what a stroke of luck!

Magnus Ranstorp, director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland, said the bombs may have been a "bad batch" or badly wired.

"I think there could be the possibility that the material was degraded or they did not wire it correctly," he told AFP.

Prime Minister Tony Blair urged Londoners on Thursday to repeat their much-praised attitude of July 7 and carry on as normal.

The attackers were trying to "intimidate people and to scare them and to frighten them to stop them going about their normal business," he said after talks with Australian Prime Minister John Howard at Downing Street.

Today is the last day of parliament before an 80 day break. So if the government wanted to get those anti-terror measures through which were proposed after the 7/7 bombing, then this status of high alert is the perfect climate to get them rammed through without dissent.

Sky News reported that members of parliament could be recalled tonight in a special session for the express purpose of passing that legislation.

And what does the legislation include? Designating anyone who writes articles or puts out a website that advocates or gives aid and comfort to the terrorists.

So you have a situation whereby they could say that someone like myself writing articles accusing the government of involvement, has a negative impact on the public's trust of the government in fighting the war on terror and therefore aids the terrorists.

The definition is so loose that they could classify what we do on this website as aiding terrorists.

When of course all we're really doing is shining a spotlight on the real terrorists and attempting to save both lives and liberties.

The government is setting up a database of undersirables to be watched under this legislation.

In the early confusion about what is actually happening in London, several things are already clear.

- This immediately stalls questions about the first bombing. The mainstream media were finally beginning to highlight the fact that the government's official story did not fit together. This takes those issues off the front pages.

- This further promulgates the fearmongering and creates a pliable public that is willing to accept draconian anti-terror laws. They are trying to turn us into Israel, with an alert or a bombing every fortnight.

- On the very day that the Patriot Act is due to be renewed, Bush can use the alert level to grease the skids and bully Congress into re-authorizing the bill.

Related: Bush sees London attacks as reason for Patriot Act

Some early reports from the scene of the incidents are very interesting.

Reports are that Arabs were seen running from the sitesof the explosion. London's population is 20% Arab. If a bomb exploded near you, would you run? One of the Arabs is reported as saying "what is wrong with these people?" which suggests he was just scared but was immediately identified as a scapegoat.

Sky News is showing scenes of random Arabs being arrested. Watch for the fearmongering of 'four terrorists on the loose waiting to attack' - this will enable emergency stop and search powers to be used. How likely is it that all four bombs would fail to detonate?

ITN news reported that one of the suspected suicide bombers was arrested and taken into Whitehall. Why would somebody so potentially dangerous be taken into a government building and not to the police station? [...]

LONDON - Four attempted bombings on London's transport system on Thursday look like an intended carbon-copy of attacks that killed 56 people two weeks ago and may be masterminded by the same group, security analysts said.

They put forward two main scenarios behind the latest blasts, which were much smaller than the previous ones, and did not cause any fatalities.

The first, more benign explanation, was that the attacks were carried out by "imitative amateurs" intent on mounting a copycat strike by targeting three underground trains and a bus in a cross-formation across the city.

The second, more worrying, was that the same group behind the suspected al Qaeda-linked attacks on July 7 had struck again, albeit with far less devastating effect.

Police refused to be drawn on which was more likely.

"Whether or not this is directly connected, in the sense of carried out by the same group of people, however loosely knit that is, I think that's going to take just a little bit longer before we can qualify that," police chief Ian Blair said.

But he added: "Clearly, the intention must have been to kill."

"TERRORIST PSYCHOLOGY"

Whoever was behind Thursday's attacks, they managed to manufacture four explosive devices and smuggle them on to the London transport network despite the highest levels of security and public watchfulness in London for years.

Comment: How indeed did the "terrorists" manage to smuggle four more bombs through the tightest security in years?

If the same group was responsible for two waves of coordinated attacks two weeks apart, it would show an alarming ease in mobilising fresh operatives -- perhaps even would-be suicide bombers -- to follow the example of the four bombers who blew themselves up on July 7.

"The more we know about the bomb attack two weeks ago, the more skilful it looks, well planned -- the people behind it know what they're doing," said Michael Clarke, security expert at King's College London.

Comment: One might even suspect that the recent operations were so skillfully executed that they would require the expertise, coordination, and resources of a major intelligence organization.

"It is entirely plausible that they will have planned a campaign, not just one bomb. It's part of terrorist psychology that one bomb is never enough."

Former U.S. intelligence official Robert Ayers, a security analyst at respected London think tank, the Chatham House institute, said he thought it more likely the same group was behind both attacks than that a second, independent group had now emerged.

"What I've been saying all along is that you had four guys that died (in the July 7 bombings), but the infrastructure that trained them, equipped them, funded them, pointed them at the right target -- the infrastructure's still in place."

Comment: Well, this most recent statement from the Chatham House institute is quite an about face. From the July 18, 2005 Signs page:

The Royal Institute of International Affairs, known as Chatham House, concluded in a report that the war in Iraq gave a "boost" to Al-Qaeda and made Britain especially vulnerable to attacks -- a theory that clashed with Blair's belief that there is no link with the July 7 bombings.

"There is no doubt that the situation over Iraq has imposed particular difficulties for the UK, and for the wider coalition against terrorism," said the London-based research centre in its study, "Riding Pillion for Tackling Terrorism is a High-risk Policy".

"It gave a boost to the Al-Qaeda network's propaganda, recruitment and fundraising," Chatham House said, arguing that it also provided an ideal training area for Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists and deflected resources that could have gone to help bring terror mastermind
Osama bin Laden to justice. [...]

And the July 19, 2005 Signs page:

Chatham House also heavily criticised the British government's anti-terrorism strategy, accusing it of working shoulder-to-shoulder with the United States as a back seat passenger rather than an equal decision maker.

It seems these recent attacks, as "lucky" and "amateur" as they may be, are quickly stifling any dissent.

If the same group was involved, the obvious question is why the first wave of attacks was so professional and deadly and the second apparently so amateur.

UNUSED EXPLOSIVES

Ayers noted that police had recovered unused explosives from various sites including a hire car abandoned by the July 7 bombers at Luton, near London.

"One speculation I've had all along is that they left those explosives in the car for another group to pick up and carry out a second attack, but when they got there the car had already been taken over by the police, so they've had to cobble something together fairly quickly," he said. [...]

The analysts said the impact of a second attack, although less deadly than the first, would be highly disruptive to life and business in Europe's biggest financial center.

Navin Reddy, strategic risk analyst at consultancy Merchant International Group, said "every half-baked terrorist in the country" would be looking at committing similar attacks.

"Given that the intelligence services will be unable to track groups that act independently of the major terror organizations they do watch, this raises the risk level," he said.

"The events of today and July 7 are having a distinct economic impact on the running of the capital. They have disrupted the transport system and they have tied up the emergency services.

"The longer-term trickle effect on the nation's pyschology and missed business opportunities could mount up," he added.

LONDON, July 22 (Xinhuanet) -- A group linked to the al Qaeda terrorist organization has claimed responsibility for Thursday's bombings in London, as forensic teams are examining the rucksack bombs found on a bus and in underground trains.

The group named as Abu Hafs al Masri Brigade, also claimed responsibility for the explosions on July 7, the Sky news television reported Friday.

But the authenticity of the statement was not verified yet.

Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia ambassador to London, was quoted by Sky news as believing that Thursday's attacks are linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

"The modus operandi, the sheer cowardice associated with them and the attacks on innocent civilians - these are all part and parcel of al Qaeda," he said.

On Thursday, four explosions took place almost simultaneously at three underground stations and a No. 26 bus in east London. They mirrored the attacks two weeks ago, in which more than 56 people were killed and over 700 people injured in blasts on three underground railway trains and a bus in London.

Three of the four devices found on Thursday are thought to be of a similar size and weight to the bombs used in the July 7 attacks. The fourth was smaller and appears to have been contained in a small plastic box.

Police said the device on the bus was in a newish-looking black Fitness First rucksack. Officers found it in a footwell on the topdeck of the double-deck bus. On the seat next to the rucksack they found a Duracell battery and some red wire.

Police received reports of people running away from two of the attempted blast sites.

At least two people were arrested on Thursday afternoon, including one in Downing Street, but they were released later without charge.

Reports suggested that only the detonators on the four devices went off. Detectives investigating the attacks are working on the basis that the bombs were not properly primed.

Police are appealing for witnesses to come with evidence and statements to several locations or call anti-terrorist hotline. They are also asking people with photos or mobile phone images from any of the incident scenes to send them on-line.

Police have killed a suspected suicide bomber at a Tube station in south London.

Armed officers opened fire up to six times on the suspect as he hurdled a ticket barrier and raced along a platform at Stockwell station.

Police screamed at passengers to evacuate and are thought to have shot the suspect as he stumbled on to a train.

Alarmed onlookers said they saw up to 10 plain-clothed officers chasing an Asian-looking man before opening fire.

Passenger Briony Coetsee said: "We were on the tube and then we suddenly heard someone say 'get out, get out' and then we heard gunshots."

Unconfirmed reports suggest the man was involved in Thursday's assault on the capital.

If the suspect is proved to be a suicide bomber, it would mark the fifth attempted terrorist attack on London in less than a day.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "We can confirm that just after 10am armed officers shot a male at Stockwell Underground station.

"A man was challenged by officers and subsequently shot. London Ambulance Service attended the scene. He was pronounced dead at the scene."

Police are believed to be under orders to shoot to kill if they believe someone is about to detonate a bomb.

Sky News Crime Correspondent Martin Brunt said: "The officer or officers involved in this clearly felt this suspect was about to detonate a bomb."

Tube services on the Victoria and Northern lines were suspended at the request of police.

An earlier bomb threat targeting a mosque in east London has been given the all-clear by police.

[...] Passengers said a man, described as South Asian, ran onto a train at Stockwell station in south London. Witnesses said police chased him, he tripped, and police then shot him.

"They pushed him onto the floor and unloaded five shots into him. He's dead," witness Mark Whitby told the British Broadcasting Corp. "He looked like a cornered fox. He looked petrified."

Whitby said the man didn't appear to have been carrying anything but said he was wearing a thick coat that looked padded. [...]

WASHINGTON, United States - The House of Representatives has voted to renew the USA Patriot Act, the controversial package of laws passed in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

The House passed the USA Patriot and Terrorism Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2005 by a vote of 257-171.

President George W. Bush hailed the enhanced investigative powers given to US law enforcement under the Patriot Act as an indispensable tool in forestalling new acts of terror

"I commend the House for voting to reauthorize provisions of the Patriot Act that are set to expire this year," said Bush.

"The Patriot Act has enhanced information sharing between law enforcement and intelligence personnel, updated the law to adapt to changes in technology, and provided critical tools to investigate terrorists that have been used for years in cases against organized crime and drug dealers," Bush said.

The president urged the US legislature to quickly send to the White House a final version of the bill for his signature.

"The Patriot Act is a key part of our effort to combat terrorism and protect the American people, and the Congress needs to send me a bill soon that renews the act without weakening our ability to fight terror," said Bush.

The Patriot Act, which was passed six weeks after the September 11 attacks on the United States, contained several temporary measures which required a new congressional vote or faced expiration by December 31 of this year.

Thursday's House vote made 14 temporary provisions of the legislation permanent and extended two others that had been scheduled to lapse at the end of the year.

Civil libertarians have strongly opposed the measures, which give law enforcement officials access to educational, financial and medical records without having to show probable cause of a crime.

It also allows police and prosecutors to access details of an individual's Internet activities and correspondence without probable cause or consent, among other measures. [...]

Similar reauthorization legislation is to be taken up shortly by the US Senate.

The United States long ago ceased to be anything like a living, thriving republic. But it retained the legal form of a republic, and that counted for something: As long as the legal form still existed, even as a gutted shell, there was hope it might be filled again one day with substance.

But now the very legal structures of the Republic are being dismantled. The principle of arbitrary rule by an autocratic leader is being openly established, through a series of unchallenged executive orders, perverse Justice Department rulings and court decisions by sycophantic judges who defer to power -- not law -- in their determinations. What we are witnessing is the creation of a "commander-in-chief state," where the form and pressure of law no longer apply to the president and his designated agents. The rights of individuals are no longer inalienable, nor are their persons inviolable; all depends on the good will of the Commander, the military autocrat.

President George W. Bush has granted himself the power to declare anyone on earth -- including any U.S. citizen -- an "enemy combatant," for any reason he sees fit. He can render them up for torture, he can imprison them for life, he can even have them killed, all without charges, with no burden of proof, no standards of evidence, no legislative oversight, no appeal, no judicial process whatsoever except those that he himself deigns to construct, with whatever limitations he cares to impose. Nor can he ever be prosecuted for any order he issues, however criminal; in the new American system laid out by Bush's legal minions, the Commander is sacrosanct, beyond the reach of any law or constitution.

This is not hyperbole. It is simply the reality of the United States today. The principle of unrestricted presidential power is now being codified into law and incorporated into the institutional structures of the state, as the web log Deep Blade Journal reports in a compendium of recent outrages against liberty.

For example, last Friday, a panel of federal judges -- including John Roberts, nominated for the Supreme Court this week -- upheld Bush's claim to dispose of "enemy combatants" any way he pleases, The Washington Post reports. In a chilling decision, the judges ruled that the Commander's arbitrarily designated "enemies" are nonpersons: Neither the Geneva Conventions nor American military and domestic law apply to such garbage. Bush is now free to subject anyone he likes to his self-concocted "military tribunal" system, a brutal sham that retired top U.S. military officials have denounced as a "kangaroo court" that tyrants around the world will cite in order to hide their oppression under U.S. precedent.

The kowtowing court ruling ignores the fact that the Geneva Conventions -- which lay down strict guidelines for the handling of any person detained by military forces, regardless of the captive's status -- have been incorporated into the U.S. legal code, Deep Blade points out. They cannot be abrogated by presidential fiat. And anyone who commits a "grave breach" of the Conventions by facilitating the killing, torture or inhuman treatment of detainees (e.g., stripping them of all legal status and subjecting them to rigged tribunals) is subject to the death penalty under U.S. law.

This is why the Bush Faction labored so mightily to advance the absurd fiction that the Geneva Conventions are somehow voluntary -- while simultaneously promulgating the sinister Fuhrerprinzip of unlimited presidential authority. The fiction was a temporary sop to the crumbling legal form of the Republic, a cynical perversion of existing law to keep justice at bay until the Fuhrerprinzip could be firmly established as the new foundation of the state.

It doesn't matter anymore if the president's orders to suspend the Conventions, construct a worldwide gulag, torture captives, spy on Americans, fabricate intelligence and wage aggressive war are illegal under the "quaint" strictures of the old dispensation; the courts, packed with Bushist cadres, are now affirming the new order, the "critical authority" of the Commander, beyond law and morality, on the higher plane of what Bush calls "the path of action."

This phrase -- with its remarkable Mussolinian echoes -- was incorporated into the official "National Security Strategy of the United States," promulgated by Bush in September 2002. That document in turn was drawn largely from a manifesto issued in September 2000 by a Bush Faction group whose members included Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Jeb Bush. Their detailed plan envisioned the transformation of America into a militarized state: planting "military footprints" throughout Central Asia and the Middle East, invading Iraq, expanding the nuclear arsenal, massively increasing the defense budget -- and predicating all these "revolutionary" changes on the hopes for "a new Pearl Harbor" that would "catalyze" the lazy American public into supporting their militarist agenda.

This agenda is designed, the group said, to establish "full spectrum dominance" over geopolitical affairs, assuring control of world energy resources and precluding the rise of "any potential global rival" that might threaten the unchecked wealth and privilege of the U.S. elite. The rule of law could only be a hindrance to such a scheme, hence its replacement by the Fuhrerprinzip and the "path of action."

There has been virtually no institutional resistance to this open coup d'etat. It's now clear that the American Establishment -- and a significant portion of the American people -- have given up on the democratic experiment. They no longer wish to govern themselves; they want to be ruled by "strong leaders" who will "do whatever it takes" to protect them from harm and keep them in clover. They have sold their golden birthright of American liberty for a mess of coward's pottage.

US INVESTIGATORS, including CIA agents, will be allowed interrogate Irish citizens on Irish soil in total secrecy, under an agreement signed between Ireland and the US last week.

Suspects will also have to give testimony and allow property to be searched and seized even if what the suspect is accused of is not a crime in Ireland.

Under 'instruments of agreement' signed last week by Justice Minister Michael McDowell, Ireland and the US pledged mutual co-operation in the investigation of criminal activity. It is primarily designed to assist America's so-called 'war on terror' in the wake of the September 11 atrocities.

The deal was condemned yesterday by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) as "an appalling signal of how the rights of Irish citizens are considered by the minister when engaging in international relations". The ICCL said it appeared to go far beyond even what has been agreed between EU countries.

On signing the agreement, the minister said that "the international community must do everything it can to combat terrorism with every means at its disposal.

"Ireland will not be found wanting," he added.

The treaty will give effect to agreements on Mutual Legal Assistance and Extradition signed by the EU and the US in June 2003. These are aimed at building on mutual assistance and extradition arrangements.

Although the Department of Justice insists that the arrangement merely updates existing agreements, it goes much further. The US may ask Irish authorities:

• To track down people in Ireland.
• Transfer prisoners in Irish custody to the US.
• Carry out searches and seize evidence on behalf of the US Government.

It also allows US authorities access to an Irish suspect's confidential bank information. The Irish authorities must keep all these activities secret if asked to do so by the US.

The person who will request co-operation is US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the man who, as White House counsel, instigated the notorious 'torture memo' to US President George W Bush which advised how far CIA agents could go in torturing prisoners. The person to whom the request is sent is the Minister for Justice.

About 20,000 immigrants, who have not been charged with any crime, are currently in prison in the US. In two recent US Supreme Court cases, the US Government argued that US citizens could be imprisoned indefinitely without charge if the president designated them as "enemy combatants".

ICCL director Aisling Reidy said: "An extraordinary aspect to this treaty is, despite its scope and its potential to violate basic constitutional and human rights, that all this happened without debate or transparency.

"To agree to give such powers to a government which has allowed detention of its own citizens without access to a lawyer for over a year, which has legitimised Guantanamo Bay and the interrogation techniques there, without public debate, is an appalling signal of how highly or not the rights of Irish citizens are considered by the minister when engaging in international relations."

The Department of Justice said it was wrong to say the treaty happened without debate, as the agreements update and supplement existing arrangements, and the EU-US agreement has been scrutinised by the Oireachtas four times since December 2002.

A spokesperson also rejected that the measures go beyond what was agreed between EU countries.

Legislation will be required to give effect to some elements of the Mutual Legal Assistance Instrument. The necessary provisions will be contained in the Criminal Justice (Mutual Assistance) Bill which Mr McDowell expects to publish shortly.

Individuals who cope well with stress after trauma usually are described as being "thick skinned," but new research reveals the thickness is in their brains, not in their skin.

Scientists determined that resilient people tend to have a thick ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), which is near the front of the brain. Conversely, this region tends to be thin for those who experience a lot of anxiety.

The discovery will enable doctors to predict who is at risk for stress-related disorders, which could lead to better treatments and may even determine who is best suited for certain careers and activities.

"For instance, an individual with a thin vmPFC might wish to avoid high risk professions such as policeman, firefighter or soldier," said Scott Rauch, co-author of the study, which recently appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Rauch, who is associate chief of psychiatry for neuroscience research at Massachusetts General Hospital, and his colleagues made the determination after testing 14 healthy volunteers.

Volunteers looked at digital photographs of furnished rooms that contained lamps. Whenever the lamps lit up in colors, the test subjects would receive an electrical shock that each participant previously rated as "highly annoying but not painful."

A monitor measured skin moisture levels, or flop sweat, released during this fear-conditioning test.

The volunteers then underwent a "fear extinction" process, where they saw the same photos and lights, but received no shocks. This shockless test was repeated while the volunteers had an MRI brain scan.

The scan results then were compared to the skin moisture readings, which enabled the researchers to link the brain images to anxiety levels.

The MRIs revealed that volunteers whose conditioned fear of the flashing lights diminished during the fear extinction test phases each had a thick vmPFC.

Gregory Quirk, associate professor of neuroscience at Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico, has performed similar MRI research on rodents.

"This finding is extremely important because it builds on data from rodents indicating that individual variability in fear responses is correlated with activity levels of neurons in the prefrontal cortex," Quirk told Discovery News.

When thick, this part of the brain appears to function like a fear helmet that protects against stress.

"Increase in the size, number or connections of neurons within the ventral medial prefrontal cortex may allow this particular brain region to have stronger inhibitory influence on brain regions that generate the conditioned fear responses in the first place," Rauch said. [...]

BEIJING - China revalued its currency and scrapped the yuan's decade-old peg to the dollar in favor of a managed float against a basket of currencies, caving in to intense pressure from trading partners led by the United States.

The currency was fixed at 8.11 yuan to the dollar compared to the old rate of 8.2765 yuan, effectively a two percent revaluation, China's central bank, the People's Bank of China, (PBOC) announced on its website.

The bank added it was scrapping the yuan peg to the US dollar and setting the Chinese unit against a trade-weighted basket of currencies, but did not reveal what these currencies were. [...]

China's trade partners, which had criticized it for undervaluing the yuan, giving its exports an unfair trade advantage, welcomed the move Thursday, with a White House spokesman saying the United States was "encouraged." [...]

South Korea however said the move fell short of expectations and will have little impact on trade while Singapore said China's changes "will not have a major impact on the Singapore dollar or on our exchange rate regime." [...]

US Treasury Secretary John Snow had warned China that if it did not move on its currency by mid-October, the White House was prepared to name China as a currency manipulator, a move that might have led to trade retaliation.

Congress had threatened to pass a bill to slap a 27 percent punitive tariff on imports of textiles from China if it failed to act. [...]

But they said the move was mostly a symbolic gesture, timed to take the pressure off Chinese President Hu Jintao when he makes a scheduled visit to the United States in September.

"It's minimal, it's nothing really," BNP Paribas economist Chen Xingdong said. "It seems it's paving the way for (Chinese President) Hu Jintao to visit the US and try to calm down relations."

Andy Xie, China economist at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong, said the revaluation will have "almost zero" impact on trade and will not change prices for American consumers. [...]

NEW YORK - The dollar slumped against the yen in heavy trading on Thursday after China abandoned its dollar peg in favor of a basket of currencies to manage the yuan.

The yen's rise accelerated and other Asian currencies firmed after Malaysia said it has changed the ringgit peg to a managed float, fueling further gains in the Japanese currency.

Traders had expected the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and Monetary Authority of Singapore to revise their currency regime as well. However, both said on Thursday that they are maintaining their current foreign exchange policy.

In late morning trade, the dollar fell 2 percent against the yen to 110.65 yen, after declining as low as 110.18 after the Chinese foreign exchange announcement. Before the announcement, it was trading at around 112.40. [...]

"The initial adjustment is smaller than most people anticipated, and to that extent it will in many ways place more pressure on China to adjust over time, both from a political standpoint and from an economic standpoint," said Alan Ruskin, research director, 4Cast LTD in New York.

NEW YORK - Alarmed by a new round of mass transit attacks in London, police in New York began random searches of bags and packages brought into the city's vast subway system.

The inspections started on a small scale Thursday in Manhattan and were expanded during Friday morning's rush hour - a development welcomed by some commuters.

"I'm not against it," Ian Compton, 35, a computer consultant, said at Grand Central Terminal in midtown Manhattan. "I think any measures for safety that aren't terribly intrusive are worth doing."

Officers, some with bomb-sniffing dogs, were stopping people carrying bags as they entered subways, commuter trains, buses and ferries at various points in the city, police said. Anyone who refuses a search will be turned away, and those caught carrying drugs or other contraband could be arrested.

One man was arrested during Thursday evening rush hour at the Brentwood Long Island Rail Road station after police became suspicious, stopped his van and allegedly found a machete and other weapons. Gilbert Hernandez, 34, had been convicted of possessing a pipe bomb in 1996, police said.

Friday morning, an officer was seen outside a subway stop at Penn Station with a sign saying, "NYPD, Backpacks and other containers subject to inspection."

Police officials said they had considered taking the measures to thwart bombings for the past three years. Two terrorist attacks on transit targets in London forced their hand, said Paul Browne, the police department's chief spokesman.

Browne called it "the first time this regimen has been used in (New York's) transit system."

On Thursday, a cluster of officers was seen stopping five men over a 15-minute period as they entered the subway in Union Square at evening rush hour. In each instance, the officers peered briefly into their bags, then waved them through.

"If it serves a purpose, I'm OK with it," said one of the men, James Washington, 45, about being stopped. [...]

CANADA - A counter-terrorism team of police and other national security experts is investigating a radical Muslim cleric in Vancouver who has been known to promote Islamic holy war against Jews and other non-Muslim people.

Sheik Younus Kathrada, a cleric at the Dar al-Madinah mosque on Fraser Street, is being investigated by the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, INSET, which collects intelligence on "targets that are a threat to national security," according to the RCMP website.

Cpl. Tom Seaman, spokesman for the RCMP's E Division, told The Vancouver Sun Tuesday that Kathrada's file -- which was opened last October to investigate racist