Rescue Under Way for Russia Mini-Sub Crew; Anger in Israel
ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Center, this is YOUR WORLD TODAY.</s>TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Well, I'm sorry. People can't come here and abuse our good nature and our tolerance.</s>JIM CLANCY, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Prime Minister Tony Blair gets tough with Islamic extremists. The Muslim community expresses alarm.</s>COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: The U.S. Navy lends a hand to Russia, where sailors are trapped in a mini-submarine with only hours of oxygen left.</s>CLANCY: And anger in Israel. Israeli Arabs taking to the streets after a Jewish soldier opposed to the Gaza pullout opens fire on a public bus. It is 5:00 p.m. in London, 8:00 p.m. in Moscow. I'm Jim Clancy.</s>MCEDWARDS: And I'm Colleen McEdwards. Welcome to our viewers around the world. This is CNN International, and this is YOUR WORLD TODAY. Looking for answers in the face of terror. Britain's prime minister coming out with a sharp response to the looming threat in London.</s>MCEDWARDS: That's right. Tony Blair saying things are about to get much tougher for extremists and those who incite terrorism. Mr. Blair's crackdown is promising some big changes in deportation and asylum policies. His basic message is this: if you want to meddle in extremism, he says, you cannot do it in the</s>U.K. CLANCY: Now, in other developments, two women who were charged in connection with the July 21 failed attacks remain in custody after making their first court appearance. They are accused of withholding information that could have helped police in the investigation. One of them, the common law wife of suspected would-be bomber Hamdi Issac.</s>MCEDWARDS: Meanwhile, the victims are remembered. A joint funeral was held a short time ago for a couple caught up in the underground blast near King's Cross Station. That was on July 7. They were among the 52 people who were killed that day. Well, we'll have more on those proposals now put forward by Prime Minister Blair. Harry Smith has our report from London.</s>HARRY SMITH, REPORTER, ITV NEWS (voice-over): The prime minister unveiled his tough new measures with a stern warning.</s>BLAIR: Let no one be in any doubt the rules of the game are changing.</s>SMITH: His announcement came just hours after a chilling new video was issued by Ayman al-Zawahiri, widely regarded as Osama bin Laden's deputy. He warned the west to expect more attacks and said Tony Blair was to blame for the bombs in London.</s>BLAIR: Yes, the British people know how to deal with the type of comments that were made yesterday in that video. But I think the other thing that is important to point out worldwide is that these very same people who were making those remarks yesterday are the people supporting the killing of wholly innocent people in Iraq, wholly innocent people in Afghanistan, innocent people anywhere in the world who want to live by the rules of democracy.</s>SMITH: The government's crackdown will provide new grounds for excluding or deporting religious extremists who incite hatred. They'll include fostering hatred, advocating or justifying violence. And he also issued a ban on two Muslim organizations: Hizb ut Tahrir and Al-Muhajiroun. The new measures should make it easier to deport clerics such as Syrian-born Omar Bakri Muhammad and Abu Katada, who has been sentenced to life in his native Jordan. The prime minister was asked why it had taken his government so long to bring in measures many had been demanding for years.</s>BLAIR: And I think, to be frank, what has changed in the past four weeks since the attacks on the 7th of July is that people now understand that when we warn of a terrorist threat, this is not scaremongering. It's real.</s>SMITH: The prime minister said there will be a short period of consultation, just one month, with legislation in the autumn. Harry Smith, ITV News.</s>MCEDWARDS: And you heard Harry Smith mention there Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad. He is one of the U.K.'s most outspoken Islamic clerics. And he also predicted last year that al Qaeda would one day attack London. He gave his reaction to Mr. Blair's crackdown at a news conference a short time ago.</s>SHEIKH OMAR BAKRI MUHAMMAD, MUSLIM CLERIC: Now, if you speak about Britain, I condemn the killing of innocent people in Britain. I did that publicly. Not because I fear for man-made law. Believe me, I never, ever feel for man-made law or British police. So</s>CLANCY: Well, that is one view certainly. Our European political editor, Robin Oakley, really following all of this from many different facets. He joins us now. He's outside 10 Downing Street, or he was outside 10 Downing Street. I see you're back in the studio there. Robin, tell us, how is this going over with the public? How much support?</s>ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN EUROPEAN POLITICAL EDITOR: Well, I think Tony Blair is recognizing a change in the public mood. And he perceives a change in the parliamentary mood as well, Jim, in the sense that he said, the British people are retaining their tolerance of different ethnic groups, different cultural groups, different religious groups in their midst. But they are growing angrier with the extremists who, as he puts it, exploit the traditional tolerance and traditional liberal values of British society. And he says people are angry, too, now, and that the government has got to react to that anger. And he's been reminding people that when the government tried measures to crack down on terrorism in the last year or so, there were lots of objections from people on civil liberties grounds. There was a furious battle in parliament over plans to have effective house arrest for terrorist suspects. Now he said there's a different climate facing any legislation. And he is prepared to get a lot tougher. He talked about basically a change in the rules of the game. And what he's changing is the balance, really, between civil liberties and the protection of the citizen. So now, anybody who comes along and advocates hatred or condones terrorism, is going to be make themselves liable to deportation. And that isn't going to need new legislation. That can be done under changing the administrative rules that already exist for the home secretary. So many more undesirables are going to go out on those sort of grounds. And a lot of people worried on civil liberties grounds, because the government is going to draw up a list of extremist Web sites, of book shops, of groups. And if those -- if people are associated with any of those organizations on the list, they will become liable to deportation -- Jim.</s>CLANCY: All right. Robin Oakley summing it up there for us in London. Thanks, Robin. Well, we're going to hear more from the Muslim community of Britain later in the program -- Colleen.</s>MCEDWARDS: Well, an international rescue effort is under way in a race to save seven sailors who are trapped on a mini-submarine at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. This sub is stuck about 200 meters down off the Kamchatka Peninsula. The Russian navy says crew members have about 24 hours of air left. We are getting conflicting reports about that, though. Some saying there's more time than that. But in any event, time is of the essence. Here, the Navy is contact with the crew of the sub. It's similar to the one you see right there in the video. Moscow has asked the U.S., Japan and Britain for help. A navy spokesman explains how this vessel got stuck.</s>DMITRY BURMISTOW, RUSSIAN NAVY SPOKESMAN (through translator): The AS-28 submersible's propeller caught a fragment of fishing net, and it is wrapped around the propeller. As the crew tried to break free from the net, a metal cord was caught in the propeller which then trapped the vessel in deep water.</s>MCEDWARDS: Well, the U.S. Navy is sending unmanned submersibles to help with this rescue effort. Barbara Starr joins us now with the latest on that. Barbara, everybody talking about the time factor here. It takes time for this equipment to get deployed, get where it needs to go. And it looks like time is really running out here.</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Colleen, that is the question right now. What U.S. Navy officials are saying is they are going to proceed with this rescue mission no matter what. They are not going to be concerned right now about how much air that Russian crew has. They are going to get under way and get there as fast as they can. What happened overnight was really extraordinary as this all unfolded. Apparently, top Russian navy officials contacted the U.S. naval attache overnight in Moscow, saying that this incident had unfolded, that their sailors were in jeopardy. The U.S. naval attache and the Russians then contacting the Pacific fleet in Hawaii. This rescue mission being put together very rapidly. You see the kind of technology here that is being sent. The U.S. Navy is sending two undersea remotely-piloted, unmanned vehicles and 30 Navy personnel. All of that being loaded in San Diego, California. It will fly in the next several hours to the eastern coast of Russia, to the Kamchatka Peninsula. It will be put on board a Russian navy surface vessel. They will go out to the site. And then the U.S. Navy personnel will go to work. They will lower these unmanned vehicles over the side of the navy ship, the Russian navy ship. And those robotic vehicles have cameras, have arms, have cutters. They will go down and they will try and pilot them remotely and try and cut that Russian sub loose. You see again the kind of vehicle that the U.S. Navy is sending. They will also send U.S. Navy divers with deep sea diving capability in case the divers have to go over the side of that Russian ship and help in cutting that Navy sub loose. All of this still unfolding. The Navy getting ready to go, getting ready to deploy out of San Diego, California, and make that 12-hour flight across the Pacific, to the eastern coast of Russia, so they can get going on this rescue mission -- Colleen.</s>MCEDWARDS: Wow. Barbara, you know, you mentioned that call coming in, and this level of cooperation. How different this scenario is than when the Kursk went down, a much larger sub that went down five years ago. Of course, under different circumstances, but the reaction, the response, the reaching out from Russia very different here.</s>STARR: Well, indeed, Colleen. All of the U.S. Navy officials we've spoken to today so far are remarking on that, and how pleased they are. They say that the Russians apparently did contact them this time very readily. The Russians also, as you say, contacting the Japanese, asking if the Japanese have anything that they can do to help. It is not clear at this point exactly whether the Russian navy itself has any technology readily available at exactly that point on their eastern coast that they are also sending. We're assuming that they are sending everything that they can. But since that incident with the Kursk about five years ago, in which more than 100 Russian sailors died, there certainly has been much more international cooperation by the Russians. They've really joined the international naval community on this issue of undersea rescue, we are told. And so a lot of very remarkable activity unfolding very quickly in the last few hours -- Colleen.</s>MCEDWARDS: Yes. Time being the big factor here. Barbara Starr at the pentagon. Thanks very much. Appreciate it.</s>STARR: Sure.</s>MCEDWARDS: Jim.</s>CLANCY: Just this week, Iran got a new president. And the big question is whether Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is going to defuse a crisis over the nuclear program that his country wants to sponsor or provoke an international crisis of further dimensions. Britain, France and German offering Tehran long-term support for civilian nuclear access, including nuclear fuel. But they say they want a binding commitment from Tehran that it will not try to develop nuclear weapons. Now, the proposals are all contained in a document that was given to Tehran on Friday. Iran's foreign ministry says it will issue a response soon. Tehran insists its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes. It recently threatened to resume suspended nuclear activities. The International Atomic Energy Agency says it's going to be holding an emergency meeting on Iran Tuesday.</s>MCEDWARDS: In Beijing, meanwhile, an unprecedented 11th day of talks that are aimed at resolving a deadlock over North Korea's nuclear ambitions. But there is still no sign that the delegates have broken an impasse. And all of this is over a statement they plan to make -- a statement of principles, really, here. These are six-party talks. They have been controversial. They've been on again-off again. The chief negotiators for the U.S. and North Korea did meet again on Friday. U.S. envoy Christopher Hill says he's determined to reach an agreement in Beijing, and that is a sentiment that is very much echoed by Japan. These talks are to resume on Saturday.</s>CLANCY: Right now, Israel is on alert for a possible wave of Arab unrest. That after a Jewish militant killed four Israeli Arabs in an unprovoked bus shooting late Thursday. Paula Hancocks is in Jerusalem with more details on that -- Paula.</s>PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Jim. Well, the entire town in the north of Israel of Shfaram turned out for the funerals this Friday. The funerals of two of the four victims that were killed on Thursday by that Jewish right wing opponent of the disengagement. Two sisters, 20 years old and 21 years old, were followed in the Muslim funeral march by thousands in the streets of Shfaram. And many of them were saying that they were very shocked that this small town, which has Jewish, Muslim, Christians living in peace side by side, has been thrown into the heart of what they call this Jewish terror. Now, this attack has been met by condemnation on all sides. Ariel Sharon calling the terrorist a blood-thirsty terrorist immediately after the attack. It's been condemned also by Palestinians, and it's been condemned by all sides, including the mayor, who has said that he's calling on the prime minister to do more to try and stop these kind of attacks. Now, the police deployment is noticeable in the area itself. Many people were worried that there could be some Arab unrest or there could be some riots following this attack which killed four Israeli Arabs and wounded about 22 more. Also, the Israeli radio has been quoting the mother of the gunman, Eden Natan-Zada, who is a 19-year-old who went AWOL from the Israeli military, saying that she had warned the Israeli military two weeks ago that her son had become dangerous, potentially dangerous, and he did still have a gun and they should do something to try and prevent him doing anything. The Israeli military did nothing. The Israeli military saying they are looking into this at the moment to try and figure out why he still did have an army weapon -- Jim.</s>CLANCY: Paula Hancocks, reporting there live from Jerusalem -- Colleen.</s>MCEDWARDS: All right. Coming up here, the U.S. military says that it was planned even before the killing of those 21 Marines.</s>CLANCY: When YOUR WORLD TODAY continues, a new anti-insurgent drive in western Iraq. We'll have details after this short break.