Britain on Wednesday won pledges of joint European Union action to fight terrorism, including promises to introduce a controversial system for storing data on phone calls, text messages and e-mails across the bloc. A crisis meeting of E.U. interior ministers called in the wake of last week's devastating bomb attacks in London - and chaired by British Home Secretary Charles Clarke - issued a four-page declaration vowing measures to cut-off funding for terrorists, intensify intelligence sharing and improve exchange of data on lost and stolen explosives, according to DPA. Britain took over the E.U.'s rotating presidency on July 1. Alarmed that the bombers are believed to be British-born men of Pakistani origin, ministers also promised measures to tackle the "root causes" of political violence. "There is no one measure that I can propose which can stop terrorism," Clarke told reporters after the E.U. meeting. Instead, the focus was on a twin approach which included greater intelligence-gathering to get information on terrorist networks and "efforts to understand and isolate those who focus on extremism including suicide bombers," Clarke said. German Interior Minister Otto Schily said evidence that the London attacks were the result of home-grown British terrorists was a source of "great concern." But he warned there must be no confusion between a few extremists and Moslem communities in general. --More 2054 Local Time 1754 GMT
