He was said to have done so because of the mounting security crisis. Israeli ministers are also likely to consider the option, controversial even in the Israeli government, of expelling Yasser Arafat, or more likely in the short term, cutting off his freedom further by blockading the Maqata compound where he is holed up and cutting off its communications with the outside world.There is little sign that most Israeli public opinion shares international concern at the assassination policy directed at militant factions. Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, decided to cut short his trip to India and was expected to return to Israel today.He will consider what military action to authorise in reaction to the carnage on Tuesday. While officials acknowledged that a ground invasion of Gaza was an option to be discussed, they have also indicated that this might be delayed to allow Ahmed Qureia, who formally accepted the post of Palestinian Prime Minister yesterday, a brief period in which to take action against militant factions.Mr Qureia accepted the post without securing the guarantees he had sought from the Israelis, including an end to assassinations. Military aircraft attacked the home of a senior Hamas leader in Gaza yesterday in response to the two suicide bombs on Tuesday that killed 15 people and wounded dozens.

About £3bn has been lost through the reluctance of foreign visitors to venture abroad over the past two years.In 2002, overseas visitors spent £11.9bn, an improvement on a disastrous 2001 where the industry was hit by foot-and-mouth as well as 11 September, but still below £12.8bn in 2000.Kathy Marks in Sydney. The industry, he said, had adapted in an “extraordinary” manner. Tourism globally had fallen by just 0.6 per cent in 2001, followed by a 3.1 per cent fall in 2002. “There has not been the kind of collapse that some people too swiftly predicted,” he said.British tourism has been badly affected by the problems. As the first anniversary of the atrocity approaches, Bali’s hotels and bars are still half-empty.International tourism bodies are putting on a brave face.

Francesco Frangialli, secretary general of the World Tourism Organisation, said yesterday that 11 September was only one factor that had affected the industry – the others being the war in Iraq and the Sars outbreak. Visitor numbers were down after the attacks in America; then came the massive car bomb last October that killed 202 people, mainly tourists, in the popular resort of Kuta Beach. Just like London which is now falling prey to the risk of architectural terrorism. The next decade may throw up a number of genuinely brilliant skyscrapers, but most will be visual and physical affronts to urban environments.Jay Merrick Tourism Holidaying at home suddenly became an attractive option after 11 September and, two years on, anxiety about flying and visiting exotic places remains high.In Bali, the tourism industry suffered a double blow.

Britain’s Will Alsop – famous for the inverted L-form of Peckham Library – has recently completed a bizarrely colour coded tower in Dusseldorf; and in Sweden, the great Spanish master of so-called zoomorphic architecture, Santiago Calatrava, is at work on his 190-metre-high “Turning Torso” in Malmo.They are being driven ever upward by the force of land values and the desire of key financial centres for spectacular recognition. New structural jointing systems can delay total collapse for longer, and improved lift-clustering will ensure some will work regardless of damage elsewhere.In Europe, top-flight architects remain engrossed in architectural upward mobility. In London, for example, the future of Renzo Piano’s 1,000ft Glass Shard tower depends on the result of a dogfight between English Heritage and Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, not any clamminess about aircraft strikes or bombs.Norman Foster took 9/11 as a cue to fast-forward development of new structural and building escape methods, which will reduce the scale of death and injury if terrorists attack buildings. In New York, London and Europe, the physical ascent of workaholic man continues to be underwritten by surging market forces, and increasingly sophisticated architectural technology.Property prices and rent-slab values have decreed a brave new, post-terrorism world sanctified by glass and steel monoliths.