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Sydney draws up security plan
 Australian soil has yet to have experienced a major attack. QUICKVOTEBUSINESS TRAVELLER
RESOURCES
OTHER NEWSYOUR SAY
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTSSYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) -- Australian police are drawing up an evacuation plan for Sydney's central business district in the event of a terrorist attack as part of new security powers following the London bombings, officials on Monday. News of the plan came as fresh charges were brought against a former baggage handler for the national airline for incitement to commit terrorism in Australia, a country which has never suffered a major domestic peacetime attack. New South Wales deputy police commissioner Andrew Scipione, who also has responsibility for counter-terrorism in the state, said a new security plan for Australia's largest city would be presented to the state government within weeks. He told local radio the decision to update security was made after police traveled to London to work with Scotland Yard on the July 7 train and bus bombings, which killed 56 people. "This whole terrorism area is about learning lessons and staying in front of the game," he said. Australia, a staunch U.S. ally with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan has steadily beefed up security and anti-terrorism laws since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Monday's Sydney Morning Herald reported that the city's new security plan would see the police become the head counter-terrorism authority with wider search-and-seizure powers, and included an evacuation plan for the city center. New South Wales state police commissioner Ken Moroney said the evacuation plan had been discussed in a meeting with incoming state premier Morris Iemma on Monday. "We've given the premier an outline of that proposal ... and I understand that the premier will be making an announcement on that by the end of the week," Moroney told reporters. On Monday, a former Qantas baggage handler was ordered to stand trial on a second terrorism charge, court officials said. Bilal Khazal, 35, appeared in a Sydney court charged with inciting another person to commit a terrorist act. Khazal, who is on bail on a previous charge of compiling a terrorist manual from the Internet, will appear in court on both charges next month. A Pakistan-born architect, Faheem Khalid Lodhi, has also been ordered to stand trial on nine charges under the strengthened laws, including planning to carry out attacks in Sydney "involving the bombing of one or more establishments". Although the country has never yet been the target of a major attack, 88 Australians were among 202 people killed in the October 2002 nightclub bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali and the Australian embassy in Jakarta was hit by a suicide bomb in 2004. 
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