Additional terrorist attacks are "inevitable" in the Asia-Pacific region -- where terrorists are actively training, recruiting and using "legitimate fronts to pursue barbaric ends," Australia's foreign minister said yesterday at the opening of an anti-terrorism conference on the bomb-scarred tourist island of Bali.
"Terrorist groups are cooperating across the region, transiting borders using one country to train in, another to raise funds in and another for safe haven. They are working together to maximize the impact of their activities," Alexander Downer said.
PHOTO: AFP
Combating the al-Qaeda-linked Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah topped the agenda at the two-day regional conference attended by ministers and senior officials from 33 countries, including US Attorney General John Ashcroft.
"We have convened here in Bali to deepen our cooperation against those who oppose our shared values and those who would murder innocents," Ashcroft told reporters. "Through the cooperative efforts of countries represented at this ministerial meeting we will win the battle for freedom, we will win the battle for tolerance, we will win the battle to defeat terror."
The countries are expected to bolster cooperation in intelligence gathering and offer new anti-terror aid for developing countries like Indonesia.
It's unlikely they'll sign any comprehensive agreements that would enable them to move beyond the two-way pacts that have damaged Jemaah Islamiyah, but failed to defeat it. Critics say mutual suspicions have prevented the creation of region-wide mechanisms, such as a multinational police force.
Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri told the conference delegates that "wider and more effective cooperation" has now become "our common duty."
"This solid coordination mechanism is necessary, for only in this way would we be able to penetrate into the terrorist network and cells that are neatly, tightly and closely built," she said.
Downer announced the opening of a transnational crime center in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. Run jointly by Indonesia and Australia, it will offer anti-terror training and be an information clearinghouse.
The center will foster anti-terrorism skills like "forensic training, strike forces, bomb disposal units and training, response training for sabotage and hostage-taking," said Bali's police chief, Inspector-General I Made Mangku Pastika.
Also Wednesday, Indonesia and Australia signed an accord on the exchange of financial intelligence to fight money laundering -- the latest of nine anti-terror agreements signed between the two countries.
Hundreds of police and troops patrolled near the conference at Bali's Grand Hyatt beach resort, with a police ship just off the coast. Bali was the site of the Oct. 12, 2002 twin nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, 88 of them Australian tourists.
Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, has spawned more terrorists than any other Asian country -- and has been the target of some of their worst attacks.
Jemaah Islamiyah was blamed for both the Bali attack and the Aug. 5, 2003 bombing that killed 12 people at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta.
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS