BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN - A brief contact between the United States and North Korea stole the show at an Asia-Pacific security forum, amid new developments in America's war on terrorism.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell met his North Korean counterpart, Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun, for a 15-minute informal chat in the highest level contact between the two countries since President George W. Bush took office last year.
Bush has declared that the doctrinaire communist state is part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran in fomenting terrorism.
In a sobering sign of North Korea's unpredictability, Pyongyang's propaganda machine kicked in after the meeting between Powell and Paek.
The official Korea Central News Agency called the US the "kingpin of evil" bent on invading the communist state.
Asean ministers at the Brunei meeting hashed out proposals on counter terrorism and trans-national crime, and touched on tensions between the Koreas.
The Asia-Pacific's foremost security umbrella group, the Asean Regional Forum, outlined a blueprint designed to choke off funding for terrorists.
A raft of measures included banking controls and a freeze on assets.
America's involvement in the region has been heavily influenced by the September 11 attacks and the subsequent war on terrorism.
Yesterday, US-Philippine military exercises in the volatile south of the country ended.
The exercises were hailed by both sides as a success despite a failure to wipe out Muslim guerrillas linked to the al Qaeda network.
Some 1000 US troops are heading home after the six-month-long exercises.
Powell will visit the Philippines this week to discuss further exercises, which are likely to begin in October.
It was also revealed yesterday that the US Government has come up with a formula for helping Indonesia to combat terrorists without violating sharp congressional limitations on American military assistance to that country.
The Bush Administration is planning to provide US$16 million ($34.60 million) for counter-terrorism exercises, but the training will be for Indonesia's police rather than its military, as is normally the case with such aid.
The Administration also plans to spend US$400,000 ($851,234) this year and next to train civilians in anti-terrorism activities.
Indonesians are also expected to be major participants in a US$17 million ($36 million) Pentagon-administered programme for what are known as "counter-terrorism fellowships".
US legislation bars normalisation of military ties between the two countries until the Army demonstrates a commitment to greater civilian control and accountability.
In other developments yesterday:
* Some of Osama bin Laden's bodyguards were among the hundreds of suspected al Qaeda and Taleban fighters imprisoned at a Naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, said a US intelligence official.
But their capture did not necessarily mean the the Saudi-born militant was dead, he said.
CNN had quoted US sources as saying that if the bodyguards were captured away from bin Laden, it was likely he was dead.
* A special British appeal panel yesterday ruled that emergency legislation passed after September 11, under which foreign terrorist suspects have been held without trial, is discriminatory.
Nine suspects detained under the legislation had appealed to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission against the measure.
The Home Office said the court's finding, which it would appeal, does not make the detention unlawful and the nine would not be released as a result of it.
* The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre cost New York US$3.2 billion ($6.9 billion) in lost tax revenue, says a report from the investigative arm of Congress.
The report from the General Accounting Office found that New York City and New York state lost US$1.6 billion each for the fiscal year.
Most of the shortfall came from a sharp drop in personal income tax revenues. Reduced business and sales tax revenues were also to blame.
- AGENCIES
Story archives:
Links: War against terrorism
Timeline: Major events since the Sept 11 attacks
Powell chats with 'axis of evil' envoy
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
