Asian leaders talk security under threat of bombs

By Staff
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MANILA, Jan 7 (Reuters) Leaders of 16 Asian nations aim to seal agreements on counter-terrorism, energy and trade next week at a summit in the central Philippines clouded by bomb threats and regional insecurity.

The British, Canadian and Australian governments continue to warn of possible militant strikes against the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN) meeting and East Asia summit, postponed last month ostensibly due to a typhoon.

Manila has said leaders face no terror threat in the central city of Cebu and insists that its surprise decision to postpone the original summit, despite advice to proceed from the national weather bureau, had nothing to do with security risks.

Counter-terrorism will, nonetheless, take centre stage during the ASEAN summit on January 13, when leaders are to sign a convention clamping down on the unregulated movement of arms and Muslim militants among the region's remote isles and coves.

National security agencies would have to coordinate efforts to track, arrest, detain and rehabilitate suspected militants as well as beef up border controls and suppress terrorist financing, according to a draft document seen by Reuters.

Regional security concerns are also likely to dominate meetings on January 14-15 between ASEAN and leaders of China, Japan, South Korea, India, New Zealand and Australia amid post-coup jitters in Thailand and nuclear tensions on the Korean peninsula.

The East Asia summit will also sign a declaration on energy security calling for reduced costs for renewable energy, standards for biofuels and investment in regional energy infrastructure to reduce the region's reliance on oil imports.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos, the Philippines, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- countries with wide variations in politics and development.

INTERNAL RUCTIONS Post-coup bombings in Thailand, frequent talk of unrest in the Philippines and Myanmar's continuing refusal to heed calls for democracy underline the region's instability and jar with the summit's theme of ''One Caring and Sharing Community''.

Against this backdrop, Southeast Asian chiefs will scrutinise proposals for an ASEAN charter that would turn a group whose hallmark has been informal consensus into a rules-based organisation more akin to the European Union.

Under proposals drafted by an ''Eminent Persons Group'', ASEAN would be capable of issuing binding decisions in disputes and meting out penalties for serious breaches of commitments -- Myanmar's ''roadmap'' to democracy, for example.

But leaders were unlikely to do away entirely with the group's long-standing principle of non-interference in each other's domestic affairs.

''I would be surprised if they did (accept the proposal of sanctions) particularly if you look at Thailand, which has just had a coup,'' said Malcolm Cook, programme director for Asia and the Pacific at the Lowy Institute in Australia.

''Even if they did, I would be surprised if ASEAN as a group ever imposed them.'' ASEAN members are, however, likely to agree to proposals calling for majority-voting in non-controversial areas such as economic cooperation to enable them to better tackle China and India's growing financial might.

The larger East Asia grouping, which represents roughly half the world's population, will discuss cutting trade tariffs and improving cooperation to prevent and contain natural disasters.

So far, weak governments and continuing distrust between China and Japan have stymied attempts to create an East Asian community and prevented effective handling of the typhoons, earthquakes and transport disasters that hit the region annually.

''Regional cooperation among weak bodies is not going to be very useful,'' said Cook.

REUTERS SRS PM0757

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