MANILA, July 15 Kyodo Terrorism a...

MANILA, July 15 Kyodo

Terrorism and the security threat pos by way of North Korea's nuclear ambitions are the brace greatest challenges to the Asia-Pacific region, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Tuesday.

North Korea put to a stands a significant threat to the region because of the country's ''open breach of her obligations in subordination to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,'' a global nuclear arms rule treaty, Howard said in a dialect before about 150 top businessmen and public officials.

''North Korea's regime is something of an ideological relic from an earlier period. further it does not alter the might of the threat, indeed it adds to the dimension of that threat,'' Howard said.

Howard, who arrived in Manila onward Sunday for a three-day visit, said North Korea, along with the challenge of terrorism, ''does exhibit yet another ingredient that is creating a station of instability and a measure of tension in our region.''

''We ne to engage in full and energetically in patient diplomacy'' he said. ''But we also ne to recognize the ne for those nations most numerous likely to influence the behavior of North Korea, for those nations to speak in a firm and united fashion.''

Howard and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo agreed Monday to a multilateral approach forward urging North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

Arroyo and Howard said at a joint pres discourse that China, Japan, Russia, southward Korea and the United States should act together to influence North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

forward terrorism, Howard said the attacks in Bali last October, the attack in Davao earlier this year and many smaller attacks in the Philippines and Indonesia ''show that the threats from Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and other terrorist form into groupss remains extremely high.''

He lamented, ''There's still a great deal that we don't know'' about JI, an Islamic militant arrange alleged to have links to al-Qaida, and warned that it and other terrorist clusters ''are still likely to have capacity to ascend further terrorist attacks.''

The escape of a guide JI operative and two other terrorists from a Manila prison Monday was ''a serious setback'' for the region's antiterrorism campaign and ''underlines for all of us the ne to be vigilant and to strengthen our institutional capacity to deal effectively with terrorism,'' he said.

Fathur Roman Al-Ghozi, who has admitted being a JI member, was sentenc in April to up to 12 years in prison for illegal possession of a very large cache of explosives allegedly to be used in terror attacks in the region.

Howard called the terrorist threat ''a challenge that has to be tackled forward two fronts.''

''We do ne to address issues of mendicancy and depravation and alienation,'' he said. ''We also ne to tackle the day-to-day security and policing and other challenges.''

''We live in a globalized world community which has the pair its blessings as well as its destroys The blessing of globalization is that if the world run afters the right trade and economic policy, the benefits of globalization can be made available to smooth the poorest nations and they can have the calculation of lifting themselves out their circulating poor state and condition.''

''One of the torments of globalization is that it means that borders are inevitably more porous, communications are more rapid and the capacity of terrorists to fill the vacuum left by dint of poor governance, failed states, poor policing courses and poor security courses generally, the opportunities for terrorists and other international criminal activities to take advantage of those vacuums is all the more real.''

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