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  Channel NewsAsia 8 Jan 07
Bird flu, climate change among Asia's threats

SINGAPORE : Asian nations must unite to confront bird flu, climate change and a growing list of other issues that threaten the region, analysts said Monday at a conference.

The outbreak of avian flu and the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami that killed 220,000 people in Asia showed that no single country can hope to surmount major threats alone, they said.

"It is our view that security in this day and age can no longer be ensured merely by military and operational tactics," said Barry Desker, dean of the forum's organisers, the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University.

"Like climate change, other NTS (non-traditional security) challenges like pandemics and environmental degradation are complex and transnational in nature and could threaten our own security," he said.

Former Thai foreign minister Surin Pitsuwan described these challenges as "being invisible, being diverse, being unpredictable." He said they are difficult to prepare for.

Plans by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to consider a draft charter that will see the 10-member grouping rely on a set of rules to govern itself is one effective way of dealing with these threats, Surin said. ASEAN currently reaches decisions by consensus and practises a policy of non-interference in each other's affairs.

"It has to be a regional approach, it has to be a multinational approach," said Surin.

ASEAN's plan to consider such a charter "is gratifying because the nature of non-traditional threats that we are talking about cannot be managed, cannot be solved, cannot be eradicated or cannot even be reduced by any one particular state alone," he said.

A draft of the charter was to be presented to ASEAN leaders when they meet this week for an annual summit in the central Philippine island of Cebu.

Findings from the influential Stern Report on Global Warming last year estimated that up to 10 percent of global economic output could be hit if the world does not deal with climate changes seriously, said Desker.

"The report concluded that unless immediate measures are taken to reduce the impact of climate change, it can potentially engulf countries, especially the poorer ones, into a vicious cycle of environmental degradation and poverty," he said.

Bangladesh is one of the Asian nations that is especially prone to natural disasters including floods and tropical cyclones almost every year, requiring a regional approach to deal with the problem, said A. N. M. Muniruzzaman from the Bangladesh Institute of International Studies.

"The production of greenhouse gases in individual countries has a truly global impact," he said in a written paper presentation. "While Bangladesh is not responsible for the situation, it is also absolutely powerless to reverse the trend.

"The country had to rely on the increasing consciousness at the global level with regard to the consequences of greenhouse effect and resultant international efforts aimed at curbing the emissions of greenhouse gases." - AFP /dt
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