LOS CABOS (Mexico) Oct 27: Asia-Pacific leaders hit back at international terrorists Sunday, promising to root out hidden money networks and clamp down a vast new security network around planes and ships.

US President George W. Bush and other leaders confronted North Korea’s newly-revealed nuclear ambitions, a US face-off with Iraq and a tide of violence from a Bali car bomb massacre to a bloody Moscow hostage drama.

Bush took a morning jog along the beach of his luxury Mexican resort hotel before the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit officially endorsed his anti-terrorist package.

“We committed to taking a series of concrete steps that will protect the flow of trade, finance and information,” said a draft of the final leaders’ declaration, obtained from delegation sources.

Bush, Chinese President Jiang Zemin, and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi joined other leaders in agreeing to a security response drawn up by the United States.

Under a plan known as the Secure Trade in the APEC region (STAR) initiative, they agreed a slew of anti-terrorist measures including:

— Introducing new baggage screening procedures and equipment in all APEC member airports by 2005.

— Reinforcing flight deck doors of passenger aircraft by April 2003.

— Tightening ship and port security by July 2004.

“APEC leaders agreed to work together to deny terrorists access to the global financial system and to use the money trail to locate and apprehend terrorists,” said a White House statement.

Significantly, they agreed to for the first time to stop terrorists using charities or hawalas — informal money transfer systems.

Business leaders warned APEC leaders not to wreck the economy in their fight to stamp out terrorism.

“We must work together to ensure security against terrorism. We need however to ensure that in pursuing common security, we do not sacrifice the economic openness which is the basis of our economic prosperity,” said a statement issued by the APEC Business Advisory Council.

Bush stepped up the pressure for a stiff UN resolution next week to disarm Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of any weapons of mass destruction.

There were no announcements so far, however, that his trip had overcome qualms of China and Russia, both of which hold a veto in the UN Security Council, which heads into a critical week of negotiations.

China made no comment on the issue.

Russian President Vladimir Putin pulled out of the summit to handle the bloody conclusion to the Chechen hostage drama in a Moscow theatre.

Asia-Pacific leaders backed working for a solution to the Iraq crisis through the UN Security Council, said host Mexican President Vicente Fox, whose country is currently a member of the Security Council.

Fox called for the UN to send inspectors before making any threats against Iraq.

North Korea’s bombshell announcement that it is developing nuclear weapons spurred Bush, Koizumi and South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung to present a united public face against Pyongyang.—AFP