Australia is hosting a three-day workshop in Manila to offer strategies on screening for weapons of mass destruction with officials from Philippine trade, agriculture, security and law enforcement agencies, Reuters reported yesterday (see GSN, March 13).
“We are trying to enforce tighter export control regimes to help countries develop their own systems so that terrorists’ use and access to weapons of mass destruction is cut down,” Pablo Kang, deputy head of mission of the Australian Embassy in Manila, told Reuters.
“We really have to harden our government, our systems and our regulations to prevent, control and stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction,” said Florencio Fianza, a retired police general and special envoy on transnational crime.
Fianza said that the Philippines has created a list of some 4,000 controlled substances, equipment and materials, such as carbon fibers and dry freeze, which could be used to produce unconventional weapons.
“The dry freeze equipment for making instant coffee could be easily used to preserve bacteria for a major biological attack,” he said (Manny Mogato, Reuters, May 10).