U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived here on Tuesday night for meetings with fellow foreign ministers aimed at solidifying a second front, in Southeast Asia, in the campaign against global terrorism. But he has had to balance that goal with longstanding concerns about human rights abuses in the region. In meetings on Tuesday in Malaysia and Singapore before touching down in this oil-producing sultanate for two days of talks with members of the Association of South East Asian Nations, Powell said he repeatedly raised the issue. "We still believe strongly in human rights, and that everything we do has to be consistent with universal standards of human rights," he said. But at a news conference in Singapore, Powell hinted that the Bush administration was ready to discuss resuming military cooperation with Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation and a sometimes reluctant partner in the efforts to crack down on militant Islamic groups. The United States cut virtually all military links with Indonesia in 1999 after its forces were implicated in the violence that swept East Timor after that territory voted for independence. On Thursday, Powell and representatives of the nations of the Asian group, including Indonesia, are expected to sign a declaration promising cooperation to prevent terrorism by sharing information, blocking funds, tightening borders and making it hard to use forged travel papers. "We recognized that terrorism is a global threat and that the disturbing acts of terrorism and transnational crimes, which continue to threaten world peace and stability, must be tackled by the international community," the ministers said in a communique on Tuesday. Powell is among the representatives from 13 nations outside Southeast Asia, including China, Japan and Russia, that are taking part in the annual meeting of the group's regional forum. Terrorism dominates the agenda, though the possibility of a meeting here between Powell and his North Korean counterpart, Paek Nam Sun, has generated the most news. It would be the highest-level contact between the United States and North Korea since President Bush took office. Powell heads to Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, late on Thursday before finishing a weeklong trip through the region in the Philippines on Saturday. He said that when he arrives in Jakarta, he will have "some ideas and some initiatives" to present to President Megawati Sukarnoputri. Indonesia is already receiving $400,000 in the current fiscal year for civilian training programs and is to receive a like amount next year; and the United States expects to provide an additional $16 million this year to train police officers in counterterrorism. At the same time, the Pentagon is reviewing how to allocate another $17 million in "counterterrorism fellowships," some of which could go to Indonesia. But a senior State Department official also acknowledged that some in the administration and Congress are pushing for more direct military cooperation, which would require congressional approval. "I think they recognize the danger that we all face and I think they have been cooperating more fully with us as time goes by, and I'm quite sure that Mrs. Megawati is committed to this cause," Powell said in Singapore. He met there with Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, who endorsed the idea of renewed military ties between the United States and Indonesia as an important step in stabilizing that country.

What is the US Secretary of State going to present to Indonesia's president in Jakarta?

The second major point on which the principals had agreed on March 10 was the need to crack down on terrorist organizations and curtail their fund-raising. The embassy bombings of 1998 had focused attention on al Qaeda's finances. One result had been the creation of an NSC-led interagency committee on terrorist financing. On its recommendation, the President had designated Bin Laden and al Qaeda as subject to sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. This gave theTreasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) the ability to search for and freeze any Bin Laden or al Qaeda assets that reached the U.S. financial system. But since OFAC had little information to go on, few funds were frozen. In July 1999, the President applied the same designation to the Taliban for harboring Bin Laden. Here, OFAC had more success. It blocked more than $34 million in Taliban assets held in U.S. banks. Another $215 million in gold and $2 million in demand deposits, all belonging to the Afghan central bank and held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, were also frozen. After October 1999, when the State Department formally designated al Qaeda a "foreign terrorist organization," it became the duty of U.S. banks to block its transactions and seize its funds. Neither this designation nor UN sanctions had much additional practical effect; the sanctions were easily circumvented, and there were no multilateral mechanisms to ensure that other countries' financial systems were not used as conduits for terrorist funding. Attacking the funds of an institution, even the Taliban, was easier than finding and seizing the funds of a clandestine worldwide organization like al Qaeda. Although the CIA's Bin Laden unit had originally been inspired by the idea of studying terrorist financial links, few personnel assigned to it had any experience in financial investigations. Any terrorist-financing intelligence appeared to have been collected collaterally, as a consequence of gathering other intelligence. This attitude may have stemmed in large part from the chief of this unit, who did not believe that simply following the money from point A to point B revealed much about the terrorists' plans and intentions. As a result, the CIA placed little emphasis on terrorist financing. Nevertheless, the CIA obtained a general understanding of how al Qaeda raised money.

The OFAC tried to freeze which terrorist organizations funding?

The little party in the cabin, so disastrously begun, finished, under the mellowing influence of wine and woman, in excellent feeling and with some hilarity. Mamie, in a plush Gainsborough hat and a gown of wine-coloured silk, sat, an apparent queen, among her rude surroundings and companions. The dusky litter of the cabin set off her radiant trimness: tarry Johnson was a foil to her fair beauty; she glowed in that poor place, fair as a star; until even I, who was not usually of her admirers, caught a spark of admiration; and even the captain, who was in no courtly humour, proposed that the scene should be commemorated by my pencil. It was the last act of the evening. Hurriedly as I went about my task, the half-hour had lengthened out to more than three before it was completed: Mamie in full value, the rest of the party figuring in outline only, and the artist himself introduced in a back view, which was pronounced a likeness. But it was to Mamie that I devoted the best of my attention; and it was with her I made my chief success.
What was the last act of the evening?