But No Outright Ban On Missiles

Asian nations, along with the United States, issued a joint statement from Bangkok over the weekend, saying they'll investigate beefing up controls on "production, stockpiles, transfer and brokering" of portable anti-aircraft weapons.

But the ministers, attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference meeting in Thailand, stopped short of a total ban on shoulder-mounted SAMs. They were worried about their own arms export operations. Secretary of State Colin Powell was one of them.

Thousands of Russian SA-7 missiles (pictured above, right) are thought to already be on the open market, within easy reach of terrorists.

"There has been a widespread agreement that amongst the various other counter-terrorism measures that APEC should consider is measures to stop the trade and trafficking in what is known as MANPADS -- handheld anti-aircraft missile systems," Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said.

"And we are are pleased that APEC has now agreed to explore ways in which it can overcome the threat of MANPADS and Australia has been been very supportive of that."

MANPADS were in the headlines less than a year ago

Two of them were fired at an Israeli charter flight leaving Kenya for Tel Aviv. They missed. But now, Washington has put out a bid to have his military contractors develop ways for civilian aircraft to counter the shoulder-mounted threat.

FMI: www.apecsec.org.sg