States need to step up cooperation to master the threat posed by international terrorism, German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Saturday, according to dpa. "The responses to international terrorism have not always been adequate," despite a broad consensus among the nations of Europe and the United States about the danger, he told an anti-terrorism conference in Werder, 50 kilometres south-west of Berlin. Schaeuble was joined by US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and the interior ministers of France, Britain, Italy, Spain and Poland for the two-day meeting. The talks were designed to explore ways of strengthening preventive measures against terrorist actions and improve methods of cross-border coordination in combatting terrorism. The German minister said different solutions were needed because the penalties enshrined in criminal laws in force today no longer acted as a deterrent to terrorists.
