THE international coalition against terrorism could make the world a safer place, Jack Straw said today.

Speaking in advance of Tony Blair's speech to the Labour Conference in Brighton, the Foreign Secretary said the international community had shown an absolute determination in the wake of the September 11 suicide hijacks. This new spirit of co-operation provided an opportunity for nations working together to tackle other global issues such as poverty, conflict and environmental change.

The message was echoed by the Prime Minister in his keynote speech when he stressed the importance of community and interdependence in the modern world. He made clear that military action against main suspect Osama bin Laden and the Taliban regime sheltering him in Afghanistan was imminent.

Blackburn MP Mr Straw said that, as with Hitler and the Nazis in the 1930s, those behind the atrocities were "beyond negotiation and reason.''

He told delegates: "The atrocities have not only shocked the world, they have changed the world too.

"In the 1930s, there were those who made the fundamental mistake of believing that the fascists could be reasoned with -- that they were subject to the same standards of human decency as the rest of us.

"In the same way today, if we believe that those who planned the attacks in the US can be dealt with by negotiation and reason, we wholly delude ourselves.

"To fight the terrorists, we need to deploy every weapon -- military, diplomatic, economic, political -- to undermine its roots, to stifle its support, to target its funding and to remove its lethal machinery.

"As we have seen, humankind has great capacity for evil. But it also possesses greater capacity for good. That nations have come together in this unprecedented way shows how the world is changing.

"Our challenge is to harness this spirit of international co-operation to build a safer, more inclusive world which confronts global issues like poverty, conflict and the environment.''

Mr Blair hammered home the same message in a speech he wrote himself in Downing Street last week -- the first such personal address to a party conference since Winston Churchill wrote his own.

He said the world had come closer as a force for good since September 11.

But he warned the Taliban of imminent military action -- which he described as "proportionate and targeted'' -- as they had failed to hand over bin Laden.

Mr Blair warned that "the dangers of inaction were greater than the dangers of action.'' But he said the atrocity had brought home the reality of interdependence in the world which the global community now had to turn into a force for good.''