The document will go before the Assembly at the United Nations in New York next Tuesday, said Gabonese Foreign Minister Jean Ping, the current General Assembly chairman.

"After it resumes work on January 18, the General Assembly will devote an entire session to examining appropriate measures to respond better to the effects of this catastrophe," Ping said.

He was speaking at a meeting of representatives of some 110 countries in Mauritius to look at ways of helping islands, the world's most vulnerable states, cope with hazards and disasters, including setting up a global early warning system that could avert tsunami tragedies.

A key resolution would be passed at the UN, said Salvano Briceno, director of the UN secretariat for international strategy to reduce disasters.

The resolution, whose details were not immediately known, will be presented by Asian states including Indonesia, one of the worst-hit victims of the tsunamis.

Also next Tuesday a conference on natural disasters will open in Kobe, Japan, to examine implementation of a global early warning system for tsunamis.

The system was expected to be operational by 2007, according to UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

Leaders of the world's smallest islands also joined UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday in calling for action to curb the effects of climate change, with the Pacific atoll of Kiribati accusing polluting countries of waging "eco-terrorism."

Kiribati, along with Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and a handful of other low-lying islands, are threatened by the rise in sea levels caused by global warming that could see them entirely submerged.

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