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News
Monday, July 19, 2010
Australia’s election campaigning kicks off Associated Press Writer
SYDNEY – Australia’s prime minister and her conservative opponent kicked off campaigning Sunday by touching on the key issue of immigration, a day after Julia Gillard called elections a mere three weeks after becoming premier. Gillard, the nation’s first female prime minister, on Saturday scheduled elections for Aug. 21 amid strong support for her new leadership. She became prime minister in June after ousting her predecessor, Kevin Rudd, in a sudden Labor Party coup. Opinion polls have shown Labor holds a slight lead, but the race is expected to be a close one against the conservative opposition coalition led by Tony Abbott. A Galaxy poll published in News Limited newspapers Sunday showed Labor holds a 52-48 percent lead over the opposition. The survey of 800 voters was taken Friday and no margin of error was given. Both Gillard and Abbott have divergent positions on key issues including climate change, record-high public debt and strategies to stop a surge of asylum seekers trying to reach Australia by boat. Gillard has attempted to fix the asylum seeker issue by asking tiny neighbor East Timor to host a U.N.endorsed regional refugee processing hub. On Sunday, the Welsh-born Gillard told a crowd in the Queensland state capital of Brisbane she is against the idea of a “big Australia,” and believes there needs to be a focus on sustainable population growth that puts less stress on resources. But she was quick to note her comments were not meant to be taken as anti-immigration. “I am not saying we should cease to be a nation that embraces diversity or welcomes newcomers,” she said. “As a proud migrant myself I could never believe such a thing. But what I am saying is that growth should make life better for Australian families — not make things harder.” Abbott, meanwhile, spent Sunday morning pushing his Liberal Party’s plans to introduce temporary protec-
tion visas that would allow the government to send refugees back to their home countries if conditions improved there — a plan condemned by Labor. “That is very, very important because people think that if they get here and are assessed as a refugee they’ll have a permanent residency, they’ll have a new life in Australia,” Abbott told Sky News. “Obviously that is a very, very seductive product for the people smugglers to sell.” Gillard and Abbott, who were both at one point thought too leftwing and too right-wing — respectively — to appeal to the mainstream, are both facing the uphill challenge of appealing to critical middle-of-the-road voters. Gillard, an atheist with a common law partner, has been accused of being unfit for leadership because she has never had children.
International
Afghan policemen inspect a bicycle at the site of a suicide attack in Kabul on July 18, 2010. A suicide bomber on a bicycle detonated explosives in central Kabul on July 18, injuring six people, two days before a key international conference in the capital, a government official told AFP. AFP PHOTO/SHAH Marai
Bomb kills 3 in Afghan capital ahead of conference Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan – A suicide bombing near a market in the Afghan capital killed three civilians and wounded dozens Sunday, two days before an international conference hosting representatives from about 60 nations, government officials said. Eleven other people were killed in insurgent attacks elsewhere across the nation, according to reports Sunday, as the Taliban meet the arrival of thousands more American troops this year with a rising tide of violence.
AP Photo/Patrick Hamilton
Australian opposition leader Tony Abbot speaks to the media during a press conference in Brisbane, Australia, Saturday, July 17, 2010. Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced Saturday that the nation would vote on Aug. 21, 2010.
The Kabul bomber was on foot near a busy market in the city’s eastern residential district of Macrorayan and his target was unclear, police official Abdul Ghafor Sayedzada said. Hospitals reported three civilians killed, including a child, public health official Kabir Amiri said. Health ministry spokesman Ghulam Sakhi Kargar said about 40 people were wounded. University student Tamim Ahmad said he saw a man on foot run up to a passing convoy of international troops and detonate an explosives-laden vest. Other witnesses said they saw a convoy passing around the time of the attack, but couldn’t say if it was the target. However, Afghan authorities and NATO said no international troops were operating in the area at the time
of the attack, which the international force condemned. “The insurgents have chosen to use violence to gain media attention, once again at the expense of innocent Afghan civilians,” said Col. William Maxwell, director of the Combined Joint Operations Center for the NATO-led force. Security has been tightened across the capital ahead of Tuesday’s Kabul Conference, which will be attended by the heads of NATO and the United Nations and top diplomats, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The meeting, nearly nine years after U.S.-backed forces toppled the Taliban’s regime of extreme Islamic law for sheltering al-Qaida terrorist leaders, is to discuss the country’s reconstruction and eventual handing over of all security to the Afghan government. Thousands of Afghan police were
setting up checkpoints and patrolling Kabul trying to prevent any insurgent attack on the conference. In May, the Taliban attacked a national peace conference in Kabul with rocket-propelled grenades that landed about 100 yards (meters) from the site of the gathering, and insurgents also waged a gunbattle with police outside the meeting. Three civilians, but no conference delegates, were wounded. The NATO-led international force is being bolstered by 30,000 more American troops this year, and allied forces say they have captured or killed dozens of Taliban leaders in recent months. However, the added troops and stepped up patrols have not been able to reduce insurgent attacks, which have intensified this year across the country.
Mandela’s birthday celebrated with good deeds Associated Press Writer
PRETORIA, South Africa – South Africans are celebrating Nelson Mandela’s birthday by planting gardens, painting clinics and calling for unity. Mandela, who turned 92 years old on Sunday, was spending the day with his family in Johannesburg. His wife went to an orphanage in Soweto to help plant a vegetable garden. Mandela’s wife Graca Machel
says Sunday is a day for people to say, “I can extend my goodness to other people.” Mandela Day, inaugurated last year and falling on the anti-apartheid icon’s July 18 birthday, was conceived as an international day devoted to public service.
National police commissioner Nathi Mthethwa says that spirit drew him to a Pretoria township where anti-foreigner violence broke out two years ago. He urged the community to be peaceful and unified.
Zindzi Mandela (L), the youngest daughter of former South African President Nelson Mandela shows him a letter at his home in Johannesburg on July 17, 2010 during celebrations of his 92nd birthday.
AFP PHOTO / NELSON MANDELA FOUNDATION PHOTO