China’s stellar economic growth story continues. Gross domestic product climbed 9,5% in the first quarter this year and industrial production was up 16,2% on the same quarter last year. No wonder then that the Chinese are looking to Australia — the world’s largest exporter of aluminium and coal, to help fuel its long-term economic expansion.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard is on course to win a fourth victory in the general election this Saturday. Most opinion polls indicate that the results will be close, but Howard is firming up as the favourite. His opponent, Australian Labour Party (ALP) leader Mark Latham, needs to win 12 seats in the lower house of Parliament to gain government.
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/ 17 September 2004
Australian Prime Minister John Howard, facing a general election on October 9, has been one of United States President George W Bush’s most reliable allies in the "war on terror". But the bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, last Thursday by a radical Islamic group potentially makes Howard’s loyalty to the US a political liability, as his political opponents accuse him of neglecting Australia’s security.
Eighteen months ago Australia, along with the United States and the United Kingdom, was a frontline member of President George W Bush’s "Coalition of the Willing", and Australian Prime Minister John Howard was justifying a pre-emptive strike on Iraq. But this week Howard’s government has been mulling over a critical report by former senior Australian diplomat Philip Flood.
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/ 4 February 2004
The security of patrons at Australia’s thousands of bars and nightclubs — one of its major tourist drawcards –has been called into question after the death on January 19 of Australian international cricket player and commentator David Hookes.
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/ 5 December 2003
An Aboriginal activist is fighting to have the offensive word removed from the name of an Australian sport stand in a country where most white Australians regarded Aboriginals as uncivilised and inferior.
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/ 20 October 2003
The international media rarely descend on Australia — the last occasion was the 2000 Sydney Olympics — and for some Aboriginal Australians the Rugby World Cup has presented a rare opportunity to highlight the shabby state of indigenous affairs in many parts of the sport-mad nation.
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/ 15 September 2003
Australia’s controversial policy of mandatory detention of asylum seekers has come under renewed pressure, this time from the country’s leading judges. Australian Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock has accused the courts of hearing asylum seeker cases more quickly than those of other litigants.
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/ 18 February 2003
Australian politicians are using President Thabo Mbeki’s stance to shore up their case for or against war. Many Australians, including political leaders, are impressed by Mbeki’s calm counsel to world leaders about the need to avoid a war with Iraq if at all possible.