UN Vote: Rudd Breaks with Howard on Israel
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: AUSTRALIA has switched its position to vote against Israel on two resolutions at the United Nations, ending the Howard government's unswerving alignment with the United States and raising concern from the Jewish community.

The move also signals to the incoming Obama administration that the Rudd Government plans to take a different approach to the Howard government on the international stage.

In the weekend vote in New York, Australia supported a resolution calling on Israel to stop establishing settlements in the Palestinian territories and a resolution calling for the Geneva Conventions to apply in the Palestinian territories.

The resolutions on the Middle East peace process are held annually and the Howard government had backed both from 1996 to 2002 but in 2003 began to vote against or abstain. It was a move that aligned Australia with only the US, Israel, the US Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau and Micronesia and put the country at odds with Britain, Canada, New Zealand and France.

Australian officials told the UN the Government had changed its position because it supported a two-state resolution of the conflict to deliver a secure Israel living beside a viable Palestinian state and that Australia believed both sides should abide by their obligations under the Road Map for Peace. >>> Phillip Hudson | November 10, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – Australia) >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback – Australia) >>>

Execution of Bali Bombers Divides Victims’ Families
THE SUNDAY TIMES: The three Islamic militants convicted of the Bali bombings of 2002, in which 202 people including 24 Britons died, were executed by an Indonesian firing squad last night on a prison island south of Java.

Two military helicopters stood by to airlift the corpses to the men’s home villages, where their wives and 13 children awaited their funerals.

The executions went ahead after lawyers for the men exhausted all legal avenues for appeal and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono declined to grant clemency.

The men spent their last months in a maximum security jail on the prison colony of Nusa Kembangan, surrounded by snake-infested swamps.

Late last night they were led out through a thick steel door and past the white walls and barbed wire of the jail to three execution posts driven into the earth. A firing squad from the mobile brigade of the Indonesian police had been ready for months to carry out the sentences.

British relatives of the victims were sharply divided by last night’s executions. >>> Michael Sheridan and Abul Taher | November 9, 2008

THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: Torrent of Rage

INDONESIA is on high alert for terrorist attacks and mob violence, fearing radicals will take revenge for the execution of the three Bali bombers.

As hundreds of extremists gathered in the bombers' home villages in East and West Java for the funerals yesterday, there were two hoax bomb threats against the Australian Embassy and Indonesia's anti-corruption watchdog, the KPK. The threats were an indication of the widespread resentment towards foreigners, and Australians in particular, after the executions.

The Rudd Government stepped up its warnings to Australians about the dangers of travel to Indonesia and Bali.

"We continue to have credible information that terrorists may be planning attacks in Indonesia," the Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, said.

Mr Smith pleaded with school leavers planning a last hurrah in Bali, to reconsider, although there was no change to the department's travel warning.

He also said Australia would soon co-sponsor a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly calling for a moratorium on capital punishment. "We urge countries who continue to apply capital punishment not to do so," he told ABC Television just hours after the executions. >>> Tom Allard in Tenggulun and Lisa Murray in Jakarta | November 10, 2008

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Australia: Dissatisfaction with Immigration Intake Rising
ABC NEWS (AU): As the Rudd Government continues to accept record numbers of migrants, dissatisfaction with Australia's immigration intake is rising for the first time since the early 1990s.

This financial year the Federal Government plans to accept close to 204,000 migrants.

However a paper by Dr Katherine Betts, an associate professor of sociology at Swinburne University, reveals growing voter disquiet about Australia's intake.

"In 2004, 34 per cent of voters thought that the intake should be reduced," Dr Betts said.

"In 2007, after the last election, 46 per cent thought it should be reduced. That was an increase of 12 percentage points.

"It is quite unusual that opposition to the immigration intake should rise during a period that was economically rosy, because you have to remember the people responded to this in late November and early December last year.

"What we do find is that concerns about affordability of housing really jumped over that period between '05 and '07.

"What we are looking at here is a period when immigration numbers have been really very high and population growth been quite sharp. Like in 2002 the population grew by 237,000. In 2007 it grew by 332,000.

"So it has really grown quite fast and that is fast enough for people to actually see the effects of it. Especially in pressure points like Sydney and Melbourne, where most of the migrants go." Dissatisfaction with Immigration Intake Rising >>> | October 13, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – Australia) >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback – Australia) >>>

Firm Rejection of Introduction of Shariah Law in Australia
"... this is a ham sandwich to a crocodile"
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: THE Federal Government has ruled out the introduction of Islamic courts in Australia following debate triggered by the global head of the Anglican Church.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said Muslims should to be able to resolve marital and financial disputes under Islamic law, rather than the mainstream judicial system.

This could help improve social cohesion, he said in a radio interview in Britain. Australian Muslim leaders put a similar proposal to the Howard government in April 2005, but it was rejected.

Yesterday the Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, also ruled out introducing Islamic law, or sharia. "The Rudd Government is not considering and will not consider the introduction of any part of sharia law into the Australian legal system," he said.

The Opposition Leader, Brendan Nelson, said everyone who came to Australia should accept the existing laws.

"Now this is a ham sandwich to a crocodile," he said. "The idea that in some way you would change your basic values, culture and law to accommodate some people who feel that they don't want to see themselves as Australians first, above all else - under no circumstances would I support that." Australia rejects call for Islamic courts >>>

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)