Bringing Australian soldiers back from Iraq by Christmas has become a major political issue as an election looms, and the opposition's popular new leader insisted yesterday that the troops had to come home.
Opposition Labor leader Mark Latham, who has taken the lead in opinion polls, has vowed to bring Australia's 850 troops home by Christmas if his center-left party wins power in an election expected by most analysts to be held in October or November.
But Prime Minister John Howard, a close US ally who sent 2,000 military personnel to Iraq, has accused Latham of sending the wrong signal to terror groups, Australia's allies and the Iraqi people and called on him to reconsider his commitment.
US Ambassador to Australia Tom Schieffer, who has previously been rebuked for interfering in domestic politics, jumped into the row on Thursday by warning of dangerous consequences if troops were withdrawn prematurely from Iraq.
But Latham, who once called US President George W. Bush "dangerous" and "incompetent" over his decision to go to war in Iraq, has refused to change his pledge or kow-tow to the US.
He said the handover to an Iraqi government when occupation formally ends on June 30 was the logical time to withdraw troops as this ended Australia's international responsibility to Iraq.
"Labor has a realistic proposal here and we are sticking to it," Latham told Australian television.
"Australians are worried about security in this country and we are going to be much safer as a nation if we have our troops here instead of on the other side of the world."
A Newspoll survey this week found 65 percent of Australians thought the country's role in Iraq had put it at greater risk of a terror attack.
Spain's new prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, swept to power this month after promising to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq and in the aftermath of the Madrid train bombings which killed 190 people and blamed on Islamic militants.
Latham's row with the government over troops in Iraq has finally given Labor the chance to take the lead on national security, an area dominated by Howard for more than two years.
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
At first, Francis Ari Sture thought a human was trying to shove him down the steep Norwegian mountainside. Then he saw the golden eagle land. “We are staring at each other for, maybe, a whole minute,” Sture said on Monday. “I’m trying to think what’s in its mind.” The bird then attacked Sture five more times on Thursday last week, scratching and clawing the 31-year-old bicycle courier’s face and arms over 10 to 15 minutes as he sprinted down the mountain. The same eagle is believed to be responsible for attacks on three other people across a vast mountainous area of southern Norway
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for