Australia and New Zealand yesterday said they would unite to push for more democracy in the troubled South Pacific as they condemned a crackdown on critics by Fiji's military-installed government.
The two neighbors, both major donors to their smaller island neighbors, said they would also present a united front internationally on climate change after Australia agreed in December to sign the Kyoto climate change pact.
"You'll see that reflected in the combined positions we take across the many meetings which will occur across the international community in the two difficult years which lie ahead," Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said after meeting his New Zealand counterpart Helen Clark in Canberra.
Both leaders condemned the Fijian government's decision this week to expel the Australian publisher of the Fiji Sun newspaper over a series of articles accusing Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry of tax evasion.
"It's inconceivable that you can hold open, free and fair elections if you have media intimidation," Clark said.
Fiji's military commander Commodore Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, who seized power in a coup in December 2006, has promised to hold elections next year.
Fiji Sun publisher Russell Hunter, 59, said he would continue to run the paper from Sydney.
"I want to be back in Fiji as soon as possible, but for the time being I am working from Sydney," Hunter said. "If I have a computer, telephone and a modem I can do it from just about anywhere in the world."
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
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NOTORIOUS JAIL: Even from a distance, prisoners maimed by torture, weakened by illness and emaciated by hunger, could be distinguished Armed men broke the bolts on the cell and the prisoners crept out: haggard, bewildered and scarcely believing that their years of torment in Syria’s most brutal jail were over. “What has happened?” asked one prisoner after another. “You are free, come out. It is over,” cried the voice of a man filming them on his telephone. “Bashar has gone. We have crushed him.” The dramatic liberation of Saydnaya prison came hours after rebels took the nearby capital, Damascus, having sent former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad fleeing after more than 13 years of civil war. In the video, dozens of
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