Hundreds of mainly Afghan asylum seekers remained at the center of an international row yesterday with three countries bickering over who was responsible for finding them a home.
Indonesia said again yesterday it took no responsibility for the 438 boat people plucked from a sinking wooden ferry off its coast on Sunday by a Norwegian-registered freighter.
The asylum seekers were on their way to Australia from Indonesia and were rescued just in time from the crippled vessel.
Indonesia deepened the confusion over the saga by first refusing entry to the freighter on Monday, accepting it yesterday, then refusing it again later in the day.
The freighter's owners said there were not enough provisions or safety equipment for the asylum seekers to make the trip to the nearest Indonesian port from its current anchorage off Australia's Christmas Island.
Norway, the ship's sovereign registrar whose laws apply while at sea, has also refused to have anything to do with the affair.
And Australia, a country built on immigration and which has never before refused access to boat people, says it will help -- but only to ensure the boat people go somewhere else. A team of Australian doctors was helicoptered aboard the Tampa yesterday following reports of illness.
Australia has spurned pleas by the increasingly desperate human cargo for permission to land in a warning to rising numbers of illegal immigrants attempting to get into the country -- many of whom use the Indonesian archipelago as a staging post.
But the move, ahead of a national election later this year, has raised accusations that the country is becoming a stubborn white fortress.
"I think the reversion to the old view of Australia ... will be pretty swift," said political analyst Robert Manne. "Australia as a white fortress and a pretty selfish one."
The freighter's captain Arne Rinnan said he believed the boat people's threat to jump off if the ship moved away from Christmas Island, 350km south of Indonesia's Java and 1,500km west of Australia.
"They will jump overboard as soon as we turn around from Christmas Island and they will go crazy, whatever that means," Rinnan said from the bridge of his ship.
"The tension is increasing down there. As long as they see Christmas Island they are behaving quietly," he said. "At the first sign of violence we will lock ourselves in the accommodation. We are seamen not fighters. We have no weapons on board. This is not a warship."
A spokesman for the boat people said tension was high.
"A lot of people here have been in prison and persecuted in their country and they do not have any hope," said Mohammad Ali, seeking asylum from Afghanistan.
Ali was a teacher but when the Taliban closed schools for women he lost his job. He said he found himself in danger as the Taliban imposed strict fundamentalist Islamic laws.
When Ali decided to flee, he took the path travelled by thousands of asylum seekers -- overland to Pakistan, a flight to Malaysia, and boats to Indonesia's Sumatra and Java islands.
"All the people here are educated people and they have political problems in Afghanistan," he said.
Many of those on board were suffering dysentery, fatigue and dehydration after days at sea after leaving Indonesia.
A spokesman for the ship's owner said toilets were set up in an empty shipping container and blankets handed out but conditions on board were awful.
"There are many sick people aboard and there is an acute need for medicine," said spokesman Hans Christian Bangsmoen.
Australian churches, refugee advocacy and human rights groups have condemned the decision to turn away the Tampa saying it was contrary to international obligations to protect people in need.
But elsewhere, the decision met support.
"Australia is entitled to insist, as far as it can, that its immigration program remains orderly," Melbourne's The Age newspaper said in an editorial.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique