Australia will likely reject a US request to accept detainees freed from the Guantanamo Bay military prison, the acting prime minister said yesterday.
Acting Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said US President George W. Bush's administration made the request early last month after US president-elect Barack Obama announced he planned to close the prison. Obama has not made such a request, she said.
Australia had rejected a similar request to resettle “a small group of detainees” early last year, said Gillard, who is filling in for Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd while he is on vacation.
“Australia, as an ally of the United States, is examining this second request,” Gillard said in a statement. “Notwithstanding that, it is unlikely Australia would accept these detainees.”
The rebuff from Australia — a staunch ally in the US-led war on terror — was a blow to Washington's quest to find homes in other countries for the prisoners, Australian National University political scientist Michael McKinley said.
But he said a request from Obama himself could yet be successful, as Rudd attempts to endear himself to the new administration by helping it politically.
“Rudd could be hoping to win some points with the new administration through this,” McKinley said.
Rudd's center-left Labor Party, which came to power in 2007, has criticized the detention camp at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba as unjust and demanded the repatriation of two Australians held there.
David Hicks, who was held at Guantanamo for five years without trial, was sent back in 2007 after pleading guilty to supporting terrorism as a Taliban soldier in Afghanistan. He served a nine-month sentence in Australia. Mamdouh Habib, an Egyptian-born immigrant who was arrested in Pakistan in 2001, was returned to Australia in 2005. No charges were ever filed against him.
Habib said yesterday that Australia should not accept the detainees because their histories were unknown.
People can preregister to receive their NT$10,000 (US$325) cash distributed from the central government on Nov. 5 after President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday signed the Special Budget for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience, the Executive Yuan told a news conference last night. The special budget, passed by the Legislative Yuan on Friday last week with a cash handout budget of NT$236 billion, was officially submitted to the Executive Yuan and the Presidential Office yesterday afternoon. People can register through the official Web site at https://10000.gov.tw to have the funds deposited into their bank accounts, withdraw the funds at automated teller
PEACE AND STABILITY: Maintaining the cross-strait ‘status quo’ has long been the government’s position, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan is committed to maintaining the cross-strait “status quo” and seeks no escalation of tensions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday, rebutting a Time magazine opinion piece that described President William Lai (賴清德) as a “reckless leader.” The article, titled “The US Must Beware of Taiwan’s Reckless Leader,” was written by Lyle Goldstein, director of the Asia Program at the Washington-based Defense Priorities think tank. Goldstein wrote that Taiwan is “the world’s most dangerous flashpoint” amid ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said that the situation in the Taiwan Strait has become less stable
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Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi yesterday lavished US President Donald Trump with praise and vows of a “golden age” of ties on his visit to Tokyo, before inking a deal with Washington aimed at securing critical minerals. Takaichi — Japan’s first female prime minister — pulled out all the stops for Trump in her opening test on the international stage and even announced that she would nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize, the White House said. Trump has become increasingly focused on the Nobel since his return to power in January and claims to have ended several conflicts around the world,
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