The environment emerged as the sleeper issue of Australia's Oct. 9 election yesterday, with Prime Minister John Howard -- once regarded as the nemesis of conservationists -- vigorously courting the green vote.
As the six-week campaign reached the halfway mark, Howard's conservative coalition and the opposition Labor Party engaged in a frantic bidding war of environmental pledges.
Opinion polls put the Green vote at about 6 percent, well above the 2.2 percent swing required to unseat Howard.
Howard this week pledged A$2 billion dollars (US$1.4 billion) to save the country's ailing river systems, prompting Labor leader Mark Latham to respond with a billion-dollar river package of his own.
The prime minister also said his yet-to-be-released forests policy would stop logging in Tasmania's iconic old-growth forests, only to have Latham pop up on a Perth beach launching a multi-million dollar policy to keep the nation's coast clean.
At the same time, Howard's government has maintained its attack on the Greens' "kooky" non-environmental policies in a bid to stop disaffected coalition voters switching to the minor party.
Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson said voters should realize the Greens were "like a watermelon, green on the outside and red on the inside".
Environmental groups said the sudden conversion to their cause was due to internal party polling that showed green issues were increasingly important to the swinging voters that will decide the election.
"We're very cynical about the approach of the big parties on the environment but if we can use the situation to force them into some meaningful commitments, we'll do so," said Greenpeace Australia campaign director Danny Kennedy.
Greens senator Bob Brown said Howard's environmental credentials were damaged by his refusal to ratify the Kyoto protocol on greenhouse gases and his past support for logging in the island state of Tasmania.
The Tasmanian forests -- vast wilderness areas containing some of the oldest trees on the planet -- are looming as the major green issue of the campaign.
Already 104 British politicians and 101 Australian scientists have signed open letters to Howard calling for an end to the logging of old growth forests for woodchips.
Howard said earlier this month that he wanted to stop old growth logging, but not at the cost of timber workers' jobs.
Speculation on how he will attempt to achieve the goal has centered the possibility of compensation payments to the industry in return for an end to logging in areas of high conservation value.
Eight Chinese naval vessels and 24 military aircraft were detected crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait between 6am yesterday and 6am today, the Ministry of National Defense said this morning. The aircraft entered Taiwan’s northern, central, southwestern and eastern air defense identification zones, the ministry said. The armed forces responded with mission aircraft, naval vessels and shore-based missile systems to closely monitor the situation, it added. Eight naval vessels, one official ship and 36 aircraft sorties were spotted in total, the ministry said.
INCREASED CAPACITY: The flights on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays would leave Singapore in the morning and Taipei in the afternoon Singapore Airlines is adding four supplementary flights to Taipei per week until May to meet increased tourist and business travel demand, the carrier said on Friday. The addition would raise the number of weekly flights it operates to Taipei to 18, Singapore Airlines Taiwan general manager Timothy Ouyang (歐陽漢源) said. The airline has recorded a steady rise in tourist and business travel to and from Taipei, and aims to provide more flexible travel arrangements for passengers, said Ouyang, who assumed the post in July last year. From now until Saturday next week, four additional flights would depart from Singapore on Monday, Wednesday, Friday
The Ministry of National Defense yesterday reported the return of large-scale Chinese air force activities after their unexplained absence for more than two weeks, which had prompted speculation regarding Beijing’s motives. China usually sends fighter jets, drones and other military aircraft around the nation on a daily basis. Interruptions to such routine are generally caused by bad weather. The Ministry of National Defense said it had detected 26 Chinese military aircraft in the Taiwan Strait over the previous 24 hours. It last reported that many aircraft on Feb. 25, when it spotted 30 aircraft, saying Beijing was carrying out another “joint combat
Taiwan successfully defended its women’s 540 kilogram title and won its first-ever men’s 640 kg title at the 2026 World Indoor Tug of War Championships in Taipei yesterday. In the women’s event, Taiwan’s eight-person squad reached the final following a round-robin preliminary round and semifinals featuring teams from Ukraine, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, the Basque Country and South Korea. In the finals, they swept the Basque team 2-0, giving the team composed mainly of National Taiwan Normal University students and graduates its second championship in a row, and its fourth in five years. Team captain
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