Australia will not lobby against the death penalty in Southeast Asia but will continue to try to save its citizens from the gallows, Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday.
He was speaking as the body of executed drug trafficker Nguyen Tuong Van arrived in his Melbourne hometown from Singapore.
Nguyen, 25, was hanged on Friday despite a strident campaign to save his life.
"I think we have to be realistic about what can be achieved," Howard told national broadcaster ABC.
"We're not going to change the attitude of countries in the region about capital punishment. And when you talk about the region you have to include in that, of course, China," he added.
Howard said that he would resist calls to have capital punishment reintroduced in Australia and would lobby hard for citizens on death row overseas.
Two Australians in Vietnam and one in China face execution for drug offences.
In Indonesia nine Australians arrested in Bali over a heroin smuggling attempt could face death by firing squad if convicted.
Nguyen's lawyer, Lex Lasry, pledged to continue his campaign to have the death sentence scrapped around the region.
He said that Nguyen's death could become a "signpost to demonstrate the way young people who get into the situation that he was in can transform themselves."
He added: "His transformation over the last two years was unbelievable. It was inspiring, complete and quite magnificent."
Nguyen, who arrived in Melbourne as a Vietnamese refugee at the age of two, was caught with almost 400g of heroin at Changi airport three years ago while in transit from Cambodia to Australia.
Many Australians declared themselves happy that the convicted drug smuggler was dead.
His interdiction at Changi airport meant less heroin on Australia's streets and fewer potentially lethal overdoses, they say.
A Roy Morgan opinion poll conducted 24 hours before Nguyen's execution showed 47 percent of Australians were for it and 46 percent against, with the remainder undecided.
A Catholic mass and funeral will be held at Melbourne Cathedral on Wednesday.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image