The Bush administration will get a close look this week at a new Australian government that has distanced itself from the pro-US policies championed by its conservative predecessor.
But Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were eager to play down their differences during their meeting yesterday, despite the new Australian prime minister's pledge to pull combat troops out of Iraq and his ratification of a climate change pact the US rejects.
In a sign Washington values keeping close ties with Australia, Smith was scheduled to attend US President George W. Bush's State of the Union address yesterday, a US Constitutional requirement under which presidents report to Congress once a year.
Smith is the highest-level official from Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's administration to visit Washington. He was to attend a working lunch hosted by Rice and meet Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and US lawmakers yesterday. Australia's trade minister is also visiting Washington this week, and Rudd has said he wants to make his own visit this year.
Former prime minister John Howard celebrated his close friendship with Bush and was one of the last foreign supporters of the US invasion of Iraq still in office. Rudd, though, has pledged to pull his country's 550 combat troops out of Iraq by the middle of this year and his first official act as leader was to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, leaving the US as the only major industrial country to reject the global warming pact.
Robert Hathaway, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Asia program, said that Rudd's change in tone is, from the US perspective, a "sign that even America's friends are having growing reservations about this administration and, most particularly, about the war in Iraq."
But Hathaway said he expects to see a "continuity between the Howard and the Rudd governments in terms of their overall relationship with the United States."
Smith said on Friday in New York that strong ties between Australia and the US transcend political changes.
The US State Department emphasized that Australia was a top US partner in a number of efforts, including Iraq, Afghanistan and security cooperation in Asia.
"We've got a pretty broad-based relationship," spokesman Tom Casey told reporters on Friday.
Rudd's November election victory ended Howard's more than 11-year rule. While front-line troops will be withdrawn from Iraq, hundreds of others will stay in supporting roles. Rudd says he will not shrink Australia's 1,000-troop deployment to Afghanistan.
On climate change, Rudd has said he hopes Washington would follow his lead and sign the Kyoto pact. Bush has said the accord would harm the US economy.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS