Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said yesterday he had reached agreement with all but one of the nation’s states on major health funding reform which he hopes will spearhead his re-election campaign for this year.
Failure to clinch the deal, worth more than A$45 billion (US$41.8 billion) and which will see the national government become the nation’s major health funder, would have been a blow to Rudd’s authority and fueled perceptions he has been unable to deliver the reforms that propelled it to victory over conservatives in 2007.
Rudd remains on course to win a second term later this year, with a Newspoll in the Australian newspaper yesterday giving Labor an election-winning margin of 54 to 46 percent, four points narrower than three weeks ago.
“We have reached today an historic agreement to deliver better health and hospital service to working families, to pensioners and carers, right across the country,” Rudd told reporters in Canberra after two days of tense talks.
Rudd said he had convinced all state leaders except conservative-ruled Western Australia to accept his plan for the states to give up a large slice of their consumption tax revenue, or GST, and fund a central takeover of health funding.
To secure the health deal, Rudd agreed to give state leaders extra money for state-run hospitals and a say in how a pool of A$45 billion would be spent on health and hospital funding.
Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan said earlier yesterday that the changes were needed to fund rapidly rising health costs into the future and would not breach a promise to cap growth in government spending to 2 percent a year.
Current official forecasts show no return to surplus until 2015-2016, but some economists expect the budget could be back in surplus as early as 2011-2012, four years earlier than expected, as the economy escaped the worst of the global financial crisis.
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
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