Australia’s main opposition party vowed yesterday to cut the number of immigrants allowed into the country if it wins next month’s elections.
The nation’s rapid population growth and an increase in asylum seekers, mainly from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, have become major issues ahead of the Aug. 21 elections.
Critics argue that the major parties are developing immigration policies that pander to racism within Australia’s predominantly Christian society — claims the parties deny.
Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey, a member of the Liberal Party and the son of Lebanese immigrants, said Australia’s current intake of nearly 300,000 immigrants a year was not sustainable. His party said it would cut that number to 170,000.
“The Australian people are concerned about the lack of integrity in the immigration program at the moment,” Hockey told Nine Network television. “We are responding accordingly; our number will take us back to a reasonable level.”
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, a member of the ruling Labor Party whose father is Malaysian, said her party’s immigration plan would be based on existing population trends that would most likely see the number of immigrants decrease to 175,000 in the current fiscal year and to 145,000 next year and in 2012.
“It’s not really a policy, it’s a projection,” she told Network Ten television.
Meanwhile, in a bid to quiet critics who say the party is pandering to racism in the country, the Liberal Party announced it was dropping a candidate in Sydney who had attacked his opponent over his religion in Facebook postings.
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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