A boat carrying scores of asylum seekers to Australia foundered yesterday, as regional ministers discussed the increasingly pressing issue in Indonesia ahead of Australian elections next month.
One hundred and six people were plucked to safety from the partially submerged boat, with just two suffering minor injuries, after the vessel ran into trouble off the Australia’s Christmas Island.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) did not say that everyone was accounted for, only that the rescue was continuing.
AMSA received a request for assistance from someone onboard the boat yesterday morning. A navy ship and a customs and border protection aircraft responded.
A merchant vessel also joined the rescue effort.
“The vessel was upright, but partially submerged. A number of people were sighted in the water,” an AMSA spokeswoman said.
“At 3:30pm HMAS Parramatta has reportedly recovered 106 people from the water,” she said.
Asylum seekers are a sensitive issue in Australia as their numbers increase, with more than 18,000 arriving so far this year, according to official figures.
It is a major issue at the forthcoming elections, and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Labor Party last month unveiled a hardline policy aimed at winning back political ground on the issue. Under the plan, boat people arriving in Australia will be sent to Papua New Guinea for processing and resettlement, even if they are genuine refugees.
The latest incident came as Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr and Immigration Minister Tony Burke were in Jakarta for regional talks on people-smuggling.
They met ministers and senior officials from 12 other countries in a fresh bid to tackle the issue. Among those represented in are Afghanistan and Sri Lanka — the origin countries of many asylum seekers who arrive in Australia after perilous sea journeys.
However, no delegates from Iran attended the conference, a major blow to the talks as the Islamic Republic is the country of origin for most asylum seekers to Australia.
“We will address an issue that I know is of concern for all of us,” Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa told delegates at the opening of the talks.
As the main transit hub for asylum seekers trying to reach Australia, Indonesia offered to host the one-day conference when Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono held talks with Rudd last month.
The Indonesian foreign ministry said the talks were expected to produce “concrete measures as well as a shared commitment among countries of origin, transit and destination.”
Rudd’s new boat people plan is an effort to win back ground from the conservative, Tony Abbott-led opposition, favorites to win the Sept. 7 polls.
Rudd’s plan has already succeeded in slowing the flow of asylum seeker boats — but it has provoked howls of outrage from rights groups and cracks are already starting to appear.
In a weekend interview with Fairfax newspapers, Papua New Guinean Prime Minister Peter O’Neill indicated that the agreement was not open-ended — as had previously been suggested — and there was a limit to the number of boat people it could settle.
Abbott has also warned the ministers they cannot make any commitments at the talks as the government has been in “caretaker mode” since parliament was dissolved ahead of the elections.
During this time, a government must cease taking major policy decisions except on pressing matters, and only then in consultation with the opposition.
Abbott has pledged his own crackdown that would see all refugees put on three-year temporary visas and forced into a work-for-welfare program without family reunion, appeal or permanent residency rights.
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
RSS