Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop yesterday defended Canberra’s controversial refugee policy during a trip to key transit nation Indonesia, after Jakarta pressed for more help for people waiting for resettlement.
Asylum seekers have long been a flashpoint between the two nations, with large numbers who are seeking to reach Australia by boat ending up stranded in Indonesia instead. The flow of would-be refugees arriving in Australia has largely dried up after Canberra in 2013 introduced a tough policy of turning back vessels when it is safe to do so.
However, Indonesia has been riled by the policy that has seen an increasing number of asylum-seeker boats pushed back to its shores, with the Indonesian government saying it is struggling to shelter large numbers of migrants.
Bishop said Canberra is already doing a lot, after Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi had urged other nations in the region to do more.
“Australia is sharing the burden and will be looking to other countries in our region to do similar,” Bishop said at the start of a three-day visit to Indonesia, adding that Canberra took a “significant number” under the refugee humanitarian visa and had committed to taking thousands of Syrian refugees.
Bishop also said that she expected Indonesia would be asking all nations to solve what is a “regional problem,” and not just pointing to Australia, when Marsudi co-chairs an upcoming people-smuggling conference in Bali.
Bishop and Marsudi are to chair the Bali Process, a regional forum set up to tackle people-smuggling, on the resort island tomorrow. They held private talks yesterday.
“Of course, there is hope from Indonesia, not only to Australia, but to every country to be more receptive to these migrants who have been waiting for resettlement,” Marsudi said in an interview with Fairfax Media.
Indonesia is not party to the UN Convention on Refugees, which means it is under no obligation to protect refugees, unlike Australia.
Ties between Indonesia and Australia have been strained in recent years by Canberra’s immigration policies, allegations of espionage and Jakarta’s execution last year of Australian drug traffickers.
However, the relationship has improved in recent times, particularly since Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull took office in September last year.
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
RSS