Australia s new govt vows to limit foreign aid

Australia s new govt vows to limit foreign aid

A new government prepared to take control of Australia on Sunday, with policies to cut pledges in foreign aid and to wind back greenhouse gas reduction measures in an effort to balance the nation's books.
Prime Minister-elect Tony Abbott also plans to visit Indonesia soon in part to discuss controversial plans to curb the number of asylum seekers reaching Australian shores in Indonesian fishing boats.
Abbott's conservative Liberal party-led coalition won a crushing victory at elections Saturday against the center-left Labour Party, which had ruled for six years, including during the turbulent global financial crisis.
The Australian Electoral Commission's latest counting early Sunday had the coalition likely to win a clear majority of 88 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives. Labour appeared likely to secure 57.
Mr. Abbott, a supremely fit 55-year-old, began his first day as prime minister-elect with an early morning bicycle ride from his Sydney home with friends.
"It was a very big night, but this is just the start of another normal day and there's going to be a fair bit of solid work this morning," Abbott told reporters. "There's a lot of work that will be done later today."
The coalition announced last week that if elected it would plan to save 4.5 billion Australian dollars ($4.1 billion) over the next four years by reducing increases in its aid spending to the Australian inflation rate, which is currently less than 3 per cent.
The outgoing Labour government said in May that Australia's long-standing pledge to increase its foreign aid spending to 0.5 per cent of gross national income by 2015-16 would be postponed by two years.
The coalition said in a statement last week that it shared Labour's commitment to reach the 0.5 per cent target "over time, but cannot commit to a date given the current state of the federal budget."
"I have to say, there are higher immediate priorities" than reaching the 0.5 per cent target, Mr. Abbott told reporters last week. "The best thing we can do for our country and ultimately the best thing we can do for people around the world is to strengthen our economy."
The money saved will be reallocated to road projects in the country's three biggest cities Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
The plans have been condemned by opponents and aid groups, who dubbed it short-sighted and contrary to the nation's image of global cooperation, particularly in light of Australia's recent appointments to presidency of the U.N. Security Council and the G20 in 2014.
"I think it says a great deal about the man, Tony Abbott, and his principles if he is prepared to attack the poor home and abroad and is prepared to jeopardize the long-term standing of our country while he is at it," Greens leader Christine Milne said last week.
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said on Friday that cuts to planned spending will strain small Pacific island nations, a major beneficiary of Australian aid.
"These are countries that need a lot of support and help, so if there is less money coming their way, they'll obviously feel that over time," Key told reporters in the Marshall Islands, where he was attending the Pacific Islands Forum. "It will certainly make the money that we spend here even more valuable."
The coalition also aims to save money by stopping the AU$10 billion government-run Clean Energy Finance Corp. from investing any more money on low-pollution power generation technologies.
It is unclear whether the collation can fulfil that election promise before it passes legislation.
The coalition appears unlikely to win a majority in the Senate. But the election could deliver some conservatively minded senators for minor parties that Abbott could deal with.
Mr. Abbott also needs Senate support to fulfil his promises to repeal a deeply unpopular carbon tax on Australia's biggest industrial polluters and a 30 percent tax on coal and iron ore miners' profits.
One of the biggest former donors to Mr. Abbott's coalition, eccentric mining magnate Clive Palmer, withdrew his patronage to bankroll his own political party, Palmer United Party, to target conservative voters who distrust Abbott, whom opinion polls show is an unpopular political leader.
Mr. Palmer, who is currently building a replica of the ocean liner Titanic which will be named Titianic II and make its maiden voyage in 2016 is close to winning his own seat in the House of Representatives. A Palmer United Party senate candidate, former football star Glenn Lazarus, looks even more likely in his home state of Queensland.
Mr. Abbott's new government wants to discuss with Indonesia plans to have the Australian navy turn back Indonesian fishing boats carrying asylum seekers into Australian waters. The coalition has proposed that the government buy old fishing boats from Indonesian fishermen to prevent them falling into the hands of people smugglers.
Labour argued that both policies could damage Australia's relations with Indonesia, its closest neighbour after Papua New Guinea.
Saturday's election likely brought Australia's first Aboriginal woman to Parliament. Former Olympian Nova Peris is almost certain to win a Senate seat for Labour in the Northern Territory, but the final results will not be known for days. Less likely is WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's bid for a Senate seat in Victoria state.

NGT stays cutting of trees in Aravalli hills

The National Green Tribunal has ordered an interim stay on cutting of trees in Manger village in Aravalli hills on a plea for withdrawing permission granted by authorities for non-forestry activities there.
A bench headed by Justice S.N. Hussain issued notices and sought replies of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Haryana government, Directorate of Town and Country Planning, Faridabad and the Forest Department of Haryana by next date of hearing, September 19.
"Let notice be issued to the respondents. Till further orders let there be an interim order restraining respondents from undertaking any non-forestry activities including cutting the trees in the areas covered under this application. Stand over to September 19, 2013," the bench said.
The order came on the plea of Haryali Welfare Society which opposed the decision of Faridabad Town and Country Planning department authorising construction of walls and fences around one acre of the forest area near Manger village of the district, for agricultural purposes.
It has alleged that permission for fencing of the area was granted by the town planning department of Faridabad in violation of MoEF directives.
Citing news reports, the society contended that the Aravalli hills are ecologically fragile and no agricultural activity is possible there.
It also contended that cutting of trees and digging up of the area could result in soil erosion and the walling or fencing of the area would hinder the movement of wildlife.
Apart from seeking an interim stay on the fencing work in the area, the society also sought that no such permission for non-forest activity be granted in future.
The petition further sought directions to the authorities to conduct a survey of all non-forest activity near Manger village in the Aravalli hills.

Hafiz Saeed whips up anti India rhetoric in Islamabad

Hafiz Saeed whips up anti India rhetoric in Islamabad
A terrorist tag by the United Nations Security Council and a $10 million reward for his capture by the United States sit lightly on the man India holds responsible as the mastermind of the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai.
On Friday, as Pakistan marked the memory of soldiers killed in its 1965 war against India, Hafiz Saeed swept into the well-tended capital for a rally by Jamat-ud-Dawa, the organisation that he leads, and which is a front for the militant Lashkar-e-Taiba, banned by the Musharraf regime months after 9/11.
Causing traffic jams and road blocks, the procession of cars and trucks drove in from Rawalpindi, the garrison city where the Pakistan military has its headquarters, and where Mr. Saeed had addressed another rally earlier in the day, at the historic Liaquat Bagh grounds.
Almost all the men – there were no women – in the rally wore black, and waved the black and white standard of the JuD, with its insignia of a sword and the first Kalma in Urdu.
Near the National Assembly, Pakistan's parliament, people spilled out to D chowk in the evening and sat in neatly arranged chairs. Mr. Saeed, addressed his audience of stick wielding youth from a stage made up of three container trucks emblazoned with a large green banner setting out his campaign agenda --    "water aggression" by India, "killings by India" at the LoC, freedom for Kashmir, US drone strikes and terrorism in Pakistan.
The sea of white and black flags waved often in appreciation at his words, which were mostly concerning India and the Kashmir question. Every now and then the silence from the rapt audience would be broken with shouts of  "Hafiz Saeed aage badho hum tumhare saath hai(Hafiz Saeed lead the way we are with you) or slogans proclaiming jihad. Security cameras ensured surveillance and even the TV crew was precariously perched on two Maersk containers.   Mr. Saeed portrays the JUD as a social work organisation, but his speech was almost entirely about why Pakistan must make no moves for peace with India, though he said he was not for aggression or enmity.
Swinging between sarcasm and rhetoric, he denounced the attempts at talks between the two countries, saying Pakistan should not participate in any such process, back channel or otherwise, until the Kashmir question was resolved.
India, he claimed, was using its consulates in Afghanistan for terrorism in Balochistan, it was behind the bloodletting in Karachi, and it was flooding Pakistan by releasing waters from its dams. Until all these issues were resolved there was no need for talks or trade, nor was there any need to take electricity from India, he declared.
India has been demanding that Pakistan address its concern over Saeed's virulent speeches, apart from his involvement in sending armed young men into Kashmir.
But like the previous government, the Nawaz Sharif government too seems to have decided to let him be. In its budget this year, the Punjab government even allocated Rs 61 million to JuD, defending the move as necessary in the light of services provided by the organisation. In 2009, Saeed's detention in the Mumbai terror attack was set aside by the high court in Lahore which did not find any evidence linking him with the incident.
Saeed's diatribe against India comes at a time that the two sides are preparing for a possible meeting of their Prime Ministers later this month, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid will meet Pakistan Prime Minister s national security and foreign policy Sartaj Aziz on September 13 in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek in this regard.

Morsy charged with insulting judiciary

Egyptian authorities on Saturday charged ousted President Mohamed Morsy with insulting the judiciary, reported State media, the latest in a string of cases brought against the Islamist leader.
An investigative judge has ordered that Mr. Morsy be detained for four days pending further questioning for the allegation that he accused judges supervising the 2005 parliamentary elections of rigging the polls, said the official Middle East News Agency.
Mr. Morsy made the fraud allegation in a public address he gave days before the army deposed him in July.
Last week, Mr. Morsy, along with senior members in his Muslim Brotherhood group, was referred to trial for allegedly inciting the murder of protesters rallying against him in December.
No specific date has been set for the trial.
He is also facing charges of conspiring with the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas to perpetrate "hostile acts" during a 2011 uprising against his predecessor, Hosni Mubarak.
Mr. Morsy was deposed by military chief Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi on July 3, after millions of people took to the streets calling for Egypt's first democratically elected President to go.
He has since been detained by the military at an undisclosed location.
His supporters say the charges are politically motivated.