Powerful new mandate will not go to our heads, Australian PM promises

SYDNEY - Australian Prime Minister John Howard promised Monday his newly-elected fourth-term government would strive to maintain a strong economy and fight terror as top priorities, but would not let the strongest government mandate for 23 years go to its head. Howard confirmed he would keep Australian troops in Iraq and would press on with plans to sell its half stake in communications giant Telstra, ease media ownership restrictions and toughen labour laws to reduce union power. Howard’s coalition was returned to office with an increased majority in the lower house of parliament and at least 38 seats in the 76-member Senate, enough to give it control with the support of one sympathetic senator from a minor party. Asked at a press conference to list his top priorities, he said: ”Maintaining a very strong economy, maintaining the strength of our cooperation with our allies both in the region and around the world in the fight against terrorism, and implementing the specific programs that I took to the Australian public during the campaign.” The 65-year-old leader of the conservative Liberal-National coalition said he was “humbled” by the unexpected scale of his win, but added: “We are not going to use this somewhat better position in a capricious or disruptive fashion. “We’re not going to allow this enhanced position to go to our heads. That would be a big mistake and the Australian public would not appreciate it.” He said although it had a chance of winning a 39^th seat and outright majority in the upper house, this now appeared unlikely. But the government is expected to win the support, on some issues, of the sympathetic religious values Family First Party, which is on track for a Senate seat at its first attempt. Final Senate results may not be known until October 22 after postal and absentee ballots are counted, electoral officials said. The Labor Party, devastated by the scale of its defeat, has begun a post mortem, but senior party figures say opposition leader Mark Latham is almost certain to be re-elected unopposed next week, despite being blamed by some. Critics said his failure to target the strong economy and his plan to save Tasmanian forests at the expense of jobs were key factors. Latham also failed to gain public support for his campaign pledge to withdraw Australia’s 900 troops from in and around Iraq. “I’ll be doing everything within my powers and efforts in the coming three years, hopefully with the continued honour of leading our great party, to ensure that we deliver that election victory in 2007,” he told reporters. Howard said he would announce his new cabinet next week, but his heir-designate, Peter Costello would keep his job as treasurer and Alexander Downer would remain foreign minister. He will recall parliament on November 16, the first available date, to start implementing policy promises such as increased funding for health and education. Howard confirmed plans to attend next month’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Chile and an Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Laos, and said he would seek talks, expected next month, with Indonesia’s president-elect Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. In talks with Yudhoyono, Howard said he would urge Jakarta to ensure the full sentences were carried out in relation to those responsible for the October 2002 Bali bombings which claimed 202 lives, including 88 Australians. The second anniversary of the bombings, which targeted a nightclub strip frequented by Western tourists, is on Tuesday. “I will be putting a view to him on behalf of the relatives of Australians who died in Bali that, fully consistent with the Indonesian justice system, Australians want to see sentences that have been handed down in relation to people responsible for murdering 88 Australians be carried out in full,” Howard said.

 

Manila says Abu Sayyaf bomb caused ferry sinking

MANILA - A bomb planted by the militant group Abu Sayyaf caused the sinking of a Philippine ferry that killed more than 100 people in February, the government said. Abu Sayyaf, believed to have links with Al Qaeda, had claimed responsibility, but the government initially said the explosion and fire that sank Superferry 14 at the mouth of Manila Bay were probably caused by an accident. It was the worst terror attack in Asia since the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings blamed on the regional militant group Jemaah Islamiah. “We have solved the Superferry bombing,” President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said in a statement. “Today, criminal charges were filed against the six perpetrators. These are the same people responsible for the Dos Palmas kidnapping.” Abu Sayyaf militants abducted three Americans, two of whom later died, and 17 Filipinos from the Dos Palmas beach resort in the southwestern Philippines in 2001. Two of the ferry bombing suspects, including one suspected of beheading American hostage Guillermo Sobero, was arrested in March after raids by security forces in Manila. The government said then it had foiled Abu Sayyaf plans to bomb shopping malls and embassies in the capital. Arroyo, whose announcement came just after she marked the first 100 days of her new term, said she had ordered the police and military to intensify their hunt for the four other suspects, including Abu Sayyaf leader Khadaffi Janjalani. Janjalani had demanded $1 million from the company that operates the Superferry vessels in exchange for “unhampered use of the waters” around the southern island of Mindanao, the Philippine National Police said in a statement on Monday. Repeated assaults by troops on Abu Sayyaf camps on the southern islands of Basilan and Jolo—with advice, training and logistics support from US special forces—are believed to have weakened the group. But some analysts say the military campaign has left a hardened core of militants led by Janjalani, the younger brother of Abu Sayyaf founder Abdurajak Janjalani. Arthur Gosingan, a coast guard commandant, said investigators determined a bomb caused the explosion inside the ferry, matching a confession by an Abu Sayyaf member arrested in March. “It took us some time to complete the inquiry because it took us a while to raise the ship and tow it to a safer place to find out the cause of the explosion,” Gosingan said. The officers and crew of the ferry reported smelling gunpowder as smoke enveloped the vessel after a powerful blast.

Militias top list of perils for Somali leader

NAIROBI - It took two years of tortuous negotiations, occasional fist fights and countless walkouts before warlords and clan leaders finally chose a new president for Somalia on Sunday. That was the easy part. Survival—both personal and political—tops the security problems President Abdullahi Yusuf will face when he returns from Kenya to set up the first national government in 13 years. Analysts familiar with the fractious militia barons who still dominate the broken country suggest that any number of rivals disgruntled at not winning the top job could disrupt Yusuf’s attempts to establish his rule in Mogadishu, home to an estimated 60,000 militiamen. As if that were not difficult enough, Yusuf is inheriting a failed state bereft of the infrastructure and cash any government will need to help make a start at rebuilding. “Certainly there will be opposition. The question is the level of magnitude,” said analyst Jabril Ibrahim Abdulle, speaking before news of Yusuf’s election. “Any new leader will have to negotiate with warlords before going back to Somalia. There has to be some reconciliation.” The election, by lawmakers meeting in comparative safety across the border in Nairobi, was the culmination of two years of reconciliation talks intended to end a decade of chaos. But Ken Menkhaus, a former U.N. political advisor on Somalia who now teaches political science at Davidson College, North Carolina, says the new leadership’s challenge will be to ensure the fledgling unity of the government does not unravel. “If there are external actors, regional governments, who become unhappy with the direction of the government, then it is not going to take much to pull the thread,” he said. The country disintegrated into anarchy after former dictator Mohammed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991 as clans pressured by famine and turf feuds launched battles for territory. Hundreds of thousands have since died from famine, disease and violence. The country now comprises two self-declared enclaves in the north and a patchwork of quarrelling clan fiefdoms in the south. Security is so bad that Yusuf and the cabinet he will choose may not be able to return to Mogadishu any time soon. They may have to settle for an interim capital in a quieter rural town. “Militias are a big problem, but there is a bigger problem—control of heavy weapons,” said Abdulle. ”So the government’s priority, with the help of the African Union, (will be) containment and removal of these weapons in consultation with the warlords.”  To date Somalia’s reputation as a militia quagmire has deterred the outside world from offering anything substantial in the way of reconstruction aid, although that may now change following Sunday’s relatively orderly vote. “All the necessary support ought to be given to the incoming government to