Australia opposition elect new leader

Australia’s opposition Liberal Party has elected a new leader, amid a searing row over the government’s carbon trading laws.

Tony Abbott was chosen to replace Malcolm Turnbull at a Canberra meeting.

Mr Turnbull had backed Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme (ETS), but Mr Abbott opposes it.

The government needs the support of the Liberals to pass the legislation in the Senate. The Liberal revolt throws Mr Rudd’s plans into turmoil.

Mr Rudd had wanted the legislation to pass the Senate – where his party does not have a majority – by the start of the Copenhagen climate change summit next week.

Last week he secured Mr Turnbull’s support for the bill, prompting the angry reaction from some Liberal lawmakers that triggered the leadership challenge.

Climate centrepiece

Mr Abbott won the final vote against Mr Turnbull by 42 votes to 41. A third challenger, Joe Hockey, was eliminated in first-round voting.

Minutes after his victory, Mr Abbott told a news conference that he would fight the ETS bill.

“We will seek to refer the legislation to [a Senate] committee for further scrutiny. If we cannot get the support for that course of action we will oppose the legislation in the Senate this week,” he said.

“I think on something of this magnitude, it is much more important to get it right than to rush it,” he added.

The government’s immediate hopes of passing the bill now rest on the possibility of some opposition lawmakers rebelling and voting with it.

But if the Senate fails to back the scheme – as now looks likely – Mr Rudd could call a snap election, correspondents say.

Opinion polls suggest he would win such an election and could then pass his climate legislation in a joint sitting of parliament.

But, says the BBC’s Nick Bryant in Sydney, the issue is complicated by the onset of the southern summer, when political hostilities tend to be put on hold.

The ETS, aimed at reducing Australia’s carbon footprint, is the centrepiece of the government’s environmental strategy.

Mr Rudd wants to cut Australia’s carbon emissions by up to 25% from 2000 levels by 2020.

But some opposition politicians question the scientific case for global warming and the energy lobby says the move would damage Australia’s economy.

Australia has the highest per capita carbon emissions among developed nations and coal is its biggest export.

from: BBC

100 suspects sought for Philippines massacre

Manila, Philippines (CNN) — One hundred more suspects — including police officers — could face arrest over massacre in the Philippines, a government official said Friday after authorities charged the alleged architect of the killings.

At least 57 unarmed civilians were slain Monday in Maguindanao, in the southern Philippines. Andal Ampatuan Jr. — mayor of Datu Unsay and son of the provincial governor of Maguindanao — faces seven counts of murder.

Justice officials said they have collected sworn statements from witnesses and expect to file more charges as the investigation unfolds.

Witnesses have implicated dozens of people in the election-related killings, said Philippine Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno.

“There are an estimated 100 people that will brought to account for this incident,” he said. “We are in the process of preparing cases against them and ultimately filing similar charges. These people are actually members of the police in the province and civilian volunteers in the province.”

Speaking to state-run television from behind bars, Ampatuan denied any involvement, CNN affiliate ABS-CBN news reported Friday.

Meanwhile, police were on alert to prevent further violence, ABS-CBN said.

Violence in the run-up to elections — the next set for May — is not uncommon in the Philippines. The Maguindanao massacre, however, is the worst politically motivated violence in recent Philippine history, according to state media.

Ampatuan voluntarily turned himself in for questioning Thursday, then was charged.
In the subsequent television interview, he blamed Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) commander Umbra Kato as the possible architect of the massacre.

Puto on Friday rejected that allegation.

“At the moment, there is no evidence that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front had anything to do with this,” he said.

Maguindanao is part of an autonomous region in predominantly Muslim Mindanao, which was set up in the 1990s to quell armed uprisings by people seeking an independent Muslim homeland in the predominantly Christian Asian nation.

Negotiations between the MILF, which is one of those armed groups, and the Philippine government broke down last year after the country’s Supreme Court blocked a peace deal that would have increased the size and scope of the autonomous region.

The MILF lashed out at Ampatuan over his accusation, calling it a “clear attempt to divert the issue,” ABS-CBN reported.

Suspicion fell on Ampatuan after a government construction vehicle was found at the hastily dug mass grave where the massacre victims’ bodies were found.

Among the victims were the wife and sister of Islamel “Toto” Mungudadatu, who had sent the women to file paperwork allowing him to run for governor of Maguindanao. He said he had received threats from allies of Gov. Andal Ampatuan, the father of the accused mayor, saying he would be kidnapped if he filed the papers himself.

Also killed were a dozen journalists who had accompanied the women.

Witnesses and local officials have blamed Ampatuan, a longtime ally of Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and a known warlord.

They said the killings were an attempt to block Mungudadatu from challenging him in the gubernatorial election.

The exact number of those kidnapped and killed was still unclear, as recovery continued at the mass grave site.

from: CNN

East Timor threatens to quit gas project

EAST TIMOR has warned it will abandon a multibillion-dollar deal with Australia to exploit natural gas fields in the Timor Sea unless a pipeline is built to deliver the rich bounty directly to the impoverished nation.

Francisco da Costa Monteiro, the special adviser to East Timor’s secretary of state for natural resources, flew to Canberra yesterday for talks with the Federal Minister for Resources, Martin Ferguson, in an attempt to break the impasse.

East Timor wants gas from the Greater Sunrise project – set to be developed by a consortium led by the resources giant Woodside – to be piped about 200 kilometres to East Timor’s southern coastline, with a new plant to be built for processing.

But Woodside has ruled the idea too expensive, opting instead to examine plans for a floating plant above the field or piping the gas some 500 kilometres to an existing plant in Darwin.

The value of the Sunrise gas field is estimated at more than $50 billion.

The Woodside senior vice-president, Jon Ozturgut, told investors this week a final decision on where to process the gas was on track to be announced by the end of the year.

But Mr Da Costa said the Government in Dili would not accept sending the gas abroad and accused Woodside of ignoring the interests of the Timorese people.

”For us, the best outcome is development of Greater Sunrise on the shores of Timor-Leste that can underpin the overall economic and social development of the country,” he said.

He said it was expected it would cost $8 billion to $10 billion to get the project under way and that investment would drive the development of other services in the country of 1 million people.

”That’s the reason why we see that for Australia this is one drop in a big ocean, but for Timor-Leste this is almost the single biggest [undertaking] and you can imagine how much attention we put into this project,” he said.

In a statement, a spokesman for Mr Ferguson said the destination for the pipeline was a commercial matter to be determined by the project’s joint venture partners.

But Mr Da Costa said that under the terms of various treaties dividing the oil and gas fields between Australia and East Timor, both governments should be left alone to decide how to develop the fields without interference. Woodside should follow that direction.

He said East Timor was willing to leave the resources in the ground for future generations rather than rushing a deal. Resources companies from China and Malaysia have recently been invited to examine the Greater Sunrise field.

”They should start to realise that Timor today is very different from Timor in 2002 and 1999 or before,” Mr Da Costa said, noting that the country had substantial national savings from other resource projects, totalling more than $5 billion.

”If it’s [Great Sunrise] to be developed, then it’s to be developed to Timor-Leste,” he said. ”If it’s not coming to Timor-Leste, then we will not approve anything.”

From: smh