Australia to take more Syrian refugees, wants 'security response'

PERTH - Australia will accept more refugees from camps bordering Syria and Iraq and ''is open'' to providing more financial assistance, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Sunday, while adding that a ''strong security response'' was needed for the region.

The Australian government is due to make a decision within the week on whether to join air strikes against Islamic State fighters in Syria, having been part of the operation in Iraq since last year.

"It is important that there be a humanitarian response, but it's important that there be a strong security response as well," Abbott told reporters in Canberra.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton will travel to Geneva to meet with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to ask what further assistance Australia could provide, Abbott said.

"We are disposed to take more people from this troubled region," Abbott said. "We are open to providing more financial assistance to the UNHCR."

The government's announcement comes as a refugee crisis in Europe intensifies, with many senior Australian politicians calling for an immediate intake of 20,000 Syrian refugees.

While showing willingness to take more refugees from Syria and Iraq, Abbott refused to say whether the country's overall humanitarian intake, currently set at some 14,000 people, would increase, or the door would be shut on others from elsewhere in the world.

He argued that on a per capita basis, Australia continues to accept more refugees through the UNHCR that any other nation.

Australia's tough stance on asylum seekers, which includes a policy of turning back boats and offshore processing of refugee claims, had stopped the people smuggling trade to Australia and opened up more places for those in genuine need, Abbott said.

Australia's immigration policy was the subject of harsh criticism in a New York Times editorial published on Thursday.

The newspaper described Australia's strategy of turning away boats as "inhumane, of dubious legality and strikingly at odds with the country's tradition of welcoming people fleeing persecution and war."

In the year ending June 30, about a third of the 13,750 people allowed to settle in Australia hailed from Syria and Iraq. The government has plans to gradually increase the annual total intake to 18,750 places by 2018-19.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Hostages held in Sydney cafe, forced to hold Islamic flag in window

SYDNEY - Australian police locked down the center of the country's biggest city on Monday after an armed assailant walked into a downtown Sydney cafe, took hostages and forced them to display an Islamic flag, igniting fears of a jihadist attack.

Police said they knew of one armed assailant involved in the incident at the Lindt chocolate cafe in the heart of Sydney's financial district, but there could be more.

Police, including heavily armed paramilitary officers, cordoned off several blocks around the cafe as negotiators tried to defuse one of the biggest security scares in Australia for decades. Snipers and a SWAT team could be seen taking up positions around the cafe and police helicopters flew overhead.

At least five hostages have escaped since the mid-morning siege began. It was not clear how many more hostages remained in the cafe but it was not as high as the 30-40 that had been reported earlier, police said.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who has warned of militant plans to strike Australian targets, said there were indications the hostage situation at the cafe was politically motivated.

"This is a very disturbing incident. I can understand the concerns and anxieties of the Australian people," Abbott told reporters in Canberra, without providing any information on the siege.

Australia, a staunch ally of the United States and its escalating action against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, is on high alert for attacks by home-grown militants returning from fighting in the Middle East.

"We have moved to a footing that would be consistent with a terrorist event," Andrew Scipione, police commissioner for the state of New South Wales, told reporters in Sydney.

The cafe was directly opposite a commercial television studio and footage earlier showed several people inside the cafe standing with their hands pressed against the windows.

Pictures showed a black and white flag similar to those used by Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria being held up by what appeared to be a staff member and another woman. Local media reports said the flag was the Shahada, a general expression of faith in Islam, a translation of which is: "There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah."

The incident forced the evacuation of nearby buildings in Sydney's central business district and sent shockwaves around a country where many people have started to turn their attention to the approaching Christmas festive season following earlier security scares.

In September, Australian anti-terrorism police said they had thwarted an imminent threat to behead a random member of the public and days later, a teenager in Melbourne was shot dead after attacking two anti-terrorism officers with a knife.

EVACUATING BY LADDER

Dozens of heavily armed police surrounded the cafe in Martin Place after the siege began around 9:45 a.m. local time. The area is home to the Reserve Bank of Australia, commercial banks and close to the New South Wales state parliament.

"I walked up to the door and then everyone was sitting down and the door's locked which is pretty weird because it's never locked and there was one guy walking around with a hat and a beard," a man who identified himself as Bruno, a worker at the cafe, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp, referring to the suspected assailant. He said he then turned away.

Several hours into the siege, police led about two dozen people out of a building opposite the cafe and through the cordon. Others were evacuated from the building above the cafe by ladder, television pictures showed.

Earlier, Lindt Australia Chief Executive Steve Loane told Sky Business there were about 10 staff working at the cafe and "probably 30 customers" although he said that figure was an estimate.

The Reserve Bank of Australia said staff had been locked down inside the building, and were all safe and accounted for.

The nearby U.S. consulate was also evacuated, according to an embassy spokeswoman, along with the Sydney Opera House. Tourists were being let back into the world-famous venue by early afternoon.

BANKS AND SHOPS CLOSE
Major banks closed their offices in the central business district and people were told to avoid the area. Shops in a four block radius were shut, leaving large parts of the CBD all but deserted by mid-afternoon.

Traders in currency markets said the hostage news may have contributed to a dip in the Australian dollar, which was already under pressure from global risk aversion as oil prices fell anew.

Ray Hadley, a popular radio jockey, said he had been contacted by a hostage and could hear the suspected gunman issuing orders in the background. Police declined to comment on Hadley's claim.

Concerns about an attack in Australia by radical Islamists have been growing for more than a year, with the security agency raising its national terrorism public alert to "high" in September.

That month, a spokesman for the Islamic State urged supporters in Western nations, including Australia, to attack civilians or military personnel at home.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Australia: No time limit on hunt for Malaysian jet

PERTH - No time limit will be imposed on the search for MH370 because the world deserves to know what happened, Australian premier Tony Abbott said Monday, as a ship equipped to locate the plane's "black box" prepared to set sail.

The hunt for physical evidence that the Malaysia Airlines jet crashed in the Indian Ocean more than three weeks ago has turned up nothing, despite a massive operation involving seven countries and repeated sightings of suspected debris.

Experts warn hard evidence must be found first to narrow down a search zone in order for the US-supplied black box detector to be effective.

Abbott said the search across an expanse of ocean the size of Norway would continue for as long as necessary to track down the Boeing 777, which was carrying 239 people when it vanished on March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

"I'm certainly not putting a time limit on it... We can keep searching for quite some time to come," Abbott told reporters at the Perth military base coordinating the operation.

"We owe it to the families, we owe it to everyone that travels by air, we owe it to the anxious governments of the countries who had people on that aircraft. We owe it to the wider world which has been transfixed by this mystery for three weeks now."

More than a dozen Chinese relatives of those aboard the ill-fated plane -- part of a group of nearly 30 who arrived in Malaysia to press authorities for answers -- kept up the pressure on Monday during a visit to a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur.

Wearing T-shirts that read "MH370 come back safely" in Mandarin, they lit candles and left flowers at the temple in an hour-long prayer session for loved ones. But their anger at Malaysia's handling of the crisis still smoldered.

"We will never forgive those who hurt our families and don't tell the truth and delay the rescue mission," a spokesman for the group told reporters, reiterating the belief among many relatives of the 153 Chinese aboard that Malaysia has concealed the truth.

- 'Critical' to find debris -

The Australian vessel Ocean Shield, fitted with a device known as a towed pinger locator and an underwater drone equipped with electronic sensors for detecting the black box's signal, was to conduct sea trials off Perth on Monday before heading to the search area.

Captain Mark Matthews from the US Navy said it was "critical" to first locate a likely crash site.

"Right now the search area is basically the size of the Indian Ocean, which would take an untenable amount of time to search," he said.

A black box signal usually lasts only about 30 days. Fears have been mounting that it could already be too late, with Ocean Shield needing up to three days to get to the search area.

However, Matthews said the black box signal could last up to 15 days longer than thought.

Once any floating debris is confirmed to be from the plane, authorities plan to work backwards -- analysing recent weather patterns and ocean currents -- to a possible crash site.

- Families demand answers -

Malaysia believes MH370 was deliberately diverted by someone on board, but nothing else is known. It has said satellite data indicates the plane went down in seas far off western Australia.

The circumstances have brought pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, under intense scrutiny, but no evidence has emerged to implicate them, and family and acquaintances have attested their good character.

Zaharie's daughter Aishah on Monday accused a British tabloid newspaper, the Daily Mail, of concocting a report "out of thin air" alleging that her father was "disturbed" due to marital trouble.

"May god have mercy on your souls," she told the paper in a Facebook posting quoted by local media.

"You can bet your ass I will not forgive you."

Many Chinese relatives, already distraught and angry, have been further incensed by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak's announcement on March 24 that the plane was lost at sea, saying that could not be concluded until wreckage is found.

But Abbott backed Najib's conclusion, saying it was supported by an "absolutely overwhelming wave of evidence".

A source close to Malaysia's investigation told AFP that authorities in Kuala Lumpur were upset with "the Chinese side whipping up the families' emotions against Malaysia".

China's state media have regularly heaped scorn on Malaysia for losing MH370, and Beijing has pressed for more transparency in its investigation.

Monday's search saw ten planes take to the skies, with ten ships already at sea. Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia, South Korea and the US are taking part.

Malaysia remains officially in charge of the search, but Australia has assumed increasing responsibility, appointing retired air chief marshal Angus Houston to head a new coordination centre in Perth.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Malaysia to 'verify' possible Australia MH370 find

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia said on Thursday that two objects spotted in the Indian Ocean gave reason for hope of a resolution to its missing plane crisis, but stressed the need to verify the claim.

"Every lead is a hope," Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, where he is overseeing an international search effort.

"We have been very consistent. We want to verify, we want to corroborate," he said.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told parliament that "new and credible information" based on satellite imagery had come to light, and that four long-range surveillance planes were being diverted to look into the find in the southern Indian Ocean.

Hishammuddin said Abbott had called his Malaysian counterpart Najib Razak to discuss the latest development.

"This time I just hope that it is a positive development," Hishammuddin said.

The search has been dogged by previous false leads, including Chinese satellite images of suspected debris published earlier which turned out to be a red herring.

Hishammuddin warned it may take some time before the Australian find could be verified.

"Aircraft and vessels are going there, you know how huge the area is," he said.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com