Indonesian leader honoured by Australia on historic visit

Asian Defense News: CANBERRA (AFP) - – Indonesia's president was handed Australia's highest civilian honour on Tuesday as he arrived for a historic visit expected to help bury tensions and fight people-smuggling and extremism.

Indonesian leader honoured by Australia on historic visit

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was greeted by a 21-gun salute and a military band as he flew into Canberra, with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Governor-General Quentin Bryce waiting on the red carpet.

Yudhoyono, who will become the first Indonesian leader to address a joint sitting of Australia's parliament on Wednesday, was later appointed an honorary companion of the Order of Australia for his work after the 2002 Bali bombing.

"President Yudhoyono is a true friend of Australia. Under his leadership, the relationship between our two nations has grown stronger," Rudd said.

He added that Wednesday's speech would be an "important milestone" between the neighbouring countries, which are frequently at odds but hope to expand two-way trade of 9.3 billion dollars (8.5 billion US).

"Tomorrow will symbolise how far we have come and how we are both committed to taking this relationship even further," Rudd told parliament.

"We are working together to tackle challenges like people-smuggling, trans-national crime and people-trafficking. We are also close partners in the fight against terrorism," he added.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith acknowledged problems between the sprawling, mainly Muslim archipelago of 230 million, and his Western-focused country of 22 million, separated by just a couple of hundred miles (kilometres) of sea.

"Because we are such close neighbours there will always be issues," Smith told Sky News.

"But the strength of the relationship these days is that we can have issues which may well be difficult, whether it's issues of capital punishment, people smuggling or the Balibo Five for example."

Australia has long complained over the transit of rickety people-smuggling boats via Indonesia, including dozens in recent months that have stretched Australia's main immigration centre to breaking point.

In September, Australia angered Jakarta by opening a war-crimes probe into the 1975 killing of the "Balibo Five" journalists by Indonesian troops in East Timor.

The countries have also clashed over death sentences handed to three of the "Bali Nine" drug-smugglers, while the Australian public was incensed at the 20-year term given to beautician Schapelle Corby for drug offences in 2005.

However, the two sides have enjoyed strong cooperation against extremism, including after the 2002 Bali blasts, which killed 88 Australians. Yudhoyono, as security minister, oversaw the investigation into the attack.

Three Australians were killed in bomb attacks on two luxury Jakarta hotels in July last year, while the Australian embassy in the city was car-bombed in 2004, killing nine.

India parliament to vote on women quota bill

Asian Defense News: NEW DELHI (AFP) - – India's parliament was set to vote Monday on a landmark bill reserving one third of seats for women, with the government confident it can pass the legislation that has been stalled for 14 years.

India parliament to vote on women quota bill

The Women Reservation Bill is to be introduced in the upper house on Monday, International Women's Day, before being considered by the decision-making lower house at a later date.

"We will table the bill in the upper house today," Congress party leader P.S Ghatwar told AFP. "The bill if passed then will move to lower house."

The controversial proposal to reserve 33 percent of seats, first introduced in parliament in 1996, would dramatically increase women's membership in both houses of parliament where they occupy about one in 10 seats.

The legislation needs the approval of two-thirds of legislators. If passed, women would occupy 181 of the 545 seats in the lower house.

"Our government is committed towards women empowerment. We are moving towards one-third reservation for women in parliament and state legislatures," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told a women's leadership summit on Saturday.

The bill has the backing of the Congress-led ruling coalition and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Several socialist parties vow to oppose it, arguing that if passed it would lead to upper caste, not lower caste, women in parliament

Attempts to pass the bill have been blocked by various political groups who demanded separate quotas for women from Muslim and low-caste communities.

Sonia Gandhi, president of the Congress party and regarded as India's most powerful politician, has thrown her weight behind the bill, saying she attaches the "highest importance" to it.

It will be a "gift to the women of India if it is introduced and passed" on International Women's Day, she told party lawmakers last week.

The main opposition on Monday voiced support for the bill.

"I see no reason why it should not be tabled, it is true that there is no unanimity but there is a huge consensus," senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley said.

But leaders of socialist parties such as the Samajwadi Party said they would oppose it.

"We will do everything to make sure that bill is not passed," said Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Politics in India has traditionally been a male bastion, but women now hold prominent positions, including President Pratibha Patil and Sonia Gandhi. India has had one female prime minister, Indira Gandhi.

Women currently occupy 59 seats out of 545 in the lower house. There are just 21 women in the 248-seat upper house.

Panchayats -- local governing bodies in towns and villages -- already reserve a portion of their seats for women and experts say the move has given women greater status in their communities.

Fourth Australia passport linked to Hamas killing

Asian Defense News: SYDNEY (AFP) - – Foreign Minister Stephen Smith Tuesday said a fourth Australian passport-holder had been drawn into the murder of a Hamas leader in Dubai, after Interpol issued an alert for a suspect using the man's name.

Fourth Australia passport linked to Hamas killing

A team of Australian Federal Police and Australian Passport Office officials are already in Israel to investigate the use of three fake Australian passports in the January death of Mahmud al-Mabhuh.

Smith said that a fourth Australian passport, in the name of Joshua Krycer, had also been linked to the alleged assassination.

"Inquiries by the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Passport Office indicate the further passport presented in Dubai was fraudulently duplicated, as was the case with the initial three passports," Smith said.

"There is no information to suggest that Mr. Krycer, as with any of the other three Australian passport holders, was involved in any way, other than as victims of identity fraud," he said in a statement.

Mabhuh, a founder of the military wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, was found dead in his Dubai hotel room on January 20. Police say he had been drugged then suffocated.

Australian reports said Krycer is a speech pathologist who works at a hospital in Jerusalem.

China denounces Dalai Lama as Tibet riot's anniversary looms

Asian Defense News: BEIJING (AFP) - – China on Tuesday accused the Dalai Lama of trying to "create chaos" in Tibet, on the eve of the sensitive anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule that drove the Buddhist monk into exile.

China denounces Dalai Lama as Tibet riot's anniversary looms

Two years ago, protests in the Tibetan capital Lhasa to mark the anniversary of the March 10, 1959 uprising descended into deadly violence, prompting a massive security clampdown in the Himalayan region that is ongoing.

"If there were no anti-China forces or no Dalai to destroy and create chaos, Tibet would be better off than it is today," the region's Communist Party secretary Zhang Qingli said in an interview posted on a government website.

"Although anti-China forces and the Dalai clique are trying to... destroy our harmony and stability, they can never shake our heartfelt belief that China cannot live without Tibet and Tibet cannot live without China," he said.

China would continue to pour investment into Tibet in an effort to develop the economy of the remote, impoverished region and raise the living standards of its people, Zhang said.

Zhang's remarks came during the nation's ongoing annual parliamentary session, at which top leaders and lawmakers have heaped praise on Beijing's efforts to develop Tibet -- and hit out at the Dalai Lama.

"Tibet has witnessed the fastest-ever development in its history (under China's rule)," Qiangba Puncog, head of Tibet's legislature, told journalists on Sunday.

Over the last eight years, Tibet has witnessed over 12 percent economic growth annually as 180 billion yuan (26 billion dollars) was poured into infrastructure in the region, mostly by the central government, he said.

Zhang said such investment would continue in the coming years and would remain the bedrock of Beijing's efforts to ensure "socialism with Chinese characteristics" in Tibet.

"Our main task is to improve the lives of the people and give them a foot to stand on," Zhang said.

"Here the central government has given us a lot of support. We will take this money and invest more of it on the basic level."

China routinely blames unrest in Tibet on the Dalai Lama, viewed by Beijing as a separatist bent on independence. The 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner has denied such accusations, saying he is seeking "real autonomy" for the region.

Zhang further insisted that Tibetans enjoyed full freedom of religion, but that police crackdowns in the region were largely due to "anti-China and separatist forces inciting monks into doing bad things."

Tourist officials and hotel operators said the streets of Lhasa remained quiet ahead of the anniversaries of the uprising and the violence, but that foreign tourists still needed special permission to visit Tibet.

"The armed police are still patrolling the streets, just like they have been doing since the riots," an official at the China Youth Tourism Service told AFP, asking not to be named.