SYDNEY — Australia’s island state of Tasmania is recovering from wildfires that destroyed more than 100 properties and displaced more than 2,000 people as the continent braces for a second week of extreme heat.
Australia is sending financial aid and extra firefighters to Tasmania. The government plans grants of as much as $9,300 to help people in fire-stricken communities cover living expenses and find new homes, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said.
The wildfires in Tasmania, an island the size of West Virginia about 150 miles off Australia’s southeast coast, forced residents to seek refuge on boats, beaches, and other sites including the former convict settlement of Port Arthur, now a tourist destination.
While temperatures have cooled in Tasmania, helping crews fight the fires, other parts of the country face a continuing heat wave.
Australia last week faced its most wide-ranging heat wave in more than a decade as 80 percent of the country recorded temperatures above 104 degrees, the weather bureau said. Extreme heat is expected to continue in parts of South Australia, Victoria, and New South Wales....
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"Cooling eases Australian fire threat" by Rod McGuirk | Associated Press, January 09, 2013
COOMA, Australia — Temperatures cooled from record highs across much of southern Australia on Wednesday, reducing the danger from scores of wildfires that have blazed for days.
Australia recorded its hottest day on record on Monday with a nationwide average of 104.6 degrees Fahrenheit, narrowly breaking a 1972 record of 104.3.
The Bureau of Meteorology will calculate later Wednesday whether Tuesday’s average was even hotter. With Wednesday’s cooldown, the national capital, Canberra, dropped from a high of 97 degrees on Tuesday to 82 degrees and Sydney dropped from 109 degrees to 73 degrees.
No deaths have been reported, although around 100 people have not been unaccounted for since last week when a fire destroyed about 90 homes in the Tasmanian town of Dunalley, east of the state capital of Hobart.
And these guys are talking temperatures!
Btw, I'm not arguing the fart mist anymore. You have a choice: either you can believe me, or you can believe a lying, agenda-pu$hing pos that has proven itself in the past. Your choice.
Or you can go do the research for yourself. I no longer have time for fart mist f***s.
On Wednesday, police spokeswoman Lisa Stingel said it is likely most of those people simply have not checked in with officials.
‘‘There are no reports of missing persons in circumstances that cause us to have grave fears for their safety at this time,’’ Tasmania Police Acting Commissioner Scott Tilyard said in a statement.
Thousands of cattle and sheep as well as wildlife are believed to have been killed.
In Victoria state, north of Tasmania, a fire injured six people, destroyed four homes, and caused the evacuation of the farming community of Carngham, Country Fire Authority operations officer Ian Morley said.
Cooler conditions on Wednesday brought relief to firefighters who would work through the day to build earth breaks to fully contain the fire ahead of warmer temperatures forecast for Friday, Morley said.
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"TOWERING WARNING -- A huge red dust storm could be seen this week over the ocean ahead of a cyclone approaching the town of Onslow on the West Australian coast (Boston Globe January 12 2013)."
I imagine that is what put out the fires because the Globe dropped its coverage.
"4 dead as flooding hits Australia" Associated Press, January 29, 2013
BRISBANE, Australia — Torrential rains have flooded thousands of homes in eastern Australia, with more rain and high winds expected in Queensland and New South Wales....
More than 2,000 homes are under water in the worst-affected city of Bundaberg, 240 miles to the north of Brisbane.
Other states are still battling wildfires after record temperatures this month.
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"US schooner missing near Australia" by Nick Perry | Associated Press, June 28, 2013
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — An American schooner sailing from New Zealand to Australia is missing with seven on board, more than three weeks after communication with the passengers ended June 4, searchers said Thursday. Attempts to contact the crew by radio and an aerial search this week have proved fruitless.
Just wondering why we are only hearing about it now, but....
Authorities say the skipper of the 70-foot vessel Nina is David Dyche, an American. They say five other Americans and a British man are aboard.
Kevin Banaghan, who is spearheading search efforts, said rescuers escalated their efforts this week. An air force plane on Tuesday searched the area where the boat went missing. A second search by the plane Wednesday went as far as the Australian coast.
The Nina was built at the noted Bigelow shipyard on Monument Beach in Bourne, Mass., in 1928 and won a race from New York to Spain that year, the first American yacht to take those honors.
A New Zealand meteorologist, Bob McDavitt took the last known message from the schooner: ‘‘The weather’s turned nasty, how do we get away from it?’’
They may be lost at sea forever.
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Whadda ya' know, mate, it's a spy ship judging by the one-day wonder quality of coverage by my intelligence agency masquerading as a newspaper.
I think that explains the change in leadership:
"Australian leader wins party challenge" by Matt Siegel | New York Times, March 22, 2013
SYDNEY — Prime Minister Julia Gillard survived an attempt Thursday by a senior lawmaker within her own party to oust her in a hectic day of intra-party intrigue.
Related: Australia's New Ma'am
I can see why she is not well liked.
Many party members thought Gillard’s predecessor, Kevin Rudd, whom she deposed in a 2010 party coup, would run against her and called for a leadership ballot against her. In the end, however, Rudd decided not to run.
Simon Crean, a former leader of the governing Labor Party, had challenged Gillard, saying the party could only hope to prevail in September elections by returning Rudd to office. But Rudd cited an earlier promise not to run unless he had overwhelming support within the party and the position was vacant. The vote was held as scheduled, and Gillard was reelected unopposed.
Also Thursday, Gillard issued for the first time a public apology for a decades-long policy of forced adoptions that ended only in the 1970s.
Tens of thousands of babies are believed to have been taken by the state — many of them from unmarried, often teenage mothers — and given to childless married couples.
They still didn't answer them.
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"Rudd sworn in as Australia’s prime minister" June 27, 2013
CANBERRA, Australia — Kevin Rudd was sworn in as Australian prime minister on Thursday three years and three days after he was ousted from the same job in an internal government showdown.
My printed copy tells me it was a "sensational political comeback," so it definitely must have surprised certain people who are not used to be told f*** off.
His office could not immediately confirm whether Rudd would replace his predecessor Julia Gillard in a visit to Indonesia scheduled for next week. Gillard was ousted Wednesday by colleagues spooked by the party’s dismal opinion polling.
Rudd has yet say when he will announce his complete Cabinet after seven ministers resigned following Gillard’s ouster. But Rudd faces a potential no-confidence vote in Parliament, which he will likely survive although a loss could trigger an election as early as Aug. 3.
Gillard tendered her resignation Wednesday night after losing a ballot of lawmakers to Rudd 57 votes to 45.
Congratulations, Australians!
Rudd has given no indication of whether he would stick with an election date of Sept. 14 set under Gillard.
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"Economy seen key to Australian vote" Associated Press, August 05, 2013
CANBERRA, Australia — Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called an election for Sept. 7 and said Sunday that it will be fought over who can be trusted to manage the Australian economy as it transitions from a decade-old mining boom fed by Chinese industrial demand that is now fading.
In starting the five-week election campaign, Rudd said the economy can no longer rely on Chinese demand for iron ore and coal that made the country one of the few wealthy nations to avoid a recession during the global economic downturn.
Israel was another, so why are tapped-out American taxpayers sending them billions of dollars a year that they then kickback to influence the political process?
‘‘The boom, of course, has fueled so much of our nation’s wealth,’’ he told reporters at Parliament House. ‘‘That boom is over.’’
‘‘Who do the Australian people trust to best lead them through the new economic challenges that lie ahead?’’ he asked.
Rudd conceded that his center-left Labor Party was the underdog, saying his advisers had told him that if the election had been held this weekend, his government would have lost.
But opinion polls also show that more voters prefer Rudd, a 55-year-old former Beijing diplomat, as prime minister than opposition leader Tony Abbott, a former journalist who is also 55.
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Related: Obama in Asia
Let's ship on out then!
"Australia moves to curb asylum seekers" by Matt Siegel | New York Times, July 20, 2013
SYDNEY — Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia moved to curtail the record number of people trying the dangerous boat journey to claim asylum in the country, pledging on Friday that no one who arrives by boat without a visa will ever be granted permission to settle in Australia.
Under the tough policy, all asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat will be sent to a refugee-processing center in nearby Papua New Guinea, which like Australia is a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention. If the asylum seekers are found to be genuine refugees, they will be resettled in Papua New Guinea, but forfeit any right to asylum in Australia.
Thousands of asylum seekers fly into Indonesia every year, where they pay smugglers to ferry them in often unsafe, overcrowded vessels to Christmas Island, a remote Australian territory in the Indian Ocean that is its nearest point to Indonesia. Accidents at sea have killed more than 600 people since late 2009.
Rudd’s announcement came on the same day that Indonesia announced it would stop issuing visas on arrival to Iranians, many of whom use the country as a transit point before seeking asylum in Australia.
Why? They aren't the terrorist infiltrators you're looking for.
Foreign Minister Bob Carr of Australia, who has recently argued that Iranians who seek asylum by boat are economic migrants and not genuine refugees, said in an interview last week that Australia would be asking Indonesia for changes like those announced Friday.
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Related: Hagel Visited Vietnam
"A nurse has pleaded guilty Monday to murdering 11 elderly people by setting fire to the Sydney nursing home where he worked....
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