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Palestinian scholar and MP Hanan Ashrawi said she was surprised at the controversy surrounding her visit to Australia, but said she had never thought of backing out. Jewish groups and Sydney's Lord Mayor Lucy Turnbull are among those who oppose tonight's awarding to Dr Ashrawi of the 2003 Sydney Peace Prize, and the row has sparked widespread debate over whether she is a suitable recipient. Dr Ashrawi said she was surprised at the reaction to her nomination, as Australia seemed so far from the Middle East. "You wouldn't think they would take such a visceral approach," she said on ABC...

CANBERRA - The Australian government is considering its next move after an old fishing boat carrying 14 asylum seekers managed to land on the country's northern coast. The boat, carrying what appears to be mostly Turkish Kurds, is only the second one known to have penetrated Australia's tough border security in more than a year. The discovery has renewed debate over Australia's policy of sealing its borders to asylum-seekers who come by sea. The latest group was discovered on Melville Island, a remote aboriginal reserve near Darwin in far northern Australia. Peter Brister, the island's community housing manager, was among...

SYDNEY - Australian officials are holding talks with the United States about committing the Australian navy to a new interception mission to block North Korean vessels suspected of carrying missiles and other contraband, it was reported on Wednesday. The Sydney Morning Herald said Australian support would be given for an interception fleet to stop Pyongyang shipping cargo such as drugs and counterfeit money to prop up North Korea's ravaged economy. Ashton Calvert, secretary of Australia's Foreign Affairs and Trade Department, met with US officials in Tokyo on Tuesday night, the Herald said. The communist state confirmed this week that it...

A key Australian minister launched a strong attack on the UN Security Council Wednesday, saying it had failed the world over Iraq and is now incapable of organising its post-war reconstruction. Defence Minister Robert Hill said the five permanent members of the Security Council -- France, China, Russia, Britain and the United States -- would have to rethink their attitudes because deep divisions between them had led to the current war. "The Security Council has failed the world community badly in this instance," Hill told reporters in Brisbane. "They passed 12 years of resolutions, but it wasn't prepared to enforce...

The war in Iraq by the numbers: -Casualties: Among U.S. troops, 101 dead, 11 missing and seven captured, according to the Pentagon. Among British troops, 30 dead. -Deployed: More than 300,000 allied troops are in the region, with about 255,000 from the United States, 45,000 British troops, 2,000 Australia troops, 400 Czech and Slovak troops and 200 Polish troops. Nearly 100,000 more U.S. forces on the way. -Timeline: Wednesday is the 21st day of the war, which began on March 20 in Iraq. -Iraqi deaths: Neither Iraq nor the coalition has released an estimate of military casualties. Iraq says nearly...

Two gay men from Bangladesh have asked the High Court in Australia to grant them asylum because they fear persecution at home for their sexuality. The lawyer representing the couple told the court in Sydney that his clients would be subjected to a range of problems, including the possibility of being attacked by police. The men, who began living together in Bangladesh in 1994, went to Australia four years ago and applied for protection as refugees. That application was rejected by the Australian Refugee Review Tribunal, and the ruling was upheld by the Federal Court of Australia. The defendants' lawyer,...

AUSTRALIAN SAS troops will be targets of suicide bombers as Arab and Muslim anger is directed at Australia, a Middle East expert has warned. Amin Saikal, a professor of Middle East politics at the Australian National University, said Arabs and Muslims were out to target Australia for its perceived defence of Israel. He said it had been well publicised throughout the Middle East that Australia's SAS troops were operating in western Iraq. "If it is true that a number of ... suicide bombers have moved into Iraq you can expect these volunteers to focus very much on the forces which...

Australian SAS troops are in control of a major highway to Baghdad and are some of the closest coalition forces to the Iraqi capital, according to an American journalist fleeing the city. "They were clearly at the very front lines of reconnaissance and they were calm. There was no fear in any of their eyes," US correspondent Nate Thayer told Sky News. The elite soldiers were the first significant military force encountered by Thayer as he drove out of Baghdad, he said. Thayer's report is the first on the location of the SAS but he has promised them he will...

Australia's Prime Minister John Howard has admonished the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, for urging all sides in the Iraq war to protect civilians. Our reporter Stephanie Kennedy says Mr Annan comments came after a missile strike killed 15 Iraqis in a Baghdad suburb. He said all sides in the conflict should respect international humanitarian law and take all necessary steps to protect civilians. Mr Howard has responded to the comments by asking Mr Annan to examine the relative behaviour of US, British and Australian troops. "Any suggestion of moral equivalence between the coalition and the Iraqis on this...

Israeli Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalon has paid tribute to the role Australian Special Air Services (SAS) troops are playing in eliminating the risk of an Iraqi Scud missile attack on his country. Mr Shalom has phoned Foreign Minister Alexander Downer to personally express his gratitude. A statement issued by the Israeli Foreign Ministry said the action of Australian Defence Forces was aimed at eliminating the risk of Scuds from western Iraq. During the last Gulf War in 1991, 39 missiles were fired at Israel leaving two people dead and hundreds injured. Since the current attack on Iraq has begun, the...

Australian special forces have taken out two of Saddam Hussein's command and control centres and killed some of his most elite soldiers, they said today. The 500-strong Australian Special Forces Task Group includes commandos, specialist troops trained to deal with weapons of mass destruction, Chinook CH-47 helicopters and an SAS squadron operating deep inside Iraq. They were flown to a forward base by C130 Hercules transporters and have already fought groups from Saddam's Special Security Organisation and the Iraqi Intelligence Service. Two Iraqi command and control centres for ballistic missile systems and anti-special forces operations were destroyed. Australian F/A-18 Hornet...

A federal Labor frontbencher has played down a poll which shows public support for Australia's involvement in the Iraq attack is rising. A Newspoll survey found opposition to the war had fallen from an overwhelming majority in just a week. Labor member for Melbourne, Lindsay Tanner, said now the troops were engaged it was not unexpected that support for the war had grown. "The fighting has started, our troops have been committed, we haven't had any casualties. There is no gruesome pictures on the television screen about some the consequences of civilian casualties," he told radio 3AW. "You would expect...

The secretive Pine Gap communications station in the Australian outback was hailed as a probable linchpin in the first salvos against Iraq. The US-controlled base outside Alice Springs could have picked up the information that led to the destruction on Thursday of a suspected bunker in southern Baghdad, said Professor Des Ball, of the Australian National University Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. The United States had received information Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and other leaders were at the site before launching the attack. "You could speculate that (Pine Gap) played a role in the particular intelligence coup which led to...

Australian forces captured Iraqi soldiers and dropped the first Australian bomb of the campaign, Australian Defence Forces chief General Peter Cosgrove said in a briefing today. Speakging to reporters in Canberra at 11am today, General Cosgrove confirmed Australia's SAS troops gave first aid to Iraqi soldiers injured in a skirmish in the opening stages of the war in the Gulf. He said Australia's special forces had been involved in four battles since the war began and there had been no Australian casualties. "A few days ago, when the operations started, our special forces had a brief skirmish and as a...

AUSTRALIAN Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) soldiers are deep inside Iraq and have engaged in firefights with Iraqi troops, shooting and killing some, the commander of the Australian contingent revealed today. Brigadier Maurie McNarn said the SASR soldiers had also stopped to treat other Iraqi soldiers wounded in contacts. No Australians had been injured or killed. Brigadier McNarn said the SASR had been in Iraq for a couple of days but suggestions they went in earlier were nonsense. "They are deep inside Iraq," he told reporters in a media briefing. "Their primary role is strategic reconnaissance, although in some cases...

Prime Minister John Howard on Thursday announced Australian defence force personnel had begun combat duties in the Iraq war. "I can inform the House and inform the Australian public in general that forces have commenced combat and combat support operations," Mr Howard told Parliament in response to a question from Opposition Leader Simon Crean. But Mr Howard said he couldn't be specific about those duties for operational and security reasons.

Close American allies Australia and Japan rallied behind the United States yesterday after President George W. Bush gave Saddam Hussein just 48 hours to leave Iraq or face war. But the world's most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia, called the ultimatum regrettable. China insisted that the United Nations should still be allowed to resolve the crisis peacefully, and France warned that the United States faced a "heavy responsibility." Bush's speech was broadcast live Monday morning in many countries across Asia, where it was received by a deeply ambivalent audience. "No good has ever come out of war," Makoto Inoue, a seaweed...

Prime Minister John Howard has ordered Australian troops to join the expected United States-led invasion of Iraq, effectively declaring Australia at war. Australia will join the US and Britain as the only three countries participating in the military campaign, after attempts to secure United Nations Security Council backing failed. "I am very conscious of how difficult this issue is for many people in Australia," Mr Howard said. "I respect the fact that not all would agree with me; I ask them to understand that this Government has taken a decision which it genuinely believes is in the medium and longer...

SOON after midday tomorrow, Australian commandos will be within Iraq's borders as advance units of a military campaign to disarm and remove Saddam Hussein. US President George W. Bush at noon yesterday (Sydney time) gave the Iraqi dictator 48 hours to leave his homeland with his sons or face "the full force and might" of the US military and her Australian and British allies. Mr Bush said in a 13-minute live televised address, also broadcast on Iraqi radio, "the tyrant will soon be gone". "It is too late for Saddam Hussein to remain in power. All the decades and deceit...

Thirty governments have agreed to be named in public as supporters of a U.S. invasion of Iraq, and about 15 others are cooperating behind the scenes, the State Department said on Tuesday. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the basic criterion for inclusion of the published list was that the countries wanted to be publicly associated with the idea that Iraq has to be disarmed now. They are not necessarily providing any assistance to the U.S. war effort. The only allies known to be contributing offensive military forces are Britain and Australia, but the Danish government offered on Tuesday to...