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A PROMISE from Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for a "relentless" fight against terrorism and the jailing of people smugglers marked a significant advance in relations with Australia yesterday. On the same day as the 21st boat carrying asylum seekers was intercepted off northern Australia, Dr Yudhoyono told a joint sitting of Parliament that laws would be passed in Jakarta by the end of the year to create the offence of people smuggling with a maximum five-year jail term. The low maximum penalty will bother some Australian officials but the pledge is seen as a breakthrough after decades of pleading...

New York, NY, Sep. 24 (UPI) -- John F. Kerry biographer Douglas Brinkley said the Democratic nominee is not the war hero people thought he was, the New York Times reported Friday. Brinkley made the admission as part of a larger point that the debates over Kerry's service in Vietnam and George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard are not nearly as important as the ongoing debate about the U.S. role in Iraq, the issue Kerry appears to have chosen to end the campaign with. A noted historian, Brinkley, whose book on Kerry is cited as the...