The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Poll shows Australia's Labor government on course for heavy defeat
- Firefighters step up battle against Idaho blaze; resort towns menaced
- Crackdown on Brotherhood members
| Poll shows Australia's Labor government on course for heavy defeat Posted: CANBERRA (Reuters) - A bold gamble by Kevin Rudd to reclaim the leadership of Australia and launch national elections appears to be failing, with a poll on Monday showing his centre-left Labor government is headed for a heavy defeat in a September ballot. A Newspoll in the Australian newspaper showed opposition leader Tony Abbott's conservative coalition was ahead of Rudd's Labor Party by 54 percent to 46 at the midpoint of the five-week campaign, a two-point increase in a fortnight. Rudd, a former diplomat, ousted Julia Gillard as leader in June in a bold party-room coup to revive the government's public support following a prolonged poll slump under Gillard. The Newspoll showed Rudd had suffered a big reversal in his own popularity as well as his party's. Voter dissatisfaction with Rudd was at a record 54 percent after he launched new advertising that accused the conservatives of risking a recession with planned spending cuts. "You may say it's negative. But we say it's putting the spotlight on what Australia would be like if Mr Abbott became prime minister," Rudd told Australian television. The polling suggests a four-point swing away from Labor's minority government in the September 7 vote, which would allow the conservatives to govern in their own right with around 89 seats in the 150-seat lower house. Labor would lose around 14 seats. Abbott's centre-right coalition and Rudd's Labor both have put management of the $1.5 trillion economy - the world's 12th largest - at the centre of their campaigns, along with promises to curb an influx of asylum seekers arriving by boat. Internal Labor polling shows that, with voters worried about immigration and competition for jobs in a slowing economy forecast to grow at 2.5 percent this fiscal year, at least 10 seats hang in the balance. Several of those seats are held by Labor ministers. Abbott has promised to cut the 30 percent company tax rate if he wins to help boost business confidence while the economy retreats from a China-fuelled mining boom, and to scrap a controversial mining profits tax and price on carbon emissions. "The contemporary Labor Party are hopeless at government, but they are brilliant at low politics. This election is going to be a struggle," Abbott said on Monday. Australia's company tax rate sits about six percentage points above the average of most developed economies. Business groups have been urging a reduction to help boost international competitiveness and investment. (Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by Paul Tait) |
| Firefighters step up battle against Idaho blaze; resort towns menaced Posted: SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Firefighters mounted on Sunday an all-out ground and air attack on an Idaho wildfire that has forced the evacuation of some 2,250 homes and threatened the world-class ski resort of Sun Valley, where snow-making water cannons were used to keep the flames at bay. The fire raging across parched sagebrush, grasslands and pine forests near high-end developments in the Sun Valley area has consumed 101,000 acres (41,000 hectares) and destroyed one home and seven other buildings since lightning sparked the blaze on August 7. More than 1,000 firefighters were engaged in what fire officials called "a heavy air show" and ground assault in a drive to gain the upper hand over a blaze stoked by dry, hot weather and strong, gusting winds. "Every fire has a personality, and this fire has an angry personality," said Beth Lund, incident commander with the U.S. Forest Service team managing the blaze in central Idaho. Airplane tankers dumping payloads of fire retardant and helicopters dropping water bolstered the fight on Sunday to protect the 5,128 residences, 1,399 commercial properties and 3,729 outbuildings threatened by the fire. For the first time since the so-called Beaver Creek blaze erupted, weather conditions on Sunday turned in favour of the firefighters. A rise in humidity levels overnight paired with calmer winds gave crews an edge in efforts to subdue flames that have advanced on affluent neighbourhoods around the tourist town of Hailey and resort communities of Ketchum and Sun Valley to the north. Authorities have put the value of land and property threatened in the resort region, known as the Wood River Valley, at $8 billion. The area contains the homes of such celebrities as film director Steven Spielberg, actor Tom Hanks and singer and actress Barbra Streisand. The 11-day battle against the flames has strained the economies of the resort towns at the height of a summer recreation season tied to hiking, biking and fishing. At the Sun Valley Resort, an all-season vacation getaway famed for its world-class skiing, workers turned on water cannons usually used to make snow to wet down a mountain whose southeastern face was the scene of a concentrated assault by firefighters. "We've fired up the snow-making guns," resort spokesman Jack Sibbach said of the computerized system. On Sunday, fire managers expressed cautious optimism about their prospects for curtailing the blaze in the next week or so. "I think we'll see this thing pretty well beaten into submission," Lund said. "It's kicked our butts for the last three days, but I think we're about to turn the corner on this one." Word that firefighters were gaining ground on the fire was welcome news in Hailey, a city of 8,000. "Saturday was really, really scary, but things seem to be looking up a bit today," said Carrie Morgridge, owner of Hailey Coffee Company. Flames raced down a mountain on the west side of Hailey on Saturday, prompting a 3 a.m. evacuation of 200 homes. Morgridge opened the coffee shop during the pre-dawn hours to aid the displaced. "In the good, in the bad, we will do what it takes to stay a community, to be an extended family, because that's really what we are," she said. The Beaver Creek fire is one of dozens of blazes raging in western states amid a U.S. fire season that brought substantial property losses and the deaths of dozens of firefighters. Elsewhere in Idaho, roughly 30 miles (48 km) to the west, the 1,000 summer residents of the resort communities of Pine and Featherville were allowed back into their homes early Sunday evening after a days-long evacuation prompted by a 130,000-acre (53,000-hectare) wildfire that broke out on August 8. The blaze east of the state capital Boise destroyed 38 homes and 43 other buildings and killed dozens of animals, including elk, deer and black bears. |
| Crackdown on Brotherhood members Posted: CAIRO: Egyptian authorities raided the homes of Muslim Brotherhood members in an apparent attempt to disrupt the group ahead of planned mass rallies by supporters of the country's ousted president. Under the banner of an anti-coup alliance, the Brotherhood said it will hold a demonstration in front of the Supreme Constitutional Court in southern Cairo. Authorities already stationed armoured vehicles and troops at the building, which could turn into another focal point of street violence. More than 800 people have been killed nationwide since Wednesday's dismantling of two encampments of President Mohamed Morsi supporters in Cairo – an act that sparked fierce clashes. In an attempt to cripple the Brotherhood's protest plans, authorities carried out sweeping raids early yesterday morning, detaining mid-level officials and field operatives in several cities, according to security officials and group statements. In Assiut, 320km south of Cairo, 163 of the group's officials and operatives were rounded up in different towns in the province, security officials said. They said those arrested face charges of instigating violence and orchestrating attacks on police stations and churches. In the city of Suez, nine people were arrested after being caught on film attacking army vehicles, burning churches and assaulting Christian-owned stores, officials said. In ancient southern city of Luxor, more than 20 Brotherhood senior officials were detained, officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak publicly to journalists. Meanwhile, the Egyptian government has begun deliberations on whether to ban the Brotherhood, a long-outlawed organisation that swept to power in the country's first democratic elections a year ago. Such a ban – which authorities say would be implemented over the group's use of violence – would be a repeat of the decades-long power struggle between the state and the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood faces increasing public criticism over the ongoing violence in Egypt. Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb, the powerful head of Al-Azhar mosque, Sunni Islam's main seat of learning, issued an audio statement asking Brotherhood members to stop the violence. "The scenes of violence will not grant you any rights," el-Tayeb said. El-Tayeb supported the military ousting of Morsi after millions took to the streets demanding the president to step down. — AP |
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