BY MAMAMIA NEWS
UPDATE: Indonesia suspends people smuggling cooperation with Australia.
In the light of the recent spying revelations, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has announced that his country will be suspending their cooperative efforts with Australia to target people smuggling.
Indonesia has further announced that it will suspend all military cooperation with Australia. It is not clear whether defence cooperation activities have already halted, but a spokesperson said, “it is certainly on the record that it has stopped”.
1. Asylum seeker questions
A customs border protection vessel was forced to rescue 40 asylum seekers after it tore off the bow of their timber boat about 20km from Christmas Island.
The people were transferred from their boat by the Customs crew late on Friday, but were not delivered to the island until Sunday afternoon. Immigration Minister Scott Morrison and the commander of the joint agency task force Lieutenant General Angus Campbell, refused to answer questions on the sinking of the boat or why it took 36 hours to transfer the people to Christmas Island.
2. Indonesia spying
Prime Minister Tony Abbott stood firm yesterday and refused to apologise for Australian intelligence activity. While he did not apologise, he did express “regret” over the attempt to listen in to the Indonesian president’s phone conversations. Meanwhile there are concerns that Australia’s refusal to apologise will impact Shappelle Corby’s parole.
3. Baby alive
A newborn baby born premature at 27 weeks and pronounced dead has been found alive in a box at the morgue ten hours after she was born.
For more on this read this post here.”What happened next will delight you”
Top Comments
Raising the legal drinking age is an outdated and stupid response to the youth drinking problems we face. One look at the USA will show you that it doesn't work. In fact, it sometimes makes youth drinking worse. What we need to look at are ways to change the culture of getting pissed/smashed. Countries like Spain and Portugal have barely any laws around drinking at all and yet their youth drinking issues are extremely minor. We need to examine what it is that they do differently to us and then try to replicate that. That will take time and probably generations to work; but it is the best solution. Bans and restrictions don't work - Prohibition is the ultimate proof of that!
4. I thought the message was 'no alcohol is safe'. Basically, they don't know how much is too much as everyone is different and for the easiest, most consistent message it is now recpommended as such. This is what my doctor told me and I even saw a government flyer with this message at the bottle-o.