Bush Ally Defeated in Australia (HOWARD IS OUT!)

[XemaSab]

Australia’s prime minister, John Howard, one of President Bush’s staunchest allies in Asia, suffered a comprehensive defeat at the hands of the electorate on Saturday, as his Liberal Party-led coalition lost its majority in Parliament.

He will be replaced by Kevin Rudd, the Labor Party leader and a former diplomat. “Today Australia looks to the future,” Mr. Rudd told a cheering crowd in his home state of Queensland. “Today the Australian people have decided that we as a nation will move forward.”

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Mr. Howard may suffer the indignity of losing his own seat in the Sydney suburb of Bennelong, which he has held for 33 years, to a former television anchor and rookie politician. He would be the first sitting prime minister to lose his seat since 1929.

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Mr. Rudd, 50, campaigned on a platform of new leadership to address broad concerns about the environment, health and education. He has said his first acts as prime minister would include pushing for the ratification of the Kyoto agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and negotiating the withdrawal of Australia’s 500 troops from Iraq.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/world/asia/25australia.html?ref=world

[zeemike]

1. Congratulations to those down under

Now if we can get rid of our problem the world just might make it

[NastyRiffraff]

2. Great job, Aussies!

Congrats!

Here in America, the next sound you hear will be Little Lord Pissypants throwing a tantrum.

[Joe Chi Minh]

3. The BBC does its best, but their cable News24 is a sad reflection of

the pressure they are put under by the corporatist establishment, who accuse them, not of telling the truth, but of left-wing bias. (Maybe their Internet will be an improvement)

The main differences between Rudd's regime and that of his predecessor, will, it seems, be that Rudd will sign up to the Kyoto Agreement and a pulling out of their troops. Not a word about restoring workers' rights and protections, or restoring a much fairer society socio-economically, which has long campaigned on.

Their Internet site is more informative: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7111479.stm

Austalians are laughing particularly volubly now at a question asked a while back by Howard, "Who ever heard of a Prime Minsiter called Kev?!"

[jpak]

4. This has hugh!11 implications for Ozzy coal and uranium exports, and renewable and nuclear energy

series!1

Good on you Oz - Howard is/was an arse...

[samsingh]

5. good riddens - one more right wing ass hole criminal out of office

the biggest one is increasingly isolated.