PENNY WONG

Australia's government Cabinet agreed to again recognize Tel Aviv as the capital and reaffirmed that Jerusalem's status must be resolved in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians

CANBERRA, Australia — (AP) — Australia has reversed a previous government's recognition of West Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the foreign minister said Tuesday. The center-left Labor Party government Cabinet agreed to again recognize Tel Aviv as the capital and reaffirmed that Jerusalem's status must be resolved in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said. Australia remained committed to a two-party solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, and “we will not support an approach that undermines this prospect,” Wong said. Former conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison formally recognized West Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December 2018, although the Australian embassy remained in Tel Aviv. The change followed the then-U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to shift the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

In a story published October 18, 2022, about Australia dropping its former recognition of west Jerusalem as Israel's capital, The Associated Press erroneously reported that Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the government would again recognize Tel Aviv as the capital.

Australia has reversed a previous government's recognition of West Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the foreign minister said Tuesday. The center-left Labor Party government Cabinet agreed to again recognize Tel Aviv as the capital and reaffirmed that Jerusalem's status must be resolved in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said.

People affected by the 2002 Bali bombings gathered on the Indonesian resort island to commemorate 20 years since the blasts that killed 202 people

People affected by the 2002 Bali bombings gathered on the Indonesian resort island to commemorate 20 years since the twin bombing that killed 202 people.

India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said Russia’s war on Ukraine “does not serve the interests of anybody,” but declined to say whether his government would support a United Nations General Assembly motion condemning Moscow’s annexation of Ukrainian territories. Jaishankar was speaking at a joint news conference Monday with Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong after a bilateral meeting at Parliament House where the Ukraine war was discussed.

The Australian government has blamed lax cybersecurity at Optus for last week's unprecedented breach of current and former customers' personal information. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rejected opposition lawmakers’ calls for the government to waive the costs of replacing compromised Optus customers’ passports. “We believe that Optus should pay, not taxpayers,” Albanese told Parliament. Foreign Minister Penny Wong wrote to Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin on Wednesday requesting her “earliest confirmation” that the Sydney-based company would pay for vulnerable customers’ passports. Victoria state has also asked Optus to pay for new licenses, but continues to charge the company's customers.

Australia’s federal and state governments have called for Optus to pay for replacing passports and driver’s licenses after 9.8 million of the telecommunications company’s customers had personal data stolen by computer hackers.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — (AP) — Australia said Tuesday its navy ships have been given clearance to resume visits to the Solomon Islands, which had last week announced a temporary block on all military vessels during a review of its approval processes. The HMS Spey withdrew its application to visit, Sogavare said. “The delay in these approvals demonstrate the need for the government to review and refine its approval requirements and procedures for visiting military vessels to Solomon Islands,” Sogavare said in a statement. The Solomon Islands did allow a visit last week by the U.S. hospital ship USNS Mercy to go ahead. Meanwhile, Wong angered Sogavare on Tuesday by publicly revealing that the Australian government had offered to help pay for Solomon Islands elections, which are due next year.

Australia says its navy ships have been given clearance to resume visits to the Solomon Islands, which had last week announced a temporary block on all military vessels during a review of its approval processes

Australia says its navy ships have been given clearance to resume visits to the Solomon Islands, which had last week announced a temporary block on all military vessels during a review of its approval processes.

Competition between the US and China is escalating in the Pacific, with both rushing to cement their influence. They have reached out to Pacific nations, offering loans, security aid and development assistance. The stakes rose in April when the Solomon Islands signed a security accord with the Chinese government, Beijing’s first such deal in the region. Since then Australia and China have ramped up diplomacy. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made a rare eight-day trip to the region in May while

While inflation and recession fears weigh heavily on the minds of voters, another issue is popping up in political campaigns from the U_K_ and Australia to the U_S_ and beyond: the “China threat.”.

China says it is extending threatening military exercises surrounding Taiwan that have disrupted shipping and air traffic and substantially raised concerns about the potential for conflict.

Kyaw Min Yu, a 53-year-old democracy activist better known as Ko Jimmy, was executed for violating the counterterrorism law. (AP Photo/File) (Uncredited)BANGKOK — (AP) — International outrage over Myanmar's execution of four political prisoners intensified Tuesday with strong condemnation from world governments and grassroots protests. Hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators protested outside Myanmar's embassy in neighboring Thailand on Tuesday, waving flags and chanting slogans amid a heavy downpour. “This was a barbaric act by Myanmar's military regime,” said New Zealand's Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta of the four executions carried out. “New Zealand condemns these actions in the strongest possible terms.”Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong said she was “appalled” by the executions.

International outrage over Myanmar’s execution of four political prisoners is intensifying with grassroots protests and strong condemnation from world governments.

Australia and New Zealand’s prime ministers have agreed that security concerns regarding China’s expanding influence must be discussed at a meeting of western Pacific leaders.

Australia’s new defense minister on Wednesday talked down the prospect of Australia acquiring U.S. nuclear-powered submarines by the end of the decade, describing such a timetable as “optimistic in the extreme.” Defense Minister Richard Marles, whose party came to power at elections last month, said his priority was closing a naval capability gap that is expected to open when Australia’s aging fleet of six Collins-class diesel-electric submarines begins to retire from 2038. The United States and Britain have agreed to provide Australia with a fleet of submarines powered by U.S. nuclear technology.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has rejected calls for him to publicly demand the United States drop its prosecution of WikiLeaks founder and Australian citizen Julian Assange.

Authorities called one man a "hero" after he was able to stop the gunman who opened fire at a church in Vestavia Hills, a Birmingham suburb, on Thursday. They shared updates about their investigation during a press conference Friday morning.

Solomon Islands Australia Politics FILE Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, right, talks to New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta at a bilateral meeting in Wellington, New Zealand, Thursday, June 16, 2022. Wong visited the Solomon Islands on Friday, June 17, 2022, to assure the South Pacific island nation it does not need a security pact with China. The Solomons is the fifth Pacific nation that Foreign Minister Penny Wong has visited since her center-left Labor Party came to power in May 21 elections. She is the first Australian minister to visit the Solomons since its government signed a secretive security pact with China that many fear could lead to a Chinese naval base being established within 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) of Australia’s northeast coast. Australia is the Solomons’ most generous donor of foreign aid and, like China, has a bilateral security pact with the restive nation of 700,000.

Australia’s new foreign minister has visited the Solomon Islands to assure the South Pacific island nation it does not need a security pact with China.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is looking to move beyond regional issues.

The foreign ministers of Australia and China were both making their final stops Friday on what has become an island-hopping diplomatic duel in the South Pacific.

(Australian Department of Foreign Affairs via AP) (Uncredited)WELLINGTON, New Zealand — (AP) — Australia and China continued their tit-for-tat diplomatic rivalry in the Pacific on Thursday as the foreign ministers from each country paid separate visits to island nations. Meanwhile, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Papua New Guinea to meet with leaders there on the penultimate stop of an eight-nation regional tour. Wang had hoped to ink an ambitious multilateral deal with 10 South Pacific nations this week covering everything from security to fisheries. The diplomatic push by China, especially around Pacific security, has caused deep concern among some of the island nations as well as farther afield in Canberra and Washington. Since news of the proposed deal emerged, Wong has made two trips to the Pacific to shore up support for Australia.

Australia and China are continuing their tit-for-tat diplomatic rivalry in the Pacific as the foreign ministers from each country pay separate visits to island nations.

A record 13 women, including the first female Muslim, have been sworn in as ministers in Australia’s new government.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived in Tonga on Tuesday as he continued his regional island-hopping tour a day after failing to ink an ambitious deal with 10 South Pacific nations.

When China signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands in April it raised concerns from the U.S. and its allies that Beijing may be seeking a military outpost in the South Pacific, an area of traditional American naval dominance.

China’s foreign minister is visiting the remote Pacific nation of Kiribati, where the future of a vast fishing ground is at stake.

Australia was scrambling to counter the move by sending its own Foreign Minister Penny Wong to Fiji to shore up support in the Pacific.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and a 20-strong delegation have arrived in the Solomon Islands at the start of an eight-nation tour that comes amid growing concerns about Beijing’s military and financial ambitions in the South Pacific region.

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi is visiting South Pacific nations amid concerns over Beijing's growing military and diplomatic presence in the region.

Premier Li Keqiang said China was ready to work with Australia to development the bilateral relationship. But Albanese said it was China, not Australia, that had changed since his center-left Labor Party was last in power in 2013. China has created a series of official and unofficial trade barriers in recent years to a range of Australian exports worth billions of dollars including coal, wine, barley, beef and seafood. "It is China that has placed sanctions on Australia," Albanese told reporters Tuesday at a Tokyo summit that he attended with President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Treasurer Jim Chalmers also called for China to immediately lift trade barriers between the free-trade partners.

Australia’s new government has urged China to lift trade sanctions if it wants to reset a bilateral relationship that plumbed new depths under the previous administration.

New Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese walked into a global spotlight the day after his swearing-in.

Australia’s new prime minister was sworn into office before flying to Tokyo for a summit with President Joe Biden.

Australians awoke to a new prime minister in Anthony Albanese, the center-left Labor Party leader whose ascension to the nation’s top job from being raised in social housing by a single mother on a disability pension was said to reflect the country's changed fabric.

Australia’s Prime Minister-elect Anthony Albanese is a politician molded by his humble start to life as the only child of a single mother who raised him on a pension in gritty inner-Sydney suburbia.

Australia's Prime Minister-elect Anthony Albanese is a politician molded by his humble start to life as the only child of a single mother who raised him on a pension in gritty inner-Sydney suburbia. The previous administration had stuck with the same commitment it made at the Paris Agreement in 2015: 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030.

Australia Politics Australian shadow foreign affairs minister Penny Wong speaks to media in Darwin, Australia, Tuesday, April 26, 2022. Australia's opposition party promises to establish a Pacific defense school to train neighboring armies in response to China's potential military presence on the Solomon Islands. (George Fragopoulos/AAP Image via AP) (George Fragopoulos)CANBERRA, Australia — (AP) — Australia’s opposition party promised Tuesday to establish a Pacific defense school to train neighboring armies in response to China’s potential military presence on the Solomon Islands. Labor has criticized Prime Minister Scott Morrison's conservative government over a security pact announced last week between China and the Solomon Islands. “That has occurred on Mr. Morrison’s watch.”The Australia-Pacific Defense School would deepen institutional links between the Australian Defense Force and its regional counterparts while supporting the region’s needs, a policy statement said.

Australia’s opposition party has promised to establish a Pacific defense school to train neighboring armies in response to China’s potential military presence on the Solomon Islands.

Australia and the United States are stepping up diplomatic outreach to the Solomon Islands after China signed a security deal with the South Pacific island nation that could lead to Beijing establishing a military presence there.

Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media in Sydney, Monday, March 1, 2021. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Monday stood by an unidentified Cabinet minister against calls for him to step down over an allegation he raped a 16-year-old girl more than 30 years ago. The allegation was contained in an anonymous letter sent to the prime minister’s office and to three female lawmakers last week. The letter contained a statement from a complainant that detailed her allegation of a rape she said occurred in New South Wales state in 1988. Hammond and opposition Labor Party Sen. Penny Wong also received anonymous letters about the 1988 rape allegation.