Wow Australia

Financial crisis helps define Rudd in first year as Australian PM

SYDNEY (AFP) — One year into the job, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's popularity is riding higher than ever as he uses the global financial crisis to redefine his leadership, analysts said Sunday. The 51-year-old former diplomat Monday marks the first anniversary of his centre-left Labor Party's landslide win with a personal approval rating of 70 percent, according to a Nielsen poll. This is higher than any level the bespectacled father-of-three who speaks fluent Mandarin reached d...

Indonesia looks inward for economic help

The Indonesian President says his country will turn to its large domestic market to maintain economic growth in the face of an expected slowdown. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has told the APEC summit in Peru, Jakarta will boost growth with infrastructure projects like power plants, and fight poverty with greater spending on education and health care. He says with global markets weakening and prices soft for Indonesia's exported commodities "sources of growth will come more from our large dome...

APEC expected to back G20 action plan

Asia-Pacific leaders were to wrap up a summit in which they vowed to form a united front against the world financial crisis, but bold initiatives looked unlikely to emerge. US President George W Bush used his final summit before leaving office to encourage continuity on the part of his successor Barack Obama on issues ranging from North Korean nuclear talks to free trade. "We refuse to accept protectionism in the 21st century," Bush said emphatically on Saturday. His was one of a se...