Australia will screen all cargo coming from Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Doha, the three transit points for passengers flying from Yemen, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said, after an attempt to send parcel bombs from Yemen to the U.S. was foiled.
Police in Yemen yesterday arrested a woman suspected of attempting to send two parcel bombs to synagogues in Chicago via air-cargo services, after authorities in Dubai and the U.K. intercepted the packages on Oct. 29. Authorities are investigating whether the shipments were staged as rehearsals for a future attacks, a U.S. official said.
“There are no direct flights from Yemen to Australia, so any cargo that originated in Yemen would come through one of those three locations and there will be 100 percent screening as a response,” Gillard said in Hanoi yesterday, according to a transcript of her comments e-mailed today.
Gillard said she will take any “further advice arising from this incident” when it becomes available.
The prime minister, who is in the Vietnamese capital for the East Asia Summit, said she has been pushing hard to formalize the participation of the U.S. and Russia in future gatherings.
The two nations, which will join the summit from 2011, attended as special guests this year.
Regional Forum
“Prior to this there was no regional forum that brought together the U.S., China, the countries of our region, working comprehensively across the economic, strategic, political and defense relationships,” Gillard said. Such a forum “is important for our future, for the future of China and its role in our world.”
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will visit Melbourne for the Austrialia- United States Ministerial meeting, a forum between the two nations, on Nov. 8.
Gillard said she plans to visit China next year after Premier Wen Jiabao invited her when they met in Hanoi yesterday.
The Australian prime minister, who also met with leaders of India, Laos and the Philippines, will travel to Indonesia and Malaysia from Hanoi, according to local media reports.
Stock Exchange Merger
Gillard, who also met with Singapore Prime Minister Hsien Loong Lee during her trip, said her counterpart had raised Singapore Exchange Ltd.’s bid for ASX Ltd.
“We both agreed there’s a clear process to be gone through,” Gillard told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in an interview. “From the Australian point of view, from the Foreign Investment Review Board, and that process will be gone through.”
Singapore Exchange, part-owned by the city-state’s central bank, on Oct. 25 offered to buy the owner of Australia’s stock exchange for cash and shares in a deal worth A$8.1 billion ($8 billion), according to Bloomberg’s calculations based on Singapore Exchange’s closing price of S$8.80 on Oct. 29.
The transaction requires an amendment to Australia’s Corporations Act, approved by parliament, which prohibits anyone from owning more than 15 percent of ASX. Singapore Exchange needs the support of the minority Labor government, which hasn’t decided its stance on the deal, and at least four other legislators in the lower house of parliament to approve the bid.
Australian lawmakers including two Greens party members, opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey and two independents said they oppose Singapore Exchange’s bid, saying it’s unlikely to be in the best interests of Australians.
To contact the reporter on this story: Nichola Saminather in Sydney at nsaminather1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Tighe at ptighe@bloomberg.net
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