Fed: Top stories of 2006

AAP General News (Australia)
12-13-2006
Fed: Top stories of 2006

AAP Senior Correspondent Doug Conway reviews the major news of 2006:



1. IRAQ. With violence escalating and no exit strategy in sight, American voters deliver
a stinging protest vote to President George Bush, Australia's key international ally,
by taking power from his Republicans in both houses of congress. The rebuff forces President
Bush and Prime Minister John Howard to discuss new strategies for Iraq at a meeting in
Vietnam, ironically the country nominated by war critics as a prime example of futile
and costly foreign intervention. America's commitment stretches beyond the time it fought
in World War II. In more than three and a half years of war in Iraq the death toll among
coalition troops climbs to over 3,100 and estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths to over 50,000.

An inquiry into Australia's first military fatality in Iraq finds that Private Jake Kovco
was shot with his own handgun while skylarking in his Baghdad barracks. The return of
the Victorian soldier's body is bungled after the body of a Bosnian carpenter is sent
to Australia instead.



2. HOWARD and BEAZLEY. Labor dumps its federal leader Kim Beazley for his foreign affairs
spokesman Kevin Rudd, as Prime Minister John Howard consolidates his decade-long grip
on power. Rudd wins a party room vote 49-39, with Julia Gillard replacing Jenny Macklin
uncontested as deputy. Labor MPs grow restless after Mr Beazley fails to gain ground on
Mr Howard in the polls, despite the quagmire in Iraq, a fourth successive interest rate
rise since the 2004 election, the AWB scandal, tough industrial relations changes and
perceptions of a tardy response to climate change in the midst of the worst drought for
decades. Labor's cause federally is not helped by a succession of sleazy scandals at state
level, including the charging of NSW minister Milton Orkopoulos with drug and child sex
offences. Mr Howard, meanwhile, thwarts his ambitious heir apparent Peter Costello by
declaring he will seek a fifth successive election victory in 2007. Mr Howard digs his
heels in after Mr Costello airs claims of a 1994 leadership handover pact.



3. CROCKIE AND BROCKIE. Australians are shaken by the sudden, tragic deaths of two
national icons, Steve Irwin and Peter Brock, in the same week. Irwin, 44, television's
internationally famous Crocodile Hunter, is pierced in the chest by a stingray's barb
while filming off Port Douglas, Queensland. Brock, 61, a nine times winner of the Bathurst
1000 touring car race, dies when his silver coupe slams into a tree during a rally in
Western Australia.



4. SURVIVORS. Tasmanian gold miners Todd Russell and Brant Webb provide the good news
story of the year by surviving for two weeks trapped almost a kilometre underground following
a cave-in which kills their workmate Larry Knight. The two friends become national folk
heroes and sign a lucrative media deal which means they will never have to work below
ground again.



5. TERRORISM. Sydney architect Faheem Khalid Lodhi, 36, becomes the first person convicted
of preparing a terrorist attack on Australian soil. He is sentenced to 20 years for plotting
to blow up the national electricity supply system. Victorian Jack Thomas, a suspect without
a charge, becomes the first Australian to have his movements restricted by a federal control
order. Al-Qaeda's chief in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is "terminated" in a US air strike.

Britain foils a plot to blow up trans-Atlantic jets. Jemaah Islamiyah's spiritual leader
Abu Bakar Bashir is released after 26 months in jail for his part in the 2002 Bali bombings.

Australian terrorist suspect David Hicks spends his fifth year under American detention
in Guantanamo Bay as the US Supreme Court declares illegal the military commission system
which was preparing to try him.



6. SCANDAL. Eleven former executives of wheat exporter AWB, including ex-chairman Trevor
Flugge, and one former BHP executive, could face criminal charges after the Cole inquiry
finds they were part of a deception that illegally channelled $290 million to Saddam Hussein's
regime in Iraq. The scandal casts a pall over Australia's international trading reputation.

The inquiry finds nothing to implicate Prime Minister Howard, any of his ministers or
any government bureaucrats, although serious questions remain over the government's competence.



7. WORLD CUP. The Socceroos provide Australia's sporting highlight with storming performances
at the World Cup in Germany after a 32-year absence. Coached by Dutch master Guus Hiddink,
they come from behind to beat Japan 3-1, lose unluckily to Brazil 0-2 and draw with Croatia
2-2. They reach the last 16 only to fall victim to an infamous last-minute "dive" which
hands 10-man Italy, the eventual winners, a penalty and a controversial 1-0 victory. The
Socceroos' showing eclipses another wildly successful Commonwealth Games in Melbourne
and provides some compensation for the shock retirement of Australia's most decorated
Olympian, swimmer Ian Thorpe.



8. CLIMATE. Extreme weather in Australia - including a once-in-a-century drought, Queensland's
cyclone Larry and simultaneous snowfalls and bushfires in November - underline the catastrophic
environmental warnings of Britain's Stern report. Climate crusader and former US vice-president
Al Gore hammers home the theme on two visits down under, and Prime Minister Howard signals
both a softening of his opposition to the Kyoto protocol and his vision for a nuclear
power industry. Federal aid to drought-hit farmers tops $2 billion in five years.



9. PACIFIC. Australia sends troops to the Solomon Islands, East Timor, Tonga and to
the waters off Fiji as riots, unrest and coups continue a worrying trend of instability
around the Pacific. Two Australian soldiers die when a Black Hawk helicopter ditches off
Fiji as an ADF contingent stands by to evacuate consular staff ahead of the fourth military
coup in Suva in 19 years. Commodore Frank Bainimarama is condemned internationally for
seizing power from Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase. Violence also forces Solomons leader
Snyder Rini out of office. For its troubles Australia is accused at the Pacific Islands
Forum of "bullying" countries in the region.



10. MEDIA. New laws prompt a shakeup of Australian media ownership. James Packer's
PBL sells half of its media interests for $4.5 billion to an Asia Pacific private equity
group. Kerry Stokes's Seven network follows with a similar $3.2 billion sale of half of
its TV, magazine and internet businesses to a US group. Fairfax Media swallows rival newspaper
publisher Rural Press Ltd to create a $9 billion media empire, the country's biggest,
in a deal which makes it harder for potential suitors to buy Fairfax. This comes after
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and Seven buy strategic stakes in Fairfax. Macquarie Media
acquires a 13.8 per cent share of rival radio operator Southern Cross Broadcasting.



11. DRUGS. The two ringleaders of the Bali Nine heroin smuggling operation are sentenced
to death by firing squad. Four of the other Australians later have their life sentences
upgraded to death, meaning six now face execution. Schapelle Corby's original 20-year
sentence for smuggling marijuana to Bali, once reduced to 15 years, is reinstated in another
hardline anti-drug move by Indonesian courts.

AAP dc/sp

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