Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono

SYDNEY, Australia, Oct. 31--Newly-elected Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said he would consider becoming a globe-trotting advocate for moderate Islam, promoting peace in hotspots such as the Middle East, AFP reported.
Yudhoyono said he wanted Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, to be a model for moderate Islamic democracy.
"I could go to other part of the world, by for example, playing a more active role in the Middle East, by having greater communications with Islamic countries worldwide," he told Australia's Channel Nine.
"And of course, if everything is going well, then Indonesia can be a good example, a good model of Islam that is compatible with democracy," he said.
Yudhoyono also rejected Australian overtures for a new security treaty between but said he did want to hold security talks with Canberra.
The idea of a new Australia-Indonesia pact to replace an agreement that was scrapped when Canberra sent troops into East Timor in 1999 was floated by Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer last week.
Yudhoyono said he had not received a proposal from the Australian government and he did not believe a treaty was appropriate.
"What we need now is a kind of security dialogue, a forum that could discuss different issues on matters on security," he told Channel Nine.
"I don't have any proposal submitted by the Australian government related to the so-called security treaty.
"But for me, it would be more proper if we just go to strengthen our security dialogue, as also happened within the ASEAN context."
The newly-elected Indonesian president also suggested Australia's support for the US-led war in Iraq had raised the country's profile as a terrorist target.
"We know the act of terrorism grows in recent years because of many international factors," Yudhoyono said.
"The situation in the Middle East, in Iraq and other places may cause solidarity among the terrorists to attack certain target. For example westerners target."

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 31--Hamid Karzais landslide victory in Afghanistan's first presidential election augurs well for Pakistans key foreign policy goal of having a friendly, stable neighbor on its sensitive western border, AFP quoted analysts as saying.
The fact that Karzai is from the ethnic Pashtun group that makes up 40 percent of Afghanistan's population and has a sizeable parallel community in Pakistan adds to the comfort in Islamabad over his win.
Analysts said that factor was behind Pakistan's former backing of the hardline Islamic Taliban regime that was made up of Pashtuns, originated in the Madrassas of western Pakistan and rose to power in Afghanistan in 1996.
US-led forces backed by the Northern Alliance of Tajiks, Uzbeks and mostly other non-Pashtuns overthrew the Taliban in 2001 following the September 11 attacks on the United States.
After much US pressure, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf withdrew his nation's support of the Taliban, which the United States said had to be evicted from power for sheltering Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network.
Although Musharraf backed the United States, deep concerns remained in Islamabad over the Northern Alliance's power in Kabul, and whether that would foment widespread opposition from Pashtuns in both nations.
"Karzai's victory vindicates Pakistan's view, which it has expressed many times to the Americans as well as generally, that Pashtuns must have their due share (of power) for any stable dispensation in Afghanistan," political commentator Mohammad Afzal Niazi told AFP.
The official, who did not want to be identified, emphasized that the "destinies of Pakistan and Afghanistan are intertwined".
He said Pakistan had played its role in stopping Taliban and foreign militants operating on its side of the two nations' border from disrupting the presidential polls, as they had said they would.

Ukrainian PM Viktor Yanukovich casts his ballot at a polling station in Kiev, October 31. (Reuters Photo)

KIEV, Ukraine,
Oct. 31--Ukrainians went to the polls Sunday in a knife-edge presidential election fraught with East-West rivalries and judged as a "moment of truth" for the future of democracy in the former Soviet republic, AFP reported.
The vote got under way nationwide as planned and amid heavy security for the election pitting the pro-Russian ruling party candidate Viktor Yanukovich against pro-Western opposition foe Viktor Yushchenko.
Some 140,000 police officers were posted at 33,000 polling stations for the election to choose a successor to President Leonid Kuchma, who was completing his second five-year term in office.
A total of 24 candidates were on the ballot and Sunday's voting was thought likely to force a second-round runoff contest between Yanukovich and Yushchenko on November 21.
The stakes could hardly be higher for this nation of 48 million people, which has served as an uneasy bridge between Russia and Europe during Kuchma's decade-long rule.
Kuchma, who has cultivated close ties with Moscow in steering Ukraine through most of its first 13 years as an independent country, is counting on Yanukovich, his chosen successor, to stay the same course.
But the opposition sensed that Sunday offered an unprecedented chance to finally open Ukraine up to Europe and secure protection from its giant neighbor Russia through the US-led NATO alliance.
Their candidate Yushchenko is running neck-and-neck with the prime minister despite blanket state media coverage for Yanukovich and nationwide police crackdowns against pro-Western and anti-Russian rallies.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Oct. 31--Malaysia has issued a warning against any possible challenge to its sovereignty after a newspaper report that new Australian warplanes will be able to launch long-range missiles at targets anywhere in Asia, Reuters reported.
Australia plans to place cruise missiles on its new Joint Strike Fighter fleet, expected to be delivered in Australia from 2012, the Australian newspaper reported on Saturday.
Malaysian Defense Minister Najib Razak said he felt Australia would respect Asian nations' sovereignty but stressed Malaysia could look after its own interests, including fighting terrorism.
"We cannot decide what they can or cannot do," Najib told state news agency Bernama on a visit to Malaysia's east coast on Saturday night. "(But) don't challenge our sovereignty."
"For Malaysia, we need not interfere in the affairs of other countries because we can take care of our own interests, including fighting terrorism that may come from our own territory," he added.
The Australian said the Joint Strike Fighters had a range of 600 nautical miles, compared to 290 nautical miles for the F/A-18 Hornet fighters that Australia had previously said would be armed with the missiles.
Prime Minister John Howard caused alarm in Asia two years ago by saying Australia had the right to launch pre-emptive strikes in another country as a legitimate response to terrorist threats. He reiterated that view in the run-up to this month's general election, which his ruling coalition won.
Howard also recently announced plans for a regional spy school and for counter-terrorism teams in Asia.

LONDON, Oct. 31--A large majority of Britons think a US election victory for John Kerry is the best outcome for global security, according to a poll in a Sunday newspaper, Reuters reported.
They also believe--by a smaller margin--a win for the Democrat challenger would damage Prime Minister Tony Blair's international standing given his alliance with incumbent US President George W. Bush, according to the survey.
Surveys have repeatedly shown most Britons feel uncomfortable with the Blair-Bush friendship and their joint policy over Iraq.
Fifty-six percent told Communicate Research pollster the world would be safer with Kerry, while 24 percent favored Bush.
Fifty percent said a win for Kerry would weaken the international standing of Blair, while 42 percent thought not.
The survey was published in the Independent on Sunday.
Blair, who plans to seek re-election in 2005, has been scrupulously tight-lipped over the US campaign which pits his closest ally on the world stage against a man who would be a much more natural political ally in terms of ideological roots.
Seventy-four percent of the 1,009 Britons surveyed last week did not believe Blair's backing of Bus h in the Iraq war was good for the United Kingdom, while 19 percent thought it was.
But the poll found a jump in support for Blair's center-left Labour Party, with 39 percent saying they would vote Labour if there were a general election tomorrow, a seven point rise since an equivalent poll a month ago.
The right-wing opposition Conservatives were on 33 percent.
In another Iraq-related question, 60 percent of Britons disagreed with the Blair government's decision to deploy troops further north to relieve US forces closing in on Falluja. Only 33 percent agreed with the Black Watch regiment's new mission.
Two newspapers--the Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph--said Blair had ordered aides to draw up plans for a snap election in February, three months before the widely expected date of May 5.

CLAMART, France,
Oct. 31--Initial results from a battery of tests on Yasser Arafat found no signs Saturday of leukemia, Palestinian officials said, but blood doctors were still probing the cause of the ailing Palestinian leader's dramatic deterioration in health, AP reported.
"Arafat does not have leukemia," Mohammed Rashid, a close Arafat aide, said Saturday night. "It's been ruled out."
Results from additional tests to determine what was wrong were due Wednesday, he said.
Arafat was rushed from the West Bank to a French military hospital after being ill for two weeks with what was initially described as a bad flu, with symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea.
Doctors were now trying to determine whether Arafat might be suffering from a viral infection or some type of poisoning, an Arafat aide said. He declined to give further details.
But Rashid, speaking to reporters at a Paris hotel where a contingent of Palestinian officials was staying, said Arafat was eating again Saturday and able to keep food down.
The comments from Rashid, Arafat's financial adviser, were more definitive than those hours earlier from Leila Shahid, the Palestinian envoy to France.
Shahid, speaking in several languages to reporters outside the Percy military training hospital southwest of Paris: "The doctors exclude, already from what he has done in terms of exams, any possibility of leukemia. I repeat: the doctors exclude for the time being any possibility of leukemia."
In Arabic, Shahid said other tests also have "not shown any sign of other dangerous disease." But "there are other possibilities and we are still exploring," she added in English.

Former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim greets his supporters upon arriving at his home in Kuala Lumpur, October 31. (AFP Photo)

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Oct. 31--A defiant Anwar Ibrahim pledged to fight on for reform in Malaysia as he returned to a hero's welcome Sunday after spinal surgery in Germany, AFP reported.
Hundreds of supporters defied a police ban to greet the former deputy prime minister at the airport, chanting his battle cry of "Reformasi" (reform) and shouting "Long live Anwar!"
More than a thousand gathered later at his home in an up market Kuala Lumpur suburb. Anwar told them his release last month after six years in jail was just the start of a new chapter in the struggle to reform a government which he says is corrupt.
"I want to say thank you to you all, but let me stress our problems are many. Don't think now that Anwar is free everything is settled," he said in a 20-minute speech to supporters gathered in his garden, in the street and perched on the walls around his house.
"Anwar's release is the start of a new chapter. This chapter is one of defending the rights of all Malaysians of all races," he said.
Anwar, whose conviction for corruption means that he cannot stand for public office until 2008, said he would seek a meeting with Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who took over when premier Mahathir Mohamad retired one year ago Sunday.
Anwar was Mahathir's deputy and heir-apparent to the premiership before being sacked in 1998 and later jailed on charges which he said were cooked up to prevent him challenging Mahathir for the leadership.