Australian Senate appoints first Muslim woman member amid race row
Canberra, Aug 15: The Australian Senate on Wednesday appointed its first female Muslim member, Mehreen Faruqi, even as the country was caught up in a bitter row over racism.
Pakistan-born Faruqi, the Greens Party MP for New South Wales, was appointed to fill a vacant seat. Her joining coincided with the row sparked by Senator Fraser Anning by seeking immigration restrictions based on race.
Anning advocated a return to a White Australia policy and called for a migration ban on Muslims in his maiden speech in Parliament on Tuesday. He called for a "final solution" (the phrase that refers to a plan hatched by the Nazis to annihilate the Jews) to the immigration "problem".
Faruqi, who will be sworn in next week, was among the prominent critics of Anning's use of the Holocaust-associated term. She said that Anning had "spat in the face of millions of Australians, spewing hate and racism".
"I'm a Muslim migrant, I'm about to be a Senator and there's not a damn thing Fraser Anning can do about it," she wrote in a piece for website Junkee on Wednesday.
Faruqi migrated from Pakistan to Australia in 1992 with her young family. Her election to the state Parliament in 2013 made her the first Muslim woman to attain any political office in Australia.
She told the BBC she would use her new role as senator to fight for a "positive future for Australia where we are stronger for our diversity".
She said that overt displays of racism were not isolated incidents. "I could stand on Bondi Beach, serving sausage sangers in an Akubra, draped in an Australian flag with a southern cross tattoo and, for some, I still wouldn't be Australian enough," she wrote in the Junkee article.
Faruqi said she was excited to bring "much needed diversity" to Canberra and hoped her presence would encourage non-white Australians.
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US intelligence flags possible Chinese support to Iran
Washington: The United States has gathered intelligence suggesting that China may be considering providing financial assistance, spare parts and missile components to Iran, according to a report by CNN citing people familiar with the matter.
The Times of India reported that the development follows a separate claim that Russia has been supplying Iran with real-time intelligence on the locations of US military assets in the Middle East, including warships and aircraft, which could potentially allow Tehran to target American forces during the ongoing conflict.
A source quoted by TOI, in the report said China appeared cautious in its approach. “China is more cautious in its support. It wants the war to end because it endangers their energy supply,” the source said. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, however, said Russia and China were “not really a factor” in the war involving Iran.
Neither the Central Intelligence Agency nor the United States Department of Defense has commented on the reports about possible Russian and Chinese assistance to Iran.
Russia has publicly called for an end to the conflict. It described the conflict as an “unprovoked act of armed aggression," while the Russian embassy in Washington, DC did not respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post.
The reported intelligence sharing also points to evolving alignments among US adversaries.
During the Russia-Ukraine War, Iran, China and North Korea have provided different forms of military or material support to Russia, while the United States has supplied Ukraine with weapons and intelligence to assist its forces.
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