Carr pays tribute to war dead in Russia

BOB Carr says he's honoured that his last official duty as foreign minister was to pay tribute to Russian lives lost during the World War II siege of Leningrad.

The keen war historian on Saturday visited the Piskariovksoye memorial cemetery in St Petersburg where almost 500,000 people who died during the siege are buried in mass graves.

"I'm deeply honoured that my last official duty as foreign minister has been to come to this site and pay an official and deeply-meant Australian tribute to the war dead of Russia," Senator Carr told reporters.

"I couldn't think of a sweeter, sadder task to be engaged in."

The foreign minister said it was sweet because he'd been able to tell Russian officials that people in Australia still commemorated their "colossal sufferings".

It was obviously sad, he added, due to the lives truncated "by the madness of Hitler's aggression".

After laying the wreath Senator Carr was given a guided tour of the memorial's museum during which time he took notes in a small notebook.

The city was completely blockaded by September 1941 with Hitler vowing to wipe it off the face of the earth.

More than a million civilians died during the siege and almost the same number of soldiers perished on the battlefield defending the city.

Some 420,000 civilians who died from hunger, bombing and shelling are buried at Piskaryovskoye along with 70,000 soldiers.

Senator Carr said Australians living through the Second World War read in their newspapers the stories of the siege.

"The scale and depth of the suffering renders the battle of Leningrad special to anyone who reflects on what the war means," he said, adding that despite himself reading about the battle he was "ill prepared for a site where mass graves hold the remains of half-a-million people".

In the cemetery's guest book the foreign minister made the point that the battle's memorial reminded people that "most of our concerns are pretty trivial".

Senator Carr has been in Russia representing Australia at the G20 leaders' summit.

Labor MPs say it's clear the coalition has won Saturday's federal election.

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Hockey all but claims victory

Joe Hockey (pic) has praised Tony Abbott for his discipline during the election campaign. Source: AAP

JOE Hockey has all but claimed victory for the coalition, saying Tony Abbott will be a prime minister for all Australians.

"I think we are going to get over the line right across Australia tonight," he told the Seven Network.

He said it was the worst result for Labor since 1910, and the result was also a "catastrophe" for the Greens.

"Australia has emphatically rejected minority government, and Australia has supported a strong, stable alternative coalition government, led by an outstanding leader in Tony Abbott," Mr Hockey told supporters.

He said "it's not my place to be in the business of claiming victory" but went on to say what Australia could expect from a strong coalition government.

"I want to say to you, this is the worst result in the history of the Labor party since 1910, with 34 per cent primary vote.

"It is a terrible result."

He said Mr Abbott was going to be a strong leader for Australia.

"The facts are Tony Abbott has been a formidable leader in the opposition and he has lead a formidable opposition team," Mr Hockey said.

"But if we win tonight, our duty to the nation is to be a formidable government led by a formidable prime minister.

"We will deliver a strong economy, and we will get rid of the carbon tax, the mining tax, we will stop the boats."

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Man groomed fake 14-year-old girl online

A Sydney man has been charged with child grooming after police posed as a 14-year-old girl online. Source: AAP

A SYDNEY man has been charged with child grooming after police posed as a 14-year-old girl online and arranged to meet with him for sex.

The 36-year-old man was arrested in Parramatta on Friday after detectives allegedly struck up multiple conversations with him under the online identity of a teenager.

During the interactions the man made sexually explicit comments and arranged to meet her to engage in sexual activity, police said.

Following his arrest, they searched a home in Pennant Hills and seized computers, a smart phone and other computer equipment.

Authorities said they were first alerted to the man's suspicious online activity by the Australian Federal Police and National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in the US.

A police spokesman would not provide AAP with details of the nature of the intelligence that led to the investigation.

The man has been charged with using a carriage service to procure a child under 16 years of age for sexual activity.

He was given conditional bail and is due to appear at Parramatta Local Court on October 16.

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Australia right to back Syria strike: Carr

FOREIGN Minister Bob Carr has denied Australia was too quick to back a strike against Syria as US President Barack Obama struggles to persuade other world leaders to support punitive military action.

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US drone kills senior militant commander

A US drone strike has killed a senior commander in the al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network, wanted for kidnappings and sending hundreds of foreign fighters into Afghanistan, Pakistanis say.

Mullah Sangeen Zadran, whom the US blacklisted as a terrorist in August 2011, was among six Haqqani network fighters killed in the overnight strike in North Waziristan.

Two announcements made by mosque loudspeaker in Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, said his funeral would take place at 3pm local time on Friday.

Two Pakistani intelligence officials, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, confirmed his death and said an Arab fighter was also among the dead.

Meanwhile the government called for an end to the US drone campaign in its tribal regions following the strike.

"The government strongly condemns the US drone strike," the foreign ministry said.

The Haqqani network, one of the Afghan Taliban factions, is considered the deadliest of all militant groups operating in the region, and blamed for many lethal attacks in Afghanistan.

The group, which has links to al-Qaeda, has bases in Pakistan and launches cross-border strikes against international forces.

The latest attack was the second in Pakistan's tribal regions since US Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to Islamabad earlier this year, in which he said drone campaign could end "very soon".

"These unilateral strikes are a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity," the foreign ministry said on Friday.

"Such strikes also set dangerous precedents in the inter-state relations."

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Syrian war between unsavoury sides: Abbott

Kevin Rudd says Tony Abbott's "baddies versus baddies" comment raises questions about his judgement. Source: AAP

OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott says Syria's civil war involves "two pretty much equally unsavoury sides" and Australia should be cautious of making a bad situation worse.

Mr Abbott says elements of the Syrian rebel forces are "highly influenced by al-Qaeda" but the Bashar al-Assad regime's use of chemical weapons against its own people is an "unspeakable abomination".

"That's why I say frankly it's a civil war between two pretty much equally unsavoury sides," he told ABC Television's 730 on Monday.

"We've got to be very careful dealing in a powder keg like the Middle East that we don't take action, well-intentioned action, which could end up making a bad situation worse."

Mr Abbott said it was unlikely Australia would be called on to provide military advice or technology to the Syrian rebel forces because Australia doesn't have the capacity needed for the type of intervention the United States is considering.

Earlier on Monday Mr Abbott came under fire from Labor for his weekend description of the Syrian conflict as "baddies versus baddies".

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters in Gladstone on Monday the situation involving the Syrian regime's use of chemical weapons against civilians was not a trivial matter.

"Mr Abbott ... trivialises what is a major foreign policy, international relations and national security question," he said.

"The last time I used the term 'goodies and baddies' was when I was playing cowboys and indians in the backyard.

"I think I stopped doing that about the age of 10."

Mr Abbott said British Prime Minister David Cameron and former US president Bill Clinton had used similar language on Syria.

He said using occasional colloquialisms was appropriate in explaining complex situations to the public.

Mr Abbott also said it was unlikely Australia would take in Syrian asylum seekers.

He said people fleeing the conflict could go to Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey or Iraq first.

"Almost certainly if people were fleeing the Syrian conflict, they would not be coming to Australia as a country of first asylum," Mr Abbott said.

"Any person fleeing Syria landing up in Australia would be in much the same position as the Hazaras and others who are coming by boat."

The coalition policy is that asylum seekers arriving by boat will be processed offshore.

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Philippine leader cancels China trip

CHINA has demanded the Philippines drop its arbitration case with the United Nations on territorial disputes as a condition for allowing President Benigno Aquino to visit a Chinese trade fair, diplomatic sources say.

The demand prompted Aquino to cancel the trip to Nanning for the opening of the annual China-ASEAN Exposition on Tuesday.

"There were subsequent concerns and conditions to the president's attendance and such conditions were absolutely inimical to our national interest," Foreign Ministry spokesman Raul Hernandez said on Monday.

He declined to give details of the conditions, but diplomatic sources said Beijing demanded that Manila withdraw the arbitration case that challenges China's claim to nearly the entire South China Sea.

The sources said China also demanded that the Philippines pull out a rusty navy ship from the Second Thomas Shoal, which Beijing claims as its territory even though it is located within Manila's 200 nautical-mile exclusive economic zone.

The Chinese embassy in Manila did not confirm or deny the allegations, and insisted that Beijing values its friendship with the Philippines.

"Under the current circumstances, China hopes the Philippine side could work together with the Chinese side to overcome difficulties and disturbances and make real efforts to get the China-Philippines relationship back to the track of sound and stable development," embassy spokesman Zhang Hua said.

Manila and Beijing have been locked in a diplomatic rift since last year over maritime disputes.

Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have overlapping claims in the South China Sea.

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Abbott coming round election mountain

Tony Abbott says if the coalition wins the election, he will conscious of his responsibilities. Source: AAP

TONY Abbott was upstaged on Sunday. But it wasn't Kevin Rudd stealing the limelight.

Nine-year-old Ben Betteridge captured the travelling media's attention during a stop at Bear Cottage in Manly, proudly showing off his drawing of the opposition leader and frontbenchers Joe Hockey, Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop.

Ben declared Mr Abbott his favourite Liberal leader and confidently predicted a coalition win next Saturday.

He had even rewritten an old children's favourite for the occasion.

"Tony Abbott will be coming round the mountain when he comes," he belted out for the cameras.

A second verse had the health conscious Mr Abbott eating "chips and ice cream when he comes".

"I like Tony so much," the boy said, when questioned by reporters.

Then the excited realisation: "I'll be on the news".

There to announce $2 million in funding for Bear Cottage if elected, Mr Abbott was clearly taken with Ben, whose older brother Tom is being cared for by the children's hospice.

"You gave the best political speech of the day, I heard," the opposition leader said, relegating Kevin Rudd's campaign launch to second place at best in the process.

"I am so impressed that a youngster is so knowledgeable about the leading figures of the federal coalition."

"Is there anything you'd like to say?," he asked Ben, who has autism.

"Joe Hockey is the shadow treasurer and I think he should give Tony Abbott a wonderful clap for making him welcome him to Bear Cottage," came the reply.

Cue the trademark Abbott laugh.

The opposition leader was emotional when announcing funding for Bear Cottage, flanked by wife Margie and daughters Frances and Bridget.

"I think that as a father myself it's nice to be able to do something like this on Father's Day," he told the onlooking parents, at one point on the verge of tears.

Father's Day presented Mr Abbott with a rare moment of downtime in the hectic election campaign, with the eldest of his three daughters, Louise, flying home after a long stint overseas.

He headed back to Sydney's north shore for a quiet Father's Day dinner.

Taking the night off just a week from election day says a lot about how well the Abbott campaign is travelling.

Any doubters should just speak to Ben.

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Abbott view on Syria 'sophisticated': Pyne

Tony Abbott has backed US military strikes against Syria but says they must be carefully targeted. Source: AAP

THE coalition has defended its leader Tony Abbott's baddies versus baddies description of the Syrian crisis as a sophisticated analysis.

The opposition leader has backed any US military action against Syria but says it has to be carefully targeted and proportionate so it doesn't make a bad situation worse.

A political solution to avoid the need for military action would be terrific but wasn't likely, Mr Abbott said.

He called the Syrian regime's use of poison gas against its own people an utter abomination.

"That said, any punitive strike has got to be targeted, it's got to be proportionate and it's got to be carefully considered to try to ensure that as far as is humanly possible we aren't making a bad situation worse," he told ABC television on Sunday.

Mr Abbott said the Syrian conflict was a civil war between two pretty unsavoury sides.

"It's not goodies versus baddies, it's baddies versus baddies and that's why it's very important that we don't make a very difficult situation worse," he said.

Labor seized on this phrasing as a reason why Mr Abbott is not fit to represent Australia in any international forum and should not be voted in as prime minister in the election on Saturday.

Labor campaign spokeswoman Penny Wong said Mr Abbott sounded like he was talking about a game of cops and robbers when discussing foreign policy.

"When asked about the difficult situation in Syria and what his view about this was, his view on foreign policy appears to be not always goodies versus baddies but it can be baddies versus baddies," she told Sky News.

But coalition campaign spokesman Christopher Pyne defended his leader's comments about the situation in Syria as an "extremely sophisticated" analysis as neither side was covered in glory.

"In the Syrian civil war, both sides are very unattractive ... it's actually more sophisticated to recognise that, than to try and pretend as Penny Wong does that there's somehow cowboys and indians and one side is good and one side is bad."

"In the Syrian conflict it's important to understand that both sides are deeply unpleasant and that trying to choose a side is a very foolish thing to do," Mr Pyne told reporters in Adelaide.

In the US, President Barack Obama will ask Congress to authorise military action against Syria, raising the possibility of immediate strikes on President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Mr Abbott said all Australian governments instinctively wanted to support our closest ally, the US, and also to uphold universal human decencies.

Just three nations possess the ability to take military action against Syria. These are the US, Britain which has ruled itself out and France, which has very limited capacity, he said.

President Obama has said the UN Security Council is completely paralysed.

Mr Abbott said that was a difficulty between the US, Britain and France on one side and Russia and China on the other.

"Where the security council is for whatever reason ineffective, there is precedent for right-thinking powers to take action and that was in the former Yugoslavia when Britain, the US and other countries took action in Kosovo," he said.

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