Australian warship seizes half a tonne of heroin

SYDNEY: An Australian warship patrolling in the Middle East has seized a haul of 581 kilogrammes of heroin with an estimated street value of more than half a billion US dollars, a naval official said yesterday.

Commander of Australia’s Joint Task Force 633, Brigadier Nagy Sorial, said it was the second largest haul ever by the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF), a 30nation naval partnership which patrols 2.5 million square miles of international waters.

“The weekend’s find made Australia’s maritime contribution to CMF one of the world’s most effective current heroin interdiction forces,” Sorial said in a statement.

HMAS Newcastle intercepted a stateless dhow off the east African coast where her boarding party uncovered the drugs, the statement added, without saying which country’s shoreline it was closest to.

The guided missile frigate enforces maritime security with a focus on terrorist activity and piracy in the Middle East and Indian Ocean regions, as part of the US-led Combined Task Force, which operates under the CMF. — AFP SYDNEY: Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott led stinging attacks on the national broadcaster yesterday, after reportedly accusing a current affairs show of being a 'leftie lynch mob'.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Q A panel programme caused uproar when it allowed convicted criminal Zaky Mallah, who was acquitted of terror offences in 2005, to ask a question from the audience on Monday night’s show.

In a live exchange with Liberal lawmaker Steve Ciobo, Mallah criticised the government, saying its decision to strip terrorists of their citizenship where possible gave Australians a justification for joining the Islamic State (IS) group.

“The Liberals have just justified to many Australian Muslims in the community tonight to leave and go to Syria and join IS because of ministers like him,” he responded when Ciobo said he would be happy to see him sent out of the country. — AFP