SYDNEY: Australia’s new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd heads to Indonesia this week for his first foreign trip since retaking the leadership, but one in which the thorny domestic issue of asylum-seekers is set to figure prominently. Would-be refugees risking their lives journeying to Australia by boat, often from transit hubs in Indonesia, are a key issue for the upcoming election. Australia has tried to stem the flow with punitive policies banishing asylum-seekers to the remote Pacific Islands of Nauru and Papua New Guinea, but thousands have arrived by boat since and scores more have died trying. Rudd has already drawn Indonesia into the domestic...
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