Australia raises aid to quake-hit regions

SYDNEY—The Australian government on Tuesday almost doubled its pledge of aid for victims of the South Asian earthquake after opposition parties criticised it as miserly.
Canberra announced that it would provide an extra 4.5 million dollars (3.42 million US dollars), bringing its total commitment to 10 million dollars.
Australia initially pledged 500,000 dollars for emergency relief at the weekend, but upped that to 5.5 million dollars on Monday.
That was not enough for the opposition parties, who accused Prime Minister John Howard’s government of being cheap.
“I am disgusted with the Howard government that 5.5 million dollars — a cheque — is all it can do in this enormous disaster,” the leader of the Australian Greens, Senator Bob Brown, told reporters earlier Tuesday.
“The prime minister is spending more on himself than he is sending to Pakistan — that’s pretty poor,” Brown said, referring to reports that the government will spend some 30 million dollars on advertising to promote controversial labour law reforms.
The main opposition Labor Party also called on the ruling Liberal-National coalition to “dig deeper”.
“We need to show solidarity with the Pakistani people and government at this time,” said foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd.
“Pakistan has long-standing historical links with Australia through cricket and through a Pakistani community in this country but is also ... important to us in the war against terrorism”.—Agencies