Information Related to "Australia: A Nation Changes Direction"
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Australia: A Nation |
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The winds of change are blowing strong in Australia. Once a bastion of the British Empire, Australia is shifting its focus away from Europe and America. by Melvin Rhodes |
Australia is truly at the proverbial crossroads. Popularly referred to as the land "down under," it is the only continent that is a single country.
At the dawn of a new millennium, as they begin to celebrate 100 years of political independence from Great Britain, Australians are contemplating an uncertain future, looking to Asia more than to the mother country and the United States. This redirection will impact not only Australia itself, but Britain and America, in the years to come.
Australia's international priorities reflect the ever-changing world scene, particularly when it comes to economic and political power.
At the turn of the 20th century, after more than a century of British colonial rule, the Commonwealth of Australia was established in 1901 as a dominion of the British Empire, alongside Canada, soon thereafter to be joined by New Zealand and South Africa.
Discovered
by British sea captain James Cook in 1770 and originally designated as a penal colony,
Australia has played an important role in history, disproportionate to her small
population (now about 18 million). This important "gate," a prophesied
blessing given to some of the descendants of Abraham by Almighty God (Genesis 22:17;
24:60), has proved of vital strategic importance to Britain and the United States
for over a century.
Australia aids its mother country
Before independence, Australian troops fought alongside other British imperial troops in the Sudan in 1896 and against the Boers in South Africa from 1899 to 1902. After independence, they were to play an even greater role in the two world wars.
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