Australia may ease asylum regime

Government advisers are negotiating with refugees

An Australian detention centre housing hundreds of hunger-striking asylum seekers could be scaled down or even closed, a government minister has said.

Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said the centre could be scaled down as other holding facilities were built, and added that closing Woomera might be possible in the future.

It has been suggested that the site might be used only as an emergency overflow centre.

However, Prime Minister John Howard is still taking a strong line, saying Australia's policies on asylum seekers are correct.

I'll raise this issue and try to ask the Australian Government to accept them (the asylum seekers)

Interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai

A deadline set by 11 child detainees who have threatened a mass suicide at the camp has been extended until 1700 (0600 GMT) on Wednesday.

The children - most of them Afghans - are demanding to be removed from Woomera and placed into foster care.

The refugees - about 250 of whom have been on hunger strike for more than two weeks - want to be removed from the desert facility and are calling for more openness in the way their claims for asylum are dealt with.

Government-appointed advisers again visited Woomera on Tuesday for two days of negotiations with the refugees.

Harsh environment

The three members of the Immigration Detention Advisory Group said they were optimistic at the end of the first day.

However, a BBC correspondent says lawyers acting for the protesters are not so positive.

The group has said Woomera's population of about 900 asylum seekers should be removed from what one member described as "an extremely harsh environment".

The advisers said Woomera, Australia's biggest and most isolated camp, should only be used in emergencies.

Dozens had sewn their lips together

Mr Ruddock said: "Whatever approach you take, Woomera will be required for certain contingencies and quite possibly for holding other groups of people who have exhausted their asylum claim opportunities."

His comments came after church leaders and the Red Cross joined growing criticism of the government's policy of locking up all asylum seekers while their applications are considered.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said his government was trying to convince the detainees at the Woomera centre of the futility of their actions.

Most of the refugees are from Afghanistan and have been told by the Australian Government they are not genuine refugees.

Refugees 'can return'

In the United States, interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai said he would urge Mr Howard to accept the refugees.

Mr Howard and Mr Karzai are in the United States for the World Economic Forum, which begins on Thursday.

"I'll raise this issue and try to ask the Australian Government to accept them, and also through that channel send a message to those refugees that if they have fled the Taleban rule or difficulty in Afghanistan that's no longer there, that they can come back to Afghanistan," Mr Karzai told reporters.

Ruddock: Camp may be scaled down

Smaller-scale protests have continued at two other detention centres in Western Australia, although a hunger strike at the Maribyrnong detention centre near Melbourne was abandoned on Monday, immigration officials said.

Throughout the crisis, the government has insisted the mandatory detention of asylum seekers has deterred others from trying to reach Australia.

Since August 2001, the navy has intercepted boat loads of people seeking asylum who were mainly from Afghanistan and the Middle East.

They are either turned away or sent to processing camps on the Pacific Island nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea.