Asylum boat stopped

Asylum boat stopped

SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters): The Australian navy has intercepted a boat carrying about 200 asylum seekers off the country's northwest coast, Prime Minister John Howard told reporters on Saturday.

Howard said the boat was intercepted in international waters on Friday night and the people transferred on to the troop carrier HMAS Manoora, already carrying the 433 asylum seekers who were at the center of a diplomatic standoff between Australia, Indonesia and Norway.

These earlier asylum seekers are due to arrive in Papua New Guinea early next week under Howard's plan to resettle the boat people in other regional countries.

"At no stage did this latest vessel reach Australian territorial waters ... and as a result questions of application for asylum status do not arise," he said.

The fate of the latest boat people picked up was not immediately clear.