Animals are more intelligent than we think. For example this morning I witnessed something very cunning...

You'll be chuffed to know our country is doing its bit for 'world peace' this Christmas.

The Australian Army is preparing for longer "campaigns"; we voted against Palestine's admission to the UNESCO and we lobbied to weaken the international ban on cluster bomb munitions.

We also decided to sell uranium to India, a country standing outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a country whose nuclear program is stimulated by its neighbour (Pakistan) having the fastest-growing nuclear weapons program in the world, and a country whose government has been prepared to bribe MPs to secure the votes for a nuclear future, as evidenced by the Indo-US nuclear deal in 2008.

Banks have gobbled up nearly 490 billion euros ($635 billion) in three-year, cut-price loans from the European Central Bank, easing immediate fears of a credit crunch but leaving unresolved how much will flow to needy eurozone economies.

Following a string of failed attempts by eurozone leaders to thwart market attacks on the bloc's weaker members, hopes of crisis relief before year's end had been pinned on a massive uptake of the ECB's ultra-long and ultra-cheap loans.

Gus picture of godot's particle

This is an article posted here earlier (17th December) that seems to have gone walkabout...

But Mark Feldstein, professor of media at the University of Maryland, sees a worrying trend of espionage prosecutions since President Obama took office.

"To everyone's surprise, the Obama administration has escalated the war against whistleblowers and the attacks on information that journalists and the public were depending on to get evidence of wrongdoing by powerful institutions and individuals," Prof Feldstein says.

'Vindictive and malicious'

A LABOR MP has declared the troops are "sick of the soap opera" between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd and urged their supporters to pull their heads in over the Christmas break.

The Prime Minister's supporters said yesterday she had been through "the gates of hell" this year and had no plans to quit before the next election, reported the Herald Sun.

But Labor MPs maintain the ABK faction - Anyone But Kevin - is preparing Plan C if the Prime Minister's leadership happens to falter: Bill Shorten.

New South Wales Environment Minister Robyn Parker is moving to amend laws which will allow Forests NSW to harm the endangered population of the yellow-bellied glider on the state's far south.

The documents show Ms Parker is planning changes to the Threatened Species Conservation Act which "authorises harm to the endangered population of the yellow-bellied glider of the Bago Plateau".

Opposition environment spokesman Luke Foley says it is disgraceful.

"Robyn Parker said logging protects koalas, she is now moving to allow logging of habitat of endangered yellow-bellied glider," Mr Foley said.

THE fallout from Julia Gillard's ministerial reshuffle has worsened, with the Minister for Manufacturing, Kim Carr, labelling as ''absolute bullshit'' anonymous accusations that he was demoted because of poor performance and attacking colleagues who lacked the ''guts'' to put the assertions to his face.

His angry retaliation came as the Minister for Resources, Martin Ferguson, pointedly refused to directly back the Prime Minister.

Asked whether he had shifted his support from Ms Gillard to Kevin Rudd, Mr Ferguson said: ''I'm loyal to the Labor Party.''

A former top lawyer for Rupert Murdoch's British newspapers insists he told the mogul's son there was evidence of widespread phone hacking more than three years before a scandal over the practice erupted.

Tom Crone questioned claims made by James Murdoch - chairman of News International, the British arm of his father's media empire - that he had not been fully informed about an email indicating that hacking was rife.

For many months, News International insisted the illegal accessing of the mobile phone voice messages of celebrities and crime victims was confined to reporter Clive Goodman who, along with private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, was jailed in 2007.

Stevedoring company POAGS and the Maritime Union of Australia have agreed to suspend all industrial action after an intervention by new Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten.

POAGS had locked out around 120 workers at its Bunbury and Fremantle operations after the union took industrial action.

But both parties have agreed to return to the negotiating table after Mr Shorten intervened on his first day in the job.

A Fair Work Australia-appointed mediator will now oversee the negotiations.

The Maritime Union is demanding an 18 per cent wage increase and improved safety conditions for workers.

The gold bugs will be pleased. Analysts at the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (BREE) reckon gold is going to be a star performer in 2012 with a forecast average price for the year of $US1850 an ounce.

That would represent a 17 per cent increase on the expected average for the just about completed 2011, and because BREE is also forecasting dollar parity for 2012, we don't have to worry about a currency conversion.

BREE reckons gold's bumper outlook is supported by a number of factors - low interest rates in the US (confirmed overnight) and Europe, net buying by central banks and continued strong investment and fabrication demand from US dollar-weary consumers in developing economies.

From the Rudds to the Bolts, an issue that divides the nation also divides families.

This morning, Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd's sister Loree Rudd said she quit the Australian Labor Party last week in protest at its policy shift from opposing to supporting gay marriage after the national Labor Party Conference.

"I no longer liked the direction the Labor Party was going at state or federal level and I couldn't work for a party that had endorsed homosexuals marrying," she said.

US president Barack Obama says the United States has asked Iran to return a captured spy drone, as a top Iranian official says his country will reverse engineer the plane and is in the "final stages" of unlocking its software secrets.

Mr Obama confirmed the request for the drone, which Tehran said it brought down while overflying its territory, at a news conference with Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki.

"We've asked for it back. We'll see how the Iranians respond," he said.

Tehran says it is planning to use the downed craft to produce a fleet of its own drones.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has denied ministers threatened to resign from Parliament if they were demoted in yesterday's Cabinet reshuffle.

Two of the so-called faceless men who engineered Ms Gillard's coup against Kevin Rudd last year, Bill Shorten and Mark Arbib, were promoted yesterday as Ms Gillard unveiled an expanded Cabinet.

Rudd supporter Kim Carr was booted out of Cabinet and there have been reports two ministers - Robert McClelland and Peter Garrett - threatened to resign from Parliament and force by-elections if they were sacked.