AJDABIYA, Libya — Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces retreated from this strategic city on Saturday, running for dozens of miles back along the coast with Libyan rebels in pursuit in their first major victory since American and European airstrikes began a week ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/26/opinion/26opchart.html?hp

On Wednesday, Ms Gillard descanted upon Mr Howard's brave and forward-thinking policies on climate change. "I remind the House that in 2007 Prime Minister Howard actually went to the election promising 'the most comprehensive emissions trading system anywhere in the world'!" she trilled, to an admiring rumble of hear-hears from the Government benches.

...

Ms Gillard's own attitude to the carbon-tax protestors, meanwhile, is complicated. On one hand, she utters "not a word of criticism about them". On the other, she simply cannot believe that Mr Abbott would hang out with such an "extremist", "sexist" bunch of weirdos. One cannot imagine Mr Howard offering such an equation, either.

Picture modified by Gus under fairness of news and current affair agreement satirical policy @2 #67.

From Glenn Milne

And the reason for that importance is that the leaders themselves have made it so. The carbon tax will destroy one or the other.

The Greens planning spokesman, David Shoebridge, said there were so many applications in the pipeline that it would be ''business as usual for the development lobby'' for the next two years unless the Coalition returned many of them to councils for determination.

''We must put in place a regime that has these applications assessed in light of all the local, regional and planning laws that apply to all other developments not under the rule-free Part 3A,'' Mr Shoebridge said.

He said that letting the Planning Assessment Commission approve them would make little difference because it operated under the 3A provisions, which ignored the local planning laws that smaller developments complied with.

This is a repeat of an article posted earlier this morning in response to Barrie Cassidy who for "balance's sake" peddles crap:

Conviction politicians are hard to find in Australia these days.

Ten years ago, the then Liberal Party federal director, Lynton Crosby, said his research turned up two genuine conviction politicians - John Howard and Bob Brown.

Many people were taken aback when France emerged as one of the most pugnacious advocates of military action in Libya, especially Americans who were accustomed to French criticism over Iraq and French foot-dragging over Afghanistan. Without President Nicolas Sarkozy’s early and constant pressure for a United Nations-endorsed no-flight zone, military intervention might have come too late to save Benghazi’s people from the murderous threats of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

This collection of hundreds of coloured, jagged shards could be a work of abstract art. But the objects in the photograph to the right are the contents of the stomach of a sea turtle that lost its battle with plastic pollution.

Environmentalists examined the stomach of the juvenile turtle found off the coast of Argentina. The bellyful of debris that they found is symptomatic of the increasing threat to the sea turtles from a human addiction to plastic.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says Julia Gillard could expect a 'royal wedding bounce' in the polls when she returns from London in April.

Ms Gillard and partner Tim Mathieson have accepted an invitation to Prince William and Catherine Middleton's April 29 wedding.

In a scathing critique of the prime minister, Mr Abbott told the Liberal and Nationals party room meeting on Tuesday the Labor leader, whose support rose in the latest Newspoll, could expect a further boost.

'She may not believe in God, the monarchy or marriage but there will be a royal wedding bounce,' Mr Abbott told his MPs.

Capitalism may be to blame for the lack of life on Mars, Venezuela's socialist president Hugo Chavez says.

"I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilisation on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet," Mr Chavez said in a speech to mark World Water Day.

Mr Chavez, who also holds capitalism responsible for many of the world's problems, warned water supplies on Earth were drying up.

There has been hundreds of aftershocks in this region...

Scientists are trying to establish if the Magnitude 9.0 Tohoku earthquake has altered the chances of a major tremor under Tokyo - or increased the risk of another tremor powerful enough to generate a tsunami.

The massive Sumatra quake in 2004 was followed by many others above Magnitude 7.0, including two above Magnitude 8.0 in 2005 and 2007.