Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered to hold direct talks with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at the UN General Assembly.

Mr Abbas earlier said he was willing to meet Mr Netanyahu but was determined to push ahead with a bid for UN recognition of a Palestinian state.

The US and Israel oppose the bid and there has been intense diplomacy to avert a crisis over the move.

Peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel broke down a year ago

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14981633

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner delivered an unusually direct plea for action to his counterparts in Europe on Friday, urging leaders to move with more unity to head off a potential new wave of financial crisis on the continent.

But he got a chilly response. There was no accord on new steps to address the debt crisis that started in Greece and has spread to the much bigger economies of Spain and Italy. And many of the European finance ministers who heard from Geithner in a session in Poland on Friday seemed to bristle at him intruding on their affairs.

... And this is the central point. It isn't enough just to be "the Leader". There has to be a point to leadership. 'The Leader' has to have a plan, to inspire her or his followers with that plan and to reach out to a broader section of the community as a leader of conviction.

Sure, things can go wrong. They did for me [Alexander Downer] when I was opposition leader in 1994-95. A bad joke and a couple of gaffes and down went my approval ratings. In January 1995 my approval rating in Newspoll was 24 per cent. I thought that was pretty terminal.

I had a plan, I had my convictions but I worried. At this rate my plan would turn to dust because I'd lose the upcoming general election.

ITALY has turned to the China Investment Corp, one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds, to ease its debt crisis, according to a report in the Financial Times.

David Cameron has raised the Alexander Litvinenko case at the start of his bridge-building visit to Russia.

Relations between the UK and Russia have been strained since the Russian dissident was murdered in London in 2006, and Russia then refused to extradite the prime suspect.

The PM said in Moscow that the UK would continue to push for Mr Litvinenko's killer to be brought to justice.

The one-day trip is the first by a UK leader for talks in Russia since 2005.

Fears about Europe’s deteriorating finances intensified on Sunday as new doubts about the health of French banks, as well as Germany’s willingness to help Greece avert default, left investors bracing for another global stock market downturn this week.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/12/business/global/german-dissent-magnifies-uncertainty.html?hp

bluebottles (picture by Gus Leonisky)

Leaked diplomatic cables show the Federal Government watered down reef protection laws in 2009 to avoid a dispute with the US government.

In 2006 the Government extended the Great Barrier Reef's compulsory pilotage system to the Torres Strait to force large carriers and tankers to use a marine pilot to navigate through the Strait.

The system was designed to prevent accidents and spills.

But cables published by WikiLeaks show the United States and Singapore opposed the system.

THE Gillard government is understood to be considering a media inquiry with narrow terms of reference focused on the print media, despite a strong push from the Greens for a much broader probe.

The Greens leader, Bob Brown, will move to set up an inquiry on Wednesday, with draft terms of reference seen by the Herald proposing it consider whether technological change is hurting quality journalism and whether the government can do anything to encourage investment in quality journalism.