Let’s imagine this scene: eleven Palestinian youngsters under the age of 18 demonstrating with Palestinian flags and posters at the north-west entrance of the Ariel settlement, demanding that the old road which leads to Salfit be reopened. Let’s assume that these youngsters aren’t attacked by the Ariel residents. After all, this is not a hotheaded settlement, its zealotry is limited to land fever.

Sibel Edmonds' new book, Classified Woman, is like an FBI file on the FBI, only without the incompetence.

The United States is making a gigantic investment in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, billed by its advocates as the next - by their count the fifth - generation of air-to-air and air-to-ground combat aircraft.

Kelly Thomas repeatedly apologized to Fullerton police officers, saying he was "sorry" as they continued to pummel him with their fists and batons, a dramatic video of the July 5 beating of the homeless man reveals.

The grainy black-and-white video, shown Monday on the first day of a preliminary hearing for two Fullerton police officers charged in the case, shows a shirtless Thomas being repeatedly struck.

Hillary Clinton Admits the US Government Created al-Qaeda

Labor has made a $5 billion pitch to its heartland, splashing cash hand-outs and tax breaks on families and low income earners in the federal budget.

But the bonanza has come at the expense of business with the government abandoning its promised one per cent company tax cut.

Craig Thompson repeatedly provided false and misleading information during the course of a long investigation into the national office of the Health Services Union, a Fair Work Australia report has found.

So, it has come to this. A decade, a state government inquiry and litigation and appeals through every level of the legal system to conclude the bleeding obvious: that company directors are required to tell the truth.

A former senior bureaucrat and expert on Aboriginal health was sacked when his employer learnt he had a 45-year-old conviction - for having sex with his girlfriend when he was a teenager.

from the drum …..

Last week, Prime Minister Julia Gillard pondered what the "character and conduct" of the Anzac legend "did to shape our nation", and how "a worthy foe [Turkey] has proved to be an even greater friend".

About the same time the mining magnate Clive Palmer announced he wanted to run against the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, at the next election - just as soon as he had finished building a life-size replica of the Titanic - the satirists of Australia received a memo. Their services would no longer be needed.

Humorists, wry commentators and the schooner-nursing jokester at your local pub would also be made redundant.

The reality of the political landscape has become so bonkers, it is better than anything even the most gifted wit could invent.

Consider, as merely one example, the Palmer candidacy.

If you believe the polls, the opposition and some of the media commentary over the past 24 hours, Julia Gillard's government is not just hanging by a thread on the rocks. It's a disaster of historic proportions. In all of this is the underlying question of the Prime Minister's judgement.

But as government ministers are at pains to keep pointing out, the Gillard government is not planning to go anywhere anytime soon. Ms Gillard is a "gutsy" leader with the numbers in the caucus. Indeed, as Trade Minister Craig Emerson said in the wake of the Slipper/Thomson dual sidelining, "life goes on."

from Crikey .....

The Prime Minister reverses her position on Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper because "a line has been crossed", and gets angry at journalists when they ask why. We half expected a Nixonian line about former statements being "inoperative".

Tony Abbott gives a media conference at which he demands the government "disown" the vote of Craig Thomson. Of the assembled journalists, none bother asking him about his double standard, given he has readily accepted the votes of Coalition figures charged with civil and criminal wrongdoing.

Last Thursday, before flying from Istanbul to Ankara, and then home, Julia Gillard held the final press conference of her trip abroad. Given all that was happening at home, there was plenty to ask the Prime Minister.

The government had called in the administrators to clean out the Health Services Union, the Workplace Relations Minister, Bill Shorten, had gone harder than Gillard regarding the gravity of Peter Slipper's alleged sexual harassment, and tongues were flapping again about the leadership.

Britain's border control was under fire Saturday as lawmakers and passengers alike voiced frustration about lengthy queues at London's main airport three months out from the Olympics.

Huge queues at passport control were reported on Thursday and Friday at London Heathrow, the world's busiest international passenger airport, which will be the main gateway for the 2012 Games that get under way on July 27.

Passengers waited for up to an hour on Friday to go through the checks at Terminal 5, while there were two-hour queues on Thursday for passport holders from outside the 30-country European Economic Area (EEA).