Kevin Rudd has announced a leadership challenge tomorrow morning at 9am.

He said the ballot followed a request from deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Mr Rudd confirmed he would be a contender and said the leadership issue needed to be resolved quickly.

''I was elected to do a job,'' he said. ''I intend to continue doing that job.''

Mr Rudd said he'd lost support from key members of the party during the last few weeks.

''It has become apparent to me in the course of the last period of time ... that a number of factional leaders in the Labor party no longer support my leadership,'' he said.

I am one of the remaining veterans of the Haganah, who had served in the British Army and thereafter were among the initiators of the Ha'apala [illegal immigration] of Holocaust survivors, struggling with the forces of victorious Great Britain for the right to arrive at the shores of this country.

from Crikey .....

Afghanistan: another 30 years for the sake of the alliance

Jeff Sparrow writes:

No mercy. There, in two words, you have the White House game plan for BP. It's no use Mayor Boris Johnson bleating about the "huge exposure of British pension funds to BP" and it being "a matter of national concern if a great British company is being continually beaten up on the airwaves". It's worse than useless for Lord Tebbitt to splutter about "a crude, bigoted, xenophobic display of partisan, political, presidential petulance against a multinational company."

The government of Israel today launched a massive air assault on suspected terrorist targets along major coastal cities in the United States of America. In an operation termed "Friendly Enemy," hundreds of Israeli F-16 fighter jets streaked across the Atlantic in precise formation & fired surgical air strikes at alleged terrorist strongholds in densely populated Muslim communities all along the northeast corridor of the United States. The American-made Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jets then continued south, inflicting massive destruction in densely populated Muslim communities along many southeastern US states as well.

If you were to draw an oily line from the first exploitation of oil in the Middle East by the British in 1901 (they were in the process of converting their then world dominating naval fleet from coal to oil and were in desperate need of it) to the overthrow of the secular democratic leader in Iran, Mohammed Mossadeq, in 1953, to the Iraq War, to the criminal environmental catastrophe in the Gulf, BP would have been there.  

from Crikey .....

What you won't learn about the Xstrata 'closures' from the media

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

from Crikey .....

Clive takes on the RSPT -- and most of his mates in the process

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

Israel's response to the Gaza flotilla is another unfortunate example of Israel clothing its conduct in the language of international law while flouting it in practice. If you believe Israeli government spokesmen, Israel is metabolically incapable of violating international law, placing it alongside Saddam Hussein's Information Minister in self-awareness.

Israel claims that paragraph 67(a) of the San Remo Manual on Armed Conflicts at Sea justified the Israeli operation against the flotilla. (The San Remo Manual is an authoritative statement of international law applicable to armed conflicts at sea.)

At a press briefing this morning following the massacre by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commandos of passengers on board the Mavi Marmara, one of the boats pertaining to the Freedom Flotilla attempting to break the siege of Gaza, IDF spokeswoman Avital Liebovitch claimed that the passengers had engaged in "severe violence against our soldiers."