There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. 

Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior.  

It has been known for months that the Bush-Cheney administration and its allies have been manuevering to strengthen their political control of Pakistan, paving the way for the expansion and deepening of the “war on terrorism” across the region. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto does not change this agenda. In fact, it simplifies Bush-Cheney’s options. 

My friend, the late Fr Percy Church MSC wrote a dramatic description of his Christmas in Bethlehem:   

The resolution I propose for Labor back in power - and for the Opposition once again in opposition, the courts that have dithered on the issue and those newspaper pundits who never understood what was involved - is to make 2008 the year Australia stops messing around with habeas corpus. 

The right to have the courts - not the Crown, governments, ministers or public servants - decide who languishes in the clink, was not easily won.

The NSW Ombudsman has failed to follow through on threats he would review the state's Freedom of Information Act despite latest figures showing that NSW continues to lag behind the rest of the country in releasing documents sought under the law. 

The NSW Ombudsman's annual report reveals that the percentage of freedom-of-information applications released in full in NSW dropped from 81 per cent in 1995-96 to 52 per cent in 2005-06.

Pakistan was teetering on the brink of civil war last night, following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto by suspected Muslim extremists. 

Ms Bhutto was shot in the neck and chest by a suicide bomber who then blew himself up, moments after the former prime minister addressed supporters in the city of Rawalpindi. 

Gather ye now among thy tribes and among thy families and then shalt thou rest, for the year runneth its course.

Put aside therefore thy labours and place thy trust in thy investments, and possibly thy investments in thy trust. 

For it came to pass that there were great changes in the land.

Police were forced to block the entrance of a public meeting in Camden last night when up to 800 people showed up to attend a protest against plans for an Islamic school in the suburb. 

The meeting was also attended by Fred Nile of the Christian Democratic Party. 

At least four top White House lawyers - Alberto Gonzales, Harriet Miers, John Bellinger & David Addington - "took part in discussions with the" CIA "between 2003 & 2005 about whether to destroy videotapes showing the secret interrogations."  

Sixty percent of Americans believe that the next generation will be worse off than their own.

A majority of Americans have no confidence in the government's ability to solve the nation's problems.

During the full two week period of the Bali Climate Conference, Mister Bush and his people did their best to undermine any and every attempt made at achieving a consensus on how best to combat and reduce the impacts of global warming.

There are several vital points raised by the new revelations in The New York Times that "the N.S.A.'s reliance on telecommunications companies is broader and deeper than ever before" and includes both pre-9/11 efforts to tap without warrants into the nation's domestic communications network as well as the collection of vast telephone records of American citizens in the name of the War on Drugs.

The Attorney General,                                    

The Hon Robert McClelland MP,                               

Parliament House,

Peter Costello is maintaining the rage against John Howard and his Liberal Party colleagues by blaming the election loss on their reluctance to make him the leader. 

In a sign his bitterness has not abated in the three weeks since the election, Mr Costello used yesterday's declaration of the polls in his Melbourne seat of Higgins to say a lack of "renewal" had cost the Coalition the election.