Australia has recorded its worst monthly trade performance in more than a year, partly because of adverse weather.

June's balance on trade in goods and services was in the red to the tune of $1.75 billion, more than $500 million worse than expected on financial markets, and the biggest shortfall since May last year.  

The value of Australia's exports dropped 3 per cent.

Trade Balance Takes A Hammering

‘Parenti explains our founders created a system of checks and balances by separating government into executive, legislative and judicial branches, even though the idea sounded better than it actually was. Today it's barely noticeable with two branches overtly supporting the chief executive's right to do as he pleases with no effective check on his power or lawlessness. One reason is because of who gets to Congress and the courts. They're mostly plutocracy members in good standing there to take care of their own. Half of Senate members are millionaires, and one critic believes the lower body is more "a House of Lords" than a House of Representatives.

Andrews was looking peeved but tolerant tonight on Lateline as he spelt out how it had been his job to have a suspicion of an association. He didn't mention any process involved in what might happen if that association was proven irrelevant.

He believes Haneef to be guilty, it would seem, saying that Haneef had left Australia "on a false pretext."

Andrews had a new angle, and as he delivered it light glinted in his eyes and his lips twisted in the failed suppression of a smirk as he said:

"Why didn't he have a press conference before he left Australia?. He did a paid exclusive interview for 60 Minutes... he could have fronted up and answered all these questions... now, he didn't do it."

OK, so let’s get this right.

Joe says that he cancelled Haneef’s visa because of a suspicious chatroom discussion between him & his brother in India & his alleged attempted “hasty” departure from Awstralya.

The information that Joe released today was in the hands of Keelty’s feral flatfoots from the day they arrested Haneef. That information was tabled in court during Haneef’s bail application & was also available to “Buggsy”, the DPP.

The prime rattus has thrown his support behind his Minister for Discrimination, Kevin “Joe McCarthy” Andrews, who is facing calls for his resignation over his handling of the Mohamed Haneef case.

Former terrorism suspect Dr Haneef returned home to India early this morning & told reporters he had been "victimised" by authorities during his time in custody in Australia.

 

from Crikey …..

Markets correct, Bush urges calm. Uh oh

Eureka Report publisher Alan Kohler writes:

There is absolutely nothing more worrying for an investor than seeing a US President telling "The American People" not to panic.

 

from the BBC …..

World owes US a debt, says Brown Prime Minister Gordon Brown

The world owes a debt to the United States for its leadership in the fight against international terrorism, Gordon Brown has said.

The prime minister described the link with the US as the UK's "most important bilateral relationship" ahead of his first talks with President George Bush.

'The charging of Dr Haneef means that the anti-terror laws passed by my government, & supported by the ALP, are “completely appropriate”.'

John Winston Howard

‘Terror generally kills innocent people, something no decent-minded person can accept, but what is always forgotten in the press and government treatment of terror as something alien and unimaginably bad is that war in the contemporary world does precisely the same thing."

Ministers accused of 'driving' Haneef case …..

Civil libertarians say any inquiry into the bungled prosecution of Dr Mohamed Haneef should focus squarely on the actions of Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock and Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews.

The terrorism-related charge against Dr Haneef was dropped yesterday after prosecutors abandoned their case amid revelations of mistakes in the case against him.

The president of the United States just issued a public pronouncement declaring, as a matter of U.S. policy, that a single man has the authority to detain any person anyplace in the world and subject him or her to secret interrogation techniques that aren't torture but that nonetheless can't be revealed, as long as that person is thought to be a "supporter" of an organization "associated" in some unspecified way with the Taliban or Al Qaeda, and as long he thinks that person might know something that could "assist" us.

Defence recruitment drive 'offensive' …..

Military recruitment material featuring alluring cartoon characters is offending some service personnel.

Posters approved by the office of Chief of Army Lieutenant-General Peter Leahy send the wrong message, according to some military women, News Limited newspapers report.

An advertisement for the Royal Australian Army Dental Corps depicts the modern woman digger as a buxom, full-lipped wonder woman wearing a tight-fitting white nursing outfit, complete with dog tag.

 

This week Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Australia might sell uranium to India, despite the country not signing up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Federal Cabinet is to consider the issue in the next few weeks.

 

In the second quarter, refiners bought crude oil at lower prices and sold gasoline at record high prices. As a result, companies like Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and Valero could see record profits when the industry reports earnings this week.

Exxon (Charts, Fortune 500), which actually refines more barrels of oil than it pumps, could see over $11 billion in earnings, which would be the biggest quarterly profit in corporate history.

 

Australian anger as Greer attacks 'slow-witted and neurotic' Diana …..

Germaine Greer's fellow Australians will be choking on their breakfast cereal this morning as they read her latest piece of invective: an excoriating attack on the late Diana, Princess of Wales, whom she describes as devious, neurotic and stupid.

In an essay in today's Weekend Australian Magazine, the Melbourne-born author and academic claims that Diana was nicknamed Brian by her siblings after the slow-witted snail on The Magic Roundabout.