Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop has said there is a "powerful argument" that US President Donald Trump's threat to scrap the Iran nuclear deal could imperil efforts to negotiate a peaceful outcome with North Korea.

In a significant sharpening of Australia's public rhetoric on the Obama-era Iran agreement, Ms Bishop said she had asked US officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, how they would counter the argument that North Korea could not trust the US if it walked away from previous international agreements.

read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bishop-warns-trump...

Washington: A federal grand jury has approved the first charges in the investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, a source briefed on the matter told Reuters.

The charges are still sealed under orders from a federal judge, but plans have been prepared for anyone charged to be taken into custody as soon as Monday.

read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/special-counsel-robert-mueller-files-charges...

I will believe it when I see it... It sounds a bit more lame than an AFP raid on GetUp! or a trumped up charge. Excuse the pun. But I really believe the cat (or the rat) did it. 

History is full of it. 

Some days it's a house of cards
Some days truth it disregards
Most days people stare in wonderment
watching this shambles of a Government
waiting for the Queen to

I’ll keep this brief, because there’s only one thing you can say about the events of the past 24 hours: what a complete shocker.

Around 30 years ago, Mad magazine did this short social study of Donald Trump... Now you know...

It has taken four years for the government and the nbn company to finally admit what many people have been warning for since the very beginning of the change in NBN plans from FttH (fibre to the home) to FttN (fibre to the node).

Why has New Zealand got fibre to the home, mostly renewable energy, the Bledisloe Cup and a charismatic leader and we have not?

Denis Goodwin Dee Why

read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-letters/west-just-a-postscript-in-a-ta...

‘Provocative adverts for Kremlin-owned television channel’ is the familiar opening for the Times’ latest knickers in a twist article on RT, as the Murdoch-owned broadsheet joined the angry scrum to condemn a tongue-in-cheek advertising campaign on the London Underground.

A notorious Russian internet “troll factory” spent about $2.3 million during the 2016 election cycle to meddle in US politics, paying the salaries of 90 “US desk” employees who helped wage disinformation campaigns via social media that reached millions of Americans. The operation also contacted US activists directly and offered them thousands of dollars to organize protests on divisive issues, including race relations.

As the Americans blame the communists and Russia to have invented “global warming” to bugger up the US economy which is based on burning fossil fuels as if there was no tomorrow, some Russian newspapers are blaming the USA for having created the concept of global warming to bugger up the Russian economy — as a mythical weapon aimed at curtailing Russian oil and gas exports. Overall, quietly, the Russian government knows that global warming is increasingly problematic and the government is taking steps to defend against climate change. The Russian scientists are no dummies like the US politicians who waste a lot of hot air with brainfarts.

We are living in the age of deceit, fast becoming the era of imbecility. Our Trumble is getting the bug of invention and in a rare moment of lucidity he declared that E = MC2. Wow. Here he explains that E (Economy) equals M (Muck) multiplied by C (Coal) powered to the square. And we get screwed...