The head of Australia's Human Rights Commission, Professor Gillian Triggs, has shown defiance in the face of the latest attack on her by the Federal Government, standing by her criticisms of new laws that she says limit international diplomacy and harm democracy and liberties.

Defence Minister Kevin Andrews has appointed an expert advisory panel to oversee the so-called "competitive evaluation process" for the Navy's future submarine fleet.

Oops, he did it again: Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry is officially launching his second campaign for president today. He's expected to announce his bid flanked by combat veterans in the Dallas suburb of Addison. His entry to the race swells the growing GOP field to 10 official candidates.

Outgoing Fifa president Sepp Blatter says he is moving forward with a "comprehensive programme of reform" for world football's governing body.

It comes after a tumultuous nine days for his organisation, amid claims of "systemic and deep-rooted" corruption.

Seven Fifa officials were held in a dawn raid last week in Zurich as they gathered for a congress which saw Mr Blatter re-elected for a fifth term.

Four days later, Mr Blatter announced he would step down early from the post.

He said he would remain at work until Fifa had chosen his successor in the coming months.

The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose off the common

But leaves the greater villain loose

FOUR HORSEMEN is an award winning independent feature documentary which lifts the lid on how the world really works.

As we will never return to 'business as usual' 23 international thinkers, government advisors and Wall Street money-men break their silence and explain how to establish a moral and just society.

NSW taxpayers are forking out millions to a global corporation to provide an environmental impact report into a controversial toll road. The same company is then going to help build it. Wendy and Luke Bacon investigate.

Australia should hold fire on interest-rate cuts to avoid further inflaming property prices that are at risk of "a sharp correction," the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said.

"The net gains from further monetary expansion in the near term are finely balanced," the OECD said in Paris on Wednesday.

from Crikey …..

In the month of May anti-Muslim fervour increased its hold in Australia through the opportunism of War on Terror rhetoric.

The longtime legislator is one of America's most hawkish politicians, and will be running almost solely on a foreign policy platform. The tenor of his campaign will be grim: "I'm running because I think the world is falling apart," he explained.

it is a quite ludicrous that in order to sell and validate religious beliefs, some Christians still try to claim sciences as their own, as if science was a daughter of Christianity — through "Christian" scientists. In fact, most of the work of scientific value was done by clever humans, despite the Church — as the reality of experiments and observations did not fit any of the religious teachings.