Former prime minister John Howard will be able to add "doctor" to his list of achievements and honours, when he is awarded an honorary doctorate in Sydney this afternoon for his contribution to public life.

Mr Howard is due to be made a Doctor of Letters honoris causa in a business and economics faculty ceremony at Macquarie University.

In his citation this afternoon, Macquarie University Vice-Chancellor Professor Steven Schwartz is set to pay tribute to Mr Howard's lifetime of public service.

The clergyman remained unmoved on gay marriage and climate change, but he said evolution was ''probably'' right, and that atheists could ''certainly'' get into heaven. Professor Dawkins declared he was ''trying to be charitable'' by suggesting there was no way Cardinal Pell meant the body would literally be resurrected.

Milan Kundera's truism, "the struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting", described East Timor. The day before I set out to film clandestinely there in 1993, I went to Stanfords map shop in London's Covent Garden. "Timor?" said a hesitant sales assistant. We stood staring at shelves marked South East Asia. "Forgive me, where exactly is it?" 

From a political perspective, all that matters in the Craig Thomson saga is whether the MP is eligible to remain in Parliament.

If Labor had a 10-seat majority, the Coalition would not be showing much interest at all in the case.

David Walsh hasn't just changed how the rest of the country sees Tasmania with his sex and death museum, he's altered the very mindset of the Apple Isle itself.

George Brandis would no doubt like to be attorney-general, the first law officer of Australia, in the next Coalition government.

Senator Brandis is a barrister and a senior counsel, although the latter appointment was the subject of harsh criticism given it was awarded to him six years after he gave up active practice at the Queensland Bar.

But Senator Brandis's conduct in the Craig Thomson affair provides cause for concern about what sort of attorney-general he would be if the opportunity arose. Senator Brandis has pursed the ALP backbencher Thomson with a vigour that is disturbing on a number of levels.

International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde has implored the United States to bolster debt-ridden European countries.

Supreme Court Ruling Allows Strip-Searches for Any Arrest

By ADAM LIPTAK

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has rejected the idea of decriminalising narcotics, saying tough policing is necessary instead to prevent the devastating consequences of drug use.

But Ms Gillard's immediate rejection of calls for a rethink of drug laws is at odds with the views of her Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, and those of former police chief Mick Palmer.

Mr Carr called today for a "de facto decriminalisation" of some drugs, as a report declared Australia's "war on drugs" had failed.

from an alien-fearing Gerard Henderson...

Imagine the media reaction if the atheist Julia Gillard or the Christian Tony Abbott raised the possibility, in a major address, of extraterrestrial life on one or more planets beyond Earth.

"Does God exist?" is a valid and relevant question. Here are my top reasons why the answer is a resounding, "No."