Britain's new coalition government has suffered a blow as high-profile finance minister David Laws resigned, following revelations over his expenses claims.

Mr Laws stepped down as chief treasury secretary after the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported he had channelled more than 40,000 pounds ($68,000) of taxpayers' money in rent to his long-term male partner.

"I do not see how I can carry out my crucial work on the budget and spending review while I have to deal with the private and public implications of recent revelations," Mr Laws said at a brief press conference.

Government by haircut. Who'd have thought it? In the four years since Kristina Keneally felt impelled to assure Parliament she had "never worn a pair of stilettos" she has achieved a far far greater thing, to which many strive but few finally attain: ascension by hair.

I realised this recently after yet another Kristina-tract landed on our stoop. You know the format. Me with awestruck old people, me with people in wheelchairs, me with grinning black kids, me cycling, me hugging the homeless. And I'm having a one-more-shot-of-Keneally's-blowdried-coif-and-I-throw-up moment when it strikes me who she's channelling.

Kakadu... Picture by Gus

Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett says he would like to seize the opportunity to expand Kakadu National Park, following a request from traditional owners.

The French mining company Areva wants to mine the Koongarra deposit for uranium.

The site is surrounded by Kakadu National Park and home to the Djok Aboriginal clan.

For years, traditional owners have rejected the company's requests to mine the site, but now they are taking their fight even further.

On behalf of Aboriginal land owners, the Northern Land Council has submitted an application for the site to be included in the national park.

By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON — Deficits finally matter.

After years of citing national security, social necessity and economic crisis as sufficient justification to pass costly legislation without paying for it, members of Congress are getting cold feet about continually adding to the national vat of red ink.

International Cricket Council (ICC) president-elect Sharad Pawar has sought to defuse the row over the nomination of former Australian prime minister John Howard as an ICC vice-president.

Pawar is set to take over the presidency of world cricket's governing body from Welshman David Morgan next month, with former politician Howard becoming a vice-president.

Under ICC procedures, Howard would normally become ICC president in two years' time.

Being sceptical about power means being sceptical about your own power, not only the power of others. I was reminded of this watching Ken Crispin, former Supreme Court judge, on the 7.30 Report on Thursday.

Kerry O'Brien asked: "How did it feel to have power over the lives of others in the way a judge does? Did you ever get used to that, I wonder, and are you ever troubled by a case, or cases, where you felt later that perhaps you might have got it wrong?"

The answer was unexpected. "I think judges should always be troubled by the exercise of power." The same should go for all professions.

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At the Sydney Writers' Festival last weekend, Alan Ramsey, once of these pages, was asked why he referred to Howard as the Toad.

''Because I didn't think I could get away with Turd,'' he replied.

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For longer than anyone can remember, Daphne Lucas has been making jams and pickles in the kitchen of her home at Bomaderry, down on the south coast near Nowra.

They are her contribution to democracy. At election time she sells them to raise campaign funds for the Australian Labor Party, of which she is a long-standing member.

There was a moment back in 1945 when physicists were preparing for the first test of an atomic weapon at Los Alamos. A few scientists predicted that there was a tiny chance that the bomb could actually light the atmosphere on fire and incinerate the planet. We went ahead regardless.

Hundreds of tests by a number of nations later, we still have our atmosphere, but the very cells of every living thing, including us, are permeated with subtle radioactive compounds. We went ahead regardless.

The pervasive illusion was that the humans who are in charge of oil rigs would never let an accident of this magnitude happen. But it did.

from Crikey .....

Impartiality and the ABC: the Middle East doco rejected for broadcast

Crikey intern Matt De Neef writes:

from Crikey .....

Abbott's new Pacific Solution: 'cruel' treatment for asylum seekers

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

This week, newspapers around the world received reports and signed documents from South Africa. The reports said that, in 1975, Israel agreed to sell South Africa nuclear weapons. South Africa then released an arms agreement signed by current Israeli President Shimon Peres. This is the document "heard round the world."

What are we doing in Afghanistan? According to U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, the Administration together with the Congress are working to complete our "mission". This is good news for enthusiasts of American imperialism who naturally take to national, militaristic, rallying calls. Mission is a carefully chosen word. Used in this sense by propagandists, it connotes purpose, goodness, unity, and suggestively...Stop! Because once you accept the premise that we have a mission in Afghanistan, you are sufficiently indoctrinated.

The head of BP struts around like a peacock as his company ravages nature, living things and jobs, while Greenpeace protesters are arrested and maybe charged with terrorism for painting an offshore drilling protest on the side of an oil company vessel. Where is the justice in that?

Germany’s commitment to the European Union has been central to its postwar rehabilitation and its economic success. For years, Germany played the role in Europe that America so frequently plays globally — the locomotive whose dynamism and demand helps turn around recessions before they deepen into depressions.