He has been mocked for wearing stacked heels and standing on tiptoes in official photographs, and now Nicolas Sarkozy is embroiled in a new controversy over the alleged lengths he will go to in order to make himself look taller in public.

Americans have lost their ability for introspection, thereby revealing their astounding hypocrisy to the world.

US War Secretary Robert Gates has condemned the Associated Press and a reporter, Julie Jacobson, embedded with US troops in Afghanistan, for taking and releasing a photo of a US Marine who was wounded in action and died from his injury.

By DEXTER FILKINS and CARLOTTA GALL

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghans loyal to President Hamid Karzai set up hundreds of fictitious polling sites where no one voted but where hundreds of thousands of ballots were still recorded toward the president’s re-election, according to senior Western and Afghan officials here.

Venezuela has agreed to export petrol to Iran, in a sign of closer ties between two of America's most vocal adversaries.

At the end of a two-day visit to Iran, President Hugo Chavez said Venezuela would supply 20,000 barrels of petrol a day to the country.

Iran is a major oil exporter but lacks domestic refining capability.

Iranian leaders expressed support for the Venezuelan socialist leader's anti-American policies.

By THOM SHANKER

Tony Blair will be thrust into the controversy

over the release of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi with questions in Parliament over a secret meeting the then Prime Minister orchestrated that brought Libya in from the cold.

In recent days the state Labor Government has been likened to the last years of the Roman empire, what with fornication, plotting of coups and attempted overthrow of emperors.

But on the coffee table of the Premier, Nathan Rees, this week sat a book not about an empire in decline but about one's construction: Niall Ferguson's Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World.

Today marks Rees's first anniversary in the job. People doubted he would make it this far, so determined were some within the parliamentary Labor party to have him bumped off.

QandA Latest Program: Thursday 3 September 2009 at 9:30pm http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/

---------------

Gus: There are times when one has to pay dues against one's ingrained beliefs. For example one has to admit that Senator Bill Heffernan has "improved"... Even one of my buddies who had seriously bad interaction with him way back in the wild 1980s told me in the afternoon before the show that Heffernam had mellowed and strangely grasped the major issues, including climate warming... Weird...

It must also eventually come to an end, and this could become a problem for the newly-elected Democratic Party government in Tokyo. The negatives for Japan in this institutionalized subordination to the United States have become heavy to bear, not only politically but in certain ways psychologically, and even spiritually. Japan, after all, from its brilliant successes early in the Meiji era, in its 1904-1905 war with Russia, to its defeat by American nuclear bombs in 1945, was probably the most dynamic, ambitious and nationalistic country on earth.

It sounds like the plot for the latest summer horror movie. Imagine, for a moment, that George W. Bush had been allowed a third term as president, had run and had won or stolen it, and that we were all now living (and dying) through it. With the Democrats in control of Congress but Bush still in the Oval Office, the media would certainly be talking endlessly about a mandate for bipartisanship and the importance of taking into account the concerns of Republicans. Can't you just picture it?

Two weeks ago, a Libyan intelligence agent, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, who was serving a life term in Scotland for the destruction of an American airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, was released on compassionate grounds by Scotland's justice minister. Megrahi was dying of cancer. "Devolved" Scotland enjoys considerable autonomy from London in legal matters.

A huge international furor erupted that was rich in hypocrisy and double standards.

What has been Rees's solution to the state's problems in almost 12 months as Premier?

Every week he comes up with another ridiculous plan, such as closing down the Harbour Bridge for a day, covering it with astro turf and inviting Sydneysiders to have breakfast on it. Apart from the inconvenience to motorists, it's the least attractive picnic venue in town. For one thing the railings are so high no one sitting on a picnic blanket will be able to see any of the view, just railway tracks and anti-suicide wire.

Doubts have emerged over whether the giant $50 billion Gorgon gas project can safely bury its greenhouse gas emissions deep beneath the Barrow Island nature reserve off Western Australia, despite the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, backing the plan.

Technical experts working with Gorgon's developers, Chevron, Shell and ExxonMobil, found it was possible that carbon dioxide could leak from faults in the geological formation under the island which is supposed to act as the burial site.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says he is deeply disturbed and troubled by the alleged domestic violence attack on Tasmanian MP Jodie Campbell.

Mr Rudd spoke with 36-year-old Ms Campbell last night to convey his wholehearted support and that of the parliamentary Labor Party.

"Acts of violence against women, in my view, are cowardly acts by men and have no place in modern Australia," said Mr Rudd.

"The only attitude we can have is zero tolerance and, as a nation, we need to embrace that."