RBA lifts interest rates 

The Reserve Bank has made history, weighing into the politically-charged federal election campaign by raising interest rates to their highest in a decade. 

Family-friendly Coalition policy a con: Democrats 

The Democrats have labelled the family-friendly measures contained in the federal Coalition's new industrial relations policy as a con. 

Pope, Saudi King hold historic meeting 

Pope Benedict and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah held a historic meeting and discussed the situation of minority Christians in the Islamic country where the Vatican wants them to have more freedom. 

Howard compares Cup to campaigning efforts 

Prime Minister John Howard has spent most of today on the hustings in his home electorate as the Melbourne cup overshadowed the campaign. 

Police fired tear gas and clubbed lawyers protesting Monday against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's emergency rule. The U.S. and other nations called for elections to be held on schedule and said they were reviewing aid to Pakistan. 

George W. Bush is having a hard time adjusting to the fact that he no longer has an automatic rubber-stamp Congress at his beck and call. And, while the Republican minority in Congress has still been winning some unfortunate battles, and the Democrats haven't done enough to fight back, it's not quite as easy for Bush as it was before this past January. 

The Supreme Court's recent decision to hear ExxonMobil's reasons to void the $2.5 billion punitive award in the Exxon Valdez case hit the town of Cordova, Alaska, hard. This small coastal fishing community - my hometown - along with the Alaska Native villages in Prince William Sound have borne the brunt of the largest crude oil spill in America's waters; a spill that took place more than 18 years ago, but one that continues to hold the region hostage.

from Crikey ….. 

We have been searching our minds to try to figure out why John Howard and Peter Costello refuse to criminalise cartels and send their perpetrators to jail. Here are 10 possible reasons for their inaction: 

from Crikey .....

Media freedom hampered by media irresponsibility 

Howard denying all responsibility for inflation: Rudd 

Labor leader Kevin Rudd says he is stunned that Prime Minister John Howard can say he believes inflation is unavoidable. 

Captain Andrew Paljakka, an explosives expert with the army, took his own life after a tour of duty in Afghanistan. His death has prompted a military inquiry. 

He served in Afghanistan for just six weeks, but it was enough time to see things that would haunt Andrew Paljakka long after his tour of duty ended. 

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s political camp struck back on Saturday against rivals who were attacking her as overly secretive, circulating legal arguments from a Clinton ally asserting that the Clintons are not blocking the release of presidential papers about their discussions in the White House in the 1990s. 

Mr Bush, as God knows best, is no Augustine; but the British historian Charles Freeman points to the latter as the epitome of a more general process that was underway in the fourth century: namely, ‘the gradual subjection of reason to faith and authority.’  

The debate over climate change in Australia could be seen as evidence of the existence of parallel universes.  

It is as if Australia and 191 other countries, including China and India, never signed and ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, as if the new Howard Government never signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. In this universe, Australia is a leader on climate change. 

Top federal police officers told the Howard government on the same day it cancelled Mohamed Haneef’s visa that their investigations showed there was nothing to suggest the Gold Coast doctor’s involvement in violence or terrorism in Australia.