World leaders at the Rio+20 Earth summit in Brazil delivered a "new definition of hypocrisy" for standing in the way of progress and failing so far to challenge the text of the draft outcome document, NGO leaders said on Thursday.

First for Australia – a law to stop governments stacking the ABC Board

A ground-breaking bill was passed in the Senate last night and is expected to be carried by the House of Representatives.

Bishops are claiming up to £27,000 a year in fixed-rate allowances to attend sessions of the House of Lords on top of their travel costs. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and The Independent has found that some bishops are claiming up to the maximum fixed allowance for attending sessions in the second chamber while having full-time jobs in their dioceses. Others attend sessions in the House without making any claim on the public purse.

From a purely political point of view, the most interesting thing about travelling to Europe (which I have just done) is the extraordinary contrast with the stopover in Singapore on the way home.

Singapore is all go; huge reclamation works, extraordinary construction projects on the same scale as the futuristic erections in Shanghai, but a good deal classier. Almost everything works and what doesn't is being ruthlessly discarded.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott articulates an alternative vision for the country with Clarke & Dawe.

Alternative Vision

It’s not every weekend we get a close look at such characters, whose influence is so terrifying we wonder why we stay in a country where such thought predators ply their hideous wares.

Perhaps we should not be surprised by the decline of quality, original, investigative media.

from Crikey .....

Western Australians may have a penchant for the Coalition, but there are some exceptions. A WA voter is outraged to have received a personalised begging letter from Tony Abbott in the mail. "Outraged of WA", who lives in Julie Bishop's electorate, wants to know how the Liberal Party got his name and address, and if the electoral roll was used, asks if that was appropriate. "What are they doing sending unsolicited beggar mail to everyone in the district?" our contact asked.

Australia's media landscape has been rocked for a second time this week with News Limited announcing a massive restructuring of the way it delivers news.

Monsanto's history is one steeped with controversial products, deadly consequences, massive cover ups, political sleight of hand, and culminates as a modern day plague on humanity, a plague that is about to peak to biblical proportions. Created in 1901, the company started producing its first form of poison, the artificial sweetener saccharin. The rise in use of saccharin really began 70 years later. Monsanto had plenty of time for a realistic and long term study on the impact of saccharin on human health. Instead, Monsanto learned how to finagle political support and grow its empire despite the growing consensus that saccharin caused cancer.