The education minister, Christopher Pyne, has ruled out reviving the Howard-era school funding system, two days after he said it was “a good starting point for a school funding model”.

Trade Ministers from the 12 TPP countries will meet in Singapore on December 7-9 to make decisions about the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).

FROM THE frazzled MERDE-OCH STABLE:

You are invited to the 2013 Awards Gala Night as long as you are a Rabid Right or a Loony Liberal Lampoon (same thing) ticket holder.

Master of ceremony: George Pell — with Guest speakers Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones.

Blue tie or PRIVATE school tie de rigeur. Female tolerated should your name be "Bishop". Ticket price: $0.00 — you can charge the government for expenses under the rorts legislation.

RSVP by 14 September 1956. 

The foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, has expressed concern about China's sudden announcement of an air-defence identification zone over the East China Sea.

Christopher Pyne's funding model 'quick and dirty': Gonski panel member

Australia has recalibrated its position on Israel and Palestine to ensure only "balanced" UN resolutions receive its support, says Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop.

These are the notes for a talk I am doing on the corruption that is capitalism on Thursday 21 November at 6 pm in room W108 at Baldessin Building ANU in Canberra.

From his first campaign for the White House, President Obama has vowed to end more than a decade of war, bring the troops home and put America on a less militaristic footing. He has reduced the forces in Afghanistan from about 100,000 in 2010 to about 47,000 today and has promised that all American and international combat forces will be out by the end of 2014.

The merde-och press has an unfair advantage in the numbers of people it reaches. The merde-och press publishes murderous crap... the murderous crap in the article above...

It tells many people to believe in falsehood. I know religions have done it for centuries but now is not the time to stray off into crapland, away from proper science.

In this amazingly erroneous article, the Sunday Telegraph of the merde-och press is telling us :

"TORNADO FEARS JUST A LOT OF HOT AIR — Forget the Hollywood disaster movie chiches, new research shows these events are rare and running out of puff, writes Malcolm Holland..."

Only weeks after allegations emerged that asylum-seeker families are being separated by immigration officials, reports continue to arrive regarding the dubious treatment of children who arrive on boats.

Fairfax Media airs today fresh claims that some children held in immigration detention are receiving little to no appropriate education as a result of overflowing holding centres on Manus Island and Nauru.