from Crikey ….. 

Mungo: Howard's detention regime diminished us all 

Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson says he will lead the Coalition to the next election.

Dr Nelson's handling of the Coalition's policy on an emissions trading scheme has led to speculation his leadership is in trouble, with some MPs withdrawing their support.

However, today he told ABC Local Radio in Adelaide that he was sticking with the job.

After spending much of the summer searching for an effective line of attack against Senator Barack Obama, Senator John McCain is beginning a newly aggressive campaign to define Mr. Obama as arrogant, out of touch and unprepared for the presidency.

Nikita Khrushchev said the Soviet Union would bury us, but these days, everybody seems to think that China is the one wielding the shovel.  

The People's Republic is on the march - economically, militarily, even ideologically. 

Can you enjoy the benefits of exercise without the pain of exertion? The answer may one day be yes — just take a pill that tricks the muscles into thinking they have been working out furiously. 

Liberal MPs are denying that Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson's job is under threat after his apparent backdown on emissions trading at yesterday's shadow cabinet meeting.

Last week Dr Nelson foreshadowed he would push for a tougher policy on a carbon trading scheme, in direct opposition to leadership rival Malcolm Turnbull. 

Congressional negotiators agreed yesterday to a ban on a family of toxins found in children's products, handing a major victory to parents and health experts who have been clamoring for the government to remove harmful chemicals from toys. 

An ill-timed trial of a new baggage check-in system is being blamed by angry passengers for chaotic scenes at Qantas's Sydney domestic terminal.

Flights were delayed,  passengers said they were queueing for more than an hour, and scores of passengers found themselves waiting in line at the time their planes were due to take off today.

Nodding his head to the disco music blaring out of his car's nine speakers, Zhang Linsen swings the shiny, black Hummer H2 out of his company's gates and on to the spacious four-lane road. 

Running a hand over his closely shaved head, Zhang scans the expanse of high-end suburban offices and villas that a decade ago was just another patch of farmland outside of Shanghai.

Sen. Barack Obama was in Berlin today, for a lofty speech to throngs of people about the roots of American-German cooperation and the development of freedom in the world.

Barack Obama, who in a recent trip to Israeli said their nation was a 'miracle', has convinced Arabs and Iranians he will put Jewish interests first if he becomes U.S. president, leading many Arabs to say 'tell me something I don’t know.' 

Here in the ancient Tasmanian forest, the world's tallest hardwood trees rise 250 feet from the valley floor. These are the Eucalyptus regnans - the king of the eucalyptus - and some have been growing for more than 400 years. 

For Senator Barack Obama, who came to Europe once in the last four years, making a stop in London on his way to Russia, the response of many Europeans to his potential presidency has been gratifying - emotional, responsive, replete with the sense of hope he seeks to engender about a more flexible, less ideological America. 

European governments and politicians are not so sure. 

Italy's parliament has given its final approval to a controversial immunity bill put forward by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government.