Rice returns to Middle East talks

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is on her way to Jerusalem in another attempt to restart the stalled Middle East peace process.

Ms Rice is due to hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The US is also giving financial assistance to build up the Palestinian Authority president's security forces.

In 2003, University of Lausanne theology professor Thomas Römer received a telephone call from the Elysée. Jacques Chirac's advisers wanted to know more about Gog and Magog ... two mysterious names pronounced by George W. Bush while he was attempting to convince France to enter the war in Iraq at his side. In its September edition, the University of Lausanne's review, Allez savoir, reveals this story that could seem fantastic did it not, as Allez savoir's Editor-in-Chief Jocelyn Rochat emphasizes, reveal the religious underpinnings of Bush's policy.

The Iraqi government Monday ordered Blackwater USA, the security firm that protects U.S. diplomats, to stop work and leave the country after the fatal shooting of eight Iraqi civilians following a car bomb attack against a State Department convoy.

The order by the Interior Ministry, if carried out, would deal a severe blow to U.S. government operations in Iraq by stripping diplomats, engineers, reconstruction officials and others of their security protection.

Rudd brushes off Qld Cabinet misconduct allegations

Labor leader Kevin Rudd says if the Federal Government has concerns about his actions when he was a public servant in Queensland it should approach the police.

Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce wants to table a nine-volume report into allegations against the Queensland Cabinet when Mr Rudd was chief of staff to then-premier Wayne Goss.

A US lawyer says thousands of Iraqi families may join a class action against Australian wheat exporter AWB because of the kickbacks it paid which helped fund Saddam Hussein's regime.

The class action against AWB, its US office and a French bank has been filed by lawyers acting for two women whose husbands were killed by Hussein's regime.

Lawyer John Murray says the case alleges AWB entered into a conspiracy to fund a Government which carried out genocide.

"We think it's a bad thing to say to our closest ally in her hour of need in Iraq that we're going to partially walk away from you."

john winston rattus

How comfy we are all in the United States, as we engage in living-room debates about the US occupation of Iraq, whether "we" are bringing them freedom and whether their freedom is really worth the sacrifice of so many of our men and women. We talk about whether war aims have really been achieved, how to exit gracefully, or whether we need a hyper-surge to finish this whole business once and for all.

It is true that the US is increasingly bellicose. The balance of power in
the Bush administration is shifting away from Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, who favours cautious engagement with Tehran, and towards
Vice-President Dick Cheney, who urges confrontation.

If the invasion of Afghanistan had been a success, we would not still be fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. If the invasion of Iraq had been a success, we would not be fighting there.

Two invasions of practically defenseless countries with obsolete weapons and decaying infrastructures have to be termed failures. Both the civilian leadership in Washington and the military's officer corps share the blame.

John Howard could stay in parliament for a very long time after he hands over the prime ministership, Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey says.

"I wouldn't put it past the prime minister to still be in parliament for a long period of time."

Howard Could Stay In Parliament For Years

Gus: It doesn’t even seem to occur to these arrogant bastards that the voters of Bennelong might have other ideas.

Ever wonder why the supposedly 'fiscally Conservative' Republican Party ALWAYS increases the nation's debt? Ever wonder why, in 2007, the United States will spend nearly a trillion dollars ($700 billion-plus) to fight a relatively small band of sandal-wearing thugs living in caves?

Sadly, Americans seem not to wonder about much of anything ... but they should. They should, because so-called Conservative Republicans are robbing the taxpayer blind and using the money to undermine the welfare of the American people.

The overwhelming majority of the American people are not breaking any laws.

We cannot say that about the government.

Frankfurt - Finance ministers and central bankers have long fretted that at some point, the rest of the world would lose its willingness to finance the United States' proclivity to consume far more than it produces - and that a potentially disastrous free-fall in the dollar's value would result.

But for longer than most economists would have been willing to predict a decade ago, the world has been a willing partner in American excess - until a new and home-grown financial crisis this summer rattled confidence in the country, the world's largest economy.

"A vote for me is a vote for the coalition.”

a retiring john winston rattus