http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13058818

Clubs Australia says it is "outraged" at suggestions it may be involved in a death threat against independent MP Andrew Wilkie.

Mr Wilkie has claimed the gaming industry is mounting a smear campaign against him because of his calls for tougher laws to target poker machines and problem gambling.

The Tasmanian independent also says there has been an attempt to blackmail him with supposed "compromising photos", and threats to trawl through his past as an Army cadet at Duntroon.

"In the past two days I've received a death threat, been threatened with the existence of compromising photos, and am having my past as a cadet at Duntroon nearly 30 years ago trawled over,'' he said.

HUNTING in 29 national parks, relaxation of gun licensing laws and shooting as a school sport: these are some of the demands the Premier is about to be confronted with by the Shooters and Fishers Party, which now shares the balance of power in the NSW upper house.

As the make-up of the Legislative Council was decided yesterday, documents obtained by the Herald reveal the extent and cost of the shopping list likely to be presented to Barry O'Farrell as he tries to negotiate his legislation through the new Parliament.

US President Barack Obama has said he enjoys golf in large part because a game is the only way he can escape outdoors for hours at a time.

He said he misses the trappings of ordinary life - weekend lie-ins, trips to the market and walks in the park.

"I just want to go through Central Park and watch folks passing by," he told Hearst newspapers. "I miss that."

Mr Obama's security bubble precludes much privacy and spontaneity. He recently announced a re-election bid.

"I miss being anonymous," he told Hearst Magazines' publishers and editors at the White House.

More than 250 of America's most eminent legal scholars have signed a letter protesting against the treatment in military prison of the alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning, contesting that his "degrading and inhumane conditions" are illegal, unconstitutional and could even amount to torture.

Former One Nation politician Pauline Hanson has a good chance of winning the final NSW upper house seat.

Ms Hanson is 6000 votes ahead of her nearest rival, the Greens' Jeremy Buckingham, with 91 per cent of primary votes counted, ABC election analyst Antony Green said.

The full result is expected to be declared tomorrow, more than two weeks after the state election on March 26.

So far 20 of the 21 upper house seats up for election have been filled, with the Coalition winning 11 of the vacancies.

Labor has won five of the seats, the Greens have two, and the Shooters and Christian Democrats each have one.

"We have 18 pax [passengers] dismounted and spreading out at this time," an Air Force pilot said from a cramped control room at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, 7,000 miles away. He was flying a Predator drone remotely using a joystick, watching its live video transmissions from the Afghan sky and radioing his crew and the unit on the ground.

The Afghans unfolded what looked like blankets and kneeled. "They're praying. They are praying," said the Predator's camera operator, seated near the pilot.

http://www.sbs.com.au/documentary/program/thewaryoudontsee

The Federal Opposition says the proposed regulations that will underpin national workplace safety laws are unworkable.

The Government has been moving to implement uniform laws across the country.

The Opposition supports the proposals but its spokesman on Employment and Workplace Relations, Eric Abetz, says business is worried about the complexity of the regulations.

For the 400 US taxpayers with the highest adjusted gross income, the effective federal income tax rate - what they actually pay - fell from almost 30% in 1995 to just under 17% in 2007, according to the IRS.

And for the approximately 1.4 million people who make up the top 1% of taxpayers, the effective federal income tax rate dropped from 29% to 23% in 2008. It may seem too fantastic to be true, but the top 400 end up paying a lower rate than the next 1,399,600 or so.

Was the photo of smiling Obama shaking hands with President Gadhafi taken before or after Obama knew he was a bad Libyan? Did Obama's smile came from constipation, or did God only recently inform him after prayer that Gadhafi was evil? Did Divine consultation convince Obama not to save rebels' lives in Bahrain and Yemen? He did nothing when their nasty leaders murdered them for protesting.

WASHINGTON — The hard-fought budget compromise late Friday that narrowly averted a government shutdown calls for increasing Pentagon spending while imposing significant cuts on a wide range of domestic federal programs.

In the LRB, David Runciman provides some telling insights in a review of recent books about the “off-shoring” of the world economy into tax havens, where the hyper-elite hide their money from the taxes and regulations that ordinary citizens are subject to. The review also deals with the political machinations involved in this corrosive process, which lies behind much of our dysfunctions and discontents. You should read the whole article, which provides rich historical context, but are some excerpts, in medias res:

Rupert Murdoch is about to be ambushed by a cross-party group of peers determined to stop the total takeover of BSkyB by News Corp, the Mole can reveal.

While MPs were packing their holiday shorts for the beach and a long holiday until April 26, protests were raised in the House of Lords by former Times journalist and Tory peer Lord Fowler about the latest developments in the telephone hacking saga - the arrests this week of chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, 50, and former news editor Ian Edmondson, 42, on suspicion of having unlawfully intercepted voicemail messages.