Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo paid $55,000 to have lunch with Bill Shorten in October 2015, documents uncovered by the ABC reveal.

Or is there another game afoot? Brian Wieser, senior research analyst at Pivotal Research Group, was as surprised as anyone by the Murdochs decision. “There are economies of scale in media,” he said, and the deal is easy to justify on that basis. But the Murdochs had always seemed more interested in legacy and influence than straight financial rationales for deals. “The rationale is less interesting than the catalyst,” he said.

The majority of Mab Treeby’s known Bulletin cartoons, were drawn in the 1920s-early 1930s after she had moved to Sydney. They continued to feature smart society women making vapid wisecracks, eg ‘Kitty: “I’d hate it to ...

Read more: https://trove.nla.gov.au/people/1482621?c=people

You’re an octogenarian cartoonist. A twenty-two year old Miss World comes and sits on your knees. What do you do? What is happening?

— your name is Donald Trumpotsky. or...

— it’s Christmas, or...

Theresa May arrived in Brussels to meet with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Commission's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier for a final round of negotiations within the first phase of Brexit talks.

Geoffrey Rush has filed defamation proceedings against The Daily Telegraph, which published allegations the actor behaved inappropriately towards a female cast member in a Sydney Theatre Company (STC) play.

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US President Donald Trump publicly congratulated his Defense Secretary James Mattis for “knocking the hell” out of Daesh - but, Trump added, only because Trump “made it possible with what” he let Mattis do.

Classified and sensitive information is designed to be secret. When it is made public, it is always for a political purpose. That purpose may be to promote a particular political agenda or to build public support for a certain policy position.

Donald Trump’s announcement that the U.S. now recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and will eventually move its embassy there, might well be the most predictable decision of an otherwise unpredictable presidency.

... He simply noticed that people were replacing instead of repairing, and buying two when one would do, all on money they didn’t have thanks to the exploding consumer credit market. Much of the criticism directed his way seems to have been a case of projection; was it not the consumerists who were the revolutionaries, remaking American life and the American economy overnight?

But I said the Turnbull speech trumped Joyce’s in a close run thing — a triumph in itself in this week of misplaced triumphalism.

The International Olympic Committee has ruled on Tuesday to suspend the Russian Olympic Committee immediately. The IOC's decision follows a probe into the country's alleged "systematic doping manipulation."

This weekend, the French press has not stopped praising Barack Obama, who came to France to participate in a “very expensive” conference. He was praised — lavished with a supersized beatitude equal in proportion to the massive criticisms that Nicolas Sarkozy suffered for going to the same thing in the past.

REMEMBERING THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF THE COLD WAR...