Rupert Murdoch called his News of the World tabloid an "aberration" overnight, accusing journalists of hiding phone-hacking from himself, his son James and his protegee Rebekah Brooks, and said he wished he had shut it down sooner.

Peter Slipper has taken a swipe at Tony Abbott on Twitter, saying he delivered him the key vote needed to become Leader of the Opposition.

illustrated presentation doing the email rounds...

...

When the Foreign Office urges British motor racing fans to stay away from Bahrain, this ain't no sporting event, folks, it's a political one. The Bahraini authorities prove it by welcoming sports reporters but refusing visas to other correspondents who want to tell the world what's going on in this minority-run, Saudi-dominated kingdom.

I must have written this when I was drunk last night. but here it is anyway...

I am going to stick my neck out... I am going to say that Tony Abbott is worse than Anders Behring Breivik. 

Breivik if you don't know is a murderer in Norway who killed 77 people in July 2011. Breivik acted under a Nazi philosophy of purity of race and a way to de-emotionalise himself... 

By WILLIAM NEUMAN and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

CARTAGENA, Colombia — At the Ligueros Club, one of many busy bordellos in this seaside tourist city, prostitutes dressed in lingerie wait for a bell to ring, signaling the arrival of men on the prowl. But the next group of American visitors to walk in the door may not be customers at all.

American investigators seeking to get to the bottom....

This image from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital IDppmsca.02160.

...

THE Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has upset Australia's Olympic chief and been accused of disappointing athletes by turning down invitations to the London Olympics and the team's key fund-raising event.

Former prime minister John Howard will be able to add "doctor" to his list of achievements and honours, when he is awarded an honorary doctorate in Sydney this afternoon for his contribution to public life.

Mr Howard is due to be made a Doctor of Letters honoris causa in a business and economics faculty ceremony at Macquarie University.

In his citation this afternoon, Macquarie University Vice-Chancellor Professor Steven Schwartz is set to pay tribute to Mr Howard's lifetime of public service.

The clergyman remained unmoved on gay marriage and climate change, but he said evolution was ''probably'' right, and that atheists could ''certainly'' get into heaven. Professor Dawkins declared he was ''trying to be charitable'' by suggesting there was no way Cardinal Pell meant the body would literally be resurrected.