WASHINGTON — President Obama’s top two national security officials signaled on Thursday that the United States was unlikely to arm the Libyan rebels, raising the possibility that the French alone among the Western allies would provide weapons and training for the poorly organized forces fighting Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s regime.

The war you have when you're not having a war...

The Opposition appears likely to support the Government's proposed company tax cut in the face of threats by the Greens to torpedo the measure.

The 1 per cent cut is part of the mining tax package that also includes a boost to superannuation contributions by business to employees.

It was negotiated prior to the election to defuse a backlash from the big miners over the mining super profits tax, which would have raised $60 billion more over a decade.

Greens leader Bob Brown has vowed to oppose the cut, saying the money would be better spent on social programs like dental care than giving it back to business.

The Opposition has urged federal independent MPs Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott to "change teams" after three independents lost their seats in Saturday's New South Wales election.

The rural independents lost their seats to the Nationals in the Coalition's sweeping victory on Saturday night.

Among them was Mr Oakeshott's friend and successor, Peter Besseling, who lost his Port Macquarie seat with a swing of around 11 per cent to the Nationals.

The use of the death penalty globally is continuing to fall, an annual report by Amnesty International has said.

Although 23 countries carried out executions in 2010, four more than in 2009, the number of people executed dropped from at least 714 to at least 527, the rights group said.

But that figure does not include China, whose executions are thought to be more than all other countries put together.

Gabon last year became the 139th country to cease the practice.

Mongolia declared a moratorium on the death penalty.

AJDABIYA, Libya — Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces retreated from this strategic city on Saturday, running for dozens of miles back along the coast with Libyan rebels in pursuit in their first major victory since American and European airstrikes began a week ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/26/opinion/26opchart.html?hp

On Wednesday, Ms Gillard descanted upon Mr Howard's brave and forward-thinking policies on climate change. "I remind the House that in 2007 Prime Minister Howard actually went to the election promising 'the most comprehensive emissions trading system anywhere in the world'!" she trilled, to an admiring rumble of hear-hears from the Government benches.

...

Ms Gillard's own attitude to the carbon-tax protestors, meanwhile, is complicated. On one hand, she utters "not a word of criticism about them". On the other, she simply cannot believe that Mr Abbott would hang out with such an "extremist", "sexist" bunch of weirdos. One cannot imagine Mr Howard offering such an equation, either.

Picture modified by Gus under fairness of news and current affair agreement satirical policy @2 #67.

From Glenn Milne

And the reason for that importance is that the leaders themselves have made it so. The carbon tax will destroy one or the other.

The Greens planning spokesman, David Shoebridge, said there were so many applications in the pipeline that it would be ''business as usual for the development lobby'' for the next two years unless the Coalition returned many of them to councils for determination.

''We must put in place a regime that has these applications assessed in light of all the local, regional and planning laws that apply to all other developments not under the rule-free Part 3A,'' Mr Shoebridge said.

He said that letting the Planning Assessment Commission approve them would make little difference because it operated under the 3A provisions, which ignored the local planning laws that smaller developments complied with.