US says hunt still on for bin Laden

As the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks approaches, the Obama administration is publicly staking out its strategy to defeat extremists.

It says it will use diplomatic, political and economic strategies to try to defeat Al Qaeda and maintain pressure on terrorist havens in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia.

President Barack Obama's senior counter-terrorism adviser is also warning that Al Qaeda's intent to carry out attacks in the United States remains undiminished.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan have been cleared by the auditor-general of any wrongdoing in the OzCar affair.

But the auditor-general has criticised the public servant who sparked the investigation - Godwin Grech - and says he faces serious questions as to whether he breached the Public Service code of conduct.

The release of today's report coincides with the admission by Mr Grech that he created the fake email at the centre of the scandal and showed it to Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull.

Mr. Biden has now supplied evidence for two plotlines - a deep rift within the administration, or a "sophisticated game," said Andrei V. Ryabov, a political analyst at Moscow's Carnegie Center. This ambiguity, he said, plays into the conviction of Mr. Putin and his team that real events take place far from view, among a handful of powerful individuals, and that public politics are "no more than puppetry, decoration in the theater."

week in review july 31

Picture by Gus.

When it comes to conservation, I have been somewhat at the forefront of it, soon after I arrived in this country — Australia... Sure I have made some errors at times, but I have made up for these in many ways. For example, I have strongly argued, scientifically, with creationists about evolution, in the 70s.

In any other country, with any other company, at any other time, it might be considered a routine case of corporate espionage. But the arrests earlier this month of four employees of the mining giant Rio Tinto have thrown relations between China and Australia into an uproar and cast a dangerous chill on China's foreign business partners.

On July 5, the Shanghai State Security Bureau arrested Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu, a Chinese-born Australian, and three Chinese employees on suspicion of stealing state secrets.

The Shia Family Planning law was signed last March by President Hamid Karzai in an attempt, many believe, to appease powerful mullahs. The Afghan constitution allows Shias to have a separate family law from the Sunni majority based on traditional Shia jurisprudence, and some think the law is linked to the August elections and the Shia electorate who would have to abide by it (they could form up to 20% of the electorate).

Wall Street's biggest banks are setting aside billions of dollars more to pay their executives and other employees just months after these firms were rescued with a taxpayer bailout, renewing questions about compensation practices in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

The recent outcry over bonuses at bailed-out firms prompted public alarm and promises of reform from financial leaders, who acknowledged that pay and bonuses should not reward risky short-term business decisions -- such as those that contributed to the meltdown -- but instead longer-term financial performance.

A Saudi Arabian princess who had an illegitimate child with a British man has secretly been granted asylum in this country after she claimed she would face the death penalty if she were forced to return home. The young woman, who has been granted anonymity by the courts, won her claim for refugee status after telling a judge that her adulterous affair made her liable to death by stoning.

From the SMH

"Well Wilson is still a member of the family and he will still be invited to Christmas dinner."

The coalition is facing an internal struggle over what stance it should take on what the government calls its carbon pollution reduction scheme.

The official coalition position is to delay a vote on government legislation until early 2010, following global climate change talks in Copenhagen and a decision by the US Congress on the Obama administration's draft laws.

The main French opposition party, the Socialists - delighted to have an issue to distract from their own internal back-stabbing - have accused the President of "scandalous collusion" with parts of the media.

The Elysée Palace, dismissing calls for a parliamentary inquiry, has rejected the cries of scandal as far-fetched. "We order opinion polls. If newspapers buy the same ones, what can we do?" said M. Sarkozy's chief aide and secretary general, Claude Guéant.

Elysée Palace denies it financed surveys which the media ran as independent

The main French opposition party, the Socialists – delighted to have an issue to distract from their own internal back-stabbing – have accused the President of "scandalous collusion" with parts of the media.

The deep divisions in the Opposition over an emissions trading scheme have been laid bare for all to see, with outspoken Liberal backbencher Wilson Tuckey labelling his leader "arrogant" and "inexperienced".

Mr Tuckey sent an email to all Opposition MPs and Senators criticising Malcolm Turnbull for suggesting the Coalition could back a scheme when the partyroom has declared it will not support any legislation before the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen at the end of the year.

He says the Liberal Party would "prostitute" its principles if it backed Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's scheme.

From the green left

He occupied a (somewhat self-appointed) position as a hero of Australia's environment and Indigenous rights movements for decades. Yet these days, former Midnight Oil frontman and current ALP environment minister Peter Garrett works overtime to prove his credentials as a defender of big business and the big polluters.