from crooksandliars.com

WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

THE Coalition has begun talks with the Australian Republican Movement about potential changes to Australia's constitution, despite Tony Abbott, a staunch monarchist, being at its helm.

Frontbencher Joe Hockey has led the negotiations. He has taken over from Malcolm Turnbull as the torchbearer for republican sentiment inside the Liberal Party.

Mr Hockey indicated it was unlikely the Coalition would take a party position on a republic, but would allow individual MPs to take a position according to their beliefs.

He has a radio show that is the toast of conservative America and his extremist rants accusing President Barack Obama of being anti-white and a closet socialist have made him a star on Fox News. His speaking tours sell out like a rock star's and his published political diatribes are bestsellers.

Government ministers have been careful not to get drawn into a debate about Barack Obama's comments on BP.

In the words of Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg - they did not want to allow the issue to spiral into a "tit for tat political diplomatic spat".

It is hardly surprising they saved the discussions for a weekend phone call between David Cameron and the president.

The question is: what exactly was said in that call? Different points were emphasised by different sources.

By Jerome Taylor

Thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Sydney's CBD today, waving colourful banners and chanting demands for equal pay for women.

The Australian Services Union, which represents workers in the female-dominated community services sector, organised the nationwide rally - Australia's biggest equal pay march since the 1970s.

Women earn 18 per cent less than men, which amounts to about $1 million over a lifetime, recent Australian Bureau of Statistics show.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will meet with mining magnate Andrew Forrest in Perth today to try to end the bitter row over the Government's proposed resources super profits tax.

Mr Rudd has promised to pour $2 billion into infrastructure in Western Australia in a bid to garner support for the tax, but has failed to convince fierce critics like Mr Forrest.

Mr Forrest told Lateline Government officials have made it clear the consultation process for the proposed tax is a charade.

"The consultation process started with Fortescue at 8:00am in Canberra on the first day," he said.

A US soldier serving in Iraq has been arrested for allegedly leaking a classified combat video to a whistleblower website, Wikileaks, last year.

The video footage from a helicopter cockpit shows a deadly 2007 aerial strike in the Iraqi capital that killed 12 civilians including two journalists from the Reuters news agency.

If you want to hide a leaf, find a forest. Jérôme Kerviel, alleged to be the world's biggest rogue trader, will attempt to hide a €5bn leaf in a multi-trillion euro forest when he goes on trial in Paris today. Mr Kerviel's defence will be horrendously complex – and very simple. His lawyers will admit that what he did in 2007-8 – to bet more than the value of France's second largest bank on a series of trades on stock exchange futures – was insane. However, they will also argue that his actions were rational, even tacitly approved, within a global banking culture which had, itself, broken off relations with reality.

Picture by Gus

In Sydney, the present temperatures for early June are "below" average by half a degree... The "normal" winter high pressure system is moving back northward, after having been stuck further south than usual by weather frothed up by the warm Eastern Australian current. The winds are now influenced by a southerly cold wind coming from Antarctica via the Bight and twirling back in the north, in eddies on the edge of the high pressure system...

My view.

here is what I wrote about a year ago:

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/6600#comment-10300

Mining magnate Clive Palmer has retreated from his earlier claim that he had scrapped mining projects because of the Federal Government's proposed resource super profits tax.

Mr Palmer owns one of the largest deposits of iron ore in the world, carved out in five separate projects.

The investment for the first development was secured before the super profits tax was announced.

Mr Palmer, a Liberal National Party donor, told Lateline last month he had canned two projects in Western Australia's Pilbara region because of the tax.

He said one of those projects would employ about 3,000 people and generate about $2 billion a year in exports.

President Barack Obama is to nominate retired Gen James Clapper, a top Pentagon official, as his next intelligence chief, an administration official has told the BBC.

Gen Clapper would replace Adm Dennis Blair, who resigned in May after a run of security failures, as director of national intelligence (DNI).

He would oversee 16 agencies in the intelligence community as the new DNI.

Gen Clapper is expected to be nominated at a White House ceremony on Saturday.

Mixed reviews

Tony Blair, the international community's Middle East envoy, yesterday issued his strongest call yet for an easing of the "counterproductive" blockade of Gaza as Israeli ministers met to consider relaxing the three-year-old embargo.

In his first newspaper interview since the Israeli navy halted a pro-Palestinian activist flotilla on Monday, Mr Blair called for a strategy for Gaza which "isolates the extremists and helps the people and not one that operates the other way round".

The Israeli government and its supporters are trying to turn negative attention onto the groups behind the pro-Palestinian aid convoy that was caught in a deadly raid earlier this week.

The Free Gaza Movement has been trying to sail cargo-laden ships into Gaza since 2007, but it was not until they teamed up with a Turkish charitable organisation that the mission reached critical mass, both in terms of support and attention.

Israel says the Humanitarian Relief Fund (IHH) is a radical Islamic and anti-American group that has been linked to Al Qaeda.