Julian Assange calls for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor to investigate the NSA, after documents show US spying on WikiLeaks and its supporters.

Australia's increasing and almost zealous attachment to free-market policies over the last 40 years has left behind a trail of despair and destruction across regional and rural Victoria.

Australian Securities and Investments Commission chairman Greg Medcraft might wish he was in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday instead of fronting up to the Masonic centre in Sydney's central business district for a Senate inquiry into the performance of the corporate regulator.

The single largest factor in the underlying deterioration of the federal budget announced by Treasurer Joe Hockey in December was a cash payout of almost $900 million to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.

from mike carlton ….

“When some businesses close, other businesses open. While some jobs end, others start”.

The BBC's Today programme is enjoying high ratings, and the Mail and Telegraph are, as usual, attacking the corporation as left-wing. Last month, a single edition of Today was edited by the artist and musician P.J. Harvey. What happened was illuminating.

from Crikey …..

Coalition embraces big bank gouge that even Howard rejected

Remembering how HSBC helped launder hundreds of millions of dollars for drug cartels and terrorists and the DOJ let them get away with it.

Liberal backbencher and member for Murray Sharman Stone is presently the most effective opposition leader in the country. She's across her brief, argues her case powerfully and directly and carries with her an undeniable sincerity that spectacularly subordinates her own career advancement prospects to the interests of her constituents.

UN demands Holy See "immediately remove all known and suspected child sexual abusers" among clergy.

from Crikey .....

"The age of entitlement is over, the age of personal responsibility has begun."