Research shows public opinion often deviates from facts on key social issues including crime, benefit fraud and immigration.

A new survey for the Royal Statistical Society and King's College London shows public opinion is repeatedly off the mark on issues including crime, benefit fraud and immigration.

The relationship between the United States and Latin America may have just plunged to its lowest level since the 1910s and 1920s, the height of US imperialism in the area, when United Fruit and the Marines imposed themselves on the region.

Tony Abbott and his party are being pursued by a private detective, an army of pensioners and a very determined man in a wheelchair.

Hundreds of online activists – at least a third of whom are pensioners and led by a quadriplegic IT expert – have raised more than $50,000 and hired a private detective to investigate the affair.

A tribunal has held a secret hearing to decide if details of a claim on the federal government by the former Treasury official behind the Utegate scandal should be made public.

from Crikey …

Bernard Keane: snapshots from an American dystopia

from the shovel ….

from politicoz ….

four & twenty blackbirds ….

With Rudd's return making Labor competitive again – in the polls at least – a new level of scrutiny is being applied to the Opposition.

The real story behind the military coup in Cairo led by General al-Sissi is much more complex than the western media is reporting. Far from a spontaneous uprising by Egyptians, – aka “a people’s revolution” – what really happened was a putsch orchestrated by Egypt’s “deep government” and outside powers – the latest phase of the counter-revolution against the so-called Arab Spring.

A trend to shift responsibility for bank losses onto blameless depositors lets banks gamble away your money.

from Crikey ….

Essential: voters like Rudd more than Abbott, Coalition still leads

Abbott's views on foreign policy are rarely discussed, but he seems to retain a Bush administration perspective on the world – 'you're either with us or against us'

The U.S. National Security Agency allegedly conducted spying on European Union diplomats, according to classified documents taken by whistleblower Edward Snowden and reported by German news magazine Spiegel on Saturday.

Two resurrections in one week are hard to get your head around. In a stunning return from the wilderness, Kevin Rudd will open the batting for Australia in the first Ashes Test at Trent Bridge next month. Shane Watson becomes prime minister again and will lead Labor to the election.

A Vatican official was arrested Friday by Italian police for allegedly trying to bring 20 million euros ($26 million) in cash into the country from Switzerland aboard an Italian government plane, his lawyer said.