The Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, has said Nauru isn't the only option for offshore processing and the Coalition would be ''perfectly happy for boat people to go to Manus Island''.

Banks have gobbled up nearly 490 billion euros ($635 billion) in three-year, cut-price loans from the European Central Bank, easing immediate fears of a credit crunch but leaving unresolved how much will flow to needy eurozone economies.

Following a string of failed attempts by eurozone leaders to thwart market attacks on the bloc's weaker members, hopes of crisis relief before year's end had been pinned on a massive uptake of the ECB's ultra-long and ultra-cheap loans.

You’ve just gotta love our supreme media …..

Gus picture of godot's particle

This is an article posted here earlier (17th December) that seems to have gone walkabout...

The Prime Minister will spend Christmas doing ''very ordinary things'' with her family at home in Adelaide, she told the broadcaster John Laws last week.

''[We] watch DVDs together, have family meals, read books, you know all of that kind of stuff. Just very normal, quiet, at-home activities,'' she said.

As most Australians contemplate a traditional Christmas of over-indulgence and recuperation, we should spare a thought for one of our less fortunate compatriots. He lives in exile under house arrest, awaiting one last hopeful court appeal. He faces a perilous future should that appeal fail.

But Mark Feldstein, professor of media at the University of Maryland, sees a worrying trend of espionage prosecutions since President Obama took office.

"To everyone's surprise, the Obama administration has escalated the war against whistleblowers and the attacks on information that journalists and the public were depending on to get evidence of wrongdoing by powerful institutions and individuals," Prof Feldstein says.

'Vindictive and malicious'

A LABOR MP has declared the troops are "sick of the soap opera" between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd and urged their supporters to pull their heads in over the Christmas break.

The Prime Minister's supporters said yesterday she had been through "the gates of hell" this year and had no plans to quit before the next election, reported the Herald Sun.

But Labor MPs maintain the ABK faction - Anyone But Kevin - is preparing Plan C if the Prime Minister's leadership happens to falter: Bill Shorten.

And so it's time again for our gala ceremony to announce the Australian Whinger of the Year. I got more than 400 emails from readers last week, most agreeing with my short list of Tony Abbott, the retailer Gerry Harvey, those meddlesome priests George Pell and Fred Nile, and the moaning, mining magnates Twiggy Forrest and Gina Rinehart.

New South Wales Environment Minister Robyn Parker is moving to amend laws which will allow Forests NSW to harm the endangered population of the yellow-bellied glider on the state's far south.

The documents show Ms Parker is planning changes to the Threatened Species Conservation Act which "authorises harm to the endangered population of the yellow-bellied glider of the Bago Plateau".

Opposition environment spokesman Luke Foley says it is disgraceful.

"Robyn Parker said logging protects koalas, she is now moving to allow logging of habitat of endangered yellow-bellied glider," Mr Foley said.

The Herald's sister newspaper, The Age, last night fought off a bid by police to seize computer hard drives, following a search of journalists' files at its Melbourne premises.

Gary Gray brandished a parliamentary gold pass at his press conference yesterday and declared it would soon be a ''museum piece''.

THE fallout from Julia Gillard's ministerial reshuffle has worsened, with the Minister for Manufacturing, Kim Carr, labelling as ''absolute bullshit'' anonymous accusations that he was demoted because of poor performance and attacking colleagues who lacked the ''guts'' to put the assertions to his face.

His angry retaliation came as the Minister for Resources, Martin Ferguson, pointedly refused to directly back the Prime Minister.

Asked whether he had shifted his support from Ms Gillard to Kevin Rudd, Mr Ferguson said: ''I'm loyal to the Labor Party.''

Paraphrasing Shakespeare, something is rotten in the state of Capitol Hill. A majority of Congress is just about to put the finishing touches on an amendment to the military budget authorization legislation that will finish off some critical American rights under our Constitution.

A former top lawyer for Rupert Murdoch's British newspapers insists he told the mogul's son there was evidence of widespread phone hacking more than three years before a scandal over the practice erupted.

Tom Crone questioned claims made by James Murdoch - chairman of News International, the British arm of his father's media empire - that he had not been fully informed about an email indicating that hacking was rife.

For many months, News International insisted the illegal accessing of the mobile phone voice messages of celebrities and crime victims was confined to reporter Clive Goodman who, along with private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, was jailed in 2007.