At least nine pro-Palestinian activists died when Israeli commandos raided the six-ship convoy early on Monday.

Israel says its troops acted in self-defence, but campaigners deny this.

The incident has sparked widespread concern and led to calls for Israel to lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Israel has maintained control of Gaza's airspace and territorial waters, as well as most of its land borders, since withdrawing troops and settlers from the territory in 2005.

According to the UN, Gaza receives about one-quarter of the supplies it used to receive in the years before the blockade was tightened in 2007.

The nation's biggest miners are descending on Canberra today armed with new ammunition in their fight against the mining profits tax.

The Minerals Council is holding a two-day conference in Canberra, which coincides with the release of a new study on the profits tax.

The council's spokesman, Mitch Hooke, says the report by accounting firm KPMG shows gold and copper mines will not be viable under the new tax, while the net present value of new coal mines will be more than halved.

"They will either be deferred, shelved, or just simply cut," he said.

At a press briefing this morning following the massacre by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commandos of passengers on board the Mavi Marmara, one of the boats pertaining to the Freedom Flotilla attempting to break the siege of Gaza, IDF spokeswoman Avital Liebovitch claimed that the passengers had engaged in "severe violence against our soldiers."

Multiple answers question: one of them isn't:

a) wise

b) a monkey, but is a liar

C) listening

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from David Marr

''PHO-NEY!'' yelled the government benches in perfect harmony as Tony Abbott came to the despatch box. The daily brawl was under way. To a wall of howls, groans and snatches of song, the Prime Minister battled to say nothing new about pink batts.

Two Liberals were thrown out. "On yer boat," yelled Labor's Sid Sidebottom as the opposition spokesman for punishing refugees, Scott Morrison, headed for the sin bin.

“When was the last time you had sex?” all candidates for the seminary are asked. (The preferred answer: not for three years or more.)

“What kind of sexual experiences have you had?” is another common question. “Do you like pornography?”

Depending on the replies, and the results of standardized psychological tests, the interview may proceed into deeper waters: “Do you like children?” and “Do you like children more than you like people your own age?”

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The chance that some oil will continue to leak for months was underscored by the managing director of BP, Robert Dudley, who described plans to put in place a second version of a containment dome, a strategy that failed earlier this month. Mr. Dudley, speaking on ABC’s “This Week” program, said that attempt had given the company’s engineers valuable lessons that would be applied to the new dome. But he added that even if it worked, some oil would seep out until the relief wells provided an “end point” by cutting off the flow beneath the seabed.

Britain's new coalition government has suffered a blow as high-profile finance minister David Laws resigned, following revelations over his expenses claims.

Mr Laws stepped down as chief treasury secretary after the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported he had channelled more than 40,000 pounds ($68,000) of taxpayers' money in rent to his long-term male partner.

"I do not see how I can carry out my crucial work on the budget and spending review while I have to deal with the private and public implications of recent revelations," Mr Laws said at a brief press conference.

Government by haircut. Who'd have thought it? In the four years since Kristina Keneally felt impelled to assure Parliament she had "never worn a pair of stilettos" she has achieved a far far greater thing, to which many strive but few finally attain: ascension by hair.

I realised this recently after yet another Kristina-tract landed on our stoop. You know the format. Me with awestruck old people, me with people in wheelchairs, me with grinning black kids, me cycling, me hugging the homeless. And I'm having a one-more-shot-of-Keneally's-blowdried-coif-and-I-throw-up moment when it strikes me who she's channelling.

Kakadu... Picture by Gus

Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett says he would like to seize the opportunity to expand Kakadu National Park, following a request from traditional owners.

The French mining company Areva wants to mine the Koongarra deposit for uranium.

The site is surrounded by Kakadu National Park and home to the Djok Aboriginal clan.

For years, traditional owners have rejected the company's requests to mine the site, but now they are taking their fight even further.

On behalf of Aboriginal land owners, the Northern Land Council has submitted an application for the site to be included in the national park.

By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON — Deficits finally matter.

After years of citing national security, social necessity and economic crisis as sufficient justification to pass costly legislation without paying for it, members of Congress are getting cold feet about continually adding to the national vat of red ink.

International Cricket Council (ICC) president-elect Sharad Pawar has sought to defuse the row over the nomination of former Australian prime minister John Howard as an ICC vice-president.

Pawar is set to take over the presidency of world cricket's governing body from Welshman David Morgan next month, with former politician Howard becoming a vice-president.

Under ICC procedures, Howard would normally become ICC president in two years' time.

Being sceptical about power means being sceptical about your own power, not only the power of others. I was reminded of this watching Ken Crispin, former Supreme Court judge, on the 7.30 Report on Thursday.

Kerry O'Brien asked: "How did it feel to have power over the lives of others in the way a judge does? Did you ever get used to that, I wonder, and are you ever troubled by a case, or cases, where you felt later that perhaps you might have got it wrong?"

The answer was unexpected. "I think judges should always be troubled by the exercise of power." The same should go for all professions.

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At the Sydney Writers' Festival last weekend, Alan Ramsey, once of these pages, was asked why he referred to Howard as the Toad.

''Because I didn't think I could get away with Turd,'' he replied.

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For longer than anyone can remember, Daphne Lucas has been making jams and pickles in the kitchen of her home at Bomaderry, down on the south coast near Nowra.

They are her contribution to democracy. At election time she sells them to raise campaign funds for the Australian Labor Party, of which she is a long-standing member.

There was a moment back in 1945 when physicists were preparing for the first test of an atomic weapon at Los Alamos. A few scientists predicted that there was a tiny chance that the bomb could actually light the atmosphere on fire and incinerate the planet. We went ahead regardless.

Hundreds of tests by a number of nations later, we still have our atmosphere, but the very cells of every living thing, including us, are permeated with subtle radioactive compounds. We went ahead regardless.

The pervasive illusion was that the humans who are in charge of oil rigs would never let an accident of this magnitude happen. But it did.