There's an easy way to find oil. Go to some remote and gorgeous natural sanctuary, say Alaska or the Amazon, find some Indians, then drill down under them.

If the indigenous folk complain, well, just shoo them away. Shooing methods include: bulldozers, bullets, crooked politicians and fake land sales.

Australia's largest and wealthiest Anglican Diocese, Sydney, has been rocked by the global financial crisis, losing more than $100 million on the sharemarket.

Sydney's Anglican Archbishop, Dr Peter Jensen, has written to parishes about the 'very significant losses' after the Archdiocese borrowed to invest on the sharemarket, which crashed at the end of 2008.

The letter states that the strategy had made a special $20 million building fund possible in 2007, but that the investment value has now fallen by more than half.

The loss means funding for diocese services next year has been slashed to just over $5.5 million.

The Security Council's five permanent members agreed on Wednesday on a draft resolution that would ratchet up sanctions against North Korea by concentrating on its financial transactions and its arms industry, including allowing for inspections of its cargo vessels on the high seas.

Global military spending rose 4% in 2008 to a record $1,464bn (£914bn) - up 45% since 1999, according to the Stockholm-based peace institute Sipri.

In contrast with civilian aerospace and airlines, the defence industry remains healthy.

"The global financial crisis has yet to have an impact on major arms companies' revenues, profits and order backlogs," Sipri said.

Peace-keeping operations - which also benefit defence firms - rose 11%.
Missions were launched in trouble spots such as Darfur and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has appealed for North Korea to show clemency and deport two US journalists sentenced to 12 years in a labour camp, calling it a humanitarian case.

"We think the imprisonment trial and sentencing of Laura and Euna should be viewed as a humanitarian matter. We hope that the North Koreans will grant clemency and deport them," she added.

The chief US diplomat, speaking during a meeting with Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda, called for their "immediate release on humanitarian grounds", but did not explain why they should be freed on those grounds.

Before the newly elected Whitlam government rushed to get rid of regally bestowed titles, Harold Holt's widow (now deceased herself) became Dame Zara. The gong for this one-time head of a fashion business located in Toorak was for what was vaguely described as "devotion to the public interest".

Whatever Zara did in the public interest, it was under the right light to be seen. The devotion to the public interest of a nurse who has been working staggered shifts for 20 years is not.

Australian Greens leader Bob Brown says he cannot afford to pay a $240,000 Forestry Tasmania bill, a move which could see him lose his seat in the Senate.

Senator Brown was ordered to pay the money after losing a federal court case to stop logging in the Wielangta Forest in south-east Tasmania.

He says he has been told he could end up bankrupt if he does not pay, meaning he would lose his Senate seat.

Senator Brown says he is now campaigning to raise the money which must be paid by the end of the month.

Early in the afternoon of June 8, 1967, Israeli jets and missile boats opened fire on the USS Liberty, an American surveillance ship operating off the coast of Gaza. Struck by rockets, cannons and torpedoes, the vessel suffered extensive damage and over 200 casualties.

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro says US allegations that a Washington couple spied for Cuba are a "ridiculous tale".

In an editorial, he questioned the timing of their arrest - days after the Organisation of American States lifted Cuba's 1962 expulsion from the group.

The couple, retired state department official Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, are accused of having passed on information to Cuba for three decades.

The pair, both in their 70s, face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.

In his article, Mr Castro described the case as an "espionage comic strip".

Is irony even the word for this? The president created a new online "open government" system in which people were free to brainstorm and vote proposals up or down. Far and away the leading proposal in the category of "Legal and Policy Challenges" as of the scheduled end of brainstorming was End Imperial Presidency.

As assassination plots go, James Purnell's move to finish off Gordon Brown must rank among the most dramatic in recent times - partly because he managed to keep it to himself, and partly because it was so direct and unequivocal.

While the Prime Minister was undoubtedly biting his fingernails to the quick in expectation that the local and Euro election results would prompt a move to oust him at some point over the next few days, he did not spot arch-Blairite Purnell creeping towards him in the undergrowth.

The Vatican appears to have an enduring vocation for Italian political and financial scandal. Secrecy and intrigue were the order of the day when American archbishop Paul Marcinkus held sway in the Bastion of Nicholas V, the medieval tower housing the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), the Vatican's central bank.

from Crikey .....

A Crikey cure for outlandish executive pay

Adam Schwab writes:

Stretching out a hand to the Islamic world, President Barack Hussein Obama on Thursday invoked the Quran, his middle name and an American evenhandedness he says too few Muslims see. Obama drew a respectful response from unlikely places - an Iranian cleric called it "an initial step for removing misconceptions."

The president, speaking at a seat of Islamic learning, delivered a 55-minute speech that was heavily promoted, carefully watched and had as its guiding themes the need to "speak the truth" and "seek a new beginning."