Since being sent to the Opposition benches in 2007, the Coalition has fought almost every effort by Labor to means-test or otherwise curb welfare entitlements.

from Crikey .....

Australian human rights lawyer and WikiLeaks supporter Jennifer Robinson appears to have been placed on a travel watch list and was prevented from leaving the UK this morning until approval was secured from the Australian High Commission.

Robinson was returning to Australia to speak at the same conference as Attorney-General Nicola Roxon tomorrow - the Commonwealth Lawyers' Association's Regional Law Conference - on the apt subject of "Lawyers in the firing line". Roxon is giving an address on human rights.

By WILLIAM NEUMAN and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

CARTAGENA, Colombia — At the Ligueros Club, one of many busy bordellos in this seaside tourist city, prostitutes dressed in lingerie wait for a bell to ring, signaling the arrival of men on the prowl. But the next group of American visitors to walk in the door may not be customers at all.

American investigators seeking to get to the bottom....

This image from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital IDppmsca.02160.

...

When the lead organiser for the Health Services Union, Monique Irvine, complained last year that she was having trouble meeting her childcare costs, the union's boss, Michael Williamson, gave her a $22,000 pay rise.

THE Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has upset Australia's Olympic chief and been accused of disappointing athletes by turning down invitations to the London Olympics and the team's key fund-raising event.

Every student agitator is a terrorist, every internet hacker, cafeteria dissident, freedom fighter and insurgent leader.

This from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where I’m watching the war crimes tribunals going through pre-trial motions for Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, the man accused of the bombing of the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen in 2000.

Johnson & Johnson has been fined $1.2 billion over sales of Risperdal, an antipsychotic drug. Tim Fox, a circuit judge in Arkansas, ruled that the company has to pay $5,000 for each of the 240,000 prescriptions that were paid for by the state’s Medicaid program. (The program provides health care for low-income citizens, financed by the taxpayer)

from Crikey …..

Foxtel-Austar merger the worst competition decision in years

An interesting sidelight to Monday night’s Q&A appearance by Cardinal George Pell -- the Catholic cleric has made the front page of the Australian Jewish News with comments described as "troubling".

The common good must motivate our nation at every possible level.

Peter Costello, in his ''Sermon without substance'' opinion piece yesterday, does not fully address the key points of my Good Friday article.

By all means let us have vigorous and forthright debate, but let it be on the substantive and critical issues facing our nation.

I'm not given to conspiracy theories, incompetence being so much easier to imagine, but one thing gives credibility to Clive Palmer's otherwise nutty CIA phantasm about US influence in Australia.

It is Julian Assange, a story that hinges on the uncomfortable relationship between truth and power.

We expect truth-telling from our four-year-olds but not from our politicians. In the case of Assange, truth is actively and repeatedly punished.

This implies that, as you move up through society's power strata, there's a point where morality flips.