It is no coincidence that each week brings news of another manufacturer forced to lay off staff, reduce their hours or shut up shop completely. Confronting a high Aussie dollar and an army of cheap labour overseas, it was the turn of Holden and the manufacturers of Mortein, Reckitt Benckiser, to announce job losses this week. Such events are invariably accompanied by calls for more industry assistance.

Mr President,

Washington's enemy is not "terrorism" but the principle of free speech and voices of conscience within its militarist state.

This month's Supreme Court hearing in the Julian Assange case has profound meaning for the preservation of basic freedoms in western democracies.

Just months ago, as he toyed publicly with announcing his own candidacy, Trump was bad-mouthing Romney. But that, he told reporters, was back before he had really got to know the Mormon millionaire.

Mrs Rinehart's three oldest children, John Langley Hancock, Bianca Hope Rinehart and Hope Rinehart Welker, have started legal action to remove her as the trustee of the Hope Margaret Hancock trust, set up by their late grandfather Lang Hancock, alleging ''serious misconduct''.

Dollars to doughnuts.

Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal published an opinion article by Rabbi Aryeh Spero titled “What the Bible Teaches About Capitalism,” which argued that Americans should laud Mitt Romney’s private equity career.

Anyone who had any thoughts that Abbott would "flick the switch to positive" found themselves to be much mistaken after yesterday's National Press Club speech.

Abbott read out a speech he must have given at least 50 times by now. It contained nothing new.

Nothing. Not a thing.

Here's the thing - why can't the press gallery slaughter this chump? It's not like they can use the excuse that they didn't know what he was going to talk about. Nothing he said was new. Nothing.

The same sound bites that he uses came out again and again.

If you go down to the Florida Everglades today, you're in for a big surprise: in the past 12 years, 90 per cent of the wild mammals which once roamed freely through the National Park have gone.

Snakes are to blame, say scientists. Big ones. Specifically: an exponentially-growing population of Giant Burmese Pythons, which can grow up to 16 feet long and have a huge appetite.

The creatures were first discovered in the park in 2000. They got there after being released into the wild by overwhelmed pet owners, and quickly established a breeding population.

Gina Rinehart is likely to find investing in Fairfax Media a deeply frustrating experience, whether she's trying to influence the newspapers or just make money.

Like her father Lang Hancock, Rinehart is not a portfolio investor looking to invest her iron ore money in a diversified portfolio of businesses and assets to spread risk.

Tony Abbott's application for the nation's top job is a mix of elaborately sketched scenes of a glorious economic nirvana, contrasted against the grim reality of a slash and burn approach to government spending and public servants.

It is no different from the customary election stump speech, except that the election is almost two years away.

Abbott delivered a message of hope, reward and opportunity, with scant detail of how to get there.

That doesn't matter to his supporters, because they lapped up the portrayal of Labor as hapless and hopeless.

The government has been urged to explain why Prince Andrew has met four foreign heads of state in the past six months and embarked on two full-scale government trade missions despite stepping down as the UK's special representative for trade.

The Duke of York announced last July that he would relinquish the role following criticism of his association with a convicted child sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, and business connections with dictators including Colonel Gaddafi.

Economic sanctions by the European Union and the United States can only be allowed a limited time period to prevent Iran from attempting to acquire a nuclear arsenal before a military strike must be contemplated, Israeli leaders have declared.

The tough public stance from Tel Aviv comes amid conflicting reports on the readiness of the Israeli military establishment to carry out an attack on Iran.

Tony Abbott's decision to wait until the Parliament had shut down at the end of last year before making it clear that he would block a conscience vote on any gay marriage bill could cost him in the long run.

Rapper and poet Omar Musa refused the Queanbeyan City Council's request for him to be an Australia Day ambassador because he said January 26 represented a date that had increasingly become the focal point of the country's culture wars.