A parliamentary break and a season of diplomacy has Gillard seeming poised, relaxed, and picking up in the polls. Has her luck changed?

Julia Gillard, some think, is on the up, and not only with the opinion polls, but in the sky. November had her saving Australia and the world from carbon pollution, playing hostess to the Queen, and, later, to Commonwealth political heads of government, nipping overseas to a G-20 conference to help save Europe from itself, at Hawaii with Barack Obama and APEC heads, home playing host of Obama today and, shortly off to the East Asia summit in Bali, again with her new best friend.

Homeless people are being moved away from Darwin's city centre ahead of US President Barack Obama's visit tomorrow.

The traditional land owners, the Larrakia people, have been asked to encourage the homeless to leave places on the president's program.

Larrakia Nation chief executive Ilana Eldridge says the "gentle suggestion" has come from the Northern Territory government.

"When we go in, people know it is time to move, otherwise the cops will come in heavy-handed later," Ms Eldridge said.

"We take them to another place where they will be comfortable and safe and then in a few days time they will drift back."

soldier on ground: "might not be enough protection against Turnbull..."

Australia should tell Obama we take a different view on China.

As China's power grows, the Asia we have known is passing into history, and a new and very different Asia is taking shape. Barack Obama's visit is a key moment in that transformation, because he is coming here to promote America's view of how the new Asia should work.

As hard as it is to believe, the Republican candidates for president seem to have learned very little from the moral calamities of the administration of George W. Bush. Three of the contenders for the party's nomination have now come out in favor of the torture known as waterboarding. Only two have said it is illegal, and the rest don't seem to have the backbone to even voice an opinion on the subject.

from Crikey .....

After nine years as a refugee, it's time for quality of mercy

Bruce Haigh, a commentator and retired diplomat who worked in Sri Lanka, writes:

Talk is prone to get a little giddy over the coming days as Obamania hits town.

Enduring alliance, no closer friends, vital relationship, that sort of thing. Imagine the outbreak of euphoria had he actually made it those other times he promised to drop by, back when he was still wildly popular, before the chains of office really started to weigh.

A former RAF navigator has claimed the size of a nuclear bomb detonated during tests in the 1950s could have been three times bigger than the Government officially stated, in evidence which could that prove crucial for more than 1,000 service veterans suing the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for upwards of £100m.

Flight Lieutenant Joseph Pasquini, who served in the RAF's 76 Squadron, took measurements during the UK's biggest nuclear test blast at Christmas Island in the Pacific on 28 April, 1958 - known as Grapple Y.

In their attacks on WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, traditional news organisations seem to have forgotten that his objectives are the same as theirs.

picture by Gus Leonisky. c 2006

The Federal Government has labelled the Coalition's position on whether to increase the superannuation guarantee, which is part of the mining tax package, as confusing and chaotic.

Labor wants to increase compulsory superannuation contributions from 9 to 12 per cent.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says a coalition government would keep the super increases in place - even though it does not support the mining tax.

Opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb says the Coalition will only go ahead with an increase to the superannuation guarantee if it can find other savings.

In 2001, Ultimate Fighting was sold for $2 million to the Fertitta brothers, Frank III and Lorenzo, megarich owners of a string of Las Vegas casinos and close friends of a phenomenal huckster named Dana White. What ensued was one of the greatest feats of financial alchemy in the history of sports, the transformation of cage fighting into a $1 billion-plus business.

But lucrative as it is, Ultimate Fighting remains confined to a narrow demographic niche, those three initials not yet familiar in most American households. On Saturday night, however, the U.F.C. will seek to make its way into the mainstream, appearing for the first time on network television. The event: a heavyweight championship fight broadcast on Fox.

The latest United Nations report on Iran's nuclear program may not be the "game changer" it was billed to be, as some nuclear experts raise doubts about the quality of evidence - and point to lack of proof of current nuclear weapons work.

In a 14-page annex to its quarterly report on Iran released yesterday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said new intelligence and other data gave it "serious concern" about the allegedly peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program. But the casus belli for military strikes that anti-Iran hawks in the US and Israel expected to gain from the IAEA report is far from clear-cut.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard used a surprise appearance at today's Remembrance Day service at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra to defend Australia's ongoing involvement in the war in Afghanistan.

Veterans' Affairs Minister Warren Snowdon, who had been scheduled to represent the Prime Minister today, said she had ''become available'' earlier in this week.

It is understood Australian War Memorial Officials did not learn of the changes until last night.