More than 300 asylum seekers who had been slated to be sent to Malaysia will now be processed in Australia after the High Court threw the Government's offshore processing regime into chaos.

This morning Immigration Minister Chris Bowen told Radio National that 335 asylum seekers on Christmas Island would have their refugee claims heard on Australian soil.

The men, women and children had been due to be sent to Malaysia under the now-defunct swap deal with Kuala Lumpur.

Europe's human rights chief launched a blistering attack Thursday on European governments' counterterrorism actions, accusing them of helping the United States commit "countless" crimes in the past 10 years.

The 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks is an occasion to analyze whether the official responses have been proper and effective, said Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's rights commissioner.

It is not hard to picture Tony Abbott bouncing awake each morning and spinning a large chocolate wheel to see which of the government's competing misfortunes he should exploit that day. They include:

Asylum seekers: The High Court has killed the Malaysia solution, putting the sword to Julia Gillard's pledge for a regional solution to people smuggling. Now presiding over a split party, her options are to backflip and embrace Nauru, or allow onshore processing.

picture by Gus

Federal Treasury analysis shows the Opposition's direct action climate change policy would cost twice as much as a carbon tax for the same reduction in emissions.

The analysis has been released following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.

Both major parties have committed to reducing carbon emissions by 5 per cent by 2020.

The Treasury analysis says the Coalition's direct action plan would be more expensive because it forgoes opportunities for cheaper, international sources of abatement and would be generally less effective.

News Ltd owns 70 per cent of the circulation of major newspapers in Australia. If Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, were an apolitical or a distant figure, this might not matter, but he has a powerful set of ideological beliefs and is determined to maintain tight control over the political line of all his papers on issues that interest him.

The Holy Triumvirate - The United States, NATO and the European Union - recognizes no higher power and believes, literally, that it can do whatever it wants in the world, to whomever it wants, for as long as it wants, and call it whatever it wants, like "humanitarian".

Retail sales rebounded in July and business investment plans surged to a record high, boosting the Australian dollar and making the debt market think twice about expectations for deep interest-rate cuts.

The debt futures market, which weeks ago was betting on global market turmoil sending rates plummeting by 175 basis points, fell on the data today.

"There's nothing here that adds to the rate-cut case which is doing the rounds of markets, and it shows why rates over the medium term are going to need to go higher," said Michael Blythe, chief economist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

Dick Cheney lavishes praise on Tony Blair in new book

Dick Cheney, the former US vice-president, has used his new memoir to heap praise on Tony Blair and insist that the torture of a key al-Qaeda terrorist helped foil a devastating attack in Britain.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/8732152/Dick-Cheney-lavishes-praise-on-Tony-Blair-in-new-book.html

from Crikey .....

News Ltd strengthens the case for media inquiry

Crikey Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

At least 83 people died as human guinea pigs in macabre US research on sexually transmitted diseases in Guatemala in the 1940s, a commission ordered by President Barack Obama concluded Monday.

Nearly 5,500 people were subjected to diagnostic testing and more than 1,300 were exposed to venereal diseases by human contact or inoculations in research meant to test the drug penicillin, the presidential commission found.

Within that group, "we believe that there were 83 deaths," said Stephen Hauser a member of the commission, which has pored over 125,000 documents linked to the shocking episode since being set up by Obama last November.

Well, I may be biased... But the ABC 7:30 program seems to have turned into the Australian Liberal (conservative) glorious show. Last night, John Howard Rattus was invited to say all what he wanted without an ounce of proper questioning. It was as if he was in a lounge room, having a conversation with friend while drinking a cup of tea... This interview and the next stories were mostly designed to bash Labor and promote another Liberal (conservative) Andrew Robb who had been suffering from the "black dog" (depression)... No person on earth knows more about the "black dog" than I do. I could let it take over my life if I let it to...

 

Sameer Shilu, 12, was asleep when the soldiers smashed in the front door of his house one night. He and his older brother emerged bleary-eyed from their bedroom to find six masked soldiers in their living room.

Checking the boy's name on his father's identity card, the officer looked "shocked" when he saw he had to arrest a boy, says Sameer's father, Saher. "I said, 'He's too young; why do you want him?' 'I don't know,' he said". Blindfolded, and his hands tied painfully behind his back with plastic cords, Sameer was bundled into a Jeep, his father calling out to him not to be afraid. "We cried, all of us," his father says. "I know my sons; they don't throw stones."

Lack of trust in politicians was a significant factor behind the riots that erupted in England this month, according to an academic report expected to be studied by the Government.

Although poverty and lax moral values played a part in people's decision to join the disturbances, a stronger influence was their attitude towards politicians, researchers at Essex University and Royal Holloway University of London found.