On Monday President Obama received an award for transparency, which ironically was given to him during a closed, unannounced meeting. Bestowed upon the President from a group of transparency advocates, the ceremony took place in secret, even though - as of two weeks ago - it was supposed to be open to the press.

If I was an American lawyer who had fought for many years to secure habeas corpus rights for the prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba - in other words, the right to ask an impartial judge to rule on my captors' reasons for slinging me in a legal black hole and leaving me to rot there forever - the latest news from the Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. (also known as the D.C. Circuit Court) would make me sick in a bucket rather than believing any longer that the law - the revered law on which the United States was founded - can bring any meaningful remedy for the prisoners at Guantánamo.

More than any other individual - from a long list of contributors to Labor's appropriately punishing fall from grace in NSW - Edward Moses Obeid is challenged only by John Robertson, perversely the ALP's new leader, for the title of having wreaked greatest damage on the party that governed this state for 52 of the past 70 years.

from Crikey

Problems with pushing new coercive employment policies

Eva Cox writes:

Yesterday Prime Minister Julia Gillard opened the inaugural Gough Whitlam Oration with a few words "adopted from John Curtin, but ever identified with Gough Whitlam". Set against an increasingly hostile political environment, this speech opened with a welcome gesture - Gillard sensibly pointed to the "politics of inclusion".

Gillard pledged, that as "prime minister and federal Labor leader, it is my role to define what it means for Labor to be its best self". She promised Labor has "always understood that we must be the interpreters of the future to the present and must shape the future so it is one of fairness".

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s top two national security officials signaled on Thursday that the United States was unlikely to arm the Libyan rebels, raising the possibility that the French alone among the Western allies would provide weapons and training for the poorly organized forces fighting Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s regime.

Found this on a South Australian site this morning

ADELAIDE (1/4/11) Indicating that a special Defence Cabinet would now govern South Australia, Premier Mike Rann will announce this morning that he and all of State Cabinet would be presenting their resignations to the Governor later today.

"You'll hardly notice any difference." Mr Rann told onlookers at the Norwood Pie Cart last night. "The Yanks know what they want, and we've been rubberstamping their stuff for years. The bloke running the shipyard used to be a Halliburton boss, if there's anything that needs sorting out, he'll manage."

The FBI recently announced that its Next Generation Identification System (NGIS) has "reached its initial operating capacity". This vast new biometrics project, for which Lockheed Martin won a $1bn contract in 2008, encompasses not only fingerprints but also, possibly, such biometrics as iris scans, face recognition, bodily scars, marks and tattoos.

What does the world think? Obama has been using air strikes and drones against civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and probably Somalia. In his March 28 speech, Obama justified his air strikes against Libya on the grounds that the embattled ruler, Gadhafi, was using air strikes to put down a rebellion.

The war you have when you're not having a war...

The Opposition appears likely to support the Government's proposed company tax cut in the face of threats by the Greens to torpedo the measure.

The 1 per cent cut is part of the mining tax package that also includes a boost to superannuation contributions by business to employees.

It was negotiated prior to the election to defuse a backlash from the big miners over the mining super profits tax, which would have raised $60 billion more over a decade.

Greens leader Bob Brown has vowed to oppose the cut, saying the money would be better spent on social programs like dental care than giving it back to business.

Flanked by eight American flags, Mr Obama said that faced with the prospect of "violence on a horrific scale" in Libya, he felt compelled to act.

The Opposition has urged federal independent MPs Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott to "change teams" after three independents lost their seats in Saturday's New South Wales election.

The rural independents lost their seats to the Nationals in the Coalition's sweeping victory on Saturday night.

Among them was Mr Oakeshott's friend and successor, Peter Besseling, who lost his Port Macquarie seat with a swing of around 11 per cent to the Nationals.

The use of the death penalty globally is continuing to fall, an annual report by Amnesty International has said.

Although 23 countries carried out executions in 2010, four more than in 2009, the number of people executed dropped from at least 714 to at least 527, the rights group said.

But that figure does not include China, whose executions are thought to be more than all other countries put together.

Gabon last year became the 139th country to cease the practice.

Mongolia declared a moratorium on the death penalty.