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.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr is not ruling out expelling the Syrian ambassador as part of Australia's response to ongoing violence in the Middle East nation.

In the meantime, Australia will contribute $5 million to meet humanitarian needs in Syria and neighbouring countries.

European envoys say that Syria has failed to comply with UN special envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan and that international measures must be studied.

Senator Carr said he was "not ruling out" expelling Syria's ambassador as a symbolic gesture, but emphasised any responses would be measured.

“My name is Kenneth Chamberlain. This is my sworn testimony. White Plains police are going to come in here and kill me.”

And that’s just what they did.