Picture by Gus

In Sydney, the present temperatures for early June are "below" average by half a degree... The "normal" winter high pressure system is moving back northward, after having been stuck further south than usual by weather frothed up by the warm Eastern Australian current. The winds are now influenced by a southerly cold wind coming from Antarctica via the Bight and twirling back in the north, in eddies on the edge of the high pressure system...

My view.

here is what I wrote about a year ago:

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/6600#comment-10300

Mining magnate Clive Palmer has retreated from his earlier claim that he had scrapped mining projects because of the Federal Government's proposed resource super profits tax.

Mr Palmer owns one of the largest deposits of iron ore in the world, carved out in five separate projects.

The investment for the first development was secured before the super profits tax was announced.

Mr Palmer, a Liberal National Party donor, told Lateline last month he had canned two projects in Western Australia's Pilbara region because of the tax.

He said one of those projects would employ about 3,000 people and generate about $2 billion a year in exports.

The government of Israel today launched a massive air assault on suspected terrorist targets along major coastal cities in the United States of America. In an operation termed "Friendly Enemy," hundreds of Israeli F-16 fighter jets streaked across the Atlantic in precise formation & fired surgical air strikes at alleged terrorist strongholds in densely populated Muslim communities all along the northeast corridor of the United States. The American-made Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jets then continued south, inflicting massive destruction in densely populated Muslim communities along many southeastern US states as well.

If you were to draw an oily line from the first exploitation of oil in the Middle East by the British in 1901 (they were in the process of converting their then world dominating naval fleet from coal to oil and were in desperate need of it) to the overthrow of the secular democratic leader in Iran, Mohammed Mossadeq, in 1953, to the Iraq War, to the criminal environmental catastrophe in the Gulf, BP would have been there.  

President Barack Obama is to nominate retired Gen James Clapper, a top Pentagon official, as his next intelligence chief, an administration official has told the BBC.

Gen Clapper would replace Adm Dennis Blair, who resigned in May after a run of security failures, as director of national intelligence (DNI).

He would oversee 16 agencies in the intelligence community as the new DNI.

Gen Clapper is expected to be nominated at a White House ceremony on Saturday.

Mixed reviews

from Crikey .....

What you won't learn about the Xstrata 'closures' from the media

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

Tony Blair, the international community's Middle East envoy, yesterday issued his strongest call yet for an easing of the "counterproductive" blockade of Gaza as Israeli ministers met to consider relaxing the three-year-old embargo.

In his first newspaper interview since the Israeli navy halted a pro-Palestinian activist flotilla on Monday, Mr Blair called for a strategy for Gaza which "isolates the extremists and helps the people and not one that operates the other way round".

The Israeli government and its supporters are trying to turn negative attention onto the groups behind the pro-Palestinian aid convoy that was caught in a deadly raid earlier this week.

The Free Gaza Movement has been trying to sail cargo-laden ships into Gaza since 2007, but it was not until they teamed up with a Turkish charitable organisation that the mission reached critical mass, both in terms of support and attention.

Israel says the Humanitarian Relief Fund (IHH) is a radical Islamic and anti-American group that has been linked to Al Qaeda.

from Crikey .....

Clive takes on the RSPT -- and most of his mates in the process

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

Israel's response to the Gaza flotilla is another unfortunate example of Israel clothing its conduct in the language of international law while flouting it in practice. If you believe Israeli government spokesmen, Israel is metabolically incapable of violating international law, placing it alongside Saddam Hussein's Information Minister in self-awareness.

Israel claims that paragraph 67(a) of the San Remo Manual on Armed Conflicts at Sea justified the Israeli operation against the flotilla. (The San Remo Manual is an authoritative statement of international law applicable to armed conflicts at sea.)

From the BBC

Nick Bryant

Kangaroos skipping playfully through the bush, a barbie on the beach, a brace of surfers waiting for the first big wave of the day, a local pub "where everyone's your mate," a sea plane skimming over the Great Barrier Reef, an Aborginal elder stood in front of Uluru, a ferry carving through Sydney harbour, with the Opera House and bridge in the background, and, of course, the mandatory koala. All to the bouncy refrain of a catchy new song, "There's Nothing Like Australia".

At least nine pro-Palestinian activists died when Israeli commandos raided the six-ship convoy early on Monday.

Israel says its troops acted in self-defence, but campaigners deny this.

The incident has sparked widespread concern and led to calls for Israel to lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Israel has maintained control of Gaza's airspace and territorial waters, as well as most of its land borders, since withdrawing troops and settlers from the territory in 2005.

According to the UN, Gaza receives about one-quarter of the supplies it used to receive in the years before the blockade was tightened in 2007.

The nation's biggest miners are descending on Canberra today armed with new ammunition in their fight against the mining profits tax.

The Minerals Council is holding a two-day conference in Canberra, which coincides with the release of a new study on the profits tax.

The council's spokesman, Mitch Hooke, says the report by accounting firm KPMG shows gold and copper mines will not be viable under the new tax, while the net present value of new coal mines will be more than halved.

"They will either be deferred, shelved, or just simply cut," he said.