Stunning images from high in the Himalayas - showing the extent by which many glaciers have shrunk in the past 80 years or so - have gone on display at the Royal Geographical Society in central London.

Between 2007 and 2010, David Breashears retraced the steps of early photographic pioneers such as Major E O Wheeler, George Mallory and Vittorio Sella - to try to re-take their views of breathtaking glacial vistas.

The Prime Minster, Julia Gillard, has taken a personal interest in the plight of a 14-year-old NSW boy arrested on drug charges in Indonesia, speaking to him over the phone yesterday to offer reassurance.

The Prime Minister's office confirmed to smh.com.au that Ms Gillard told the boy the government was doing "everything it could" to get him out of the situation.

Ms Gillard has also spoken daily to Australia's Indonesian ambassador, Greg Moriarty, and yesterday she also spoke to the boy's father, who was at the Denpasar police station with Mr Moriarty.

POSE a threat to the stability of Saudi Arabia, as Shia protesters are said to to have done in Awamiya, according to reports this week from the country's oil-rich Eastern Province, and you're brandishing a scalpel over the very heart of long-term US policy in the Middle East.

The US consumes about 19 million barrels of oil every 24 hours, about half of them imported. At 25 per cent, Canada is the lead supplier. Second comes Saudi Arabia with 12 per cent. But supply of crude oil to the US is only half the story. Saudi Arabia controls OPEC's oil price and adjusts it carefully with US priorities in the front of their minds.

And when the politically uncomfortable issue of his religion boiled over this weekend in the most pronounced way yet in the 2012 contest, Romney pursued his new strategy of not directly addressing his faith.

At a gathering of Christian conservative voters in Washington on Friday, evangelical megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, chosen to introduce Texas Gov. Rick Perry, attacked Romney by telling reporters the Mormon Church is “a cult” and “Mormonism is not Christianity.” Perry quickly distanced himself from that view, telling reporters in Iowa that he did not agree with the remarks.

Inspired by the populist message of the group known as Occupy Wall Street, more than 200 Facebook pages and Twitter accounts have sprung up in dozens of cities during the past week, seeking volunteers for local protests and fostering discussion about the group’s concerns.

Some 900 events have been set up on Meetup.com, and blog posts and photographs from all over the country are popping up on the WeArethe99Percent blog on Tumblr from people who see themselves as victims of not just a sagging economy but economic injustice.

In a recent debate Congressman Ron Paul claimed the United States military had troops in 130 countries. The St. Petersburg Times looked into whether such an outrage could actually be true and was obliged to report that the number was actually 148 countries. However, if you watch NFL football games, you hear the announcers thank members of the U.S. military for watching from 177 countries. The proud public claim is worse than the scandalous claim or the "investigative" report. What gives?

On a Monday morning in July, a gunshot rang out in the administration section of Milan's San Raffaele hospital. Seconds later, a frightened secretary entered the office of the institution's vice-president, Mario Cal, and found him lying in a pool of blood. Mr Cal clung briefly to life, but the Smith and Wesson revolver had done its job. Before long he died on one of his hospital's own operating tables.

Opposition finance minister Andrew Robb, climate contrarian Ian Plimer and Stolen Generations sceptic Keith Windshuttle have rallied behind Andrew Bolt's freedom of speech in a full-page advertisement published in The Australian today.

The advertisement is the initiative of the Melbourne-based Institute of Public Affairs think tank, which called for donations after Bolt was found guilty of breaching the Racial Discrimination Act last Wednesday.

The case concerned a 2009 article in which Bolt claimed that nine fair-skinned Aborigines had played up being black for career advancement.

IT HAD been his passion since he was a boy, inspired by his mother's love of antiques, but after collecting a vast array of Napoleonic objets d'art and recreating his very own ''Imperial palace'' in South Yarra, Liberal party powerbroker Michael Kroger is finally over his ''Napoleon complex''.

At an auction in the shadow of the grand Chateau de Fontainebleau just outside Paris yesterday, the Michael Kroger Collection, including imperial eagles, towering bronze candelabras, antique clocks, vases, paintings, chairs, sideboards, elaborate gilt mirrors and military paraphernalia, went under the hammer, raising more than $500,000 for the businessman.

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — As the board of Amgen convened at the company’s headquarters in March, chief executive Kevin W. Sharer seemed an unlikely candidate for a raise.

Shareholders at the company, one of the nation’s largest biotech firms, had lost 3 percent on their investment in 2010 and 7 percent over the past five years. The company had been forced to close or shrink plants, trimming the workforce from 20,100 to 17,400. And Sharer, a 63-year-old former Navy engineer, was already earning lots of money — about $15 million in the previous year, plus such perks as two corporate jets.

from Crikey .....

Tanya Plibersek takes the pledge

Charles Richardson writes

The gambling industry is up in arms about the Gillard government's proposed poker machine reforms; of course they are. Clubs NSW is leading the charge; understandable. But what about the Catholic clubs?

You see, there's several registered clubs in NSW that are known as the Catholic clubs. They were started years ago, generally by prominent Catholic businessmen or parents from the local Catholic school, and grew to a point where they took on a life of their own. They are well respected, very successful and, as far as I know, still hold true to their original Catholic ideals.

Politicians could be in for a pay raise but the government is shying away from responsibility because the decision is in the hands of an independent tribunal.

The independent Federal Remuneration Tribunal is undertaking a comprehensive review of politicians' pay.

It is expected to recommend MPs trade their current generous allowances for increases in base salaries.

Backbench salaries are tipped to almost double to $250,000.

And the pay packets of Prime Minister Julia Gillard, her ministers and also shadow ministers could be a whole lot fatter.

It was first reported in January of last year that the Obama administration had compiled a hit list of American citizens whom the President had ordered assassinated without any due process, and one of those Americans was Anwar al-Awlaki. No effort was made to indict him for any crimes (despite a report last October that the Obama administration was "considering" indicting him). 

one of the various end credit comments from the show "Two and a Half Men" written by Chuck Lorre.