Education Minister John Della Bosca has quit the ministry pending the outcome of a police investigation into events that took place at a Gosford nightclub last weekend. 

Speaking in Bathurst after Premier Morris Iemma told a press conference the minister had been stood down, Mr Della Bosca insisted that he had done nothing wrong. 

from Crikey ….. 

You're unpleasant Belinda, but you're no LBJ 

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes: 

Panorama investigates claims that as much as $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or not properly accounted for in Iraq.  

There are contracts for caterers, tanker drivers, security guards and even interrogators, many of them through companies with links to the White House. Now more than 70 whistleblower cases threaten to reveal the scandals behind billions of dollars worth of waste, theft and corruption during the Iraq war. 

Independent experts, however, said that government could take at least three other steps that could force oil and gasoline prices down immediately. Neither Bush nor McCain nor Obama endorse any of them. 

Perhaps the quickest action, the experts said, would be ordering curbs on financial speculation. Financial industry heavyweights have acknowledged in recent testimony before Congress that such speculation is driving oil prices higher. 

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush late on Monday during a speech on the House floor.  

We’re going to hear those fateful words 'Mission accomplished' about Iraq again, unless I am very much mistaken. The British recognise that they have to get their forces out of the country soon after next January 1 because the UN could consider the presence of the American-British force illegal.  

Looks like every day there is a military-style raid somewhere in the US. One of the more recent ones, in Detroit involves the raid of an art gallery, where people had gathered to listen to music, have some drinks and dance.

US President George W Bush has landed in Slovenia at the start of what is expected to be his last European tour, with economic concerns a key issue. 

He will attend the annual US-European Union summit, where he is expected to push for a strong US dollar and action on high fuel prices. 

Wonderful – the people we're liberating are our enemies, because of the extended occupation – now there's a good reason to support the troops and extend the occupation. I guess Congress thought so too.  

Pentagon officials firmly opposed a proposal by Vice President Dick Cheney last summer for airstrikes against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) bases by insisting that the administration would have to make clear decisions about how far the United States would go in escalating the conflict with Iran, according to a former George W Bush administration official. 

US interrogators of terrorist suspects were instructed to destroy handwritten notes that might have exposed harsh or even illegal questioning methods at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a lawyer for one of the prisoners said. 

Iraq will not allow its territory to be used to attack Iran, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has said during a visit to Tehran. 

He was speaking after meeting Iran's foreign minister and is later due to meet President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 

Can you imagine the outcry if an Australian city council rejected a proposal to build a Jewish school? You don’t need to imagine. Anyone who dares to utter a single word against it will be labelled “anti-Semitic”. Australian politicians from the Prime Minister and his herd to the herd of the Opposition would be outraged by such an “Un-Australian” decision. However, when an application for an Islamic school was rejected, the support for bigotry was unanimous.

Wall Street suffered its worst losses in more than two months on Friday after crude oil prices spiked over $138, an increase of nearly $11, and the unemployment rate rose more than expected. 

All 30 of the stocks that make up the Dow Jones industrials took a hit as the index dropped nearly 400 points on fears that high energy prices will extend and deepen an economic slowdown. 

President Bush and top administration officials repeatedly exaggerated what they knew about Iraq's weapons and its ties to terrorist groups as the White House pressed its case for war against Iraq, the Senate intelligence committee said yesterday in a long-awaited report.