While the local 'outrage' over the absurd Haneef Sim Card Of Terror case continues to grow, the scandal is now making international headlines of the very worst kind.

Paul Kelly writes that the Haneef case has thrust the Australian legal profession and the Howard government into a state of open warfare.

The intervention by the immigration minister to verbal Haneef by claiming he was of "bad character" may see the weak-as-piss charges against the Indian doctor thrown out of court and Haneef set free.

Attorney General Philip Ruddock is now being told he should have to explain his role in the scandal.


Australians owe more than $40 billion on their credit cards. With interest rates on credit cards ranging from 10% to 19% (and sometimes beyond), Australian banks are reaping in more than $4-7 billion a year off interest alone. Another billion or more is scoured from late payment and 'account keeping' fees. Not bad from a customer base of less than six million people.


Underneath Sydney, there lies an all-but-forgotten system of abandoned train tunnels. It now takes longer to get to Newcastle on a train than it did in 1937.


The Sydney house where John Howard grew up has been turned into a KFC outlet. John Howard has been treating poor people like shit since he was a little kid at the local cinema. Little Johnny once considered a career in acting. Few would deny he has proven to be an accomplished performer with a mastery of faking various emotions. Before he entered politics, Howard worked in a shop selling budgerigars. That's a small sample of just how exciting the new biography of John Howard is.


Why John Howard is a "dead man walking" only a few months out from the federal election.


Brisbane just had its coldest day on record. Out and proud global warming conspiracy nuts, like this goose, celebrate, not seeming to comprehend that the theory of global warming induced climate change claims there will be increased episodes of extremes of temperature, both hot and cold.


John Howard says Australia will not become a nuclear waste dump, even when exporting uranium becomes the nation's biggest export industry, after coal. Nobody believes him. Naturally, foreign minister Alexander Downer is doing exactly what he is told to do by the Americans, who want nuclear energy to crush renewable energy.

Downer says concerns about such trivial matters about widespread radioactive contamination after accidents or spills of nuclear fuel or waste materials are just plain "wacky".


Michelle Grattan explains why Treasurer Peter Costello might get a shot at the leadership of the Liberal Party about the same time he qualifies for the pension.


The Federal Government were always aware that controversial changes to the wages and working lives of most Australians brought in under WorkChoices - changes that they so thoroughly embraced on behalf of big business - would lead to ruin for many working Australians. They knew it, but they didn't care.


29 passengers who were believed to have been exposed to a man sick with polio, on a flight into Melbourne, are still missing.


Police have found a suburban Sydney house literally stuffed with more than $800,000 worth of cannabis. Meanwhile, someone is wandering around unaware they've won $20million in a lottery.

An Australian publishing industry insider claims there at least six "dirt" books being written by current and/or former members of John Howard's staff and team of advisers, in preparation for his departure from federal politics. One book deal is said to be worth some $200,000. Presumably the details in that book, in particular, will be extremely juicy and controversial.

A man in Canberra became hypothermic after jumping into an ice-touched lake to retrieve a ticket that would guarantee him a copy of the new Harry Potter novel this morning. He had to be rescued. He lost the ticket.


Two teen lovers plotted to kill the parents that were trying to keep them apart. Now they will spend more than a decade apart, in jail, for planning the failed killings.


The West Australian health department has denied that there is a "killer bug" circulating around Perth, after a fourth child died from what appears to be a "killer bug."


Fifi, probably the world's oldest chimpanzee, has died, only weeks after celebrating her 60th birthday in good health. Fifi will be missed by three generations of Sydneysiders, who trekked out to Taronga Zoo to show their kids the beautiful chimp they saw when they were kids.