China loves the allen keyThe Ikea store in Beijing is bustling. But not with customer’s buying cheap Swedish furniture, but with families enjoying a nap on Ikea mattresses, eating Swedish meatballs and taking their graduation photos.
August, 2009
No surprises: Bernanke will be back
US President Barack Obama will renominate Ben Bernanke as the US Federal Reserve chief. The move comes a little early — Bernanke’s first term isn’t up for another five months — but it’s hardly a shock in such turbulent economic times, says Phil Izzo.
Mother nature: looking toward natural forms of contraception
Why doesn’t the natural fertility awareness method of contraception get more publicity? It’s as effective as condoms, free of hormones, costs nothing and helps women understand their bodies, writes Nona Willis Aronowitz.
PODCAST: The “I can’t believe England won the Ashes” podcast
Crikey’s Leigh Josey talks to our Ashes correspondent Jarrod Kimber discuss England winnng the Ashes, the future of Australian cricket, Jarrod’s new found fame and a very cricket wedding.
A tale of two search engines
Yahoo actually reaches the same number of internet users as Google — but earns about a tenth of the profit. CNNMoney explains how two seemingly similar search companies can have such differing levels of success.
Russia’s new war on drinking
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev is taking on the unenviable task of breaking the country’s vodka-guzzling ways, in an attempt to lower the staggeringly high level of alcoholism and alcohol-related deaths and illness. Can the convince the country to sober up?
Corrupt world of cross-border banking begins to crumble
The veil is being lifted on the shadowy world of cross-border banking as governments clamp down on big-time tax evaders and bring money back to their shores.
Where are all the leftie journos?
Everyone loves to trash the media as being full of left leaning journalists, but it’s the conservative right wing commentators that get more publicity. Small ‘l’ liberal is not the same as left wing, writes Lindsay Foyle.
Bartlett: QLD govt have no choice but to act on abortion laws
It’s time the Queensland parliament acted to change the state’s laws on abortion, with the situation for individual women seeking an abortion and for doctors prepared to provide now totally untenable.
Bye-bye Brendan: a by-election for Bradfield
With the departure of Brendan Nelson, the seat of Bradfield is headed for a by-election. William Bowe wraps all the speculation in the press and blogosphere about likely candidates to take his place.
Antony Green: Bradfield byelection
There’s no chance the Liberal Party will lose the very safe seat of Bradfield when Nelson vacates it, says Antony Green, but it still has potential to cause problems for the party with a mad scramble amongst candidates for pre-election.
At least one good reason why the NT should never be a state
Amongst all the chaos in the NT recently, none of the press — local or national — or appear to have caught the real back-story of how Canberra’s law saved Henderson’s flailing government, says Bob Gosford.
Nelson headed to defence job, Sinodinos a likely successor
Brendan Nelson, a former defence minister, will probably look to the defence sector for a job, with his replacement frontrunner likely to be John Howard’s former chief of staff Arthur Sinodinos, writes Christian Kerr.
Top public sector earners, Murdoch’s bonus, ALP tragic says insider
So sue me: Turnbull’s media strategy writ large
Of all the jobs in the country, Mark Westfield seems least-suited to the one he has just walked into as Malcolm Turnbull’s chief media spinner.
Obama’s holiday reading
What books would President Barack Obama snuggle up with on his family holiday? The presidential holiday reading list is out, including a book Obama quoted from on the campaign trail: Tom Freidman’s Hot, Flat and Crowded.
Learning the lessons from swine flu
In October 2006, several people thought to be infected with avian influenza flew into Brisbane, triggering an emergency response that revealed important gaps in the country’s preparedness for a pandemic. The “patients” were in fact participants in a massive exercise, involving 1500 participants, testing whether the $610 million invested in pandemic planning over the previous […]
Much work to do to close the gap on women’s pay
Why is there such a significant pay gap between men and women, considering women are now better educated, more likely to be in paid work and there are measures in place supposedly to deal with prejudice?
What has Rupert Murdoch done to earn his bonus?
That Rupert Murdoch could be paid a bonus in light of New Corp’s performance in recent years is quite remarkable.
Nelson shouldn’t leave alone
There are plenty of other Liberals who should follow Brendan Nelson’s example and determine that, if they’re not going to make a contribution any more, they should give up their seat for someone who will.
Morning Market Report: Metals looking sharp, but gold lacks sheen
The market is down 12 today. Metals did well, but gold fell $11.
Lowes hardware just the beginning for Woolworths
Retail giant Woolworths is moving into hardware to take on Wesfarmers’s key business, Bunnings Warehouse, making a takeover bid for Danks Holdings, which operates Home Timber and Hardware, Thrifty-Link and Plants Plus Garden Centres.
Can the ASIC regulatory tiger grow teeth?
Will the new market trading, monitoring and control system be as transparent and open about its regulatory actions as the ASX has become this year?
Media briefs: Twitter to charge for tweets? Wikipedia to add new layer of editing
Twitter to charge for tweets? Also, Wikipedia to add new layer of editing, conservatives are out-tweeting liberals and is Robin Williams really going to play Susan Boyle?
