Garlic outperforms gold and silver in ChinaThe market for garlic in China has soared this year, making it one of the country’s best investments, with wholesale prices in Beijing now 15 times as high as in March and still rising.
November, 2009
The biggest stories you didn’t read about in 2009
Foreign Policy looks at ten huge stories that that flew under the global media’s radar in 2009, like China’s suspicious naval deal with Brazil, America’s role in Uganda’s civil war and Russia’s role in the murder of Chechens around the world.
Dubai: much ado about nothing
Don’t believe the panic, says Zachary Karabell: Dubai won’t default on its debts — its neighbors won’t allow it to happen — and even if it did, it wouldn’t be the be the great global disaster many are predicting.
What really happens to your gadgets after you “recycle” them?
Think you’re doing the “green” thing by sending your old electronics to a recycling facility? According to WebEcoist, they often end up in a country like China or India, where local workers salvage the reusable parts and throw away the rest.
Twitter is the new Walter Cronkite
In 1963, it was CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite who broke the big story of the JFK assassination. In 2009, Twitter would have it first. The news may not be as accurate, but in the age of real-time, that’s the way it is.
How the Grinch stole Google News
A Web 2.0 twist on Dr Suess’s classic Christmas tale: Every Who down in Whoville liked Google a lot, But the Grinch, who lived up in a penthouse, did not…
10,000 African albinos in hiding
At least 10,000 albinos in East Africa are in hiding from hunters looking to kill them and sell their body parts for their “magical powers”. A complete “set” of albino body parts — limbs, genitals, ears, tongue and nose — can sell for as much as $75,000.
It’s too late to “heal the wounds” of the Liberal Party
Joe Hockey’s belief that he can “heal the wounds” of the Liberal Party is based on the flawed assumption that some members of the party will be willing to compromise on climate change and that the subject may fall off the political radar any time soon.
Why the Greens should vote for the CPRS
Labor’s CPRS may be a dog’s breakfast, but it’s the only proposal on the table at the moment, and thus Australia’s only way to tell the world we’re serious about climate change before Copenhagen, says Derek Barry.
How bin Laden slipped through America’s fingers
A new report from the US Senate claims that Osama bin Laden was “within [their] grasp” in 2001, but escaped because the task of capturing him was “outsourced” to a pair of minor Afghan warlords.
revealed 
The secret US “black jail” in Afghanistan
The US is holding detainees in isolated, windowless concrete cells at Bagram Air Base, sometimes for weeks at a time, without access to the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to former inmates and human rights workers.
Farr: Even if Hockey wins, he loses
If Joe Hockey wins tomorrow’s leadership battle, he will have to sacrifice family, party and principle to fight an election he is almost guaranteed to lose, says Malcolm Farr.
Burchell: Hockey is the leader the Liberals deserve
Amidst the Liberal Party’s ideological chaos, perhaps Joe Hockey — a man with barely any strong political conviction or passion — is exactly the leader they need and deserve, says David Burchell.
Keane: Why Turnbull should stay
A vote to dispose of Turnbull on Tuesday would condemn Australia to a one-party government for much of the next decade, says Bernard Keane. Anyone who wants a semblance of an effective Opposition should fervently hope for a Turnbull win.
Voters back Hockey
Australians would prefer to see Joe Hockey as the leader of the Liberal Party over both Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott, according to new Newspoll and Nielsen polls released today. William Bowe has all the numbers.
Eddie McGuire: Turnbull should have joined the ALP
Malcolm Turnbull has never fitted in with the Big L liberals in the Coalition, but now he finds himself closer to the ALP than his own party, writes Eddie McGuire. Perhaps he was never in the right party to begin with?
Milne: The three shadow men who brought down Turnbull
Glenn Milne takes a closer look at Kevin Andrews, Nick Minchin and Andrew Robb — the three men who have brought Turnbull to his knees.
Bob Ellis: Malcolm Turnbull, the lost Liberal Democrat
Malcolm Turnbull — and Australia — deserved better than the malicious political game-playing from both sides of Parliament that has ultimately done him in, says Bob Ellis.
Daley: Why Hockey will challenge
The timing may not be ideal, but Joe Hockey knows this is his big chance at the Liberal leadership, and he won’t let it slip by, says Paul Daley. As he told his mates, he doesn’t want to “die wondering”.
Willagee byelection: as it happened
Relive all the thrills and spills of yesterday’s epic battle between the Left and more-Left for the WA seat of Willagee with William Bowe’s live coverage of the event.
Obama’s secret climate deals with China and India
Behind-the-scenes on his recent trip to Asia, Barack Obama was pushing China and India to come to the negotiating table on carbon emissions for Copenhagen, reveals Michael Wolff — and it’s looking like he had some success.
Is China’s emissions pledge enough?
China’s “carbon intensity” reduction pledge is better than most developing nations will offer, but will probably not see an actual reduction in the country’s carbon emissions. Will Beijing come to the negotiating table at Copenhagen?
Guardian: Australia’s Copenhagen strategy is a sham
The Guardian calls out Kevin Rudd’s sneaky 25% emission reduction pledge: the conditions the rest of the world have to meet for Australia to honour it are so stringent that Rudd is unlikely to ever have to deliver.
Possum: Coalition about to get stuck in an ideological rut
Ironically, most of the Coalition seats likely to be lost at the next election are held by moderates, says Possum Comitatus, so the deep conservatives responsible for the party’s defeat will be the ones left to clean up the mess.
