Brazil’s deadly favela drug warLast week a war broke out in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. Watch as the Brazilian police force arrive with tanks and guns and battle drug traffickers armed with automatic weapons, while journalists and citizens hide behind houses and try to escape.
November, 2010
Wikileaks 
Why is the US government still sending cables?
As the WikiLeaks US embassy cables scandal takes up the news headlines, Foreign Policy asks a very valid question: why do US diplomats still send “cables”? Partly because the descriptive information sent to millions is also an attempt for diplomats to prove themselves.
Australian cricket needs a hero (or a Warne) …. and fast
The English are all over Australia in the Ashes and Australia’s only hope is that somewhere, maybe in some little town out in the bush, the new Warne is working on a few spells, writes The Independent’s James Lawton.
What price for the English to pay for the 2018 World Cup?
The English bid for the 2018 FIFA World Cup is starting to feel grubbier and grubbier, writes The Guardian’s Paul Hayward, and are horsetrading and acquiescence a price worth paying for an event England have not won since 1966?
From college drop out to world poker champion
Jonathan Duhamel dropped out of college to concentrate on playing poker. And the move paid off — all $8.9 million of it.
Is the coin toss in professional sports coming to an end?
As the coin toss has lost its primacy in sports, writes Slate’s Robert Weintraub, sabermetricians have come to realize the outside role luck plays in athletic endeavors.
Tracking the PR embarrassment
Here’s a note of PR advice from Tim Burrowes: don’t send out your company press releases with the “track changes” function still enabled on the Microsoft Word document. Otherwise the whole internet gets to witness your embarrassing marketing lingo.
James Allen’s top five drivers of the F1 season
Formula One aficionado James Allen lists his five best drivers of the just completed season. And there’s no room for favouritism in a list like this — just who did the best job.
An awesome word cloud of NBA players
created word clouds for every team in the NBA based on who played the most minutes for each team — and it’s very very cool.
AFL wordle of the week
What would it look like if you made a wordle of each AFL club to include every player who has played 50 or more games? Leigh Josey gave it a go and the results are particularly interesting when you start comparing old and new clubs.
January-October 2010 the warmest period on record
The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for January-October this year was +0.63°C above the 20th century average of 14.1°C and tied with 1998 as the warmest January–October period on record, writes Dr Andrew Glikson, Earth and paleo-climate scientist at ANU.
Pricing our 5% emissions target
While the debate over our emissions reduction target flares, the problem of how to meet it is the subject of a new report.
Richardson: Victoria’s losers need to come to terms
The Liberals were able to make the Greens into a winning issue precisely because they did not feel threatened by them — they could treat it as a matter of pure symbolism. Labor cannot. But it is yet to find much of an alternative.
Crikey Clarifier: What’s the deal with recycled water?
Recycled water. It’s used in a variety of everyday situations — irrigation, factories, toilets. As one of the driest continents on earth, we’ve become used to it. But what about drinking it? Is it as dangerous as people think? And, with large parts of Australia coming out a big drought, should we be even worrying about it?
The Canberra cables: next WikiLeaks drop to jeopardise World Cup bid?
The Australian government knows exactly what is in the WikiLeaks documents, writes Luke Miller, blogger at Idle Senate Speculation.
Hughie wants to wrestle over Queensland union power feud
The election of a new secretary for the Queensland branch of the Transport Workers Union has turned into a bitter personal feud that also exposes the political power struggle in the labour movement under embattled premier Anna Bligh. And the aftermath could be messy, writes Brad Gardner.
Sandilands: the flights of 50 years ago
When I became a reporter, on this day in 1960, the great ocean liners still sailed regularly to Europe and North America, and was it possible to take a ship between most of the capital cities.
Guy Rundle: Rundle: elecTed … now pass the gin and the Kool Mints
Brumby Labor became such a creature of corporate power over everyday life — construction companies, retail giants, transport privateers — that it appeared at times to be a regional autocrat, administering the state on behalf of distant imperial rulers.
Daily Proposition: See an Aussie neo-western flick
Like Machete, Red Hill captures a non-Caucasian gut-busting anti-hero who unleashes a biblical-esque plague of vengeance onto those who crossed him.
Bowe: for Victorian Labor, it was a case of ‘on ya cycle’
Depending on your perspective, the big swing against Labor in Victoria on Saturday was either highly portentous or highly predictable.
Footballers’ lives: from boots ‘n’ all to warts ‘n’ all
The steady stream of footballers’ memoirs can be traced back to Lou Richards’ 1963 effort, Boots and All, writes Damien Francis, freelance writer and editor.
Signs of the bursting housing bubble are emerging
A drop in the price of residential property tends to happen far more slowly than a share market correction.
Stevens’ MRRT lever? Why we must save in the boom
Glenn Stevens has added his credibility to the view that, faced with an income shock that might occur once or twice in a century, the federal government ought to consider a “stabilisation fund” to smooth future volatility in economic conditions.
NT News is tombstone territory for the dying art of subbing
The Northern Territory News is mourning the departure of 10 sub-editorial staff, following an internal restructure that will see the paper’s main subbing function shifted to the SA headquarters of the Adelaide Advertiser.
