Just how much money will the government’s revised mining tax end up raising from the big players, ask Glenn Dyer and Bernard Keane?
Politics / The World
Guilty confessions of an Australian republican
For Australian republicans, Prince Charles has often been seen as an easy target, writes freelancer David Ritter.
Scottish independence: Salmond still swimming upstream
There are two important questions arising out of the possibility of a Scottish republic, writes Keshia Jacotine, who researches and writes about European and Scottish politics.
How the ‘resource curse’ eats at the heart of Bougainville
Bougainvilleans may have won the war but the peace has left years of inertia, and a province desperately needing rehabilitation.
Will constitutional recognition advance Australia fair?
The report examining options to recognise indigenous people in the constitution lays out an important project of modernisation, says professor Jon Altman of ANU’s Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research.
How to get off scot-free after a massacre — the playbook
Stolen emails again demonstrate how the defence and political establishments do business in the US.
Why we need a big green bank for low carbon transition
One of the arguments that has been thrown forward against the proposed Clean Energy Finance Corporation is that it will be good money thrown after bad, writes Giles Parkinson at RenewEconomy.
Letter from: Beijing … reading China like reading tea leaves
The Communist Party only has one option: it has to avoid a bust at all costs, and continue to make like the fireworks and boom, writes Matthew Clayfield, a freelance correspondent, in Beijing.
Rundle12: Santorum takes bad speeches to a new multiverse
Down in Colorado, they have a problem with black bears.
RBA could increase rates if there’s a sharp rise in inflation
Lots of mea culpas this morning from business economists and media pundits who got the Reserve Bank rate decision horribly wrong yesterday, write Glenn Dyer and Bernard Keane.
Kohler: trouble in a carry trade paradise
Keynesian purists are all clutching their foreheads, but actually it’s pretty fabulous that Australia’s politicians are competing with each other to promise budget surpluses.
Palestinian unity plan met with scepticism in West Bank
A unity agreement between the two major Palestinian political parties, Fatah and Hamas, has been greeted with scepticism from Palestinian youth activists, writes Nigel O’Connor, a freelance journalist in Ramallah.
Rundle12: the return of Santorum opens the Republican race
Republican candidate Rick Santorum may be on the way to either victory or a close second in the Minnesota and Missouri contests tonight, throwing the smooth coronation of Mitt Romney into fresh doubt.
Crikey Says: Swimming to Cyprus
Homs continues to endure an onslaught of rockets and mortars in the regime’s worst massacre of civilians since the uprising in Syria began 11 months ago.
How to make a commercial for Uncle Sam
Setting itself apart from a raft of comedy advertisements, one of the creators of the already-legendary Chrysler Super Bowl spot (starring Clint Eastwood) discusses how to make a commercial for the US federal government.
Syria violence worsens as Russia comes to town
Crikey media wrap: The United States government has begun reviewing military options in Syria, as the Syrian army ramps up its military assault on opposition fighters in the city of Homs.
Guy Rundle: Compared to these guys, Obama is Howard Zinn on bad acid
With five primaries and caucuses done, with party favourite Mitt Romney leading, and with the next four contests before Super Tuesday favouring him, the 2012 race for the Republican nomination is beginning to slip quietly away from the top of the news agenda.
The Tea Party is dead. Long live the Tea Party
The GOP spent months pondering the effect the Tea Party would have on Republican primaries, and the answer was: not much at all. One Tea Party leader has described the movement as “dead” and “gone,” reports Patricia Murphy.
Russia goes its own way over Syria
Last week there was some hope that Russia might be coming on board with the need to do something about the steadily increasing bloodshed in Syria.
Costa Concordia on the scrapheap of the daily news cycle
As Italians braced for another big freeze, the Costa Concordia cruise ship seems to have been relegated to the scrapheap of our fast-changing daily news cycle, writes Jo McKenna, a Rome-based freelance journalist.
Rundle12: Ron Paul beckons the lost boys and girls of Las Vegas
The sweet, sweet paradox of Ron Paul is that a large slice of his support comes from those who carefully and cheerfully disregard his foreign policy reviews altogether, writes Guy Rundle in Las Vegas.
War takes their homes, the cold takes the lives
Twenty-two children living in Kabul’s refugee camps froze to death in the last month. How is it that after billions of international aid dollars, Afghanis are dying from the cold? Rod Nordland investigates.
Wielding UN veto, Putin misreads the situation in Syria
The Russian government’s PR machine went into overdrive to try and explain why president-in-wait Vladimir Putin vetoed a UN resolution against violence in Syria, which was a badly misjudged decision, writes David Hearst.
Castro, in dark trackies, launches memoir
Fidel Castro, 85, made a rare public appearance on the weekend, presenting a new two-volume memoir titled ‘Guerilla of Time’, reports Annie-Marie Garcia.
Kevin Rudd’s statement on Syria
At last Kevin Rudd – who admittedly has been fairly vocal about the need to get rid of the vile butcher Bashar Al-Assad — has issued a statement about the failure of the Security Council and Assad’s mass murder in Homs, reports Bernard Keane.
