Rinehart steps up Fairfax pressure
IAN MCILWRAITH Mining magnate Gina Rinehart has intensified pressure for a shake-up of the board and management at Fairfax Media, lifting her holding in the company beyond 18 per cent.
Facts took a while in 'Slippergate': Albanese
11:49amLabor frontbencher Anthony Albanese has likened the Peter Slipper affair to America's Watergate scandal and called for a full disclosure of information from all the parties involved.
National Times Home Page - Political News More Political News
Paul McGeough
Anxieties aplenty at leaders' beach retreat
WITH Europe threatened by serial economic implosions and rising chaos clutching at the Middle East, it makes sense for world leaders to transport their security bubbles to a remote Mexican hideaway.
Michael Gordon
UN rebuffs approach to help relocate refugees
The United Nations' refugee agency has rejected a request from the Gillard government to help resettle refugees deemed security risks by ASIO, saying they were unlikely to meet any of the criteria in the agency's resettlement handbook.
Mark Metherell
Cuts to aged care shelve nursing home projects
The Gillard government's aged care reforms have hit investor resistance, triggering a freeze of $3.5 billion in nursing home developments, an industry report says.
The columnists More Columnists
Peter Hartcher
Money can't buy their love
When it comes to an ungrateful electorate, the proof of the pudding is in the bleating, writes Peter Hartcher.
Lenore Taylor
Forecast gloomy for yet another climate talkfest
On what was supposed to be the final morning of the 2009 Copenhagen conference on climate change I came as close as I ever have in my adult life to hitting someone.
Mike Carlton
Back in the domain of the doomsayer
HOW distressing it was to leave the madcap gaiety of Jubilee Britain and return home to find the wide brown land gone to rack and ruin. Change and decay in all around I see, as the old hymn goes.
The contributors More Society & Culture
A loss for words
The Miles Franklin is presented next week. But are prizes really good for the literary culture? By Richard Flanagan.
Julie Szego
Still gaga after all these years, over the enigma that is Madonna
Another world tour by the queen of irony, another string of shallow controversies and internet storms.
Ban Ki-moon
Rio presents our chance to create a new energy future
Next week, world leaders gather for a momentous occasion - the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro.
The bloggers More Blogs
John Birmingham
Campbell's crash and slash won't work
There were just under 15,000 men and women contracted to Queensland Health when the Premier brought down the hammer.
Warwick McFadyen
Journey through the past
This is Americana run through a power grid, smashing away the familiar musical landscape.
The Party Line
Will we have to limit coal exports to guarantee the protection of the Great Barrier Reef?
Tony Burke, Greg Hunt and Senator Larissa Waters debate the issue.
Dick Gross
The Birthday of a Queen
Today we can learn things about the power of ritual and the declining sacredness of faith in all things including the Queen.
Features
Uneasy Truth
Plague of dodgy prescriptions puts illicit drugs in the shade
Despite a lively public debate about illicit drugs, the dominant drugs of addiction overtaking Western societies are those prescribed legally by trusted doctors.