Rio turns tables on China?

The headlines may have subsided but the fate of the Australian steel executive Stern Hu continues through China's legal processes.

Stern Hu's employer, the Anglo-Australian mining firm, Rio Tinto, has confirmed that its negotiations with China on an iron ore price have stopped in part because Stern Hu and his colleagues were the negotiating team.

More here.

Daniel Hannan MEP: slaps Gordon Brown verbally. Update

Want more? Visit Daniel Hannan's blog, or just Google his name.

Update:
Hannan is a moral equivalency fool on radical islam in the UK.

Nile submits, no one offended

Fred Nile, renowned crusader for Christian morality, NSW MP with the Christian Democratic Party, argues that no one should be offended on the beach. So, women mustn't go topless.

"Our beaches should be a place where no one is offended, whether it's their religious or cultural views," he said.

He's talking about not offending tourists on the beach.

He’s talking about the slippery slope to total nudity.

I guess he’d be happier if we all went back to the woollen neck-to-knee bathers on the beach. Or if we all wore burkhinis.

That offends me, and I live here. (Though I’d happily live without budgie smugglers.)

Can I just ask what the hell the tourists come here for if it's not to admire the contours on the beaches? More here.

Daniel Pipes fires a shot at Nile, here. It is a shame that other politicians didn't stand up for the right of Australians to enjoy the beach as they see fit - I'm sure that not all beaches allow topless bathing.

Thanks to Splice, a beach contour man from way back...

Cultural. I'm sure it's a cultural thing

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Gunmen broke into the house of a women's rights activist in the volatile northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Thursday and beheaded her, police said.

and

It is not known what the circumstances were that led to the attack. Violence against women has been an ongoing problem in Iraq.

If they don't know 'what the circumstances were that led to the attack' now, I don't think they ever will. (Since when have any of the beheaders needed any kind of justification, or presented any real justification? Barbarians.)

more here

and here

Zim cholera outbreak blamed on Western sanctions

BOTSWANA’S foreign minister has called on African nations to close their borders with Zimbabwe to bring down President Robert Mugabe’s government.

Phando Skelemani told BBC World News television that mediation had failed to move the Zimbabwe leader so African nations should now impose sanctions as Mugabe could not survive as Zimbabwe’ s leader if no petrol went into his country for a week.

Skelemani said southern African leaders should tell Mugabe to his face that he was “on his own”.

The foreign minister also suggested Botswana would be prepared to allow Zimbabwe’s opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, to operate from there as “leader in exile”.

more here