Rising gold production in Australia
at a time of plummeting South African output has raised the once seemingly
impossible prospect that Australia,
with the help of Bendigo and
Ballarat, could soon snatch the status as the world’s No. 1 producer, reportsThe Age.

Investors have taken the great leap of faith in Victorian
goldfields, says the paper’s Barry FitzGerald. Look no further than the current market capitalisation of Bendigo Mining and
Ballarat Goldfields.

Meanwhile, it’s gearing up to be a big week for the market,
says Anneli Knight in The Sydney Morning
Herald – on track to break through the 5000 mark and celebrating three years of a global bull run.

Also in the SMH, Ellen Simon wonders whether Americans are
spendthrifts on their way to the poor house or are just looking at the wrong
numbers when they calculate savings. What with daytime diva Oprah Winfrey calling for America
to go on a debt diet, it’s looking like the former.

The soon-to-float international explosives group Dyno Nobel
looks like a business that has everything going for it, says Anthony Hughes in
the Financial Review (not online).
Which makes a sceptic wonder why an undoubtedly smart operator like Macquarie
Bank is wasting no time flicking it onto the Australian Stock Exchange.

And The Australian looks at post-AWB lesson no.1 for Australian companies trading overseas: When is a
facilitation payment a bribe?

In other news, the other other
Dubai ports story: the staggering
tidal wave of money flowing into the Middle East and
where all those billions are going… US telecoms
behemoth AT&T gets bigger… Business
Sunday gets what it says may well be Roger Corbett‘s last interview as
Woolworth’s CEO – in which the retail maestro says the best is yet to come…
How the highly intelligent, sophisticated, and experienced owners of American Media
– publisher of the National Enquirer, Star, and Globe – are on track to achieve the dubious feat of owning and running
magazines on the bottom of the food chain and losing money in the process… Blackberry is saved by the bell… And Adelaide company Zork to sell its revolutionary
bottle stopper – seals like a screw cap and pops like a cork – to the US,
Chile and South Africa.