Chinese bribes and monkey business

THE PICK OF THE MORNING’S STORIES

Permanent diet may equal longer life – Los Angeles Times

Stern Hu ‘thrown to the wolves’ – Sydney Morning Herald

Climate comment rains on Rudd’s victory parade – Sydney Morning Herald

POLITICS AND ECONOMICS

Australia

Rio Tinto and China

Chinese spy row escalates as diplomatic crisis brews – The Australian

China crucible – Rowan Callick in The Australian on events that suggest the world’s last great one-party state already may be testing the limits of its formula for success.

Beijing’s intimidation – Greg Sheridan in The Australian sees Chinese government sending a message of crude intimidation and deep displeasure against Australia with the arrest of Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu, an Australian citizen, in Shanghai.

China intent on protecting Rio agreement at all cost – Ther Chinese Government has accused the detained Australian Rio Tinto executive, Stern Hu, of bribing steel companies on such a scale that he caused huge losses to China’s economic interests – Sydney Morning Herald

Stern Hu ‘thrown to the wolves’ – as his former boss at Rio Tinto calls on Australian Government to act – Sydney Morning Herald

Bribe claim baseless: Rio – Melbourne Age

Face-saving exercise puts a man in jeopardy – The Chinese Government has probably arrested Stern Hu in retaliation for the breakdown of its iron ore negotiations with Rio Tinto, a Shanghai expert in the concept of face in Chinese business dealings says – Melbourne Age

Seeing red over Rio – Malcolm Maiden in the Melbourne Age says Rio’s competitors can expect a boost in China, but the complex nature of Chinese culture is still to play out.

China claims Rio bribery with Stern Hu – Sydney Daily Telegraph

China offended by failure of Chinalco deal with Rio – West Australian Premier Colin Barnett says the failure of the Chinalco deal with Rio Tinto has clearly offended China and the federal government should have done more to establish a mature relationship with Beijing – The Australian

Diplomats to visit executive as Rio’s China crisis deepens – Brisbane Courier Mail

Diplomacy kicks in over arrest – Melbourne Herald Sun

Elections

Laying foundations for a Kevin Rudd re-election – George Megalogenis argues that the political success of the Rudd government’s $50 billion economic stimulus measures has given Labor an unexpected chance of saving all its marginal seats at the next election and to strip as many as 14 blue-collar seats from the Coalition – The Australian

Rudd on Rudd

A work in progress – Midway through his first term, the Prime Minister reflects on the economic hardship that allowed him to recast himself. He spoke with Peter Hartcher of the Sydney Morning Herald

Political life

Politicians caught with pie on faces – prominent politicians, Anthony Albanese and Frank Sartor, have been left red-faced after attending the re-opening of Rockdale’s brahim Lebanese Pastry last Saturday in their positions as the state and federal members. What they did not know was that one of the Ibrahim brothers, who have owned the shop for almost three decades, has a son who was recently charged with the murder of a Kings Cross identity, Todd O’Connor – Sydney Morning Herald

Uluru

PM rejects ban on climbing sacred site – Sydney Morning Herald

Economic matters

Alarming debt bomb is ticking – Funding for Australia’s huge deficit is being threatened by a nearly saturated bond market writes Neil Muston in the Melbourne Age

‘Evil Revolution’ eats up school funds – The Australian discovers up front costs

Government spends $1.7m on house for light rail project – Yhe Bligh Government has spent $1.7 million buying an old house with a land value of just $285,000 for the Gold Coast light rail project – Brisbane Courier Mail

Work the only stimulus utemen need to keep recession from the door – The Australian

Industrial relations

Stumble in talks scuppers deal on NSW police pay – Sydney Morning Herald

Performance pay scheme to boost NSW disadvantaged schools – The best best teachers in NSW will be paid almost $100,000 a year to help struggling children in disadvantaged schools under a landmark performance pay deal – Sydney Daily Telegraph

Justice

Inquiry call for state’s judiciary – Victoria’s Chief Magistrate has called for a commission to examine complaints about judges and magistrates. This follows concerns about why a magistrate’s speeding ticket irregularities went unquestioned for a year – Melbourne Age

Nine fines lay bare a flawed system – Nick McKenzie and Fergus Shiel in the Melbourne Age examine the case of magistrate Carmen Randazzo resigned after a report found she had been caught speeding nine times in her departmental car in early 2008 and had nominated as driver her father – Italian senator and Melbourne identity Antonino Randazzo, who was not entitled to use the taxpayer-funded vehicle – on two of these occasions, even though he was overseas at the time.

Telecommunications

Telco gave warning on 000 faults – The Australian on warnings fgiven to be government by Telstra about the need to overhaul the antiquated 000 system

Boat people

‘Lost’ boatpeople off Indonesian coast thought safe – The Australian

Education

Libs in row over school rank tables – NSW Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell has hit back at Brendan Nelson, urging the former federal education minister to “focus on the facts” of the school league tables debate before weighing in – The Australian

Opinions

Some look for a first job, others for any job – Ross Gittins in the Sydney Morning Herald writes how the deterioration in the labour market is occurring at a relatively moderate rate.

Forget the windbags and follow windfall theory of leadership – Peter Hartcher in the Sydney Morning Herald says we don’t really know what Rudd and Turnbull stand for, only what they say they stand for.

Silver tongue, but not a Latin lover – Annabel Crabb in the Sydney Morning Herald notes that the hat the Prime Minister is quickly becoming fluent in Twitterese, the clipped young dialect of the Intertubes.

Proceed with calm – Shaun Carney in the Melbourne Age goes on a vain search for the kind of man Kevin Rudd really is

Saint Kev and a miracle economy – Laurie Oakes in the Sydney Daily Telegraph reckons the PM k nows Latin too.

Uteman revived as part of package – Dennis Shanahan in The Australian on how the Rudd Labor government is appealing to utemen, contractors it calls, with self-conscious blokeiness, “tradies”.

Rudd’s golden chance – Paul Kelly in The Australian sees Kevin Rudd’s political strategy working like a dream.

World spotlight on Rudd at forum – Lenore Taylor finds Kevin Rudd’s Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute emerging as the “positive announcement” from the meeting of world leaders – The Australian

Elsewhere

Afghanistan

Gordon Brown defends UK mission in Afghanistan as deaths mount – London Times

Economic matters

G8’s $25bn plan to aid poor farmers – The Australian

Opinions

A Lesson on Warming – New York Times editorial says at the Group of 8 summit, President Obama learned how divided the world remains on global warming and how hard he will have to work to pull off an agreement.

BUSINESS

General Motors emerges from bankruptcy – Chief Executive Fritz Henderson says the new, smaller GM will focus on customers, cars and changing the company’s culture. ‘Business as usual is over,’ he says. It will even sell vehicles on EBay – Los Angeles Times

NAB ‘needs to cover losses of $4bn’ – Sydney Daily Telegraph

Choice declares war on Woolworths and Coles – Sydney Daily Telegraph

ENVIRONMENT

Rudd gives Copenhagen talks little hope – Kevin Rudd has been overheard pouring cold water on world leaders’ chances of hammering out critical climate change limits in Copenhagen – just hours after US President Barack Obama called for global optimism – Melbourne Age

Climate comment rains on Rudd’s victory parade – US President, Barack Obama, has urged world leaders to banish their pessimism about thrashing out a climate-change deal with developing countries, heralding a new era for the US and citing Australia’s carbon capture project for plaudits. However, just hours later Mr Rudd was overheard pouring cold water on the prospects for a deal at the Copenhagen talks in December – Sydney Morning Herald

Desal plant to run ‘until dams reach 65%’ – Melbourne Age

Kevin Rudd pessimistic on emissions deal – The Australian

MEDIA

MPs to question tabloid bosses – News International faces three fresh inquiries into the conduct of its journalists and executives following the disclosures that Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper empire paid £1 million ($A2 million) to keep secret the use of criminal methods to get stories – Melbourne Age

Stokes and Packer set for war of attrition – The billionaires are now locked in a likely war of attrition over control of Consolidated Media’s prized investments in the pay TV companies Foxtel and Fox Sports and the jobs site Seek – Sydney Morning Herald

LIFE

Child care

DOCS toughens child-care stance with prosecutions – Sydney Morning Herald

Longevity

Permanent diet may equal longer life – Los Angeles Times

Motor racing

We will not pay for half a F1 GP: Brumby – Melbourne Age

Get GP formula right, says Premier John Brumby – Melbourne Herald Sun

The punt

Problem punters ‘lured back’ by casinos – Brisbane Courier Mail

Charity

Tough times put Ponting Foundation on back foot – The Australian cricket captain’s Ponting Foundation is one of many charities feeling the chill winds of an economic downturn that has cut into donations and slashed attendance at fundraising events – Melbourne Herald Sun

Law and order

Andrew Robinson was a parolled drug-fuelled time bomb – Adelaide Advertiser

Women’s soccer team call in security guards – Adelaide Advertiser

Town Planning

Finally, an end to Le Cornu site feud – Con Makris will start building at the controversial former Le Cornu site on O’Connell St next year, ending a bitter and drawn-out feud with the Adelaide City Council – Adelaide Advertiser