Therese Rein on the PM’s sleep and her own prayers

THIS MORNING’S FRONT PAGES

JAKARTA BOMBINGS

Terror comes to Jakarta – 3 Australians feared dead – Melbourne Age

Jihad in Jakarta – Sydney Morning Herald

Bombers sow terror as they breach fortifications of hotel sanctuaries – Melbourne Age

Blasts show danger of becoming complacent – Dan Fitton in the Melbourne Age says the twin attacks yesterday show a fringe group of violent extremists are still determined to strike Western interests, this time returning to favoured targets – five-star international hotels. This small group will persist in their murderous efforts, again and again.

Terror experts warned hardliners would bomb Western targets – Analysts Noor Huda Ismail and Carl Ungerer, of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, warmed two days ago that leadership tensions within JI and the release from prison of more than 100 of its members raised the possibility that they would try to re-energise the organisation through attacks – Melbourne Age

Bomb victim had just overcome a battle with cancer – Sydney Morning Herald

Embassy official’s family grieving – Sydney Morning Herald

Politicians unite to express outrage – Sydney Morning Herald

Sanctuaries no longer ‘impregnable‘ – The concept of safe luxury hotels has been literally blown apart, writes Tom Allard in the Sydney Morning Herald

Attacks on big names guarantee coverage – It is a habit that must keep hoteliers awake at night. Why do terrorists target big luxury establishments such as Jakarta’s JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton? Global media coverage guaranteed by attacks on exclusive hotels has provided an incentive for terrorists to adopt this tactic, terrorism analysts say – Sydney Morning Herald

Man Utd cancel trip after deadly Jakarta blasts – Sydney Morning Herald

Carnage as terror returns to Jakarta after suicide bombings – Thee Australian

Camera captures Jakarta bomber in a suit and cap – The Australian

Fugitive Malaysian’s hand in assault – Patrick Walters writes in The Australian that it is far too early to be definitive but yesterday morning’s double bombing in Jakarta bears the carrying card of Noordin Mohammed Top.

Savage blow to heart of a society – Greg Sheridan writes in The Australian that the terrorist bombings in Jakarta are a savage blow against Indonesian democracy and society that demonstrate the ferocious resilience of Islamist extremism as a motivating ideology, and the terrorist groups that give life to it.

Deadly past – History of bombings in Indonesia – Melburne Herald Sun

POLITICS AND ECONOMICS

Australia

China and Rio Tinto

Rio rejects China’s bribe claims – Rio Tinto has issued a comprehensive denial to the latest Chinese claims that its senior executive, Stern Hu, and three other employees bribed officials at Chinese steel mills – Melbourne Age

Rio Tinto denies Hu bribed anyone – Sydney Morning Herald

Stern Hu knows the stakes at play – Rowan Callick provides a review of the Hu affair – The Australian

Mystique of the Steel Curtain – While shouting at the Chinese is likely to worsen Stern Hu’s situation, Beijing may be in the mood to prolong the agony. Phillip Coorey and John Garnaut report – Sydney Morning Herald

Stern Hu’s fate ‘not sealed’ in Rio Tinto row – Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith has denied Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu’s fate has been decided, as the row with China over his detention escalates – Brisbane Courier Mail

Political life

3 hours’ sleep is all he needs – Annabel Crabb discovers in an interview with the PM’s wife Therese Rein in the Melbourne Age that Kevin Rudd can get by on as little as three hours’ sleep a night and he’s never raised his voice to the children. The same story in the Sydney Morning Herald

Faith the cornerstone of PM’s wife Therese Rein’s very full life – Therese Rein gives an interview to Kate Legge of The Australian and finds her faith inspires prayer and sometimes a song

Straight shooter’s steady rise – Michell Grattan writes in the Melbourne Age of how, as much as anything, Greg Combet has reached the top of the ’07 class through sheer competence. From the moment he arrived in Canberra, his star has burned brightly.

Minister used China trip to help ALP donor – Federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burke is listed as an honorary adviser to a Chinese-Australian businesswoman who donates to the Labor Party and convinced him to use a ministerial visit to Beijing to promote her cause. Mr Burke is one of four Labor MPs involved with the China Australia Co-operation Society, an organisation established by Brisbane developer Deborah Lei and run out of her company offices, as a means of promoting Chinese medicine – The Australian

Theophanous custody threat on outburst – Melbourne Age

Corruption

Reality rumples cocky defendant Gordon Nuttall – Andrew Fraser writes in The Australian of two nights in the watch-house being enough of a reality check for Gordon Nuttall.

Gordon Nuttall eligible for parole in January 2012 – Brisbane Courier Mail

Taxes and charges

Congestion tax plan for southeast Queensland – Brisbane Courier Mail

Housing

Prestige home prices tumble 40pc – The Australian gives examples of the crash in the prestige property market, which has plummeted up to 40 per cent from the boom years.

Health

Urgent patients still kept on hold – Last year’s “blitz” on hospital waiting lists has failed to improve waiting times for patients suffering pain, dysfunction and disability, though it did help those needing non-urgent surgery – Melbourne Age

Transport

O’Farrell derails metro by stealth – The NSW Opposition has vowed to scrap work on the $5.3 billion CBD Metro project if it wins office in 2011 – Sydney Morning Herald

Elections and by elections

Libs bet big and Bacon makes it interesting – Matthew Denholm on an interesting Tasmanian upper house election – The Australian

Opinions

The experiments we had to have – Ross Gittins in the Melbourne Age says that without quite realising it, we’re in the middle of two interrelated macro-economic experiments. The first is: what happens when, in the face of an economic downturn, you apply massive fiscal and monetary stimulus upfront? Second: how much difference can be achieved by making an effort to manage consumer and business confidence?

On the borderline – Shaun Carney says in the Melbourne Age that Peter Garrett Garrett’s in a box marked “greenie-leftie rock star” and he’s expected to stay in it.

Uranium export is the first step to war – Helen Caldicott in the Melbourne Age argues that while it is helpful and hopeful that US President Barack Obama is engaging with the Russians in specific dialogue aimed at reducing nuclear weapons after eight fallow years of the Bush administration, it is obvious that the urgency of the threat of nuclear war is little appreciated by world leaders.

Voters need something more than blogs – Lenore Taylor in The Australian

The brutal, thriving industry that is the modern Garrett hunt – Annabel Crabb asks: was ever a politician easier to skewer? – Sydney Morning Herald

Hu row a small bump in China journey – Mark Crosby sees the Hu affair turning out to be out to be a small bump on the long road to China’s full integration into the world economy through trade and investment. Part of that will be a continuing fruitful and prosperous trade and investment relationship with Australia – Melbourne Age

Elsewhere

Indonesia

Who killed Drew Grant? – A week into the investigation, in which 14 people have been interviewed and a huge manhunt has been launched, police appear to have made little headway in identifying the killers… Yet, intriguingly, investigators have all but ruled out the separatist fighters from the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM), or Free Papua Movement, who are invariably blamed by Indonesian authorities, often dubiously, for any violence that takes place in Papua, the restive Indonesian province where Freeport is situated – Melbourne Age

Uighurs

Uighur leader will take her case to Canberra – The unofficial leader of the Uighurs, Rebiya Kadeer, will use a visit to Australia next month to urge the Government to take a stand over China’s violent repression of demonstrations in her homeland and to take the remaining Uighur detainees from Guantanamo Bay – Sydney Morning Herald

Opinions

BUSINESS

Financial planners paid 230% bonuses – At the height of the boom, executive financial planners within Westpac were told they could earn commissions of $350,000 on top of their base salary of $150,000 – or a 233 per cent bonus – from selling investment products – Melbourne Age

Beware of the shark – Almost all financial planners derive a large slice of their earnings from commissions – Melbourne Age

Domestic tourism set for horror year – Tourism Forecasting Committee says that domestic tourism will record its worst year since the ’90s with the number of nights spent away from home falling to 261 million – or 16 nights per person – a drop of 13 per cent on the peak of 2002. More than $2.5 billion on accommodation, meals, tours and attractions will be lost this year alone, forecasts from the federal body show – Sydney Morning Herald

ENVIRONMENT

MEDIA

Welcome to the social network, where your privacy has to be flexible – The uncomfortable reality of our online world is that privacy is a much more fluid notion than it used to be – Toronto Globe and Mail

Ottawa takes on social media giant for violating Canada’s law – Canada is striking at the heart of social media’s revenue model, ordering global giant Facebook to limit the personal information it gives to companies that make add-on programs for the site or face potential court action – Toronto Globe and Mail

Neale to give bulk of fee to searchers – English backpacker Jamie Neale is said to be planning to donate more than half of the fee – believed to be $200,000 – he is being paid by Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes to the emergency services that searched for him during the 12 days he was lost in the Blue Mountains – Sydney Morning Herald

Networks coy on plans to copy MasterChef format – Sydney Morning Herald

LIFE

Swine flu

Canada will have enough flu vaccines to share – Unique deal with supplier means Canadians will get the shot – and there will be excess supply for countries in need, health officer says – Toronto Globe and Mail

Swine flu forces toilet closures – Psatients’ toilets were closed at troubled Westmead Hospital this week as cleaners were redeployed to pandemic infection control amid an escalation in Sydney’s swine flu outbreak – Sydney Morning Herald

Flu mum in coma for birth – Melbourne Herald Sun