Australian PM Puts Leadership On Line

Labour in turmoil in Australia;

Julia Gillard, the Australian prime minister, has thrown open her job to challenge by Kevin Rudd after senior figures of her Labor party called for the man she deposed to come back and replace her.
A combative Gillard said in parliamentary question time that a leadership ballot, known as a spill in Australian politics, would be held on Thursday afternoon. Gillard batted away taunts from the opposition leader, Tony Abbott, who called for a vote of no confidence in the House of Representatives. The prime minister opened question time by challenging the opposition to “take your best shot”.


She’s called a leadership ballot for 4:30pm (12:30 am EDT). Tim Blair has the blow by blow. (link fixed)

Reader Tips

Tonight’s tips music, a live version of a track from Leonard Cohen’s 1969 album Songs from a Room, is a quiet, simple, beautiful, elegiac song about a young, good-hearted woman who lost her way in the sexual revolution of the 1960s.
Here’s Seems So Long Ago, Nancy.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.

Caught Between A Rock And A Russian

Cyprus rejects bailout deal;

The Cypriot parliament has thrown out a controversial plan to skim €5.8bn from savers’ bank accounts, in a move that risks plunging the eurozone into a fresh crisis and heightens expectations that the cash-strapped nation will seek a funding lifeline from Russia.
Cyprus has just 24 hours to find a solution to its funding gap before its banks are due to reopen following the dramatic no vote on Tuesday night, which failed to support a hastily renegotiated change to the original deal.

Dennis Gartman; (via Money Talks)

“… of course Cyprus was complacent about laundering. To think otherwise was and is naïve. Ah, but now you’ve stolen Russia money… or soon shall depending upon the vote in the Cypriot parliament… and that is dangerous… very. One does not steal Russian mafia money and get away with it. There are fewer statements of fact that are more certain, more factual, more unyielding than this statement. Russian Mafia figures do not take well to being stolen from, and they take even less well to be made fools of. We see no reason to mince words at this point: People will be hurt over this decision; some shall be killed.”

Nigel Farage has advice for Europeans:

(Meanwhile, in Canadian mainstream news…)

Navigation