Labor powers plotting all-out assault on the Greens "Senior Labor strategists are pushing for a full-scale assault on the Greens' powerbase in the Senate by placing them last on voting tickets in key contests as part of a new tough line on the minor party aimed at shoring up the ALP's languishing primary vote."
The Syrian cauldron "While the destruction of the government in Damascus is an end in itself, Syria must also be seen as a way station on the road to Iran. If the Baath government can be brought down, the strategic alliance between Iran, Syria and Hizbullah will collapse at the centre."
Is the Chinese economy running out of steam? "In the era of an ascendant China, every agency and investment bank, every short-seller and risk analyst and brand consultant is ready to offer a prediction on China's economic future. So how do you separate the noise from the signal?"
A cult figure in the fame game "What this means in practice, according to those who have quit the church, is that Miscavige wields absolute power over Scientology's followers. It was this that reportedly proved too much for Katie Holmes."
The worst marriage in Georgetown "What they possessed was an exquisite understanding of the anxieties of the city's elite - and an awareness of the power of eccentricity in a city that has little of it. Drath was 44 years older than her husband, a disparity in age that was accentuated further when he referred to her as 'madam'... Drath's murder seized the front page of The Washington Post."
The fantastic machine that found the Higgs boson (The Large Hadron Collider, in pictures)
