POLITICS & POLICY

For the nth time, Lynas Corp.'s plans to operate what could rival China's rare earths industry has been hindered as a Malaysian High Court on Wednesday failed to come up with a final decision on the Australian miner's controversial temporary operating license (TOL), effectively delaying again the miner's start of operations of its rare earths processing plant.

Megaupload’s Kim Dotcom is a victim of Hollywood-induced persecution, with significant aids coming from the United States and New Zealand governments, the U.S defence lawyer of the Internet tycoon said earlier this week.

Toro Energy Limited and its highly-contested Wiluna uranium mine project in the Mid-West region has received an environmental clearance from the Western Australia state government.

The highly controversial $6.4-billion coal mine project between India's GVK Power & Infrastructure, and Hancock Coal owned by Gina Rinehart, the world's richest woman, in Queensland state has been given environmental approval by the federal government of Australia.

Stocks fell after a weaker-than-forecast economic-growth forecast from the International Monetary Fund stirred worries about corporate earnings ahead of Alcoa's quarterly report, due after Tuesday's closing bell. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 82 points, or 0.6%, to 13501, a drop that coincided with the five-year anniversary of the market's all-time high.

The official International Monetary Fund (IMF) global economic forecast is out and the broad outlook is that economies are still on edge and sluggishly weak.

Bell FX Currency Outlook: The Australian Dollar remains under selling pressure this morning, following downgrades to global growth forecasts, as well as concerns ahead of forthcoming quarterly earnings season in the US.

New South Wales (NSW) Premier Barry O'Farrell announced on Tuesday that the state government will sell buildings worth over $300 million. The state will use the proceeds of the sale to begin housing infrastructure in growth areas in Sydney.

Anna Burke was elected on Tuesday as House Speaker of the Australian Parliament, putting an end to career of Peter Slipper who resigned over a sexual harassment scandal.

Despite last month's government pronouncement that it would embark on a massive infrastructure plan to spur up economic stability and growth, Chinese consumers of iron ore still have to actually bite into the good news as stockpiles of the key steelmaking ingredient jumped week on week in at least 25 major Chinese ports.

Developing Australia's coal seam gas (CSG) reserves and projects will now go to the highest bidder, Natural Resources and Mines Minister Andrew Cripps said on Tuesday before the 2012 Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) Coal Seam Gas Conference in Brisbane.

And the inevitable has happened. Global mining giant BHP Billiton Ltd. will leave no stone unturned to maintain business stability and viability, as it announced job cuts will be made even at the expense of its top revenue business driver, the iron ore division.

Bail guarantors for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange have been ordered by a UK court to pay up around $150,000 for failure to ensure the surrender of the controversial whistleblower, who jumped bail June this year to seek refuge on Ecuador’s embassy in London.

Despite its growth forecast being lowered for year 2013, Australia, nonetheless, has zoomed to become the world's 12th largest economy, according to the latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) released on Tuesday by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Federal Speaker Peter Slipper should not be allowed to reclaim his post even if the legal woes currently hounding him eventually developed into his favour, Coalition lawmakers said.

Labor slid back to where it was three months ago, trailing the Coalition’s wide margin on primary votes and two-party preferred in the latest Newspoll-News Ltd survey conducted late last week.

Bell FX Currency Outlook: The Australian Dollar continues to remain under pressure trading to a new 3 month low of US 1.0150 late yesterday.

Single Australian women, who comprise 87 per cent of the country's poorest families, will lose $60 a week with plans by the federal government to move 100,000 single parents from Parenting Payments to Newstart in 2013.

Julian Assange was obviously resorting to publicity stunt when he unveiled his plans to bring up legal charges against Prime Minister Julia Gillard, whom the WikiLeaks founder has accused of defamation.

Australian copper producer Discovery Metals Ltd., which has mines in Botswana, is being eyed for acquisition by Chinese private equity firm Cathay Fortune Corp. for A$830 million ($848 million).

Confidence of Aquila Resources investors' plummeted on Monday after the mining company announced it has incurred a $1.4 billion cost blowout for its West Pilbara Iron Ore Project.

A U.S. congressional report has reportedly determined that two major Chinese companies, Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp, pose grave economic and security risks to the United States and should, therefore, be prevented from further making inroads in the country, reports said.

Monthly job placements in resource-rich Australia continued to slide down in September, slowing for the sixth consecutive month this year, the latest ANZ Banking Group Ltd's job advertisements survey released on Monday said.

Even Australia's farmers no longer need to physically conduct their business just to source their farming requirements.

Australia's state government of Queensland on Monday announced it will divest its remaining stakes in coal-freight company QR National Ltd. for $1.5 billion in a bid to pool funds that could be used to pay down the state's bloating debt.

U.S. stocks ended mostly lower Friday, as enthusiasm over a surprise drop in unemployment faded and headlines sparked renewed concerns about Europe's debt problems. Still, the Dow industrials rose to a five-year high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 34.79 points, or 0.3%, to 13610.15, capping its first weekly advance in three weeks, although the benchmark pared gains of as much as 87 points earlier in the session.

Bell FX Currency Outlook: The Australian Dollar has fallen one US cent, as markets adjust their view on the Australian economy to one of weakness, following last week's dovish outlook on the global economic outlook by the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Governor Glenn Stevens is one of the candidates who may replace Sir Mervyn King as government of the Bank of England (BoE). Mr King is scheduled to retire in 2013.

In an apparent bid to boost Coalition leader Tony Abbott's declining political stock due to his perceived problem with powerful females, the other women in his family have joined the media blitzkrieg initiated by Margie Abbott, the wife of Mr Abbott.