THE former planning minister Frank Sartor has broken government ranks to condemn the practice where the planning department head Sam Haddad has been lobbied by the Labor identity Graham Richardson without his minister, Kristina Keneally, knowing or caring.

RON WOODHAM has never shied away from a fight and, despite his age and his failing health, he showed in his stoush with Bassam Hamzy this week he is not about to change.

TWO maintenance workers killed by an empty coal train near Singleton last year failed to keep adequate lookout, an investigator with the Office of Transport Safety Investigation, Ron Barnes, told a coronial inquest yesterday.

NEWCASTLE University academic Professor Ron McCallum was appointed to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities at a meeting in New York last week.

Bob Woodward plumbs the depths of George Bush's failed presidency, writes Bruce Wolpe. The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 By Bob Woodward Simon & Schuster, $49.95 The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism By Ron Suskind Simon &..read more