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JOHN Howard has been presented with America's highest civilian award by George W. Bush. The former prime minister grinned as the US President placed the Presidential Medal of Freedom around his neck this morning. He was honoured at the White House along with former British prime minister Tony Blair and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

BARACK Obama and his family have been forced to move into a hotel because John Howard is staying at their place. The former prime minister and his wife Janette are booked to stay at Washington’s Blair House on January 12 as he will receive the US Medal of Freedom from outgoing President George W. Bush the following day. Blair House, a 119-room mansion, is the official state guest house of the US president and traditionally where incoming US presidents stay before their inauguration. The Obamas will take up residence there on January 15 but had asked to move in on...

THREE of the biggest decisions of the Howard years - the GST, the intervention in East Timor and the Pacific solution - were decided with virtually no consultation with cabinet, it can be revealed for the first time. A new television documentary, which is based on more than 20 hours of interviews with John Howard and 180 hours of interviews with key players in Australia and overseas, confirms how dominant the former prime minister was in running the affairs of the nation for almost 12 years. ..... That same lack of consultation is clear regarding Mr Howard's historic letter of...

His Excellency the Governor-General of Australia, Major General Michael Jeffery was farewelled today, in a parade by the Australian Defence Force (ADF). Arriving at Sir Thomas Blamey Square in Canberra, the Governor-General was met by Chief of Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, Secretary, Mr Nick Warner, Vice-Chief of Defence Force, Lieutenant General David Hurley, Service Chiefs, the Federal Guard and the Royal Military College Band. Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston paid tribute to the outgoing Commander-in-Chief and his wife, Her Excellency Mrs Marlena Jeffery. Air Chief Marshal Houston thanked him for his courage, determination, intelligence, leadership and compassion...

IT may seem like the perfect opportunity to score a political point - the Labor Government recommending John Howard, the architect of the GST, for Australia's highest honour for his services to politics and the economy - but the former prime minister is playing a straight bat. Fresh from watching the Australian cricket team play in the West Indies, and travelling to England, Mr Howard wasn't interested in playing games. Nor did his right-hand man Arthur Sinodinos -- the soul and direction of Mr Howard's office for 10 years, who has also been honoured in the Rudd Government's first Queen's...

NASIRIYAH, Iraq (AFP) — The 550-strong Australian contingent in Iraq withdrew from its bases in the south of the country on Sunday as most of the troops prepared to head home, Iraqi and Australian officials said. The soldiers left following a flag-lowering ceremony at the Imam Ali airbase west of the city of Nasiriyah, the capital of Dhi Qar province, governor Aziz Kadoum Alwan said. "The Australian soldiers left today from Dhi Qar and Muthanna provinces," Alwan said. In Sydney the Australian Defence Force said in a statement that the "Overwatch Battle Group and the Australian army training team formally...

- Australia, a staunch U.S. ally and one of the first countries to commit troops to the Iraq war five years ago, ended combat operations there Sunday, a Defense Department official said. ADVERTISEMENT Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was swept into office in November largely on the promise that he would bring home the country's 550 combat troops by the middle of 2008. Rudd has said the Iraq deployment has made Australia more of a target for terrorism.

JOHN Howard is earning tens of thousands of dollars each time he trumpets his former government's achievements to American audiences. The former PM yesterday continued his farewell speaking tour of the US with a speech at Harvard University. Celebrity publicist Max Markson said American organisations were being charged $50,000, plus travel and accommodation costs, to hear Mr Howard speak. He is represented by the Washington Speakers Bureau, which also has comedian John Cleese and former British PM Tony Blair on its books. Mr Markson said the speaking fees earned by Mr Howard in the US were reasonable, given his international...

JOHN Howard says he has left Australia with a stronger, less ambiguous sense of national pride than before the Coalition won government in 1996. "I think we were having a pointless debate about our identity in the early 1990s," the former prime minister said after a speech to Harvard University students yesterday. "I think we've shed that. We have now got a very positive view of Australian history and Australian achievement. I think our sense of national pride is stronger now than it was in the 1990s and less ambiguous. And that's tremendously important." Mr Howard, who in Washington last...

JOHN Howard has broken his post-election silence from the other side of the world, defending his ousted government and attacking his successor before an audience of leading US conservatives. The former prime minister was in Washington DC to receive a top conservative honour, and used the platform to say he was "disappointed" Australia was withdrawing combat troops from Iraq. He said now was not the time to abandon the Iraqi people, who needed space to capitalise on the advances made by the US troops' surge strategy in Baghdad. "It would be a tragedy if those gains were surrendered now by...

FORMER prime minister John Howard could be in line to join one of Britain's most prestigious orders. Speculation is mounting that Mr Howard has been personally selected by Queen Elizabeth to receive the Order of the Garter, the most senior and oldest British Order of Chivalry. A spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace refused to confirm or deny the speculation. "We have made no announcements on that whatsoever and we wouldn't speculate on who is in line to receive one," she told AAP. "It's a great honour and a rare one." Mr Howard will have to wait until April 23 to discover...

MOST of the former members of the Howard government are trying to distance themselves from their former leader. Yet in the US the former prime minister is being welcomed into the conservatives' mosh pit like an ageing rock star. He is going to the US late next month for several weeks in a long farewell. He has agreed to address at least four prestigious audiences, with more appearances yet to be arranged. He is scheduled to speak to a private gathering of Republicans in Las Vegas. In Boston he will be hosted by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of...

FORMER prime minister John Howard has signed with the prestigious Washington Speakers Bureau, which represents world power brokers including former British leader Tony Blair. .... "John Howard's leadership, determination and vision are hallmarks of a career navigated during an era of unprecedented prosperity and change,'' the website said. "As prime minister of Australia for four terms, John Howard provided a global approach to leadership. "He delivered economic vision and strategies for international security that raised Australia's profile on the world stage while gaining the respect and gratitude of the world." The agency says Mr Howard will discuss the role of...

Sean Hannity, the conservative Republican commentator who takes on such controversial issues as Hillary Clinton's legal work in a communist law firm, could be on his way out of the Fox News Channel as a result of Rupert Murdoch's decision to turn the company over to his liberal son James. James Murdoch, 34, who buys into global warming hysteria, has in recent days been labeled the "News Corporation Heir" and "Son King" because of changes in the company that have dramatically increased his power. The Fox News Channel is one part of Murdoch's News Corporation. While James Murdoch is based...

Kevin Rudd owes John Howard a lot; he may also prove to be a success AS ANY sports fan knows, Australia loves a winner. So to the outsider it is a shock that its voters on November 24th so decisively turfed out the government led for more than 11 years by John Howard (see article). Much the most successful prime minister of modern times, he had led Australia into what will be its 17th consecutive year of economic growth—probably of more than 4% this year. Moreover, the Labor opposition to him seemed, not that long ago, a shambles—divided, old-fashioned and...

ACCORDING to my Oz-watching pals in Britain and the US, John Howard is not a failure but a victim of his own success. He made Australia safe for the Labor Party: or, at any rate, safe enough that a sufficient number of bored electors were willing to take a flier on a house-trained Labor on the short leash of a quasi-Blairite leader. ...I regret Howard's end. True, I object in principle to Australia's gun laws, and I regard much of the Aussie economy as embarrassingly overregulated after a decade of supposedly conservative rule. But, as the former prime minister put...

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Conservative Prime Minister John Howard suffered a humiliating defeat Saturday at the hands of the left-leaning opposition, whose leader has promised to immediately sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and withdraw Australia's combat troops from Iraq. Labor Party head Kevin Rudd's pledges on global warming and Iraq move Australia sharply away from policies that had made Howard one of President Bush's staunchest allies. Rudd has named global warming as his top priority, and his signing of the Kyoto Protocol will leave the U.S. as the only industrialized country not to have joined it. Rudd said...

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has conceded defeat in the national election as the Labour Party assumes control of Parliament. Perhaps America's staunchest defender of the global war on terror among world leaders, Howard now gives way to Kevin Rudd, and may find himself out of government altogether. Howard may be the first PM to lose his own seat in almost 80 years: Australian prime minister John Howard's 11 year reign has ended with a landslide election victory for the opposition Labour Party. Kevin Rudd, the former diplomat, was set to become Australia's 26th prime minister, less than a year...

PRIME Minister John Howard has called Labor leader Kevin Rudd to concede defeat in the federal election.

Kevin Rudd is on track to be prime minister of Australia. Labor powerbrokers, including deputy Julia Gillard, Tony Burke, Stephen Smith and Robert Ray said that they believe they have secured victory. 'I'm a cautious type, but on these numbers so far I think we have enough to form government,' Labor deputy Julia Gillard said at about 8.10pm EST. Ms Gillard made her declaration following strong swings in Queensland to Labor, further strengthening its grip as the polls shut in Western Australia. Early counting in the battleground state shows the Labor Party is set to pick up around six seats....