Free Republic

Despite grappling with fears for a son held hostage in the middle of a deadly war zone, Yehuda Cohen still holds onto hope. "I have three children, I'm going to have three children until the last day of my life," he said. "Nimrod will come back and complete our family." It is a sentiment which is obviously fuelled by a father's love, but it is also borne out of necessity — a sense of purpose, even as the window of opportunity for his family to be reunited with one another seems to be getting narrower by the hour. A photo...

The newly released 'Palace letters' have revealed then governor-general Sir John Kerr sacked the Whitlam government in 1975 without giving advance notice to the Queen, because "it was better for Her Majesty not to know". The 211 letters exchanged between Sir John and the palace at the time of the dismissal have this morning been released online by the National Archives of Australia, in Canberra. The letters, penned between 1974 and 1977, had been locked up and labelled as private documents, but a High Court decision in May deemed them to be the property of the Commonwealth and thus able...