If there were any doubts about where next month's election will be fought, they were dispelled yesterday.

Today Australia awakes to a race for the nation's conservative heartland as its political leaders try to eclipse each other.

Scandal-hit former US senator John Edwards is facing yet another round of very public humiliation.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is believed to have settled on a poll date.

There is speculation Australia's PM will ask the Governor-General to dissolve parliament before she heads to France on Saturday.

The interim Government in Fiji has expelled Australia's Acting High Commissioner today.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose poll ratings have slipped to the lowest point in three years, described the allegations as a campaign against him.

Interim president Bronislaw Komorowski appeared to have held off a last-minute surge from the identical twin brother of the late president, who died in an April plane crash that shocked the country and forced Sunday's early election.

Opposition MPs staged a walkout at a parliamentary committee today in a protest against the conduct of the chairwoman, National MP Sandra Goudie.