On the western fringe of Ankara, gouged into some 50ha of forest bequeathed to the Turkish republic by the nation's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, an extravagant presidential compound rises up.

Greece faces a week of urgent diplomacy to free up bailout aid and avert a potential default as world leaders press for a final resolution to the standoff.

US President Barack Obama was attending the G7 summit in southern Germany today with a focus on violence in eastern Ukraine.

The Obama administration is facing renewed pressure to release a top secret report that allegedly shows that Saudi Arabia directly helped to finance the September 11 attacks.

Where the line between privacy and the government's responsibility to defend its citizens in the post-9/11 climate of international terrorism is drawn has been contested by privacy groups, politicians and intelligence agencies.

Japan's Infrastructure Ministry has announced that the country's elevators may soon have a surprising new feature: Toilets.

Little more than six months are left before France is supposed to steer the world to the most demanding and complex deal on climate change ever attempted.

Like other Western nations, Australia has been grappling with the challenge of how to deal with radicalised Muslims who travel to Iraq or Syria to fight with Isis, writes Kathy Marks.

It's that time of year again, when politicians' thoughts turn to knifing their leader. Almost exactly five years ago, Julia Gillard ousted Kevin Rudd.

A policy document by the state council, or Cabinet, said China faced a "grave and complex array of security threats", justifying the change.

The American Defence Secretary, Ashton Carter, could not have been blunter in his assessment of the Iraqi Army.

NZ's contingent of military training specialists have barely arrived and the folly of this military (mis)adventure is already becoming apparent, writes Armstrong.

More than one million foreigners living in Britain will be banned from voting in the EU referendum.

Prime Minister John Key says New Zealand could not follow suit if Australia moves to strip a New Zealand-Australian woman of citizenship to prevent her returning from Syria.

Greece will be unable to find the 1.6 billion ($2.4 billion) sum it is due to hand the International Monetary Fund (IMF) next month, one of the country's ministers has admitted.

US Defence Secretary Carter warned that Iraqi troops would not be able to defeat Isis until they developed a "will to fight", reflecting surprise after the collapse in Ramadi.

In one of her last gigs on the paid lecture circuit, Hillary Clinton addressed an eBay summit aimed at promoting women in the workplace, delivering a 20-minute talk that gave her a US$315,000 payday from the company.

Yesterday, as the Senate began public hearings into conditions in the Australian-funded detention centre, those words seemed not too far from the truth.

A Budget full of giveaways for families and small businesses has achieved what seemed impossible barely three months ago.

With just days to go before Ireland's historic referendum on the legalisation of gay marriage, a bitter row has broken out between supporters and opponents over the funding of their respective campaigns.

Shia militia groups have converged on the Iraqi city of Ramadi to help wrest it back from Isis (Islamic State) fighters, who seized it in a three-day blitz.

Macedonians staged a rally, flooding Skopje’s sprawling boulevards and alleyways and demanding the immediate resignation of a government embroiled in a wiretap scandal.

Egyptian Islamists have warned that the world should brace itself for a backlash after the country's first freely elected President Mohamed Morsi was given a death sentence.

Last Thursday we saw a tale of two biotech companies. If you need evidence investing in medical research stocks is a lottery, this is the story for you, writes Christopher Niesche.

Australia and New Zealands' Budgets speak volumes of the strength of their respective economies and their citizens' state of mind.

Yesterday, at a campaign-style stop in Tempe, Arizona Jeb Bush declared that he would not have authorised the 2003 invasion of Iraq had he known about the intelligence failures at the time.

A poll in March found Bill Clinton is America's most popular politician, outranking subsequent Presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama, - and his wife, Hillary, who is running for the presidency in the 2016 race.

The election fate of Britain’s Lib Dems is similar to failed coalition partnerships in New Zealand, writes John Roughan.

Earlier this week, Tony Abbott and his senior ministers accused new mothers who benefit from a government as well as a private parental leave scheme of committing a "rort" and "basically fraud".