Campbell Newman faces a combination of past demons and new controversies.

Sweeping gains by Hungary's neo-Nazi Jobbik party provoked concern across Europe yesterday after the anti-Semitic organisation won one in five votes in a general election.

The leaders of India's two main parties heaped fresh attacks on one another in an increasingly bitter campaign prior to the first of nine days of voting.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott can take little heart from the weekend's re-run of the West Australian Senate election, ordered by the High Court.

Approximately 188 million people are eligible to vote in Indonesia and on July 9 they will choose a new president, writes Chris Wilson.

Much hangs on whether the Japanese Government sides with its future-focused Foreign Ministry or its inwards-looking pro-whaling fisheries agency, writes John Armstrong.

President Francois Hollande, reeling from calamitous results in local elections, fired his Prime Minister yesterday to try to give a fresh start to his failing presidency.

Australia's war on bikies has crossed the Nullarbor with the establishment of another federal strike team in Western Australia.

The National Guards rolled in under the cover of darkness, firing tear gas and rubber bullets as they advanced with bulldozers and armoured vehicles.

Not too much was expected when Australia went to the International Court of Justice seeking to end Japanese whale hunting in the Southern Ocean.

The nightclub dancer at the centre of the sex scandal that contributed to the downfall of Silvio Berlusconi is living a high-spending lifestyle.

New Zealand and Australia yesterday simultaneously lifted all travel sanctions on key members of the Fiji military and its regime.

French head of state Francois Hollande is under pressure to carry out a radical Cabinet reshuffle after the ruling Socialists were clobbered in the first electoral test.

As his decline and fall continues apace, disgraced ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi has concocted another cause close to his heart with which to win back votes for his moribund Forza Italia Party.

Sitting on a podium, Mustafa Sarigul, the opposition mayoral candidate for Istanbul, talked to a female audience in the Republican People's Party's city headquarters.