Australia is set to outlay billions of dollars on new long-range drones, maritime patrol aircraft and stealth fighters despite plans to slash federal spending.

The CIA illegally searched Senate computers as part of a shadowy campaign to conceal details of its "brutal and un-American" torture programme, a senior senator claimed yesterday.

A coalition of Caribbean countries has unveiled its demands for reparations from Britain and other European nations for the enduring legacy of the slave trade.

Socialist Michelle Bachelet has promised to tackle inequality as she returned to power in Chile after four years.

France's cash-strapped Socialist Govt approved Dominique de Villepin's return to the diplomatic service for one day after an absence of 20 years so that he could retire with a €100k payoff.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott's Coalition Government continues to trail Labor in the polls as job losses mount.

Vitaly Klitschko, the former boxer turned Ukranian presidential hopeful, has been forced to cancel a rally in the eastern city of Donetsk.

Australia's newly elected Abbott Government applied secret diplomatic pressure to undermine a NZ-led push towards nuclear disarmament, newly released documents show.

Mitt Romney's election campaign description of Russia as America's "Number One" geopolitical foe suddenly doesn't seem so silly after all, writes Jack Tame.

A former fighter pilot whose bold march against the Russian soldiers occupying his airbase was one of the most stunning acts of resistance in this phoney war.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has launched another salvo at environmentalists, declaring that Australia has enough national parks and more forests should be open to loggers.

There is a huge amount riding on just how the West deals with Putin's incursion, with the Ukraine merely a pawn in the Russian president's geopolitical chess game, writes Fran O'Sullivan.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott is heading for a bitter political fight that he is almost certain to lose as he hardens his "end of the age of entitlement" mantra.

Prime Minister John Key says New Zealand athletes should complete in the Sochi Winter Paralympics despite Russia's intervention in Ukraine.

Ukraine is Europe's second-largest country, made up of wide, fertile agricultural plains and large pockets of heavy industry in the east.

Editorial: All that can be done within reasonable bounds must be done to condemn Russia's seizure of the Crimean peninsula.

New controversy has erupted around the decision to allow 3 million tonnes of dredge spoil to be dumped near the fragile Great Barrier Reef.

The trouble in Ukraine has left NZ in a critical position as it vies for selection to the United Nations Security Council, an expert in international relations says.

Oz PM Tony Abbott never said a truer word than his message to a joint party room meeting this week: Australians are becoming increasingly anxious as the May budget approaches, writes Greg Ansley.

If you're looking for a textbook example of how not to launch a political career, it's hard to go past Act's Jamie Whyte, writes Paul Thomas.

Those who know exactly what happened in Singapore will not tell us. But I have made by own informed assessment, writes Jane Kelsey.

The referendum may still be 200 days away, but it is very much in the foreground of British news, writes Toby Manhire.

The disastrous results and huge job-shedding announced by Qantas yesterday is battering at the door of Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

A Jerusalem Post photographer has snapped a completely unplanned and highly awkward photo of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and German leader Angela Merkel.

Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison announced last week that an asylum-seeker had died and scores of others had been injured.