US President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama are sending their wishes and prayers to former South African leader Nelson Mandela on his 95th birthday.

Italy's Prime Minister issued an ultimatum yesterday to the powerful Northern League, saying that racist remarks had shamed the country.

Airline passengers flying into Heathrow face 16 more years of stacking and stress at the world's busiest airport

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dived to the bottom of the Baltic Sea on board a submersible to explore a shipwreck, the latest in a long line of publicity stunts.

The United States hopes to capitalise on the surge of New Zealanders heading to that country by setting up a dedicated marketing organisation in Auckland.

In the bearpit of Australian politics, it helps to have the Terminator on your side.

Australian authorities yesterday gave up the search for survivors of yet another asylum boat tragedy, with one young child dead and eight people missing.

New Zealand officials are tempering expectations ahead of make-or-break talks to establish the world's largest marine reserve in Antarctica this week.

A missile knocked a leading Northern Irish politician unconscious as sectarian tensions escalated into rioting in Belfast at the climax of the Protestant marching season.

Shakespeare, in one of Nelson Mandela's favourite lines, now strangely apposite, says that "the valiant never taste of death but once".

Egypt's military authorities ordered the arrest of the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual leader yesterday for inciting an outbreak of violence that left at least 51 of the movement's supporters dead.

The Australian Labor Party has cleared its decks for the coming election, setting aside other business and raising speculation Prime Minister Kevin Rudd could call an early vote.

Fifty years ago, the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land presented two petitions framed by ochre bark paintings to the federal Parliament.

The spectre of the 2001 Tampa crisis - in which the SAS was sent to take over a Norwegian container ship off Christmas Island - has been thrust into the Australian election campaign.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has widened his lead over Tony Abbott as the country's preferred leader, according to a new poll.

France's Government spies on its own citizens in the same way as the United States, it was claimed yesterday.

Fresh from toppling the country's first democratically elected leader, Egypt's military risked further outrage from the Muslim Brotherhood by arresting the group's Supreme Guide as he was staying in a resort by the Mediterranean coast.