Labor MPs are becoming increasingly nervous about the September 14 Australian election as polls continue to turn against Prime Minister Julia Gillard and her minority Government.

A visit by a foreign minister of Japan would not normally attract more than polite interest in this country, writes the Herald in an editorial.

A secret affair with the potential to rock the British Government was revealed yesterday, leaving Prime Minister David Cameron 'stunned'.

When the US charged into Afghanistan in 2001 in hot pursuit of Al Qaeda, analysts sought deeper explanations for the Bush Administration's foray into the nation that humbled British and Russian arms.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has visited MI5 headquarters to thank spies for their round-the-clock work.

The United States wants to continue a criminal data matching scheme for assessing risks of threats that it began with New Zealand in advance of the Rugby World Cup.

New Zealand edged a step closer to committing peacekeepers to a new area of the Middle East.

Yesterday's meeting between Murray McCully and John Kerry in Washington DC was a sign that things between the US and New Zealand have moved to a new plane.

It's usually the Terminator who says "I'll be back".

Controversy continued to swirl around the White House yesterday with developments on two fronts.

Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's change of heart to support gay marriage may indicate numbers shifting in support of legalising same-sex marriage among parliamentarians.

Preschools and childcare centres in New South Wales may be given the legal right to refuse to enrol children who have not been vaccinated.

As a former Prime Minister and a man very firm in his views, Jim Bolger has always been a bit stroppy, writes Audrey Young.

Al-Qaeda's Syrian wing is financing its activities by selling oil from the fields that once helped to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

David Cameron has been told by Conservative activists that he must repair the broken relationship between the party leadership and the grassroots.

Business and economic commentators have given Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan's sixth - and probably last - Budget a unanimous thumbs down.

Australia's aid and defence spending in the Pacific has escaped the sweeping cuts to Government programmes announced in the latest Budget.

The mob shouted "Kill the Syrians" as they marched on the Hawam family drinks stall in Reyhanli.

Hijacking an aircraft is not an offence you would normally associate with a man who stands on the verge of becoming Prime Minister of his country.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a US$127,000 ($153,000) double bed installed on a plane to carry him and his wife Sara on their five-hour flight.

Three years after Ireland's €67.5 billion financial rescue by the International Monetary Fund and the European Union, signs are the Emerald Isle is on the improve.

After a riot at Perth's Banksia Hill juvenile detention centre, more than 140 teenage inmates were moved to Hakea high security prison

Editorial: The drums are beating for more children to learn Mandarin. The Prime Minister wants more pupils to consider it. Education expert Wendy Pye goes further.

Five years after Obama said he'd shut it, over 100 prisoners, including a British resident - are still chained in Guantanamo. DAVID JONES went inside and was horrified by what he found.

Australian consumers are spending again, though not as much of their income as they did before the global crisis five years ago.