Almost 30 years since the first proposal was put to Bob Hawke's Labor Government, a 350km/h train running from Brisbane to Melbourne is back on Australia's agenda.

Founded as a saddlery more than 150 years ago and producing the first Australian car in 1948, Holden is now staring into a bleak future.

Beyonce Knowles and Jay-Z received permission from the US government to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary in Cuba because it was deemed a "cultural trip", sources say.

The political party of a Danish MP who branded her Maori powhiri experience as "grotesque" and "uncivilised" has apologised for her comments.

Some on the right will attempt to snuff out criticism of her legacy, arguing that it is disrespectful, spiteful or ghoulish, writes Owen Jones. It's absurd, of course.

Kiwi business people will have to be smart. Australia, for instance, is now facing strong competition in the hard commodities space from Africa.

Editorial: During her 11 years in power and up to the time of her death, Margaret Thatcher divided the British people as few leaders before her.

The fracas over President Barack Obama's decision to call California's top law enforcement officer "the best-looking attorney-general in the country" refuses to go away.

Republican lawmakers have asked for an investigation into Beyonce and her husband Jay-Z's visit to Cuba for their wedding anniversary.

Bill Gates may be only the second richest man in the world, with a net worth of US$67 billion ($79.7 billion), but he is assuredly the most generous.

Radicals both right and left are sensing that France's political tide is rising in their favour, driven by a President plumbing record unpopularity less than a year after taking office.

Hitherto unseen evidence given to the Chilcot Inquiry by British intelligence has revealed that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was told that Iraq had, at most, only a trivial amount of weapons of mass destruction.

Each time it makes a threatening gesture to its sister in the south, the US and China respond like different parents. But a sibling often knows a troubled child better than either parent, says John Roughan.

The North Korea security crisis will be high on tomorrow's agenda when Prime Minister John Key meets new President of China Xi Jinping on the Chinese tropical island of Hainan, at the Boao Forum for Asia.

Geo-politically, socially, environmentally, economically, financially and spiritually, the world and state of human affairs is in a state of unparalleled flux and change.

The advice from the front office at East Side High in Cleveland, Mississippi, is clear

His upbeat oratory reflected his country's innate optimism, despite the turbulence of the times.

At first blush the actions of the euro area in seeking to impose a levy on ordinary Cypriot bank depositors made no sense, writes David Mayes.

The Princess of Wales pub in Pyla looks as if it has been flatpacked and flown in from a town in the UK, complete with British pensioners who tuck into roast beef.

British ministers came under fire over benefit cuts as the independent body representing 1200 English housing associations described the controversial bedroom tax as bad policy.

It has become an ominously frequent ritual. Officials announce that Nelson Mandela, 94, is in hospital.

The deaths of two more asylum seekers off Australia's Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island has again focused attention on the complexity of the dangerous crossing.

Prisoner X, the Mossad agent who hanged himself in Israel's highest security prison two years ago, was the country's "biggest traitor" according to a new investigation.

Boris Johnson's past troubles finally returned to haunt him yesterday when he gave what senior Conservatives called a "car crash" television interview which they said had dented his hopes of becoming Conservative Party leader.

Julia Gillard has elevated two key supporters to the Cabinet, expanded the jobs of three frontbenchers and made four new ministers after a "self-indulgent" leadership dispute.