news

In chaotic Senate scenes, Labor has set a 125-year record by keeping question time running for more than three hours, after the government lost control of the chamber and threatened to strip Coalition members from parliamentary committees in a fight over transparency. Senator David Pocock led a push to dramatically extend question time and force

Kate Ellis, the former federal member for Adelaide, has been elected national president of the Australian Labor Party and will take over from Wayne Swan at the party’s national conference…

A News Corp journalist had “not one piece of information” to suggest the deputy Victorian Liberal leader, Sam Groth, began a relationship with his wife when she was underage, the MP’s lawyers have told a court. In what a federal court judge described as a “test case” for Australia’s new privacy laws, Groth and his

Morning opening: Goedemorgen Jakub Krupa The vote count is almost done in the Dutch parliamentary election, with the far-right PVV party of anti-immigration firebrand Geert Wilders narrowly ahead of the centrist D66 with 99.6% votes counted. People count votes at the NDSM Warehouse the day after the Dutch House of Representatives elections in Amsterdam, the

What happens when you put far-right populists in charge? Entrusted with ministerial responsibilities, can they deliver the radical solutions that they often preach? Or do they, sooner or later, when faced with complex policy dilemmas, end up self-destructing, leaving an even bigger mess in their wake? That is the question Dutch voters had to weigh

Richard Branson’s train company is a step closer to challenging Eurostar’s monopoly on transporting passengers across the Channel after the UK rail regulator approved Virgin Trains’ application to use a key depot in east London. The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) approved Virgin’s application to use the Temple Mills depot in Leyton – which

Five new suspects have been arrested in connection with the Louvre robbery in Paris, in which thieves stole crown jewels worth an estimated €88m (£76m), the city’s public prosecutor has said, but the gems remain missing. Laure Beccuau told RTL radio on Thursday the arrests had been made on Wednesday night in the French capital

The centrist D66 party made huge gains in Dutch elections, likely giving it the lead in government formation as the party of far-right leader Geert Wilders lost support. With 90% of the votes counted early on Thursday, D66 and Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) were both projected to take 26 seats in the 150-seat lower house

Israel carried out another strike in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, killing at least two people, after bombarding the territory overnight and killing at least 104 Palestinians, including children, in the gravest challenge yet to the increasingly fragile US-brokered ceasefire. The Israeli military said it had struck military infrastructure where weapons were being stored for

Greek authorities have stepped up security in two harbours in an attempt to keep protesters away from a cruise liner carrying Israeli tourists on an 11-day tour around the Mediterranean. The measures taken at Patras and Katakolo in the Peloponnese followed demonstrations when the MS Crown Iris docked at Kalamata earlier this week. In July