Julia Gillard enjoyed a brief political honeymoon when she became Australia's first female prime minister two months ago. The thinking behind calling a snap election was that it would last until polling day. But that hasn't happened, and Australia has ended up with a photo-finish election. The leader of the conservative Liberal Party, Tony Abbott, claims he will bring back a grown-up government and end what he calls the "national soap opera". He is referring to the bloodletting in the ruling Labor Party that's given the campaign its main and sometimes bizarre narrative.
Afghan police say up to 30 people were killed in Helmand province when Taliban insurgents attacked a road construction gang. There are few details, but a spokesman for the construction company said a fierce battle had lasted several hours after the site was attacked with rockets and machine-gun fire.
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The White House has called for the man convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing to be returned to prison in Scotland. Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, a Libyan, was freed on compassionate grounds and returned to Libya a year ago today. From Washington, here is Steve Kingstone.
John Brennan described the decision to free the Lockerbie bomber as "unfortunate, inappropriate and wrong". He said the Obama White House had emphatically disagreed with the Scottish government which released the terminally ill prisoner on compassionate grounds. Mr Brennan said Abdelbaset al-Megrahi had been rightly convicted of what he called a "reprehensible act of terrorism", and he said Megrahi should now be returned to Scotland to complete his 27-year prison sentence. That US position is not new, but it carries additional force coming from President Obama's counter-terrorism adviser on the anniversary of Megrahi's release.