"Let's be blunt and acknowledge the biggest threat to the world's biggest economy are the cranks and crazies that have taken over a part of the Republican Party," Wayne Swan said.

An official of Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei Technologies said Friday he is concerned that new Australian laws to protect communication networks from cyber-attacks could exclude companies from tendering for work simply because they're Chinese.

Asylum-seekers in rickety boats are reaching its shores in record numbers ahead of a tougher deportation policy starting in September. For many migrants, the price of haste may be death.

Britain's sports minister will be forced to put on an Australia hockey shirt and knock a ball around central London if the host nation fails to win more gold medals than their former colony at the Olympics, his Australian counterpart said on Thursday.