“Prime Minister” on The Daily Caller

As Australia awaits the results of its federal election, one fact emerges crystal clear: irrespective of who becomes prime minister, this was a historic win for conservatives, and a harbinger of things to come across the world, with a powerful lesson for all GOP candidates coming into the midterms. (more)

Now that the final brigade of American “combat troops” has left Iraq, analysts who supported the initial attack on the Middle Eastern country told The Daily Caller that it is still too early to tell whether the military campaign they argued for has been a success, but said they were “pleasantly surprised” by the outcome to date. (more)

David Cameron is still paying the price for his remarks about Britain being the “junior partner” to the U.S. in the “special relationship.” During a town hall meeting in Hove yesterday he was accused by a pensioner of “denigrating” his country. Cameron responded immediately by conceding that he misspoke when he used the date of  “1940” during his “junior partner” interview with Sky News on his trip to the States. But that didn’t assuage the pensioner. His previous corrections as to the date have also fallen on deaf ears. The critics actually care little, I suspect, whether Cameron was talking about 1940 or the 1940s and beyond. (more)

KALAM, Pakistan (AP) — U.S. Army choppers flew their first relief missions in Pakistan’s flood-ravaged northwest Thursday, airlifting hundreds of stranded people to safety from a devastated tourist town and distributing emergency aid. (more)

KADANOK, Russia (AP) — Some of the devastating wildfires sweeping western Russia are out of control, Russia’s emergency chief said Tuesday, as fears grew there were not enough firefighters to battle them. (more)

BAGHDAD (AP) — A sandstorm downed an Iraqi military helicopter Wednesday, killing its five-man crew, while midmorning Baghdad bombings claimed the lives of six people, officials said. (more)

SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine (AP) — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin leaped on a Harley Davidson and roared into an international biker convention in southern Ukraine. (more)

Washington (CNN) — British Prime Minister David Cameron said Tuesday that he “completely understands” the anger that “exists … across America” regarding the oil well operated by BP that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico three months ago. (more)

In an effort to defuse what will likely be the biggest point of contention in their Tuesday White House meeting, British Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to tell President Obama that the release of convicted Pan Am Flight 103 bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was “wrong.” (more)

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Why does Russian president Dmitry Medvedev always wear ill-fitting suits? Are there no competent tailors in Moscow? Am I the only person who’s noticed? I feel like I’m takin’ crazy pills. – Gregbot (more)

The Jerusalem building and planning committee on Monday approved plans for 32 new housing units in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgat Ze’ev. (more)

US President Barack Obama is due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington. (more)

The Thai government has extended a state of emergency in 19 provinces, including the capital Bangkok, because of fears of renewed violence. (more)

(Reuters) – Prime Minister David Cameron will announce soon he is setting up an inquiry into allegations British security services were complicit in torture of terrorism suspects overseas, the BBC reported on Tuesday. (more)

TORONTO – If there’s one takeaway snapshot from the gathering of the world’s economic powers here this weekend, it will be President Barack Obama, last year’s new kid on the block, shaking hands with British Prime Minister David Cameron, the new, new kid on the block. (more)

Listening to Prime Minister Erdogan’s amped-up rhetoric against the United States and Israel makes me genuinely scared for my country. I believe that people should be able to think for themselves, and to assess a situation based on the facts, not based on someone trying to make them afraid or blame some outside “bogeyman” for what’s going wrong with their lives or their country. It’s time to see those tactics for what they are: popular demagogy is a manipulative act that requires close scrutiny as people are looking toward the future to what they could become. (more)

SYDNEY, Australia – Faced with a revolt from within his own governing party, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd stepped down on Thursday morning. Party officials decided to replace him with his deputy, Julia Gillard, who is expected to become the first woman to serve as the nation’s prime minister. (more)

LONDON — Setting the scene for years of potential strife with the powerful public-sector unions and their allies in the Labour Party, Britain’s new coalition government on Tuesday unveiled the most severe package of spending cuts and tax increases since the early days of Margaret Thatcher’s era. (more)

VATICAN CITY — A cardinal under investigation in a sprawling corruption scandal denied wrongdoing and insisted yesterday that he acted for the good of the church while handling real estate transactions for the Vatican office that funds missionary work abroad. (more)

Since President Barack Obama took office, the U.S.-U.K. “special relationship” has been in free fall. The first manifestation of this decline, shortly after the President’s inauguration, was Obama’s sudden return of the Winston Churchill bust from the Oval Office, loaned to the U.S. by the British people as a gesture of solidarity after 9/11. A series of incidents followed. Now, the British even see the Obama administration’s treatment of BP in the wake of the Gulf oil spill in this light. Rough periods in the relationship are nothing new, but this one is different and likely will prove very difficult to undo, if it isn’t already too late. (more)