As millions of Aussies head to the polls to choose between the Labor Party that presided over six years of economic good times and progress versus Murdoch’s guy, we’ll take a look at what’s going on the rest of the world.

US President Barack Obama failed to win wide backing of G20 leaders for an attack on Syria.  He did persuade nine other G20 nations plus Spain to join the United States in signing a statement calling for a strong international response to the 21 August chemical weapon attack on Syrian civilians, although it fell short of supporting military strikes.  Obama plans to address the American people on Tuesday night to explain his plan.

One of the leaders declining to sign on to Obama’s Syria proposal was German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who wants to wait until the European Union weighs in.  To that end, US Secretary of State jetted to the Lithuanian Capital Vilnius to hold talks with foreign ministers of the European Union.  He is expected to hold more talks with Arab and European diplomats in Paris.

Iran’s new foreign minister has confirmed that he did indeed tweet “Happy Rosh Hashanah”, the Jewish New Year.  Mohammad Javad Zarif said it was directed at Iran's small Jewish community.  The gesture came amid continuing tensions between Iran and Israel over Iran's nuclear program, and Iran’s support of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.

Nigeria’s military tracked and killed some 50 Boko Haram militants in a series of raids on Islamist insurgent camps in the country’s northeast.  The troops sprung into action after the Boko Haram attacked an open-air market, killing 15 people.  Last month, Nigeria said troops killed Boko Haram’s leader, although the attacks have continued since then.

A new low in wildlife poaching in Africa:  Police in Zimbabwe charged six men with using Cyanide to poison a watering hole used by elephants.  41 elephants died, making it the worst incident ever in Zimbabwe.  The men were arrested with ivory with more than A$150,000.  The cruelty is bad enough, but the men used so much poison it killed not only the elephants, but the scavengers that fed on those carcasses, and the next level of scavengers that fed on them.

At least 27 people were killed when a speeding big rig truck plowed through traffic near Durban, South Africa, destroying everything in its path.  The luckiest bloke in the world took this dashboard video as the truck blew through a red light and took out everything in front of him.  Some 80 more people were hurt.  The driver was arrested and faces charges in the deaths.

Google says it is racing to encrypt the data going in and out of its data centers around the world in a bid to thwart snooping by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the intelligence agencies of foreign governments.  The project was approved last year, but put into overdrive in June with the revelations of US and UK government spying from fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.