Where you live in Ireland can have a fundamental bearing on your health.

There is no more subtle form of blackmail than church-gate collections by political parties — especially in rural Ireland. Unsurprisingly, the anonymity of urban areas means people are less vulnerable to badgering at the church gate on Saturday night or Sunday morning.

Authorities in Ukraine yesterday released a photograph of the arrival by train to government-held territory of the remains of those who died onboard Malaysia Airline plane MH17.

The UN Human Rights Committee will tomorrow deliver its final verdict on Ireland’s human rights record in light of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which the State ratified in 1989.

The United Nations Security Council yesterday called for an immediate end to hostilities in Gaza as the Palestinian death toll passed 500.

In a world with a population of more than 7bn — and rising — tens of millions of animals live short and often brutal lives in industrial environments.

When, almost 100 years ago — May 7, 1915 — the blue riband liner Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine 18km off Cork, the atrocity contributed to a train of events that cost scores of millions of lives and, to this day, defines our world.

The ground-breaking order from a Florida court that tobacco giant RJ Reynolds, America’s second largest cigarette company, pay a smoker’s widow €17.45bn may prove to be a nail in the coffin for the industry, one that depends on its customers’ self-destructive addiction to nicotine.

RESPONSIBILITY for shooting down the Malaysian jet, an outrageous international crime that claimed the lives of all 298 people on board, lies squarely at the door of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

MUCH admired for calling a spade a spade, new Health Minister Leo Varadkar has certainly put the cat among the proverbial pigeons with his first official comment on the medical cards controversy.