President Donald Trump has announced that the US is designating Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a "foreign terrorist organisation", in an effort to increase pressure on the country.

Donald Trump has pledged "strong action today" on immigration, a day after he said he wants to use the military to secure the US-Mexico border until his "big, beautiful wall" is erected.

An Icelandic Coast Guard ship was today towing a cargo vessel to Italy with about 450 migrants who were abandoned by smugglers, leaving the vessel navigating without a crew, authorities said.

US President Barack Obama has authorised the Pentagon to call up reserve and National Guard troops if they are needed to assist in the US response to the ebola outbreak in Africa.

One of the country’s busiest coast guard units will begin the move from a 150-year-old shed to a state-of-the-art €1.9m station today.

Iran’s top leader has said that some aspects of Hassan Rouhani’s trip to New York last month were “not appropriate,” but reiterated his crucial support for the president’s policy of outreach to the West.

A stranded dolphin has been rescued after being washed up a deserted channel on a remote beach.

A stranded dolphin has been rescued after being washed up a deserted channel on a remote beach.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard says it has captured a foreign unmanned aircraft during a military exercise in southern Iran.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard has captured a US drone after it entered Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf, state TV reported today.

Syria’s elite Republican Guard has clashed with rebels outside Damascus in some of the most intense fighting involving the special forces since the uprising against president Bashar Assad began.

Injured US war veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns are presenting the US with an enormous disabilities bill, often claiming for up to 14 different injuries. Marilynn Marchione reports on a growing crisis

Two investigations have been launched following the death of a father-of-three who just a few weeks ago took part in the major search following the sinking of the trawler Tit Bonhomme.

The first victim from the Costa Concordia disaster was identified today - a 38-year-old violinist from Hungary who had been working as an entertainer on the stricken cruise ship.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards will hold new naval exercises in the strategic Strait of Hormuz in February, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander killed in an explosion at an ammunition depot last week was testing an intercontinental missile when the blast happened, his brother was quoted by a government newspaper as saying today.

A MAN with a rifle opened fire at a restaurant in Nevada’s capital, killing two National Guard members, another person and himself in a hail of gunfire during the morning breakfast hour, authorities and witnesses said.

Three people are dead after a gunman opened fire at a Nevada restaurant.

THE parents of a schoolgirl waiting for a liver transplant are seeking an explanation after their daughter’s life- changing operation was cancelled when emergency services took too long to get her to hospital.

Fire ripped through a prison where thousands of Venezuelan troops struggled to put down a revolt by inmates as dozens of horrified relatives tried to watch the fighting.

A Yemeni rights activist says a brigade of the powerful Republican Guard run by the son of embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh has defected to the opposition in a southern province.

At least 85 people have died as storms devastated parts of the southern US.

A MASSIVE winter storm dumped snow, ice and sleet across a huge swathe of the US yesterday, grounding thousands of flights, and bringing a wintry blast to 100 million people, or a third of the country.

Eighteen members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard were killed in an explosion at an ammunition depot at a military base in western Iran.

Iran today began large-scale air defence war games aimed at protecting its nuclear facilities from attack.

Two pilots told investigators they were going over schedules using their laptop computers against company policy while their passenger jet overflew their Minneapolis destination by 150 miles.

Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard today accused Britain of being linked with Sunni militants whose suicide bombing killed five senior commanders and 37 others.

A suicide bomber killed five senior commanders of the elite Revolutionary Guard and at least 26 others in an area of south-eastern Iran that has been at the centre of a simmering Sunni insurgency, state media reported.

At least 20 people, including five senior commanders of the elite Revolutionary Guard, have been killed in a suicide bombing in south-eastern Iran, according to reports on Iranian state television.

FOUR men arrested after planting what they thought were explosives near two synagogues and plotting to shoot down a military plane were bent on carrying out a holy war against America, police said yesterday.

A COUPLE were arrested after being caught having sex on the Queen’s lawn at Windsor Castle.

As Hurricane Ike charged into the Gulf of Mexico and toward the Texas coast, officials prepared today to evacuate the first of a million residents who could be in the way of the storm’s path.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has appointed a new head of the elite Revolutionary Guard, it was announced tonight.

The US House of Representatives passed a $94.5bn (€75bn) Bill today to pay for continuing US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, hurricane relief, bird flu preparations and border security at home.

President George Bush is to send as many as 6,000 National Guard troops to the US border with Mexico to help stop the flood of illegal immigrants.

The US government wants an Iraqi court to handle criminal charges against a naturalised American citizen who is being held in Iraq on suspicion that he is linked to insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

US President George Bush today threw more resources at the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast as criticism mounted that a slow response by the government had contributed to the misery of thousands of people in the region.

The inadequate response to Katrina is due to a failure to heed the danger signs, writes Ron Fournier.

Confronting one of the nation’s worst natural disasters, US President George Bush said rebuilding from the massive devastation of Hurricane Katrina would take years and that “the days seem awfully dark” for millions of people suffering across the devastated Gulf Coast.

A car bomb exploded in a busy Mosul market today and a mortar barrage struck near the Italian Embassy and an Iraqi National Guard base in Baghdad, killing three civilians and wounding at least seven.

Four Iraqi National Guardsmen were killed and up to 80 injured after a mortar attack on their base north of Baghdad today

The ongoing row over President George W Bush’s military record has taken yet another twist with the release of documents relating to his service in the Texas Air National Guard.

President George W Bush, his Vietnam-era military service the subject of dispute, today said he was proud of his stint in the Air National Guard and told members strained by today’s wars that he was trying to make their lives easier.

Survivors of a shooting of Malaysian villagers by British colonial troops in 1948 are renewing a campaign to pressure the British government to acknowledge the killings were unjustified.

Insurgents fired mortar rounds at an Iraqi National Guard headquarters in the city of Samarra today, killing four US soldiers and one Iraqi guardsman, the military said.

The White House released a copy of a dental examination that President George Bush had in the National Guard in Alabama during the Vietnam War to rebut suggestions made by Democrats who have questioned whether the president ever showed up for duty there.

The US may have to call up large number of additional National Guard and Reserve troops for duty in Iraq, a senior general said today.

Nearly a million people were without electricity on America’s east coast tonight as hurricane Isabel slammed ashore.

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin, formerly head of the KGB, arrived in Britain yesterday to a welcome fit for a tsar. At the start of the first state visit by a Russian leader since 1874, when Tsar Alexander II came to Britain, President Putin basked in the British sunshine.

Advancing on Baghdad from both the south-west and the south-east, US troops battled Republican Guard units today and some reports put them within 20 miles of the Iraqi capital.