As the US continues its long manhunt for Osama bin Laden, victims of the September 11 2001 terror attacks are involved in their own bin Laden pursuit - for his family’s vast fortune.

WHEN questioned on the RTÉ Joe Duffy programme last Tuesday (April 1), a spokesperson for Murray Air left us with the worrying doubt that one of its aircraft which experienced difficulties over the towns of Asketon and Shannon might have been carrying explosives.

PETROL and diesel-dependent industries can expect few breaks in the upcoming budget, with the Department of Energy pointing to the development of the biofuels industry as the solution to the surge in oil prices.

The most senior leader in Iraq’s Kurdish region appeared to raise the stakes in the stand-off over northern Iraq, warning Turkey that the region would defend itself against any cross-border military strike on rebel bases.

Bookies are taking bets on who will be Christmas number one – but banning the X-Factor winner from contention.

US government prosecutors today argued that a terrorist conspirator who studied in London must be executed for causing the deaths of nearly 3,000 people by failing to tell what he knew of the September 11 attacks.

IT is regrettable that recent comments in your letters columns on the oil-for-food programme owe more to a predictable anti-UN agenda than a balanced and factual account of the successes and failures of this programme.

US intelligence agencies did not anticipate they would know in advance about any successful coup against Saddam Hussein, according to documents analysing the situation in Iraq over the past 25 years.

Nigeria has selected a British company to audit its oil sector in the government’s most serious bid yet to bring transparency to a multi-billion-dollar industry plagued by corruption.

Mark Sage, New York

The hunt for Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction has formally come to an end in Iraq, it emerged today.

An up-dated remake of the classic Cold War drama, this time to the aftermath of the first Gulf War; and equally excellent.

US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice will be nominated to succeed outgoing secretary of state Colin Powell, it emerged today.

COLIN Powell announced his decision to step down as US Secretary of State yesterday, marking the end of a period in office dogged by in-fighting.

The weeping Iraqi woman who begged Labour conference delegates not to vote to withdraw British troops from the country has “strong connections” with the CIA, Britain’s most senior back bench MP claimed today.

CONSUMERS face significantly higher ESB bills because of the surge in electricity production costs.

Former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said today that a shell containing sarin nerve gas used in an attack in Iraq was probably a stray weapon that could have been dated from the first Gulf War.

ON this Saturday last year, 100,000 people took to the streets of Dublin to protest against an impending war. It was the biggest mass demonstration for 20 years or more, as were the ones in London and other European cities. None made a whit of difference.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell was undergoing surgery for prostate cancer in Washington today.

The White House is trying to block a compensation payout to American soldiers who were tortured in Iraqi prisons during the first Gulf War, it emerged today.

Accurate, detailed information on the priceless antiquities looted from Iraqi museums is crucial for the international effort to track them down, experts and officials said at a meeting on stolen artefacts today.

THE US-led war that ousted Saddam Hussein may have killed about 2,000 Iraqi civilians. In Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the ensuing Gulf War, as many as 100,000 noncombatants perished.

LABOUR MP George Galloway is no stranger to controversy. He once flew the Palestinian flag from Dundee's council offices, when he was a local representative there.

British forces today made their deepest incursion yet into Basra in an operation described as “poking a toe” into the city.

IF BRITAIN did not support the United States in the circumstances, then the Americans would become more unilateralist and, thus, more uncontrollable than ever... that was one of the arguments put forward

In a country wracked by war and constant bloodshed the key city of Basra has been at the centre of all turmoil.

IN a country wracked by war and constant bloodshed the key city of Basra has been at the centre of all turmoil.