Crime writer Ruth Rendell is in a critical but stable condition after suffering a stroke, her publisher said today.

Europe correspondent, Ann Cahill, delivers her weekly briefing on Euro affairs from the European Parliament.

Europe correspondent, Ann Cahill, delivers her weekly briefing on Euro affairs from the European Parliament.

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams has angrily accused the UK's the former Conservative chairman Norman Tebbit of publicly encouraging the assassination of Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.

Kenny will jump if Merkel asks

A British House of Lords peer Ken Maginnis has dropped his appeal against his conviction for assaulting a man in a road-rage incident.

UK competition bosses today ordered accountants to bid for work at Britain's biggest companies every five years under plans to shake up the market.

Michael Collins’s vision of Ireland as a centre of economic excellence has been compared by many commentators both to our Celtic Tiger excess and our current woes, writes John Daly

Former media mogul Conrad Black was released from a federal prison in Miami today after serving about three years for defrauding investors.

Ian Paisley has bowed out of Stormont with a rousing speech which proved his famed powers of oratory have barely dimmed.

Former media tycoon Conrad Black will have to wait until next month to find out if he can return to Canada.

FORMER media tycoon Conrad Black was released from a US jail today after a judge granted him $2 million bail.

Under-18s in the UK are to be banned from tanning salons in England and Wales because of concern over skin cancer.

AN Irish official in Brussels, David O’Sullivan, is being touted for the post of secretary general of the EU’s new foreign service.

Cigarette vending machines could soon be a thing of the past in the UK after MPs agreed to ban them.

A REPORT recommends a constitutional referendum to establish a full-time court of appeal to deal with all civil and criminal cases.

British law on assisted suicide should be made “appropriate for the 21st century”, right-to-die campaigner Debbie Purdy said today as prosecutors began work on new guidelines following her landmark legal win.

The North's first-ever Police Ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan, has been appointed to the British House of Lords.

The jailing of a solicitor caught plotting murder when police bugged his conversations with suspected terrorist clients will provide a salutary reminder to the whole profession about the standards required of them, a court heard today.

CONTROVERSIAL author Jeffrey Archer delivered the keynote address at the Thomas Crosbie Holdings annual business dinner in the company’s South Mall headquarters last night.

The Ulster Unionist Party is set to break with history today by taking part in a meeting of the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body in Newcastle, England.

As the British House of Lords voted against the 42 days detention limit, dozens of Amnesty International supporters donned pyjamas for a “mass sleepwalk” in protest against the measure.

IN his response to my letter (June 9) on the acceptance of British titles by Irish citizens, Cian Martin (‘Flawed case against accepting honours’ (June 30) accuses me of xenophobia — a charge I reject emphatically.

Former media mogul Conrad Black is expected to be sentenced in the US on Monday after he was convicted of swindling shareholders out of millions of dollars.

A senior Ulster Unionist has claimed that senior republicans were involved in the murder of Paul Quinn in Co Monaghan last month.

POLICE and security services across the European Union will share access to a wide range of individuals’ personal data thanks to radical new measures.

Gardaí in Co Louth are investigating the discovery of an unexploded bomb at a construction site near the border yesterday afternoon.

A British House of Lords move to bar parties in the North from raising funds south of the border flies in the face of the Good Friday Agreement, it was claimed today.

A new service is aiming to help UK environmental companies get access to global investors.

Billionaire Ken Thomson, Canada’s richest person whose worldwide business empire once included the Canadian newspaper chain founded by his father, has died at age 82, the Globe and Mail reported today.

AN expert in family law has called for Supreme Court guidance on whether financial settlements reached by separating couples can be re-examined by either the husband or wife when they are filing for divorce.

The SDLP has criticised an Ulster Unionist peer for suggesting in the British House of Lords that the Knights of Columbanus are running Waterways Ireland.

The Northern Ireland Bill, restoring devolution and setting a deadline for creation of a new power-sharing executive, was given an unopposed second reading in the British House of Lords tonight.

The Democratic Unionist Party was today accused of being more fixated on securing peerages than tackling real issues affecting their Assembly constituents.

There are certain well-meaning people who decry all talk of ‘a clash of civilisations’ where relations between Islam and the west are concerned.

A LANDMARK ruling in the British House of Lords could have a damagingaffect on both the cashflow of small businesses in Ireland and their ability to secure bank loans.

A loyalist gunman who killed two people in Co Down seven years ago has failed in an attempt to secure early release under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

THE spectre of babies being created for “spare parts” was brought closer yesterday, as the British House of Lords declared “designer babies” can be used to treat siblings with genetic disorders.

The British government has revealed that it is considering using controversial anti-terrorism "control orders" in the North.

THE Government is still leaving the door open for new talks with Sinn Féin, yet Taoiseach Bertie Ahern appeared to adopt a harder line than British Prime Minister Tony Blair on dealing with IRA criminality yesterday.

Expectant mothers can cause irreparable harm to their unborn child by drinking “safe” levels of alcohol during their pregnancy, a medical conference will be warned today.

Appeal court judges in the North today overturned a controversial ruling that the Real IRA was not an illegal terrorist organisation.

A row has broken out between Unionists in the North over a peerage given to businessman Edward Haughey, who will be taking the Ulster Unionist Party whip in the British House of Lords.