FOREIGN leaders showered President Barack Obama and his family with hundreds of thousands of dollars in art, jewellery, rare books and other presents during their first year in the White House.

Two staff members at the British Consulate in Jerusalem have been arrested for allegedly selling weapons.

Osama bin Laden has threatened France with terror attacks for passing a law that bans Muslim-style face veils.

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Micheál Martin is expected to recommend the expulsion of an Israeli embassy official over the use of forged Irish passports in an assassination in Dubai.

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Micheál Martin has accused Israel of kidnapping up to eight Irish citizens and breaking international law by refusing diplomats access to them.

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Micheál Martin has said the 785 workers axed from Pfizer will be given every possible support by state agencies.

THE Pope’s visit to Britain will not be affected by the disclosure of a Foreign Office document mocking the Catholic Church, the Vatican said.

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Micheál Martin says the Government’s fiscal measures have reassured markets and he is optimistic about Ireland’s economic outlook.

Secret talks between American negotiators and Peter Moore’s captors were being held without the British Government’s knowledge, the father of the freed British hostage claimed today.

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Micheál Martin is to meet with the Papal Nuncio to Ireland to discuss the Vatican’s failure to supply information to the Dublin archdiocese abuse inquiry.

INDIA flatly rejected yesterday a demand by the Albanian government for the return of the remains of Nobel laureate Mother Teresa, buried in the eastern city of Calcutta.

FOREIGN Affairs minister Micheál Martin has warned householders to prepare for the most cynically negative campaign in the country’s history.

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Micheál Martin has announced that 180 international thinkers and business experts will attend the Global Irish Economic Forum in Dublin later this month.

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Micheál Martin has warned against “losing the plot” when it comes to curtailing politicians’ travel on cost grounds.

The Iraqi capital Baghdad was hit by a series of explosions today killing at least a dozen people and wounding more than 100.

Iran dismissed the idea of downgrading diplomatic relations with Britain today despite soaring tensions between the two countries after Iranian authorities detained local British Embassy employees for allegedly stirring up post-election unrest.

FOREIGN affairs Minister Micheál Martin will lobby his EU colleagues today to ensure they support Ireland’s demands for legally binding guarantees on neutrality, tax and abortion.

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Micheál Martin will sit down with the president of Syria today during the first stage of a diplomatic tour of the Middle East.

Griff Rhys Jones and his wife had to jump into shark-infested waters after a fire broke out on the yacht they were sailing in, it was reported today.

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Micheál Martin has sent a strong signal that he would favour the admission of detainees from Guantanamo Bay.

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Micheál Martin has defended the Government against accusations it ignored the rest of the Oireachtas in seeking a solution to the Lisbon treaty problems.

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Micheál Martin yesterday denied that the Government had “capitulated” to the Bush administration by withdrawing its opposition to a controversial US-India nuclear energy deal.

FOREIGN banks operating in Ireland scrambled for inclusion in the Government’s guarantee scheme yesterday.

China today deported a British woman and a German man who took part in a protest during the Olympic Games.

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Micheál Martin begins a four-day trip to the Middle East today as violence in Gaza threatens a ceasefire between Israeli forces and Palestinian group Hamas.

Burma's isolationist regime indicated today it wants international relief but not foreign aid workers.

IRAN and Britain stepped up the pressure over 15 detained British soldiers yesterday, with Iranian state TV reporting the Foreign Ministry had protested their ‘illegal’ incursion to the British ambassador.

Iran today condemned the abduction of its diplomat in Baghdad, adding that it holds the United States responsible for his life.

Arab diplomat Mokhtar Lamani has resigned, disillusioned and nearly drained of hope, after spending months in Iraq trying to coax Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders into peace.

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern yesterday condemned the hanging of Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar.

A cargo plane carrying Turkish workers crashed during landing at an airport near Baghdad, killing 30 people and injuring at least two, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.

A MAN is being questioned by police in England in connection with a series of hoax emails sent to friends and relatives of people missing following the tsunami.

The Hamas-controlled Palestinian government will resign within two or three days to make way for a new unity government that could help end a punishing Western aid boycott and resume long-frozen peace talks with Israel, a senior Palestinian negotiator said today.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman said today that his country's Revolutionary Guards would strongly respond to any Israeli attack.

Police in Iraq today confirmed the kidnapping of more than 40 Shiites along a notoriously dangerous road just north of Baghdad.

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern yesterday said violence would not resolve the crisis in the Middle East, but again made clear the Government’s reluctance to commit troops to a UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon.

Palestinian militants have agreed to a conditional release of the kidnapped Israeli soldier, but Israel has not yet accepted their terms, according to Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

Iran finds parts of a Western incentives package aimed at making a breakthrough in the nuclear dispute “acceptable”, but some other parts should be removed, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said today.

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern was accused of “kite-flying” last night after suggesting that the statutory rape law could be restored by way of a public vote.

THE Chinese authorities angrily denied yesterday that the country turns a blind eye to human rights abuses in places like Sudan in its search for oil to help power its booming economy.

THE Chinese authorities angrily denied yesterday that the country turns a blind eye to human rights abuses in places like Sudan in its search for oil to help power its booming economy.

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern’s trip to Dallas and Washington for the St Patrick’s Day celebrations cost €51,000, according to details released to the Oireachtas yesterday.

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern’s trip to Dallas and Washington for the St Patrick’s Day celebrations cost €51,000, according to details released to the Oireachtas yesterday.

The Danish ambassador and other embassy staff have temporarily left Syria because authorities have dropped security around them to an ”inadequate level”, the Foreign Ministry said today.