A wave of air strikes and shelling have killed more than 60 people in less than 24 hours in the Syrian city of Aleppo, monitors and activists said.

Convoys are delivering aid to three besieged communities in Syria for the second time this week to alleviate civilian suffering in cut-off areas.

Convoys are delivering aid for the second time this week to three besieged communities in Syria in an effort to alleviate civilian suffering in cut-off areas.

A Wexford man has told how his mother narrowly escaped when a temple collapsed in an aftershock in Nepal at the weekend.

Ukraine is “still in a state of war” with neighbouring Russia despite a cease-fire between Kiev’s forces and Moscow-backed rebels in the east, the country’s prime minister said shortly after a second convoy of Russian trucks rolled into Ukraine.

Ukraine has claimed that rebels in the east of the country fired rockets and mortars on civilians trying to flee from the region’s intense fighting.

Russian military vehicles crossed into Ukraine during the night, according to Nato and Ukraine, and the Ukrainian president said most of them were quickly destroyed by his troops.

Rescuers are facing blocked roads and damaged airports as they struggle to deliver desperately needed aid to the typhoon-devastated Philippines.

Haiyan has made landfall in northern Vietnam as a tropical storm today, after leaving massive destruction in the Philippines.

Four of the seven hostages from the International Committee of the Red Cross kidnapped in Syria have been freed.

Seven Red Cross workers have been kidnapped in northern Syria, a spokesman for the aid agency has said.

Air strikes on Syria could have “catastrophic effects” on the desperate humanitarian crisis in the region, a charity has warned.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was still seeking a formal Syrian response to its request for urgent access to the besieged town of Qusair after a minister said aid efforts should wait until the fighting was over.

Months of increased tension at the Guantanamo Bay prison boiled over into a clash between guards and detainees as the military closed a communal section of the jail and moved inmates into single cells.

Red Cross chief Peter Maurer has launched a mercy mission in Syria to seek greater protection for civilians, as opposition activists said rebel-held areas of second city Aleppo faced severe food shortages under a government offensive.

Government warplanes bombed a town in northern Syria today, killing at least 18 people, activists said, while the new UN envoy to the country acknowledged that brokering an end to the nation’s civil war will be a “very, very difficult” task.

The International Red Cross has declared Syria’s 16-month bloodbath a civil war, a status with implications for potential war crimes prosecutions.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has said it now considers the conflict in Syria a civil war, meaning international humanitarian law applies throughout the country.

A French staff member of the international Red Cross who was kidnapped in Yemen almost three months ago has been freed.

Aid teams will try to evacuate wounded and sick civilians and those who want to leave rebel-held areas in the embattled Syrian city of Homs today, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has revealed three aid workers suffered minor injuries in Syria when an explosion hit their convoy.

Syrian troops are shelling the rebel-held neighbourhood of Khaldiyeh in the central city of Homs, according to activists.

The beheaded body of a British Red Cross worker held captive in Pakistan since January was found in an orchard, with a note attached saying he was killed because no ransom was paid, police said.

Five academic and research institutions are joining forces to share knowledge in a new all-island cheese study.

Syria’s ally, Russia, added its voice to rising calls for a truce so aid can be sent to violence-hit cities, after deadly clashes rocked a district of the capital near the heart of the embattled regime.

Red Cross teams handed out food, blankets and medical kits to desperate Syrians in central Homs province.

Syrian forces launched a fresh assault on Homs today as the Red Cross pressed forward with efforts to deliver badly needed aid to thousands of people stranded in a besieged neighbourhood despite warnings from regime troops of land mines and booby traps.

Red Cross teams have reached the Syrian city of Hama for the first time in more than a month, delivering aid to a populace battered by the military crackdown on the anti-government uprising.

Two Western journalists killed in Syria were today identified as French photojournalist Remi Ochlik and American reporter Marie Colvin.

The US State Department said last night the best outcome for Syria would be a political solution but if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad refused this “we may have to consider additional measures”.

The Red Cross has called for a daily two-hour ceasefire in Syria so that it can deliver emergency aid and reach people who are wounded or sick.

The International Committee of the Red Cross today announced it is trying to broker a humanitarian ceasefire in Syria.

More than 15,000 people including Malian military personnel have fled into neighbouring countries since members of the nomadic Tuareg ethnic group launched a new rebellion against the Malian government last month, aid officials say.

The head of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent branch in the northern town of Idlib has been shot dead, the International Committee of the Red Cross says.

THE International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has offered to facilitate the exchange of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit for Palestinian prisoners.

Revolutionary forces captured fighters close to Mutassim Gaddafi, one of fugitive leader Muammar Gaddafi’s sons in his father’s home town, but there was no confirmation that he had been captured, a Libyan spokesman said today.

Libyan revolutionary forces fired rockets into the western half of Muammar Gaddafi's home town today as hundreds of residents streamed out of the city to flee the fighting.

Syria saw a wave of violence and arrests today as the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross visited Damascus to address issues including caring for the wounded and access to detainees during the government’s crackdown on a five-month-old uprising.

Libyan rebels have taken control of the main border crossing with Tunisia.

Medics are increasingly coming under attack in the world’s war zones, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Libyan rebels pressing to break a two-month siege in Misrata said they had captured the local airport and pushed Muammar Gaddafi’s forces ever further from the port city’s western outskirts.

At least four Nato air strikes targeted the Libyan capital Tripoli early today.

More than 800 civilians have been killed in a western Ivory Coast town where hundreds of UN peacekeepers are based, the International Federation of the Red Cross said today.