A BIT like the man himself, I was guilty of a bad miss the other night, only catching up with RTÉ’s Champions League coverage from Madrid when the Atletico-Liverpool match was all over and the panel were already in gloves and masks performing what looked like a pretty grisly post-mortem on Robbie Keane.

The US government today defended the use of the interrogation technique known as waterboarding, saying it is legal - not torture, as critics argue - and has saved American lives.

ON October 31, 1992, Pope John Paul II apologised on behalf of the Vatican for the persecution of Galileo Galilei over 350 years earlier. Poor Galileo had the nerve to say that the sun, not the earth, was the centre of our universe.

Those in the running to succeed Pope John Paul II are known as the “papabili” – those worthy of becoming Pontiff. Prominent among them are: