Irish consumers should boycott Japanese goods in protest at its whale hunting expeditions, Ireland's National Sea Life Centre said today.

Burma’s military rulers have declared no-go zones around five key Buddhist monasteries in a bid to quash anti-government demonstrations.

Violence erupted for a second day in Burma today with troops pouring rifle fire into crowds of anti-government demonstrators.

Tamil Tiger rebels rammed a truck loaded with explosives into a naval road convoy in central Sri Lanka today, killing at least 92 sailors who were going on leave, in what the military described as a cold-blooded massacre.

A Japanese man suffering from amnesia was unlawfully held in a Bahamas prison and an immigration centre for eight years without being charged, a court has ruled.

The French government confirmed today that the H5N1 bird flu virus struck a turkey farm, in the European Union’s first outbreak of the lethal strain in commercial poultry.

China and Japan began talks today on a dispute over gas deposits in the East China Sea amid increasingly strained relations.

A Chinese dissident has been jailed for 12 years for organising anti-Japanese protests on the mainland, it was reported today.

The British, US, Australian, French and Russian embassies in Malaysia today received suspicious packages by mail that created a minor security scare, but were deemed to be hoaxes, a day after six other foreign missions received similar items.

The Japanese Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was evacuated today and police rushed to the Thai Embassy after both buildings received suspicious packages.

A PRIDE of lions attacked and killed a Japanese visitor at a Zimbabwe wildlife park last week, state media reported yesterday.

Police interrogated scores of detainees today and beefed up security patrols in towns and cities following a wave of small bomb blasts across Bangladesh that killed two people and wounded 125 others.

Iraqi militants claimed today they took a Japanese security contractor hostage after ambushing a convoy of foreigners and Iraqi troops in western Iraq.

ANTI-JAPAN protests erupted for a second day in China yesterday, as Tokyo demanded an apology and better protection for its citizens and diplomats after demonstrators smashed windows and threw eggs at the Japanese embassy.

Two South Korean demonstrators cut off their fingers outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul today to protest Tokyo’s territorial claim to a set of islets controlled by South Korea.

Optimism that three Japanese civilians held hostage in Iraq would be quickly released evaporated today, when Tokyo’s top government spokesman backtracked on an earlier statement and said authorities were no longer confident about their safety.

A third round of negotiations aimed at ending fighting in the besieged Iraqi city of Fallujah will be held today, a US commander said.

Japan has opened an emergency office at its diplomatic mission in Jordan to co-ordinate rescue efforts for its three citizens taken hostage in neighbouring Iraq, a Japanese Embassy official said today.

Two passengers were arrested after making threatening remarks to flight attendants on separate flights in America and Argentina.

Hundreds of students in South Korea have burned Japanese flags in protest over Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to a Tokyo war memorial shrine.