IF public sympathy has been in scarce supply for the owners of ‘second homes’ or or "Non-Principal Private Residence" to use the convoluted language of bureaucracy, it is growing as it becomes increasingly clear that much of the blame for this mess lies squarely at the door of the Department of the Environment.

A government ban on non-Muslims in Malaysia using the word “Allah” to refer to God has been upheld by an appeal court.

At least 59 people were killed and 175 others wounded in a terror attack at a shopping centre in Nairobi, the Kenyan government said today.

A big-race winner would be nice, leading into Punchestown, and hopefully it may come with Harry The Viking in the Scottish National at Ayr this afternoon.

I REFER to Claire O’Sullivan’s article (Church will not take bishop’s celibacy remarks too kindly, Sept 14) which refers to retired Bishop Dr Edward Daly’s questioning of the need for the continuation of the long-established rule of mandatory celibacy in the Catholic Church.

A church in southern Malaysia was vandalised, apparently the latest in a string of attacks on Christian houses of worship in the Muslim-majority nation, police said today.

THE number of Catholics in the country has increased in Ireland by more than 218,000 since the last census.

MANY issues of a civil, ethical and religious kind flow from the decision of the High Court to grant the Coombe Hospital the right to enforce a Jehovah’s Witness woman to receive a blood transfusion against her will.

SEÁN MONCRIEFF’S Last Word column (Irish Examiner, August 24) distorted the true teachings of Islam. I’m an Irish Muslim and I know that Islam is a tolerant yet principled faith.

NON-EU nationals work 3.5 hours more a week than Irish and EU citizens, yet are paid on average 14% less, a European report has found.

We cannot afford to wait for an onslaught of harrowing images of dying people to realise a humanitarian crisis is looming in Niger. Liam Horan reports from Niger.

Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir is the head of the Jemaah Islamiyah terror group, and once told its members that shedding the blood of non-Muslims is allowed under Islamic law, a key witness told a court today.

Neighbours of a house in The Hague where a police siege is on-going have said snipers were posted on nearby rooftops and Dutch special forces were also at the scene.

A BRITISH Muslim was yesterday sentenced to death by hanging in Pakistan for the kidnap and murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl.