Belgium marked a year without a full government today.

FRENCH president Nicolas Sarkozy was taking stock after local election results gave the opposition Socialists a launch pad for the 2012 presidential election and fresh hope for the far right.

COLÁISTE Chríost Rí bridged a seven-year gap since their last Corn Uí Mhuirí triumph when they beat first-time finalists Pobal Scoil Chorca Dhuibhne in yesterday’s decider in Dr Crokes grounds in Killarney.

DEFENDING champions Ard Scoil Rís play Thurles CBS in the quarter-final of the Dr Harty Cup.

THE groupings for next season’s Munster College’s senior hurling (Dr Harty Cup) and senior football (Corn Uí Mhuirí) championships have thrown up some very interesting matches.

The French Socialist Party said today that the architect of France’s 35-hour work week has won the party’s leadership in an extremely tight race – an outcome quickly challenged by supporters of her rival.

PROOF that something is rotten in the state of the North came at the weekend with the resignation of Ian Paisley as moderator of his own Free Presbyterian Church.

The mayor of Charleroi, Belgium’s fourth largest city, has been arrested on corruption charges, adding to the woes of the ruling Francophone socialist party, authorities said today.

FRENCH President Jacques Chirac is seeking to recover momentum by reshuffling his cabinet after the humiliating rejection of the EU constitution.

FRENCH President Jacques Chirac asked his unpopular Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin to stay on despite the regional poll disaster for the centre right, but ordered him to form a new government.