The humanitarian tragedy in Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria, and Yemen is not new, but unless the world works for longterm change at a local level we’re doomed to see the cycle of suffering to continue, says Fatoumata Nafo-Traoré.

Clashes have erupted between Israeli police and Palestinian worshippers at a contested Jerusalem shrine shortly after the site reopened following an 11-day Muslim prayer boycott.

Israel banned Muslim men under the age of 50 from a contested Jerusalem shrine on Friday and deployed about 3,000 police nearby, ahead of expected Muslim protests over the installation of metal detectors at the holy site.

The United States has blamed Russia for an overnight attack on an aid convoy that killed 20 civilians, as the United Nations announced it was suspending overland deliveries in Syria, jeopardising food and medical security for millions of besieged and hard-to-reach civilians.

Dr Kevin McCarthy, referring to the killing of Jewish settlers, Eiran and Naama Henkin, in the occupied West Bank on October 1, rightly states that there is nothing heroic about murdering parents in front of their children.

An Israeli air strike has killed a pregnant Palestinian woman and her two-year-old daughter in Gaza, health officials said.

Austria said 71 refugees including a baby girl were found dead in an abandoned freezer truck, while Libya recovered the bodies of 82 migrants washed ashore after their overcrowded boat sank on its way to Europe and scores more were feared dead.

Irish householders could soon get a virtual-reality view of the threat flood waters pose to their properties on a year-by-year basis.

Hamas has signed a pledge to back any Palestinian bid to join the International Criminal Court, two senior officials in the group said today.

Israel has resumed its attacks on the Gaza Strip, ending a self-declared, seven-hour ceasefire that was in effect for much of the day.

An Israeli air strike killed a militant leader in the Gaza Strip today, just hours ahead of a seven-hour truce announced by Israel which was meant to open a “humanitarian window” for aid.

At least 100 Palestinians have been killed in fighting in Gaza today, according to a health official, as Israel escalated its military offensive in the coastal strip.

The UN’s senior human rights official has told diplomats that Israel’s military and Hamas militants appear to have violated international humanitarian law and might have committed war crimes during their two-week war in the Gaza Strip.

Around 300 more people have been evacuated from besieged rebel-held neighbourhoods of Syria’s third-largest city, Homs, a Syrian Red Crescent official said.

Iran has appealed for foreign help to deal with the aftermath of the deadly twin earthquakes that hit it last weekend after initially claiming it was not needed.

Overcrowded hospitals in northwest Iran struggled to cope with earthquake victims yesterday as rescuers raced to reach remote villages after two quakes killed nearly 300 people and injured about 5,000.

A first aider with the Red Crescent has been shot dead in eastern Syria.

A Palestinian protester in Gaza has reportedly died from Israeli army gunfire as thousands took part in an annual protest against Israeli land policy.

The bodies of Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik, killed in shelling while trapped in Syria, left the country on board a French plane to Paris.

Syrian Red Crescent officials have handed over the bodies of two foreign journalists who were killed in Syria to embassy officials.

A Red Cross aid convoy carrying emergency supplies is heading to the Syrian city of Homs.

Syrian security forces are advancing on the rebel-held neighbourhood of Baba Amr in the city of Homs, an official says.

A Red Crescent worker has claimed more than 50 civilians have been killed in the past 24 hours in tribal warfare in southern Libya.

Aid agencies have said it is proving "difficult and dangerous" to provide help to Syria as people in the city of Homs say they are preparing to die.

Syrian troops stormed a flashpoint suburb of Damascus yesterday, rounding people up in house-to-house raids and clashing with army defectors, activists said, as the 10-month-old uprising inches ever closer to the capital.

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 Arab League yesterday overwhelmingly approved sanctions against Syria to pressure Damascus to end its eight-month crackdown on dissent, an unprecedented move by the League against an Arab state.

RESCUE workers last night pulled out a man alive from the rubble more than 100 hours after an earthquake that killed more than 500 people in eastern Turkey.

TURKEY struggled to provide shelter yesterday to tens of thousands left homeless by an earthquake that killed nearly 500, and rescue teams began taking painful decisions to call off searches for those buried alive.

The death toll in a powerful earthquake in eastern Turkey has risen to at least 217, the country’s interior minister said.

Libyan rebels battled their way back into a major oil port just 30 miles (50km) west of Tripoli today, forcing Muammar Gaddafi’s troops to close the vital coast highway and key supply route from Tunisia.

A report being released today shows that volunteer work is vital to the Irish economy.

The torrent of refugees fleeing Libya has suddenly slowed, UN officials say.

Two suicide bombers blew themselves up near a mosque in south-eastern Iran, killing at least 15 people at a Shiite mourning ceremony, Iranian media reported.

Dozens of people were killed in their homes when an earthquake hit villages in eastern Turkey just before dawn today.

A strong earthquake hit eastern Turkey today, killing at least 57 people and knocking down houses in three small villages, the government said.

The death toll from a storm that swept past the east coast of India and slammed into neighbouring Bangladesh rose to nearly 90 today.

THE International Committee of the Red Cross urged Israel yesterday to allow speedier access for ambulances to evacuate the wounded in Gaza which it said was mired in a “full-blown” humanitarian crisis.

A fire roared through a mattress factory in a poor section of Casablanca, killing up to 55 workers and injuring at least 12 others.

More than 25,000 Iraqis who fled to Syria have returned, the Iraqi Red Crescent said today.

Amnesty International urged Nato nations today to halt transfers of prisoners to Afghan authorities, claiming they risked being tortured.

Lebanese troops opened fire at angry Palestinian demonstrators trying to march back home to their besieged camp in northern Lebanon today, killing two, the state-run National News Agency said.

Fatah and Hamas gunmen battled each other at universities, a radio station and in streets across the Gaza Strip today with 17 people – including four children - dying before the factions’ leaders announced a cease-fire agreement.