Western scientists doubt new claims of success, but each test will increase the country’s knowledge, until it has a long-range warhead, says Sharon Squassoni

For Dalymount Park, the fervent hope must be that we can soon be calling it the once and future home of Irish football.

The sudden decision by Obama to send special forces to Syria ‘to combat ISIS’ is fooling no one. For well over a year ISIS seem to have been able to act with impunity while the US seemed ‘unable’ to stop their progress or intervene.

Ukraine, Russia, and the EU have signed a deal that will see Moscow resume vital supplies of gas to Ukraine over the winter. That means good news, too, for the rest of Europe, Ireland included. Pipelines across Ukraine have been shut down since June, threatening winter supplies to EU states.

Your daily, spoiler-free guide to what to look out for on the box.

Ireland agreed to ban Soviet airlines from the tarmac at Shannon, just 10 days before nuclear catastrophe was narrowly avoided during the Cold War.

THE longstanding Irish policy of neutrality, an ongoing balancing act of several competing pressures — nationalism, the post-colonial relation with Britain, a burgeoning involvement with European politics — came under particular scrutiny in 1983.

Rochus Misch, who served as Adolf Hitler’s devoted bodyguard for most of the Second World War and was the last remaining witness to the Nazi leader’s final hours in his Berlin bunker, has died. He was 96.

Former taoiseach Garret FitzGerald personally pleaded with US president Ronald Reagan to pile pressure on Margaret Thatcher for an urgent compromise over the Maze hunger strikes, according to state papers.

Seventy years ago today Hitler’s armies at Stalingrad surrendered after 200 days of the most savage fighting. Geoffrey Roberts on the moment the long, crooked and twisted journey to today’s democratic Europe began

Tomorrow’s clash with Italy is Spain’s third European Championships final.

THE spectre of nuclear fallout and how Ireland could survive it, included Irish Intelligence plans in 1981 for closer alliance with Britain should war break out with the Soviets.

Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-1989

A German court has convicted 91-year-old John Demjanjuk of thousands of counts of acting as an accessory to murder as a Nazi death camp guard.

US President Barack Obama has met the assault forces who carried out the strike on Osama bin Laden and has awarded them a presidential citation.

Richard Fitzpatrick reads a fascinating account of tumultuous events in the early 1980s when the Cold War threatened to erupt into all-out confrontation.

Jack Lynch believed China needed and wanted friends in the West but was not willing to make allies.

President Hamid Karzai confirmed today that his government has been in informal talks with the Taliban on securing peace in Afghanistan “for quite some time” - the latest in a series of high-level acknowledgements of contacts with the insurgent group.

Pakistan’s army chief ordered an inquiry today into video clips that show men in soldiers’ uniforms gunning down a group of bound and blindfolded detainees.

Suspected US missiles targeted a vehicle today in north western Pakistan, killing four alleged militants, intelligence officials said.

THE former US lawmaker and hero of the film Charlie Wilson’s War, who championed covert CIA support for Afghans fighting Soviet troops in the 1980s, died at the age of 76 on Wednesday.

RECENT Comments by Justice Minister Dermot Ahern (Irish Examiner, January 4) that the annual security bill at Shannon for US military traffic is justified shows scant regard for the lives or human rights of the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Suspected death camp guard John Demjanjuk went on trial today to face charges of being an accessory to the murder of 27,900 Jews and his lawyer immediately accused the court of bias.

IN THE two decades since the Berlin Wall collapsed, Europe has changed beyond all recognition.

A QUARTER of humanity held its collective breath and hoped the Taoiseach would change his mind.

The Allied firebombing of Dresden killed no more than 25,000 people – far fewer than scholars’ previous estimates running as high as 135,000 – a German commission has found.

IT’S BEEN 40 years since the Soviet Union’s old Cold War armies cracked down so emphatically and violently on Czechoslovakia, sending tanks to crush unarmed civilians marching on the streets of Prague.

John Breslin on a court case that throws a spotlight on the murky world of international espionage and shady deals struck in Afghanistan.

About 3,000 Latvians marched through the capital Riga today under heavy police protection to honour countrymen who fought in a German combat unit during World War II.

Historians will today seek the release of US grand jury records in the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, whose espionage trial for passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union became a defining moment in the Cold War.

THE battle to agree to common goals for the future government of Germany is well underway following the division of the ministries between the two coalition partners.

TOTTENHAM sporting director Frank Arnesen has hailed Rinus Michels as one of the greatest characters in Dutch football following the death of the former national team boss yesterday at the age of 77.

Holland coach Marco van Basten today led the tributes to Rinus Michels, the man who pioneered "total football", who has died at the age of 77.

WHAT was the secret of Ronald Reagan’s success? Was it his timing and theatricality? His charisma? His optimism? His circle of advisers? Or was it that, time after time, people underestimated him?

RONALD REAGAN stunned the Soviet Union with his tough rhetoric, calling it an “evil empire” whose leaders gave themselves the “right to commit any crime”.

THE US covertly transferred technology to the Soviet Union that contained hidden faults, including software that triggered one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever seen, a senior official in the Reagan White House has revealed.

The US covertly transferred technology to the Soviet Union that contained hidden faults, including software that triggered one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever seen, a senior official in the Reagan White House has revealed.

IT was exactly 12.30pm when the shots rang out and John F Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States of America, slumped forward in the open-top limousine carrying him through the streets of Dallas.

RUSSIA’S new national team coach to succeed Valery Gazzayev will be appointed early next week, the country’s soccer chief said yesterday.

A senior Yemeni official today said terrorism cannot be completely ruled out in the explosion of a French supertanker.

As Taliban defences around Kabul crumbled under the fury of American bombs, the man responsible for it all - Osama bin Laden - was far away in the safety of this mountain fortress.

Several thousand people gathered amid heavy security today at a mosque in northern Afghanistan to mark the first anniversary of the killing of Ahmed Shah Massood.

Wrapped in an Afghan flag, the body of slain Afghan vice president Abdul Qadir was carried today on the shoulders of his family members into the Eid Gah mosque in the capital Kabul where funeral prayers were said.