Food, water, and energy depend on healthy, diverse ecosystems, but these are declining faster than at any previous time in human history, says Robert Watson

Tireless humanitarian and Chernobyl charity founder, Adi Roche, has received the highest honour from Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in Dublin.

The Government’s “failure” to provide sufficient funding to abolish civil legal aid fees for victims of domestic violence, has been criticised.

The European Union’s wheat harvest will probably fall from last year’s record as yields return to more normal levels in the bloc’s biggest producing countries.

As investigators hunt for leads in Europe’s worst terror attack in a decade, the Paris prosecutor laid out how three teams of assailants managed to kill at least 129 people in and around one of the world’s most heavily policed capitals.

Christianity should be based on the teachings of Christ who opposed violence and abuses of power. 

The United Nations’ top court has ruled that Serbia did not commit genocide in Croatia during the bloody wars sparked by the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Deadly rocket attacks on the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol that “knowingly targeted civilians” broke international humanitarian law and could amount to war crimes, the United Nations’ political chief has said.

At least 50 Ebola hotspots remain in the three hardest-hit west African countries, but new cases are declining and the deadly disease will be defeated, the United Nations’ Ebola chief has said.

Leaders urged to switch focus away from keeping foreigners out

BELGIUM: People agree on few things in linguistically divided Belgium, but an effort to get Belgian potato fries recognised as cultural heritage, putting them on a par with Peking opera and the Argentinian tango may get unequivocal support.

The world is still not even close to preventing what leaders call a dangerous level of man-made warming, a new United Nations report has said.

The mother of an Irish security worker shot dead by Bolivian special forces is attempting to personally pressure the country’s leaders to support an international inquiry into his killing.

Militants from the Islamic State (IS) group carried out a mass killing of hundreds of Iraqi soldiers captured when the extremists overran a military base north of Baghdad in June, a leading international watchdog has said.

Four of eight observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe who were held hostage in eastern Ukraine have been released.

John Bellew, (Letters, April 8) rightly commends Canadian General Romeo Dallaire for his courageous actions during the Rwandan massacre.

The United Nations’ agency for child protection says 5.5 million Syrian children have been affected by the civil war, losing lives, limbs, parents, teachers, schools, homes and virtually every aspect of their childhood.

Syria’s foreign minister has accused America of trying to create a “negative climate” at the second round of peace talks as US secretary of state John Kerry blamed “the Assad regime’s obstruction” for making the tense dialogue even more difficult.

Former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic has dismissed the United Nations’ Yugoslav war crimes tribunal as a “satanic court” and refused to appear as a defence witness for his former political master, Radovan Karadzic.

The United Nations’ human rights committee has unanimously condemned the “systematic, widespread and grave” human rights abuses in North Korea, citing its reported use of torture, the death penalty for political and religious reasons and numerous political prison camps.

The family of an Irishman shot dead in Bolivia over an alleged assassination plot are considering making fresh complaints to United Nations’ investigators over the killing.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has pleaded for a diplomatic solution to the Syrian conflict, even as world powers appeared to be moving toward military strikes against president Bashar Assad’s regime.

Actor Liam Neeson is highlighting violence against children in a video to launch a UNICEF initiative on what he says is a largely “invisible” global scourge.

The Irish Government has pledged €2mo in funding to provide life-saving food, shelter, basic health care and water to some of the most vulnerable communities in Africa.

One of the last surviving Irish soldiers granted a pardon after fighting against Nazi Germany has laid a wreath to remember his comrades.

The former CIA agent who revealed himself as the source of top-secret leaks about US surveillance programmes has dropped out of public sight.

Overcrowded boats carrying more than 100 people trying to escape an approaching cyclone have capsized off the coast of Burma with dozens feared drowned.

The United Nations’ humanitarian chief has warned that the growing number of Syrians fleeing the country’s increasingly brutal conflict – now four million and rising every day – is outstripping the international community’s ability to help.

Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore has condemned the test by North Korea of a nuclear device.

North Korea said today it had tested a “miniaturised” nuclear device, defying the United Nations’ orders to stop building atomic weapons.

The Israeli government’s settlement policy has clearly violated the rights of Palestinians and breaches one of the Geneva Conventions, a UN report says.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his people must pursue economic improvement with the same urgency scientists put into the launch of a long-range rocket.

Ashton Kutcher has filed court papers to end his seven-year marriage to actress Demi Moore.

Syrian authorities have sent text messages nationwide with a message for rebels fighting President Bashar Assad’s regime: “Game Over.”

Russia’s southern city of Krasnodar has closed roads to block movement of some food due to African Swine Fever.

The United Nations’ (UN) refugee agency says nearly 150,000 people fleeing Syria’s civil war have sought its help, a figure expected to rise significantly.

The International Committee of the Red Cross is moving some of its foreign staff out of the Syrian capital to neighbouring Lebanon.

A fourth member of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle died yesterday from wounds sustained in a bomb attack this week and his forces fought to recapture border posts and parts of Damascus from rebels targeting the heart of his power.

The European Union’s greenhouse gas emissions rose in 2010 for the first time in six years, but is still on track to meet its target under an international climate accord, the EU’s environmental agency said today.