The Government has demanded aid agency Goal clarify what caused a key US backer to suspend funding of its procurement programme in Turkey on foot of potential mismanagement concerns.

It would be a major setback for Goal, one of Ireland’s leading charities, and also for the tens of thousands of people relying on it for support, if its funding were to be hit by news of a US probe into key aspects of the organisation’s work in Syria, the biggest programme in the charity’s history.

Adam Matthews reports from "Knit City", the garment industry hub in India that generates billions in revenue but has also saturdated rivers with chemicals.

Residents of the southern Vanuatu island of Tanna said they were running out of food and basic supplies after a huge cyclone tore across the South Pacific nation wreaking widespread devastation but not the heavy death toll initially feared.

President Barack Obama has spoken to Cuban President Raul Castro about normalising full diplomatic relations between the long time foes.

The UN special envoy on Ebola says the number of cases is probably doubling every three to four weeks and the response needs to be 20 times greater than it was at the beginning of October.

The World Health Organisation urged nations worldwide to help stop the spread of Ebola as it declared the outbreak in West Africa to be an international public health emergency.

The healthcare system in Liberia is collapsing, hospitals closing down and medical workers fleeing from the ebola epidemic Liberia’s foreign minister said on Thursday.

The World Health Organisation has urged nations to donate money and resources to stop the spread of ebola as it declared the outbreak in West Africa to be an international public health emergency.

The United States has said Russia is ending the US Agency for International Development’s aid operations in the country, dealing a blow to President Barack Obama’s policy of “resetting” relations between Washington and Moscow.

LIBYA’S new leadership reaffirmed their commitment to democracy and good governance yesterday as they worked on how to spend billions of dollars they have been given from the frozen assets of fugitive strongman Muammar Gaddafi.

LEADERS of the Libyan uprising that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi sat down with world powers to map out the country’s rebuilding, 42 years to the day after the former strongman seized power in a coup.

THOUSANDS of sacks of food aid meant for Somalia’s famine victims have been stolen and are being sold openly, depriving those who have flooded into the country’s capital of urgently needed supplies, an investigation has found.

Thousands of sacks of food aid meant for Somalia’s famine victims have been stolen and are being sold openly, depriving those who have flooded into the country’s capital of urgently needed supplies, an investigation has found.

HUNDREDS of thousands of Somali children could die in the country’s famine unless more help arrives, a top US official said last night as Washington prepared to announce $100 million (€70.34m) in famine aid.

THE drought and famine in Somalia have killed more than 29,000 children under the age of 5, according to US estimates, the first time such a precise death toll has been released related to the Horn of Africa crisis.

A healthy population of snow leopards, elusive big cats threatened across their homes in the mountain ranges of Central Asia, has been found in one of the few peaceful areas of Afghanistan, a wildlife group said.

Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai issued a decree today formalising a four-month deadline for private security companies to disband.

Suicide bombers attacked a US international development compound today in northern Afghanistan, killing at least four people and wounding several others.

The rescues of two more people from beneath the rubble in Haiti’s stricken capital 10 days after the devastating earthquake have revived fading hopes that others may have survived, officials said today.

Pushed to the far edge of desperation, earthquake-ravaged Haitians dumped decaying bodies into mass graves and begged for water and food amid fears that time is running out to avoid chaos and to rescue anyone still alive in the wreckage.

In a riveting high-seas drama, an unarmed American crew wrested control of their US-flagged cargo ship from Somali pirates and sent them fleeing to a lifeboat with the captain as hostage.

BABY Maya Condor doesn’t know it but her birth in a Bolivian delivery room this week was celebrated by strangers as far away as Brussels, the United States and Ireland.

A SOUTH-EAST company has joined an international campaign to bring clean water to Pakistan.

A new Radiohead video to raise awareness of human trafficking is set to be beamed into more than half a billion households.

RYANAIR has been raised to buy from hold by analyst Chris Reid at Deutsche Bank. The price target is €5.80 per share.

The board of the Abu Dhabi Securities Market (ADSM) has appointed former chief executive of the Irish stock exchange, Tom Healy, as director general.

The board of the Irish Stock Exchange has announced that its chief executive, Tom Healy, is to retire from the Exchange in June 2007.

Nepal today ordered an investigation into a helicopter crash that killed 24 people including a Cabinet minister and several top international conservationists in the Himalayan nation’s worst helicopter accident.

Rescuers in Nepal said there were no survivors in the wreckage of a helicopter found days after it disappeared while carrying the forestry minister and 23 other people, including foreign officials, aid workers and journalists.

A Nepalese army rescue helicopter today spotted the wreckage of a helicopter that disappeared while carrying the forestry minister and 23 other people, including foreign officials, aid workers and journalists.

Fresh rainfall and fog cover over mountains in eastern Nepal was hampering rescuers today as they searched for a helicopter reported missing with 24 people on board, officials said.

The ruling party took the lead in Azerbaijan’s parliamentary election according to the official vote count and exit polls, but rights groups and monitors reported irregularities and the opposition vowed to fight to overturn what it called fraudulent results.

More tents were being flown today to people left homeless by the South Asian earthquake as survivors joined relief workers in hailing an agreement between India and Pakistan to open their disputed frontier to ease the delivery of assistance.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians crowded into Gaza City’s small fishing harbour today to celebrate the impending Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, waving flags and hearing promises from their leader, Mahmoud Abbas, that the West Bank and Jerusalem will be next.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said today he will demand US President George Bush provide the Palestinians with strong political and financial support during a meeting next week.

Israeli deputy prime minister Shimon Peres said today the Palestinian government of Mahmoud Abbas is on the right track, despite last week’s Tel Aviv suicide bombing and other attempts by Palestinian militants to torpedo a fragile truce.

Indonesia today increased its tsunami death toll by 5,000 – pushing the worldwide toll from the December 26 disaster to more than 162,000 people – as the nation’s defence minister said there is no three-month deadline for foreign troops helping in the massive relief efforts to leave.

IT was easy to be sceptical of President Vladimir Putin’s accusations that the US was meddling in the Ukrainian Presidential elections.

Panic erupted in storm ravaged Haiti today as increasingly desperate survivors of the mud and flood disaster burned tyres in protest and even attacked each other to get to scarce supplies of food and water.

An American civilian who was beheaded in a grisly video posted on an al-Qaida-linked Web site had been warned to leave Iraq but refused, US officials said today.

SURVIVORS of the devastating earthquake in Bam in southeast Iran spent another night in the freezing cold as relief, including an 80-strong US team, continued to flood in.

Nine Sudanese working for an American aid agency have been killed during clashes between warring tribes.

A total US$9bn (€8bn) in US loan guarantees to Israel became available today with a formal announcement that didn't mention penalties for the Jewish state's construction of a controversial security barrier.