A suicide car bomb has exploded at a bank in Afghanistan's Helmand province as troops and government workers waited to collect their pay ahead of a major Muslim holiday, killing at least 29 people.

In all those years of success following that incredible 2007 World Cup win over Pakistan, there was a sense that the Irish sporting public couldn’t quite get their head around the fact they had a cricket team that was taking on and beating the best teams in the world.

Fifteen prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre were sent to the United Arab Emirates in the single largest release of detainees during the Obama administration, the Pentagon announced yesterday.

In an update to her weekly column, Victoria White, argues that we can never come to the beginning of the end of atrocities such as Nice if we don't understand that Bastille Day doesn't mean the same thing to many Arabs as it does to the French.

Ireland has received just one family and blamed ‘low take up’ on refugees who had not wished to complete the first step of applying for asylum, writes Victoria White.

In a refugee camp outside Athens, Victoria White meets people fleeing the horrors of war in Syria, but who still try to live a normal life, including a young woman who has just married    

The mayor of Paris has announced plans to create a centre to take in migrants with nowhere to go.

Ireland will accept dozens more refugees in the coming weeks ahead of an expected increase in migrants attempting dangerous crossings into Europe.

7pm, Sligo, my eldest brother’s house. My husband and I have just arrived for a family visit.

Greek authorities say the 202 migrants and refugees who had not applied for asylum in Greece and were returned to Turkey included people from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Congo.

Hours before Greece was due to begin returning migrants to Turkey, little sign of preparation was evident on Lesbos, the island through which hundreds of thousands of people have poured into Europe since last year.

Tensions between EU countries and Turkey threatened to unwind a complex deal to resolve the migrant crisis during long negotiations at a summit of EU leaders.

Irish freight operators have been warned to be on their guard as migrants move out of the so-called ‘jungle camp’ in Calais and try to get out of France via other ports.

More than 1m refugees and migrants came to the EU this year, while almost 3,700 died or went missing in perilous journeys which reaped huge profit for smugglers, the International Organisation for Migration has said.

Hundreds of Moroccans, Algerians, and Pakistanis tried to storm the border between Greece and Macedonia, tearing down part of the barbed wire fence at the crossing and demanding to be allowed to carry on into northern Europe.

The number of migrants and refugees entering Europe by sea last month was roughly the same as for the whole of 2014, United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said.

As the death toll in the massive earthquake that struck the remote Hindu Kush mountains soared above 300, officials on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border warned yesterday that casualty figures will likely leap once relief workers return from villages so remote they can only be accessed on foot or by donkey.

Good morning. Here’s everything you need to know before you start your day.

President Barack Obama has announced plans to keep nearly 10,000 US troops in Afghanistan through most of next year and 5,500 when he leaves office in 2017, casting aside his promise to end the war on his watch and instead ensuring he hands off the conflict to a successor.

Greece’s coastguard says it has rescued 922 people over the past three days as they attempted to reach eastern Aegean islands clandestinely from the nearby Turkish coast.

Greece’s coast guard has rescued 922 people over the past three days as they attempted to reach eastern Aegean islands from the nearby Turkish coast.

It looks possible that EU ministers will agree on asylum seeker numbers on Monday, writes European Correspondent Ann Cahill

Hundreds of refugees stranded in Budapest’s Keleti station left for Austria on foot as trains to northern European countries remained suspended.

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.

Thousands of Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis travel from Greece to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. 

Almost 60m people worldwide were forcibly uprooted by conflict and persecution at the end of last year, the highest ever recorded number, the UN refugee agency said.

A Taliban attack on a Kabul guesthouse has left 14 people dead, including nine foreigners, in the most audacious assault by the insurgents in the Afghan capital since the start of their spring offensive.

Ireland will take 520 migrants for resettlement, the Minister for Justice has said. That figure is more than double the original number announced earlier this year.

People being investigated in a counter-terrorism investigation in Italy may have been planning an attack against the Vatican, one of the prosecutors leading the probe said.

Poets, musicians, actors and activists packed a shop in Kabul to commemorate the short life and violent death of a woman who has become a symbol for justice and women’s rights in a country that historically elevates warlords and battlefield heroes to national icons.

Thousands of people have marched through the Afghan capital, demanding justice for a woman who was beaten to death by a mob after being falsely accused of burning a Koran.

Ghani seeks to improve relations with Obama after Karzai exit

An Afghan woman who was beaten to death by a mob was buried in Kabul yesterday, her coffin carried aloft by women’s rights activists.

The number of foreign nationals applying for asylum last year increased 53%, although Ireland still has a comparatively low inflow rate of refugees within the EU.

Najbullah Zadran produced a standout performance as Afghanistan bounced back from their heavy defeat to Scotland with a 71-run win over Ireland in the Dubai tri-series.

Just like after the Second World War, countries must co-operate, not ply their own path, writes US secretary of state John Kerry

The United States has returned four Afghans from Guantanamo Bay back to their home country.

Local authorities and Red Cross volunteers on Crete are racing to prepare shelter and food for hundreds of immigrants on a crippled freighter being towed to safety by a Greek navy frigate.