IRAN yesterday insisted no final decision had been made on the fate of a woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery.

Iran today insisted no final decision had been made on the fate of a woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery

Peace envoy George Mitchell was on his way to the Middle East today in an urgent bid to salvage stalled peace talks after the US criticised Israel’s refusal to extend its partial ban on settlement building.

FOREIGN countries should not interfere in Iran’s legal system and stop trying to turn the case of a woman sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery into a human rights issue, Tehran said yesterday.

AN Iranian woman who was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery is now facing a new punishment of 99 lashes because a British newspaper ran a picture of an unveiled woman mistakenly identified as her, the woman’s son said yesterday.

The son of an Iranian woman who faces death by stoning for adultery said authorities have imposed a new sentence of 99 lashes.

BEREAVED families and survivors came to bury hundreds of victims of the Srebrenica massacre yesterday as world leaders demanded the arrest of the general whose troops killed the 8,000 Muslim males 15 years ago.

A YOUNG Frenchacademic flew home from Iran yesterday, 10 months after she was arrested and accused of spying, as France denied striking a secret deal with Tehran.

European powers reacted sceptically today to Iran’s offer to send uranium abroad for enrichment as a way of ending its showdown with the west.

THE United States, France, Brazil and other “Friends of Haiti” will hold emergency talks in Montreal on Monday to coordinate aid for the quake-hit Caribbean nation and prepare a later summit on reconstruction.

US defence secretary Robert Gates said the US would not have an expanded policing role in quake-ravaged Haiti, but troops could defend themselves and civilians or foreigners if lawlessness boiled over.

Rescuers began a race against time to save the Haiti earthquake survivors today as a trickle of aid began arriving in the country.

FRANCE may have seen the hand of God, but the Dáil detected nothing less than the hand of the devil himself.

Iran today signalled it would agree a deal to delay its capacity to produce nuclear weapons.

Barack Obama will not commit more US troops to Afghanistan until he is convinced that its government can be a credible and effective partner, his top White House aide said.

CZECH President Vaclav Klaus set out his terms yesterday for signing the EU’s Lisbon reform treaty, demanding an exemption to protect Prague from post-war property claims and safeguard the sovereignty of the judiciary.

CZECH President Vaclav Klaus raised a new obstacle to the European Union’s Lisbon reform treaty yesterday, telling EU president Sweden he wants a footnote added to the document before signing it into force.

A DEFIANT Roman Polanski yesterday vowed to fight US attempts to extradite him from a Swiss jail cell to be sentenced for having sex with an underage girl 32 years ago.

The international tug-of-war over Roman Polanski escalated today as France and Poland urged Switzerland to free the 76-year-old director on bail.

THE EU is anxious to begin negotiations with Syria and Lebanon as part of a new drive for peace in the Middle East.

FRENCH tourists going to risky foreign destinations could be asked to pay if their government has to come to the rescue.

FRENCH President Nicolas Sarkozy says international officials are working out ways to avoid gaps in air traffic control over the Atlantic Ocean.

A toddler was rescued alive today from the wreckage of an airliner that crashed trying to land in the Comoros islands, police said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting in Paris with the top US Mideast envoy has been called off in an apparent sign of growing friction over President Barack Obama’s call for a halt to construction in Jewish settlements.

PROTESTERS set fires and smashed store windows yesterday in a second day ofviolence as groups challenging President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election tried to keep pressure onauthorities.

Protesters set fires and smashed shop windows in a second day of violence as groups challenging President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election tried to keep pressure on authorities.

Reports that debris from lost Air France flight 447 had been found in the Atlantic were wrong, the French transport minister said today.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appealed today to a triumphant Sri Lankan government to “heal the wounds” from three decades of civil war with Tamil minority rebels and urged greater access to camps for the more than 300,000 people driven from their homes.

SRI LANKA’S government said yesterday it is considering an amnesty for Tamil Tiger rebels who surrender – although not for leaders of the insurgency, which is facing defeat after 25 years of civil war.

Sri Lanka’s separatist rebels have asked Britain and France to continue pushing for a ceasefire in the island’s civil war after the two European nations’ foreign ministers failed to secure a halt in the fighting to allow civilians to evacuate.

Two aid workers held hostage in Darfur, one French and one Canadian, have been freed after three weeks in captivity.

The British Foreign Secretary arrived in Sri Lanka today for talks aimed at convincing the country’s government to accept a temporary ceasefire in its war with the Tamil Tiger rebels.

PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy made the first ever visit by a French head of state to Iraq yesterday, seeking to reassert French influence in the country as the United States prepares to draw down its forces.

Israel, under international pressure, is considering a 48-hour halt to its punishing four-day air campaign on Hamas targets in Gaza to see if Palestinian militants will stop their rocket attacks on southern Israel, Israeli officials said.

Rescue crews working under the glare of floodlights dug through the rubble of a collapsed school in Haiti early today in a frantic search for students who may still be trapped in a disaster that has already killed at least 47 people.

BRITISH Foreign Secretary David Miliband said yesterday he has not ruled out sending troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of a United Nations bid to avert a looming humanitarian disaster.

The European Union is proposing a UN-organised summit of the nations bordering eastern Congo, and says Rwanda and Congo would attend such a meeting.

International envoys converged on eastern Congo to help end some of the worst violence in years as thousands of anxious, hungry refugees struggled to get home amid a fragile ceasefire.

South Korean intelligence indicates that ailing North Korean leader Kim Jong Il suffered a serious setback and has been taken to hospital, it was reported today.

ZIMBABWEAN president Robert Mugabe has sworn in two vice presidents ahead of talks on forming a cabinet, a government official has said, a move that could further endanger power-sharing negotiations.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen will today hold talks on the Lisbon Treaty with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

European Union foreign ministers appealed to Moscow today to follow through on commitments to withdraw its forces from Georgia under a ceasefire plan.

Russia today warned the West against supporting Georgia’s leadership and called for an arms embargo against the nation until a different government was in place.

Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin today accused the US of starting the fighting in Georgia.