TAIWAN: Taiwan will roll out “angel” and “devil” metro cards featuring a Japanese porn star next week, despite a public outcry and a previous decision to scrap the project.

Two members of a banned leftist group and the man they took hostage have died following a shoot-out.

US producer prices fell in February for a fourth straight month, pointing to tame inflation that could argue against an anticipated June interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve.

Five people have been killed in a stabbing spree in a western Japanese town.

CHINA: China’s annual Lunar New Year variety show, which mocked unmarried women and suggested female officials provide sexual favours to get promoted, has led to online outrage and some state media to urge more attention to discrimination against women.

Judge the German Shepherd was with the West Deptford Police Department in New Jersey for seven years and was involved in over 150 arrests.

Divers are grappling with rain and rolling waves as they try to reach what is believed to be the fuselage of AirAsia Flight 8501, resting on the ocean floor near four other large objects.

The final round of interviews for the next Garda commissioner began yesterday with interim police boss Noirin O’Sullivan the first among three candidates being grilled by an expert panel.

The shooting dead of a 12-year-old boy by police in Cleveland, Ohio after brandishing what turned out to be a replica gun has sparked an investigation into his death and a call from State Rep Alicia Reece of Cincinnati to call for such weapons to be brightly coloured or bear special markings.

A 12-year-old boy brandishing what turned out to be a replica gun died today after he was shot by a US police officer responding to an emergency call about a person waving a gun in a park.

Frustrated relatives of the scores still missing from the capsized ferry Sewol have staged a marathon confrontation with South Korea’s fisheries minister and the coastguard chief.

Man saved by firefighters with just seconds to spare - this is like something out of a movie.

More than 30 people have been taken to hospital after a police helicopter crashed on to the roof of a crowded pub in Scotland.

Rolf Harris has appeared in court to answer charges of alleged assault against two teenagers.

One of the suspects in the case of three women who were rescued this week, 10 years after they went missing, had been active in neighbourhood searches and vigils for the women, neighbours say.

The man carjacked by Christopher Dorner on a rural mountain road spoke of his ordeal at the hands of America’s most wanted man.

Plans to rebuild a square are proving contentious, writes Louise Watt

Troops have been put through their paces before deployment to Lebanon next month.

Three generations of a family died in a horrifying crash just a few kilometres from home when the SUV they were travelling in plunged more than 15m off a highway flyover and into a ravine on the grounds of the Bronx Zoo, killing all seven aboard, including three children.

An out-of-control SUV sped across several lanes of flyover traffic, then plunged more than 50ft into a ravine in the grounds of New York’s Bronx Zoo, killing all seven people aboard, including three children.

The new Greek government is to present a fresh austerity budget for approval in parliament this morning.

A US man has been arrested for using his feet as a brake while driving, resulting in him hitting four cars.

The Taliban took aim at Afghanistan’s intelligence services today, killing four people and injuring more than 30 in two separate attacks, including a suicide bombing on a bus in the capital, officials said.

Las Vegas police are defending Paris Hilton’s quick release from jail after her August 27 arrest on suspicion of cocaine possession, saying they wanted to avoid disruptions in the jail’s operations.

INVESTIGATORS were yesterday trying to discover the cause of a fatal crash on the Disney World monorail in Florida.

The parents of a woman murdered 23 years ago demanded today as to why it took so long for Los Angeles police to focus on one of their top detectives as a suspect.

POLICE believe a 72-year-old insurance claims adjuster arrested last month is the most prolific serial killer in the city’s history, having raped and strangled as many as 30 older women over two decades.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez praised prison terms of up to 30 years for nine former police officers for the killing of demonstrators in 2002, saying justice had been done .

Australia’s deadly wildfires destroyed at least 640 houses and that tally was expected to rise today.

An unemployed man with an advanced finance degree who was despondent over his own financial problems shot and killed his wife, three children, mother-in-law and then himself in an upscale home in a gated community, Los Angeles police said today.

Georgia’s president said today he signed a cease-fire pledge proposed by envoys from the European Union.

Officials in the Philippines refused to give up hope of rescuing some of the 800 people missing after a ferry capsized during Typhoon Fengshen, even as high seas stalled efforts to get inside the vessel today.

Chinese authorities prepared to begin draining a swelling earthquake-formed lake today after evacuating nearly 200,000 people and warning more than a million others to be ready to leave quickly.

China says it will put the Lhasa rioters on trial and reopen Tibet to tourism by May, underscoring the government’s drive to close the book on recent unrest well before the summer’s Beijing Olympics.

THE Garda inspectorate yesterday rolled in behind calls by middle-ranking gardaí to immediately arm members with pepper spray.

Nick Davies, communications director for the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), has moved to allay fears that pollution may cause further athletes to withdraw from this year’s Beijing Olympics – a day after world record holder Haile Gebrselassie decided not to run the marathon.

A Limerick student has been found guilty at the Central Criminal Court of killing a 59-year-old man at the man's home two years ago.

Police in the US arrested a 21-year-old university student in connection with an online threat to shoot people on campus, officials said last night.

A 15-truck pile-up on a rain-slicked southern California freeway left 10 people injured, at least one missing and severed a key transit link between Los Angeles and San Francisco, authorities said.

Radical Islamic students freed nine people, including three Chinese women, hours after kidnapping them today from a massage parlour in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, officials said.

Crime rates in the North have dropped over the past year, police will reveal today.

Singer Sheryl Crow reportedly had a falling out with US political heavyweight Karl Rove after trying to touch the Deputy Chief Of Staff's arm midway through a green policy debate.

A nurse allegedly poisoned two elderly men in Naas General Hospital three years ago after using excessive force to administer unprescribed drugs to them, a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court has been told.

A Russian rocket aiming to put 18 satellites into orbit failed and crashed to the ground shortly after lift-off tonight, the Interfax news agency reported.