ARC Adoption has become the first agency accredited to operate as an adoption mediation agency under the Adoption Act.

Sunday Mirror journalist Simon Wright, arrested after a fan’s intrusion into the England team’s dressing room at the World Cup in South Africa, is to go on trial this weekend.

A NEW adoption agency to facilitate inter-country adoptions for Irish people is scheduled to launch in September.

CYPRUS’s rival leaders held productive talks over their divided island’s future yesterday in their first substantive meeting aimed at ending an almost 35-year stalemate, a United Nations envoy said yesterday.

Alexander Downer, Australia’s longest-serving foreign minister and one of its highest-profile leaders for a decade until last year, is quitting politics.

Friends of Munster's 2006 European cup winning captain Anthony Foley are getting set to give him a big send off.

Australia today said it would press ahead with plans to urge Pacific Rim countries to agree that limiting greenhouse gas emissions should be part of a new international pact on global warming.

Australia’s foreign minister today became the highest-level foreign official to visit East Timor since it installed a new government.

AUSTRALIAN opposition leader Kevin Rudd yesterday suggested the government may have leaked news of his drunken visit to a New York strip club while on an official trip to the United Nations in 2003.

A state leader accused Australia's government today of incompetence in its handling of the case of Indian terror suspect Mohamed Haneef.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard today defended his government’s warnings that a terrorist attack in Indonesia may be imminent, despite officials saying there was no direct intelligence a strike was being planned.

Australia has told Iran that taking 15 British sailors and marines hostage could become “increasingly serious” if they were not released immediately, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said today.

UNIVERSITY of Limerick has appointed Cork-born Professor Don Barry to be its next president after a meeting of the governing authority last night.

Australian companies can begin exporting uranium to China after the two countries ratified key agreements on nuclear energy, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said today.

An Australian inquiry into alleged multimillion dollar bribes paid to export wheat to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is expected to recommend criminal charges against several senior executives.

Australia will ban North Korean ships from entering its ports in a toughening of Canberra’s response to the North’s recent nuclear weapons test, the foreign minister announced today.

A jittery world lashed out at North Korea today with fresh threats of harsh sanctions, a day after its nuclear test.

Neighbouring countries today cautioned North Korea against carrying out a planned nuclear test, while a top South Korean security official said there was no sign a test was imminent.

MUNSTER’S two universities are about to begin the search for new presidents.

European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson criticised Australia today for taking the US side in stalled World Trade Organisation talks on global trade liberalisation.

North Korea fired a flurry of missiles into the sea today in what was widely seen as a bid to pressure Washington into addressing demands for economic aid and other concessions amid a long-running nuclear stand-off.

THE University of Limerick yesterday signed a €15.8 million contract for the longest pedestrian bridge to be built in this country.

THE president of the University of Limerick Professor Roger Downer has decided to step down from his post on health grounds. He made the announcement at a meeting of the UL governing authority yesterday.

The President of the University of Limerick Professor Roger Downer has resigned from his post for health reasons.

Australia and China today signed deals clearing the way for Beijing to buy Australian uranium – but only for use in its nuclear power stations.

SIX of the world’s biggest polluters, led by the United States, will create a multi-million dollar fund to encourage mining and power industries to use cleaner energy technologies to combat climate change.

A bus carrying Australian tourists overturned on a wet road, killing six Australians and injuring at least 20 other people, an Egyptian security official said today.

THE head of the University of Limerick has put down a clear marker for the Minister for Education as her department draws up plans for a new graduate-only school of medicine.

Australia is considering taking Singapore to the International Court of Justice in a desperate bid to prevent the execution of a heroin trafficker on December 2, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said today.

China reported its seventh and eighth bird flu outbreaks in three weeks, as Australia’s foreign minister said today that he will urge Pacific Rim nations to think creatively about how to tackle the threat at a meeting of regional leaders.

THE astronaut watched by a spellbound world earlier this year carrying out a critical panel-beating repair job on the US space shuttle Discovery flies into Limerick this weekend on a less hazardous mission.

Australia’s foreign minister, set to visit neighbouring Indonesia in the aftermath of the latest Bali bombings, said he will urge the country’s government to bolster its counterterrorism capabilities.

A British national was killed in the bomb blasts in Bali, the Australian Foreign Minister confirmed today.

Australia’s foreign minister today said he will visit neighbouring Indonesia next week to push for Jakarta to ban the Islamic militant group suspected in the Bali bombings and end sentence reductions for convicted terrorists.

Australia will host a regional meeting on avian influenza in Brisbane on October 31 to co-ordinate an Asia-Pacific response to a potential pandemic, the Foreign Minister announced today.

The Australian government said today it would buy 40,000 doses of a bird flu anti-viral medication to help its northern neighbour Indonesia cope with the illness.

A former Australian soldier is suspected of being a masked gunman who appeared in a videotaped terror message this week threatening attacks against the West, newspapers reported today.

Australia’s foreign minister is expected to announce next week that Australia will sign a non-aggression pact with its south-east Asian neighbours when he attends an ASEAN security forum, an analyst said today.

An Australian has died of injuries sustained in the London terrorist bombings last week, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said today.

Australia’s national counter-terrorism group met today to discuss the deadly blasts in London, while Canberra set up a hotline for relatives of the hundreds of thousands Australians who live in Britain.

Australia’s prime minister hailed the rescue of countryman Douglas Wood from insurgents in Iraq as a miracle, and his family today said he was in high spirits.

Bacterial powder that sparked a terror alert when it was sent to the Indonesian Embassy in Canberra, Australia, was probably harmless, an initial police report said today, though tests were continuing.

Indonesia’s embassy in Australia was closed today after a suspicious package containing what authorities described as a “biological agent” was delivered there.

The Australian government today offered to send two senior lawyers to help the appeal of an Australian woman who was convicted of drug smuggling on the Indonesian island of Bali and sentenced to 20 years.