Forty per cent of water supplies to the stricken city of Basra have been restored but engineers are still struggling to fix the main water source, the Red Cross said today.

Air raid sirens rang out over Baghdad again today and six columns of thick black smoke could be seen rising from the outskirts of the city, Sky News correspondent David Chater said.

Tens of thousands of people have lost their homes as a volcano erupts in the Democratic Republic of Congo.