A dog owner is refusing to hand up his three dogs for destruction and had “fled from dog wardens”, a court in Kerry was told.

THE email was welcome, because emails from this individual are always welcome.

IN 1993 Michael D Higgins, then Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, took the fateful decision to re-institute the Irish Film Board, the national film development agency, which had run briefly between 1980 and 1987.

With the Section 481 production tax relief extended until 2020, the Irish film industry breathed a sigh of relief after some pre-budget suggestions that the scheme might have been axed.

Tax incentives for the film, television, and animation industry are to be extended until 2020, in a move broadly welcomed by the industry in Ireland.

THE shortlist for the fourth annual Irish Council for Civil Liberties Human Rights Film Awards has been announced in Dublin by a celebrity jury that includes Oscar winner Brenda Fricker, Oscar nominated director Kirsten Sheridan and Senator David Norris.

PRE-TAX profits at TV and film-editing studio Windmill Lane Pictures last year increased by 9% to €147,662, figures show.

A SPANISH film exposing the plight of the victims of sex trafficking took grand prize at last night’s prestigious Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) Human Rights Film Awards.

PRE-TAX profits at the well-known TV and film editing studio, Windmill Lane Pictures, that helped produce the recent controversial “Bertie in the cupboard” advert, plummeted last year by 84% to €135,570.

Around 150 jobs will be created with the filming of a multi-million dollar Hollywood movie in Ireland, it was announced today.

COMMON bugs may play an important role in some cases of unexplained cot death, according to a study.

IRISH television is expected to have its own film channel by the end of next year.

LOCATING Irish aid supplies like tents and blankets at a UN hub in Italy will save thousands of lives in natural disasters, a leading UN aid coordinator said yesterday.

New tax incentives will boost Ireland’s film industry by attracting more Hollywood producers to the country, it was claimed today.

Bookie Paddy Power has made ITV the odds-on 1/3 favourite to buy the Canwest stake in TV3.

The World Food Programme chief has appealed for urgent funds to keep an airlift flying to quake-ravaged areas through the winter, calling it “the most difficult” logistical task the UN agency has ever faced.

A British film producer has been appointed as the new chief executive of the Irish Film Board, it emerged tonight.

PAKISTANI and US military helicopters delivered aid at a brisk pace to the earthquake-stricken region of Kashmir yesterday.

The UN World Food Programme today warned that half a million earthquake survivors had yet to receive relief supplies, and Pakistan’s president said during a visit to a quake-stricken town that he had appealed to the international community for more tents to shelter the homeless.

INTERNATIONAL governments need to give emergency aid to southern Africa, which is facing the biggest famine in the world, it was claimed yesterday.

International governments need to give emergency aid to southern Africa which is facing the biggest famine in the world, it was claimed today.

Filmmakers are to benefit from additional funding as part of a bid to reverse the slump in the Irish movie industry, it emerged today.

NORTH KOREA faces a serious food shortage because the country probably won’t meet its agricultural production target for this year, the World Food Programme warned yesterday.

North Korea faces a serious food shortage because the country probably won’t meet its agricultural production target for this year, the World Food Programme warned today.

The United Nations increased its appeal to over $75m (€60.9m) to help 2.5 million people in desperate need of food in Niger, and said more money will be needed to tackle the humanitarian crisis in the west African nation.

BROADCASTER TV3 made its first profits last year after seven years on air.

Hundreds of police were deployed in the Zimbabwean capital Harare today and army units were reportedly on standby before a two-day strike called by critics of President Robert Mugabe to protest his clampdown on street traders and slum dwellers.

More than half of the €548m in aid promised by US President George Bush will be given immediately to help those at risk from famine in Ethiopia and Eritrea, US officials in Rome said today.

Zimbabwe today said it did not need any international food aid, despite predictions of a humanitarian crisis with up to four million people at risk of famine.

Nearly half the population of Zimbabwe is facing hunger and needs food assistance as the country's food emergency deepens, a famine early warning group reported today.

Delivering on their promises, the world's richest nations today pledged millions of euro for a new network that would detect tsunami in the Indian Ocean and alert vulnerable coastal communities to approaching killer waves.

The official death toll in the Asian tsunami disaster today climbed past 150,000 as Indonesian authorities increased their tally by nearly 3,000 while adding tens of thousands to their count of the number left homeless from the disaster.

The United Nations has begun a mammoth effort to feed up to two million survivors of the tsunami disaster for six months, focusing particularly on pregnant women, nursing mothers and young children, a senior official said today.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s special envoy for humanitarian needs in southern Africa called off a visit to Zimbabwe today after being snubbed by President Robert Mugabe and his top officials.

Minister for Agriculture Joe Walsh today announced the Government is donating €4.5m to the World Food Programme.

ETHIOPIA has appealed for help from foreign donors after its estimates for the number of people needing food aid rose

TV3 is to make an official complaint against RTÉ, accusing the national broadcaster of abusing its market position.

THE United States is receiving reports that United Nations’ food aid for desperately hungry North Korean women and children is being eaten by the military instead, a senior US official said yesterday.

Zimbabwean authorities detained five foreign Lutheran church workers and a local journalist in a rural hotel today on suspicion that they violated the nation’s stringent security laws, the workers said.

WIDESPREAD food shortages and rampant AIDS have put nearly 13 million southern Africans "on the very edge of survival," the United Nations has warned, appealing for an urgent $611 million in aid.