Ireland will accept dozens more refugees in the coming weeks ahead of an expected increase in migrants attempting dangerous crossings into Europe.

Bastible, 111 South Circular Road, Dublin 8; tel: 01-4737409; www.bastible.com 

Kurdish peshmerga fighters say they have liberated much of the Iraqi town of Sinjar from the group calling itself Islamic State (ISIL).

Doctor to Michael Jackson is just one chapter in the story of Dr Patrick Treacy, says Richard Fitzpatrick.

Talks between representatives of the Syrian government and some mainstream members of the opposition concluded yesterday in Moscow with no sign of progress towards ending a four-year-old conflict that has killed more than 220,000 people.

A cargo ship said to be carrying 700 migrants which was taken under Italian control at sea has docked in the Italian port of Gallipoli.

Ethnic Kurds are helping members of the Islamic State in the battle for the key Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, sharing their knowledge of the local terrain and language with the extremists, according to Iraqi and Kurdish officials.

US-led coalition air strikes on Syria have killed more than 500 people, mainly Islamic militants, since they began last month, activists said as fighting flared in the northern Syrian border town of Kobani.

Turkey’s top diplomat has announced that his country is helping Iraqi Kurdish fighters cross into Syria to “give support” to fellow Kurds defending the border town of Kobani from Islamic State militants.

President Barack Obama and military chiefs from more than 20 nations gathered in a show of strength against Islamic State (IS) fighters in Iraq and Syria.

The US-led coalition has intensified its aerial bombardment of Islamic State (IS) positions in the Syrian border town of Kobani as the extremist group fought street battles with Kurdish forces and reportedly rushed in reinforcements.

The US-led coalition intensified its aerial bombardment of Islamic State positions in the Syrian border town of Kobani today as the extremist group fought street battles with Kurdish forces and reportedly rushed in reinforcements.

Islamic State fighters are poised to capture a strategic Syrian border town, Turkey’s president has warned, even as Kurdish forces battled to expel the extremists from their footholds on the outskirts.

Syrian Kurds battled to defend a key border town from an Islamic State advance as Kurdish youths from neighbouring Turkey rushed to their aid, heightening the pressure on Ankara to act against the Islamist insurgents.

The number of Syrians who have flooded into Turkey to escape Islamic State (IS) militants has reached 100,000.

French jets struck a suspected Islamic State target in Iraq for the first time, expanding a US-led military campaign against militants who have seized a third of the country and also control large parts of neighbouring Syria.

Islamic State (IS) fighters backed by tanks have captured 16 Kurdish villages over the past 24 hours in northern Syria near the Turkish border, prompting civilians to flee their homes amid fears of retribution by the extremists sweeping through the area, activists said.

US Secretary of State John Kerry endorsed Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s plans to mend Baghdad’s relations with Sunnis and Kurds, and said Iraq was a partner in the fight against Islamic State militants.

It is unlawful to supply a weapon to another person. The supplier can even be complicit in murder if the gun kills. Why, then, should these laws not apply to governments supplying arms to terrorists?

The European Union yesterday forged a unified response to the rapid advance of Islamic militants in Iraq and the resulting refugee crisis, allowing direct arms deliveries to Kurdish fighters battling the Sunni insurgents. Several EU nations pledged more humanitarian aid.

The European Union has sought to forge a unified response to the rapid advance of Islamic militants in Iraq and the resulting refugee crisis.

Iraq is facing a fierce political power struggle even as the country battles extremists in the north and west, after its president went over the head of incumbent prime minister Nouri Maliki and picked another politician to form a new government.

Iraq’s president snubbed incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and picked another politician to form the next government yesterday, setting up a fierce political power struggle even as the country battles extremists in the north and west.

Kurdish security forces took over two major oil fields outside the disputed northern city of Kirkuk before dawn yesterday and said they would use some of the production for domestic purposes.

A suicide car bomber joined by other suicide attackers on foot assaulted a provincial police headquarters in a disputed northern Iraqi city on Sunday, killing at least 15 people and wounding 90 others, officials said.

A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb near a Syrian security compound in a remote, predominantly Kurdish town today, killing at least four people.

Blasphemous friends and thespians

MIDDLE EAST powerhouse Turkey yesterday warned against a sectarian Cold War in the region and said rising Sunni-Shi’ite tensions would be “suicide” for the whole region.

TURKEY struggled to provide shelter yesterday to tens of thousands left homeless by an earthquake that killed nearly 500, and rescue teams began taking painful decisions to call off searches for those buried alive.

IRAQI authorities uncovered a mass grave with 900 corpses near the central city of Diwaniyah yesterday, believed to be Kurds killed during the rule of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, an official said.

Two people have been injured in a bomb explosion near a police station in southern Turkey, the state-run Anatolia news agency said today.

Syria’s president has granted citizenship to thousands of Kurds living in a north-eastern province as part of overtures to ease the pressure of widespread anti-government protests.

Three people have been killed and 18 others injured in a car bombing in a northern Iraqi city rife with ethnic tensions, a police spokesman said.

One person has been killed and 47 others injured during overnight protests in the northern Iraqi city of Sulaimaniyah, police and hospital officials said.

Protesters calling for a provincial governor to resign blocked a bridge in the southern Iraqi city of Basra today, as demonstrations against government continued across Iraq.

Iraq’s prime minister Nouri al-Maliki will return to power for another four-year term after MPs working late into the night agreed on a deal to form a new government.

Saddam Hussein’s notorious cousin “Chemical Ali” was convicted today of crimes against humanity, receiving a death sentence for his involvement in one of the worst poison gas attacks ever against civilians – one of several he faces.

At least 45 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack on a restaurant in Iraq where Kurdish officials were meeting Arab tribal leaders today.

At least 11 people were killed and 54 wounded when a suicide bomber struck a Kurdish rally in the northern Iraq city of Kirkuk, officials said.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed the reduction in attacks across Iraq and called for similar improvements in the political arena.

A car bomb aimed at the Turkish military killed four people and wounded up to 70 more in the Kurdish-dominated Turkish city of Diyarbakir today.

Oil prices jumped sharply today after Turkish forces entered northern Iraq in search of Kurdish rebels, raising fears that the conflict would cut oil supplies from the region.