Tune in to BBC2 at 9pm for Children of Syria. Lyse Doucet follows the lives of six children over six months. Their stories offer an intimate and powerful insight into a country being torn apart.

Because I was unfortunately unavailable owing to Irish Examiner duties, the admirable BBC chief foreign correspondent Lyse Doucet stepped in to give the Royal Television Society’s Huw Wheldon lecture the other night on the rise of social media and its increasing relevance to broadcast journalism.

The Department of Health has spent over €30,000 sending four officials to attend an exclusive six-day course on negotiation at one of the world’s most prestigious universities.

AFGHAN president Hamid Karzai survived an assassination attempt yesterday when a security guard fired at his car shortly after 22 people were killed in a car blast in Kabul.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai escaped an assassin’s bullets today – an attack blamed on Osama bin Laden, the world’s most wanted man.