Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders has boycotted the opening of his hate speech trial in the Netherlands.

Cologne’s police chief has been removed amid criticism of his force’s handling of a string of New Year’s Eve assaults and robberies.

Good morning. Here’s everything you need to know before you start your day.

Jacques Burger is afraid of nothing. Completely fearless, he says. Then he remembers. “No, but I am afraid of things off the pitch, I promise you that. Oooh, snakes for instance. I don’t like snakes very much,” he says with a theatrical shudder.

The tired crew of LÉ Eithne could leave for home as early as this weekend after rescuing 3,376 migrants from the Mediterranean Sea.

Ireland has the highest rate of granting citizenship to foreign nationals of any country in the EU.

A Spaniard who was convicted in Morocco of raping 11 children and then mistakenly pardoned by the North African country’s king must be held in jail while officials from both countries discuss his fate, a Spanish court has ruled.

Moroccans are choosing a new parliament today in Arab Spring-inspired elections that are facing a boycott by democracy campaigners who say the ruling monarchy is not committed to real change.

Three people have been arrested in connection with a bombing in Morocco which killed 16 people including a Briton.

A BOMB killed 15 people including 10 foreigners in Morocco’s bustling tourist destination of Marrakesh, state television said yesterday, in an attack that bore the hallmark of Islamist militants.

King Mohammed VI announced a broad revision of Morocco's constitution, a move aimed to boost democracy in the North African country amid recent turmoil in the Arab world.

A Libyan man set off a bomb while trying to enter an army barracks in Milan today, seriously injuring himself and lightly wounding the guard who stopped him, Italian law enforcement officials said.

DOUBTS over the safety of a Yemeni jetliner were at the forefront yesterday after an Airbus 310-300 carrying 153 people crashed into the Indian Ocean as it came in for a landing during howling winds on the island nation of Comoros.

Two Moroccans were trampled to death and around 20 other people were injured today as a crowd pushed to cross into Morocco from the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.

Damien Enright on how Morocco invokes nostalgia

SPAIN’S supreme court yesterday overturned the guilty verdicts on four of the 21 people convicted over the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people in 2004.

Pakistan’s government has banned access to the video-sharing website YouTube because of anti-Islamic movies users have posted on the site, an official said.

Pakistan's government has banned access to the video-sharing website YouTube because of movies that the authorities consider 'anti-Islamic', an official said today.

GARDAÍ conducted inquiries yesterday into the identity of a man, thought to be Irish, arrested by Spanish police investigating the murder of Dublin gangster Paddy Doyle in the Costa del Sol on Monday.

King Juan Carlos will begin a visit to Spain's two North African enclaves today that has sparked a diplomatic spat with Morocco, which claims the territories as its own.

The body of an Irish man has been found in Morocco, and police in Tangiers have launched an investigation into his death.

A Spanish judge ordered six people to be held in jail on provisional charges of belonging to a terrorist group, while freeing six others, the National Court in Madrid said today.

ITALIAN police arrested 14 people in raids against a human trafficking ring that brought in illegal immigrants from Africa then abducted some of them for ransom, officials said today.

Italian police arrested 14 people across the country in raids against a human trafficking ring that brought in illegal immigrants from Africa then abducted some of them for ransom, officials said today.

A Spanish man suspected of supplying explosives to the Madrid bombers told a court he had tipped police off months before the attacks that some of the Moroccan suspects in the case were looking to buy explosives.

WHILE waiting to move into our long-term rented house in the Alpujarras mountains, south of Granada, we left Spain and went to Africa, arriving at midnight in Tangiers with no arrangements made.

A MOROCCAN court has ordered three-year suspended jail terms and fines on two journalists for defaming Islam and breaching public morality in jokes published in a magazine.

WE DROVE across the bare Meseta, the tableland at the centre of Spain, on a Sunday morning, the sky big and blue overhead and snow-capped mountains on the horizon, rising above a band of blue mist.

IRELAND will open their World Cup campaign against Namibia in Bordeaux after the Africans qualified for Pool D with a comprehensive victory over Morocco.

Ireland will open their World Cup campaign against Namibia in Bordeaux after the Africans qualified for Pool D with a comprehensive victory over Morocco.

TENS of thousands marched in cities across Europe, Africa and the Middle East over the weekend, protesting against the Israeli offensive in Lebanon.

SEPTEMBER 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui’s isolation from family and social support networks left him vulnerable to recruitment by al-Qaida, an expert on cults told his trial yesterday.

Alistair Cragg qualified for Sunday’s World Championships indoor final in Moscow but looked a shadow of the runner who won last year’s European indoor 3000 metres title.

Twenty tons of hashish were seized and 11 people arrested in a raid by Spanish police today.

Moroccan police have dismantled a terrorist network, arresting 17 people, including two former prisoners at the US base at Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay reported.

The American military launched a major new offensive today, involving about 2,500 Marines, soldiers and sailors near the Syrian border, aimed at destroying an al-Qaida in Iraq network.

The al-Qaida in Iraq militant group said today it has sentenced two Moroccan embassy employees kidnapped last month to death.

An internet posting in the name of al-Qaida in Iraq says two kidnapped Moroccan Embassy employees are to stand trial.

Spanish and Moroccan officials had no comment on reports today that their respective security forces were responsible for shooting at five immigrants who were killed when hundreds rushed a barrier at one of its two enclaves on the northern Morocco coast.

A Belgrade judge has ordered a key suspect in the Madrid bombings to be detained pending his possible extradition to Spain.

A joint US-Iraqi offensive has killed some 50 insurgents so far in battles that raged today around a blistering hot frontier town in the American military’s latest campaign to stop foreign fighters from pouring through neighbouring Syria.

Spanish police have arrested three Moroccans suspected of helping finance last year’s train bombings in Madrid and providing weapons today.