Last night I read for the first time the account my father made of entering Germany as the first Irish journalist to report from there after the war, says Victoria White.

Admissions about the crisis cock-up are all very well but what have we learned, asks Kyran Fitzgerald.

AN illicit love affair is so quintessentially French that revelations of President François Hollande’s clandestine meetings with Julie Gayet have been greeted by the French with a shrug.

South Africans were praised for the “dignified” way in which they have commemorated the death of Nelson Mandela as the memorial service for the anti-apartheid hero got under way.

French police have searched the home of IMF chief Christine Lagarde today as part of a fraud investigation involving the country's former Prime Minister.

AS THE Government ratchets up the pressure on struggling families by introducing an array of new taxes, the question of whether multinational companies are paying their fair share is timely.

Syrian forces used live fire, tear gas and clubs to beat back tens of thousands of protesters who took to the streets across the country yesterday in powerful and often jubilant displays of defiance.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy has branded today "a day of national disaster" after a gunman opened fire at a Jewish school in Toulouse, killing a teacher and three children.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti will travel to Berlin today to hold talks on the eurozone crisis with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

LAST Wednesday Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy set out, in a letter, their plans for tighter fiscal union.

WHICH part of this deal did they think might appeal to us?

France and Germany are making a joint call for common corporate and financial transaction tax rates within the Eurozone.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says Europe needs to tackle its debt crisis, with or without Greece.

IT may have escaped your notice but the country has finally emerged from the economic crisis that has gripped it for over three years.

IT may have escaped your notice but the country has finally emerged from the economic crisis that has gripped it for over three years.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde says European leaders have made "very good progress" on plans to resolve the eurozone debt crisis.

YESTERDAY’S Brussels meeting of the 27 European Union leaders focussed on saving the euro but underlined the difficulty in getting 27 governments to act as one, especially at such a critical moment.

There are reports that Germany is considering a second postponement of this weekend's

NICOLAS SARKOZY and David Cameron landed in Libya to a heroes’ welcome yesterday, promising help for the new rulers French and British air power helped install and being told the favour may be repaid in oil and reconstruction deals.

A German minister has suggested the eurozone could do without Greece.

DEEP divisions are at the heart of prevailing paralysis in the eurozone.

As president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, will need to use all his negotiating skills to pull together an increasingly fractious eurozone at a time when the very future of the euro is threatened, writes Kyran Fitzgerald.

Nicholas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel’s proposed debt limits for EU member states would require a referendum in Ireland.

The European Central Bank has confirmed it spent a record amount buying up bonds last week in an effort to ease concern about the Eurozone debt crisis.

Italy’s borrowing costs have risen above Spain’s for the first time in more than a year, pushing European leaders to interrupt their holidays and look for a response to deepening fears about the health of the eurozone’s third-largest economy.

The Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said he is "more hopeful" that a deal on a lower interest rate on Ireland's bailout will be struck following talks with the French President in Brussels last night.

Ireland's EU Commissioner Maire Geoghegan-Quinn said today that she is confident that the Government will secure a cut in the interest rate on Ireland's bailout loans.

GREECE began negotiations to boost its bailout with fellow eurozone finance ministers in Brussels last night clouded by the arrest of IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn in New York on charges of attempted rape.

IT may be a case of no Cannes do.

With Jean Claude Trichet preparing to step down as president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, an Italian banker with more than enough experience, is the person likely to step into his office, writes Kyran Fitzgerald

Japan is turning to other countries for help as it struggles to stabilise its tsunami-stricken nuclear plant and stop radiation leaks.

THE response from Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar and Labour’s Jan O’Sullivan to the suggestion that another €15 billion might be needed to recapitalise Ireland’s rotten banks should be welcomed by every one of us.

A 78-year-old French aid worker held hostage by al-Qaida has been killed in the Sahara.

A KEY aide of French president Nicholas Sarkozy yesterday agreed to resign amid a scandal involving claims of illegal political financing.

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen was battling with Germany last night to avoid having to call a new referendum to change the rules of the euro.

EU leaders have opened the door to the possibility of rescuing troubled eurozone economies by stating they would take action to ensure the safety of the euro area following a special summit in Brussels.

FORMER French prime minister Dominique de Villepin yesterday accused president Nicholas Sarkozy of conducting a vendetta against him.

Former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin today accused president Nicholas Sarkozy of conducting a vendetta against him.

“HI GUYS. How are you?”

A DOZEN core countries met into the early hours of the morning in Copenhagen in a desperate effort to put together the basis of a global deal on climate change in the final hours.

Ireland hope to discover today whether they will be allowed to replay their World Cup clash with France.

DIPLOMATIC tension between Ireland and France has become intense as the fallout from the World Cup handball affair gathers political momentum.

THE idiosyncrasies of this hybrid democracy that is the EU are once again on display in the lead up toappointing people to the new positions of president and foreign minister.