Lawyers for three suspected IRA men on trial in Colombia presented two alibi witnesses to refute government claims that they travelled to the South American nation to train rebels in sophisticated bombing tactics.

A SENIOR Irish diplomat is set to take the witness stand in the Colombian trial of three Irishmen accused of helping to train left wing guerrillas in the use of mortars.

Aid agencies were today at the scene of a powerful earthquake that devastated villages in the Hindu Kush mountains of northern Afghanistan.