The Government's proposed abortion legislation is facing yet another challenge in Leinster House today.

Independent Senator Rónán Mullen has described as "inaccurate and misleading" reports on his recent conversation with a group of women who spoke to Oireachtas members on their experiences of travelling for abortion due to fatal foetal abnormalities.

THE SENATE emphatically passed emergency legislation yesterday to avoid a first-ever government default, rushing the legislation to President Barack Obama for his signature just hours before the deadline. The vote was 74-26.

The Republican-controlled House and Democratic-run Senate remained deadlocked today over debt legislation required to avoid a first-ever default on US financial obligations.

Rescuers began a race against time to save the Haiti earthquake survivors today as a trickle of aid began arriving in the country.

Former Philippines President Corazon Aquino, who swept away a dictator with a “people power” revolt and sustained democracy by fighting off seven coup attempts in six years, died today, her son said. She was 76.

Barack Obama will increase taxes despite the fact Americans are already hurting and angry, his Republican presidential rival John McCain said today.

Financial markets extended their declines today as investors worried that politicians were beginning to doubt the necessity of a broad government bailout for financial institutions as a way to revive ailing credit markets.

The flood-ravaged communities of the Midwest became a new battleground in the US presidential election as Democrat Barack Obama criticised Republican John McCain for opposing federal spending on flood prevention programmes, attacks Mr McCain’s campaign called typical partisan politics.

Revising his stand on global warming, President George Bush called for a halt in the growth of US greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 and urged other major polluting nations to develop national goals to address climate change.

Deposed president Joseph Estrada, who once pulled off the Philippines’ biggest election victory, was sentenced to life in prison today after a landmark six-year trial on charges that he took bribes and kickbacks in office.

Republicans dismissed a Democratic plan for an all-night session of the US Senate to debate President Bush’s military strategy in Iraq amid bipartisan proposals to redeploy US troops.

Congressional investigators set up a bogus company in the US and obtained a licence from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that allowed them to buy enough radioactive material for a small “dirty bomb”.

Former US President Bill Clinton made more than €7.4m in paid speeches last year, according to new filings that show he and his presidential-candidate wife have at least €7.4m in the bank, and may have closer to €37m.

The rival US presidential campaigns of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama traded accusations of nasty politics over Hollywood donor David Geffen, who once backed former president Bill Clinton but now supports his wife’s top rival.

The US government wasted tens of millions of dollars in Iraq reconstruction aid, including scores of unaccounted-for weapons and a never-used camp for housing police trainers with an Olympic-size swimming pool, investigators say.

President George Bush and first lady Laura Bush briefly paid their respects Gerald Ford today, joining thousands of ordinary Americans in saying goodbye to the former president.

Former US Presidential candidate Democratic Sen John Kerry today apologised for “a botched joke” about President George Bush’s Iraq policies that led Bush and fellow Republicans to accuse him of insulting US troops.

A surge in oil prices last week to almost $70 a barrel on concerns about the restart of Iran’s nuclear programme only hints at what may lie ahead.

FC Thun: Jakupovic, Orman, Hodzic, Deumi, Goncalves, Ferreira, Milicevic, Aegerter, Leandro, Adriano, Lustrinelli. Subs: Portmann, Bernardi, Duruz, Gelson, Spadoto, Faye, Sen.

A Pentagon employee was ordered to destroy documents that identified Mohamed Atta as a terrorist two years before the 2001 attacks, a congressman has said.

Fine Gael this afternoon accused the Government of using sports funding as a political football.

PD senator Tom Morrissey has called on the Government to implement measures to boost private involvement in the bus market.

Cable TV company, NTL, is closing down its domestic phone service in Ireland amid fears the units used to connect phones to the cable could be dangerous.

A Progressive Democrat party senator is to contest the north-Kildare by-election. Senator Kate Walsh ran for the PDs in the 2002 general election in the constituency.

As he prepared for heart bypass surgery early next week, Bill Clinton was in good spirits, dressed in street clothes and walking around his hospital room today, said people close to the Clinton family.

The wife of Senator John Kerry said the Demorcratic his party had “putrid” politics and that some of its senior members were untrustworthy, according to a book unearthed today.

Fine Gael Senator Maurice Cummins has called for proper regulations to be put in place to deal with puppy farms operating throughout the country.

European of the Year Senator Maurice Hayes has voiced his concerns at plans to push ahead with a "two-speed Europe" by some of the EU's larger countries.

Fine Gael has called on Dublin City Council to provide a free shuttle bus service into Dublin's city centre in the run up to Christmas.

The feud between California Governor Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger escalated as the governor accused the actor’s handlers of engaging in “dirty tricks” by plotting to disrupt a Davis event.

AFTER laying out a seven-figure advance for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s memoirs, her publishers are counting on seven-figure sales.

Mourners gathered in New York Saturday at funerals for three top officials of the city's fire department killed in the aftermath of Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center.

US officials investigating the series of attacks Tuesday in New York and Washington are setting their sights on Osama bin Laden, the millionaire Saudi fugitive who has been blamed for past terrorist attacks against American targets.

As the Philippines Government stepped up its battle with Muslim rebel hostage-takers today, the military said it found two bodies in guerrilla territory, but neither belonged to the American captive the insurgents claim to have beheaded.