Gardaí are investigating a suspected racist attack in which a seven-week old baby girl narrowly avoided serious injury. Thugs tossed a 10ft iron bar, and a lump of wood, through her bedroom window, in a brazen daylight attack.

The Hamas-controlled Palestinian government will resign within two or three days to make way for a new unity government that could help end a punishing Western aid boycott and resume long-frozen peace talks with Israel, a senior Palestinian negotiator said today.

The rival Fatah and Hamas movements have agreed on a candidate for prime minister of their emerging coalition government, turning to a US-educated professor to end months of infighting and help lift a painful international aid boycott.

The rival Fatah and Hamas movements today agreed on a candidate for prime minister of their emerging coalition government in Palestine, turning to a US-educated professor to end months of infighting and help lift a painful international aid boycott.

Security forces lifted a siege on a mosque in northern India following a gun battle that left two suspected Islamic militants and a civilian dead, police said.