RECENTLY, I got to spend a few days in Turkey’s capital. I can quickly warm to a city like Ankara.

Mariah Carey was reportedly paid almost £1m (€1.2m) to perform for the Sultan of Brunei's son.

A mother who admitted killing her baby daughter while she was “in a maelstrom of fatigue and mental disorder” caused by postnatal depression has been spared jail in the UK.

A mother in the UK has admitted killing her baby daughter while suffering from postnatal depression.

Turkey has opened a railway tunnel linking Europe and Asia, realising a plan initially proposed by an Ottoman sultan 150 years ago.

Lost dentures, loose eyeball among sick-day excuses

A 21-year-old woman is to go on trial in the UK, accused of murdering her baby daughter.

A security expert who protected one of the richest men in the world found a guard asleep on the job at JP McManus’s €100m home at Martinstown Stud, Co Limerick.

British Prime Minister David Cameron paid tribute to Crown Prince Nayef for his “leadership and dedication” following the Saudi Arabian minister’s death earlier today.

The run-off vote for Egypt’s next president will pit the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate against the last prime minister to serve under Hosni Mubarak, according to full official results released by the election commission.

Egypt has set May 23-24 for the first presidential election since Hosni Mubarak’s removal last year.

NORTHERN Nigerian Christians said yesterday they feared that a spate of Christmas Day bombings by Islamist militants that killed over two dozen people could lead to a religious war in Africa’s most populous country.

An 84-year-old Malaysian state sultan has been sworn in as the country’s new king.

Saudi Arabia’s heir to the throne Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdel Aziz has died abroad after an illness, national TV reported. He was 85 years old.

Protesters set a supermarket on fire and gathered at several sites in a seaside town in Oman today in a third consecutive day of unrest which has included deadly clashes in the Gulf nation.

IF Queen Elizabeth deigns to come to Cork during her State visit to Ireland, they may have to do a bit of heavy lifting at UCC. A statue of her predecessor, Queen Victoria, once held pride of place on the roof of the college’s Aula Maxima when it was Queen’s University Cork.

THIS proposed visit by Queen Elizabeth II for autumn next year will coincide with the 150th anniversary of her great-great grandmother, Queen Victoria’s visit to Killarney in 1861.

Buxted gave Terry Mills and his team cause to believe they have picked up a real bargain by strolling nine lengths clear on his belated debut at Lingfield today.

A rare white tiger was killed by two lions that managed to sneak into its enclosure in a Czech zoo, officials said.

FOR many lonely hearts, finding love is a tall order — particularly if you measure 8ft 1in.

American Ryder Cup star Anthony Kim was taken aback in the pro-am for the Maybank Malaysian Open today when he discovered one of his partners was the King of Malaysia.

THOUSANDS of Muslim pilgrims massed in a valley near the Saudi holy city of Mina yesterday for the stoning of Satan, the last and most dangerous rite of the annual hajj.

The royal titular head of a Malaysian state has criticised an Islamic opposition party for opposing a planned music concert, dismissing the protest as “hypocritical” and “trivial” in a rare outburst.

A fed-up judge told Sean Connery and his downstairs neighbours to end their feud, it emerged today.

Saudi Arabia brought the two main Palestinian leaders to Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, today for a last-ditch attempt to end their bloody conflict and complete a power-sharing agreement on a coalition government.

Pakistan’s army destroyed suspected al-Qaida hideouts in an air strike near the Afghan border today, killing several militants including foreigners, the army said.

Pope Benedict XVI prayed beside an Islamic cleric in one of Turkey’s most famous mosques today in a dramatic gesture of outreach to Muslims, after causing outrage with remarks linking violence and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad.

Pakistan’s military had to destroy an Islamic school, killing 80 people in the process, with helicopter-fired missiles to prevent trainee terrorists escaping the building, the army said today as critics denounced the government for using disproportionate force.

Pakistan’s army spokesman today said the military used intelligence provided by US-led coalition forces in an air raid that left 80 people dead, while thousands of pro-Taliban tribesmen threatened to send suicide bombers to attack Pakistan forces and execute people found spying for the Americans.

Pakistani troops backed by missile-firing helicopters killed an estimated 80 militants today after destroying a purported al-Qaida-linked training facility near the Afghan border, the military said.

A Nigerian airliner reportedly carrying more than 100 people, including the spiritual leader of Muslims in Nigeria, crashed today near the airport in the capital, Abuja. A television station said at least six people survived.

Pakistan said today it will capture Osama bin Laden if he is found in the country, despite the government’s recent peace deal with Islamic militants in a remote, violence-battered region on the Afghan border.

A suicide car bomber attacked a military check point in tribal-dominated northwestern Pakistan today, killing at least six soldiers and wounding 10 others, officials said.

Pakistani army helicopters have destroyed an insurgent hideout in north-western Pakistan and killed at least seven militants in an attack targeting an Egyptian al-Qaida operative wanted for the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Pakistan has yet to find the bodies of al-Qaida operatives thought to have been killed in a US missile strike more than two weeks ago and is still hunting for fugitive leaders of the terror group, an army spokesman said today.

Pakistan’s top army spokesman today claimed that a 26-year-old man has been pulled alive from the rubble of his quake-ruined home in northern Pakistan more than three weeks after South Asia’s massive earthquake, but a doctor treating the man said he doubted such a tale could be possible.

An international human rights group claimed today that Pakistani officials are storing tents and other relief supplies instead of immediately distributing them to earthquake survivors.

Rescuers today pulled a baby girl from the rubble of her home in Pakistan eight days after an earthquake killed tens of thousands of people, the military said.

A Pakistani military helicopter flying a quake relief mission crashed in bad weather near the Himalayan town of Bagh, killing all six people aboard, a senior army official said today.

A WHOLE generation had been wiped out in the areas most devastated by the weekend’s huge earthquake in Pakistan, a military spokesman said yesterday, as UNICEF estimated up to 40,000 had been killed in the disaster.

A powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake reduced villages to rubble in Pakistan and India on today, killing hundreds of people. Pakistan’s army described the damage as widespread and said it included villages buried in quake-induced landslides.

Up to 1,000 people are feared dead after a magnitude 7.6 earthquake jolted south Asia today, collapsing buildings and triggering landslides.

Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of oil-rich, jungle-covered Brunei has married a former Malaysian TV journalist, making her the second wife of one of the world’s richest men.

Heads of state from around the world jetted into the Saudi capital of Riyadh amid tight security today to attend the funeral of King Fahd, the oil-rich country’s ruler for almost a quarter of a century who died yesterday from a long illness.