A relentless heatwave dubbed "Lucifer" which gripped parts of Europe this week has sent temperatures soaring to record highs, causing at least two deaths and prompting authorities to issue severe weather warnings.

US Vice President Mike Pence has said the future of Europe's Balkan nations is in the West, reaffirming Washington's commitment to the region as Russia works to assert its historical influence there.

Montenegro has asked for international help to fight wildfires raging along the Adriatic Sea coastline that are also affecting neighbouring Croatia, reaching a key port.

Latest:At least 100 tourists have been forced to evacuate from a coastal area in Montenegro that is being threatened by wildfires raging across the Balkans.

Hundreds of tourists and local residents in Croatia have been evacuated amid big forest fires that have engulfed the central Adriatic coast.

The death toll from the avalanche which buried an Italian hotel has risen to nine after emergency crews pulled out three more bodies.

Latest: Italy's civil protection agency has upgraded the provisional death toll from Italy's 6.1-strength earthquake to 73.

I suppose I had better just come out and admit it, I’m not a big fan of sauvignon blanc.

British, French, and German leaders and bureaucrats realised after World War II that only an economically stable ‘United States’ of Europe would guarantee peace, says Kyran Fitzgerald.

As Nicky Byrne urges us to “Just touch who you wanna, Kiss who you gotta”, Billy O’Riordan looks back at the weird and wonderful lyrics of Eurovision from the past 61 years

Seventy years after his speech on the Cold War, Churchill’s words still linger writes Geoffrey Roberts.

Smog has helped put a damper on New Year’s Eve celebrations throughout Italy, as Rome, Milan and other cities ban fireworks to avoid aggravating already high levels of air pollution.

Had the Ottoman empire survived World War I and come to dominate western powers we would be living in a very different, far less tolerant world, suggests Andrew Melsom.

IN World War II terms, what is happening in Calais and along the coast of Normandy with refugees trying to enter Britain represents the Western Front.

Now that there appears be a chink of light at the end of the recession tunnel — given the number of new wine shop and wine bar openings — I thought I would talk gadgets this week.

Trying to get her presidential campaign back on track, Hillary Clinton says she should have used a government email address while working as the nation’s top diplomat instead of a private one. The admission sought to quell a political furore some Democratic allies say she could no longer avoid.

Conor Power travels to the far reaches of the Adriatic. Crossing from Dubrovnik in Croatia, to Kotor in Montenegro, is akin to travelling back in time, from clean modernity to a city that time has largely forgotten.

Firefighters have boarded the charred Norman Atlantic ferry in the Italian port of Brindisi to put out residual fires and allow a search for more possible victims.

Prosecutors in Italy say they fear more bodies will be found aboard the crippled Greek ferry Norman Atlantic, adrift for a third day after a fire broke out on a car deck, with 10 people killed in the ensuing chaos.

Two crew members on an Albanian tugboat have died during the operation to secure the fire-hit Greek ferry from which hundreds of people were rescued and 10 people died, Albanian authorities said.

Rescue crews battled gale-force winds and massive waves as they struggled to rescue hundreds of people trapped on a burning ferry adrift between Italy and Albania.

US actor George Clooney and Lebanese-born human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin formalised their marriage in a civil ceremony in Venice yesterday, capping star-studded weekend nuptials.

I mentioned last week of the sad death of Paddy Keogh of Wines Direct at the young age of 64 from a relatively short illness. 

ONE of world’s rarest mammals, the Mediterranean monk seal, has returned to the Adriatic coast.

A cold spell and snowstorms have swept across parts of central and eastern Europe, disrupting power supplies, travel and schools. Four people have died in Bulgaria over the past few days.

Maurice Riordan

Need inspiration for your holidays in 2014? From city breaks to family getaways to adventure destinations, Isabel Conway has 10 of the best at home and abroad.

Derry’s year as the UK’s City of Culture will reach its theatrical apogee on September 20 with The Conquest of Happiness, a large-scale open-air show in the city’s Ebrington Square, directed by Haris Pasovic.

A tour bus filled with Italians returning home after an excursion plunged off a highway into a ravine in southern Italy after it had smashed into several cars that were slowed by heavy traffic, killing at least 37 people, said police and rescuers.

An English-language sign at the fishermen’s pier in the northern Adriatic town of Umag reads: “This fishing port was rebuilt with the support of the European Union”.

ALTHOUGH increasing numbers of us buy our wine at the supermarkets, this week I want to encourage you to remember the independent wine shops who can often provide more variety and unusual styles.

MONTENEGRO, roughly the size of Northern Ireland gained independence in 2006 and confronted a readymade identity crisis. Few people actually knew where it was, apart from a hazy notion that this obscure place was hidden somewhere within the former Yugoslavia.

Life under tarpaulin couldn’t be more pleasant than in lush Istria on Croatia’s Adriatic coast where Conor Power decamped to soak up the sun and enjoy the laid-back pace of life.

Yes, we will have a summer.

Irish exploration company Petroceltic has been awarded two licences off the coast of Italy.

At least seven Czech tourists have been killed and 44 injured in a bus crash in Croatia, police said.

The big freeze continued to overwhelm parts of eastern Europe today as record snowfall and harsh temperatures brought entire regions to a standstill.

Helicopters have lifted dozens of people from snow-blocked villages in Serbia and Bosnia and brought in emergency food and medicine as a severe cold spell kept Eastern Europe in its icy grip.

Eastern Europe has been hit by a near-record heatwave which has seen wildfires raging and people fainting in the streets.

Roger Crowley