European conservation experts will today address an international summit on farming in the Burren area.

Continuing heavy snow fall in Austria’s Alpine regions raised the risk of avalanches today and prompted urgent safety warnings to hikers and skiers to avoid the areas deemed most prone to snow slides.

The Irish and Scots may be as closely related to the people of Spain and Portugal as the Celts of central Europe, it emerged today.

A mudslide set off by heavy rain caused injuries and damaged parts of Schlans, a village in eastern Switzerland, police said. It appeared by evening that there were no fatalities.