WE HUMANS are a lot closer to nature, and nature a lot closer to us, than we generally realise. And therein lies our last best hope for patching up our suicidal quarrel with our own planet.

An Irish citizen is believed to have been among more than 70 people killed in bomb attacks in Uganda as they watched the World Cup final.

UGANDAN authorities have been warned of Ireland’s concern over human rights issues, including proposed laws which could impose the death penalty for gay sex.

A NEW five-year plan on Ireland’s development support for Uganda will be launched this week when Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin, visits the East African country.

AN elderly Irish priest was stabbed to death in the bedroom of his Kenyan mission for “the sake of a mobile phone and a few small things”.

RELATIVES of a British couple feared snatched by pirates off the east African coast met the Somali Prime Minister yesterday as family members pleaded for an end to their “bad dream”.

Police in Tanzania are questioning a man in connection with the death of a young Irish aid worker in the east African country.

The Government has announced funding of over €1.5m to help authorities in Tanzania reduce the number of babies and mothers who die during and immediately after childbirth.

Somali pirates attacked a tanker in the Gulf of Aden today, but Nato forces chased them down and freed 20 Yemeni fisherman the pirates were holding on another hijacked boat.

SUSPECTED robbers have broken into the home of US presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s grandmother in a Kenyan village, local media said on yesterday.

AS DUSK settled hordes of villagers wielding wooden planks, rocks and metal wire lined the road into town.

Kenya will face a health emergency within days if the wave of political violence in the east African state is not halted, a UK-based charity warned today.

KENYAN President Mwai Kibaki has declared food shortages ravaging parts of the east African country a "national disaster" and for the first time used the word "famine" to describe the crisis.

The unlikely couple of a baby hippo and a 130-year-old tortoise are still together, a year after the hippo was separated from its family in Kenya by last year’s Indian Ocean tsunami.

The French health minister was heading for Sri Lanka today to start a continuous airborne supply operation from France to the Indian Ocean island hit by Asia’s tsunami disaster.

Relieved British passengers arrived home from Kenya today after the British government grounded all UK flights to and from the east African state, warning of an imminent terrorist threat.