Nico Rosberg has emerged as the man to beat in qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix on a morning when a full complement of cars again took to the track.

Armoured vehicles have been deployed onto the streets of the Bahraini capital Manama following another night of clashes between police and protestors.

TWO Irish-trained surgeons have entered their second week of hunger strike in Bahrain.

TROUBLED relationships are nothing new for Sex and the City story lines.

A PALESTINIAN commander killed in Dubai by an assassination team using fake Irish passports was drugged and then suffocated, according to police in the Gulf state.

Airbus parent EADS today plunged to its first loss in two years amid lingering uncertainty over major aircraft programmes.

THE former wife of the groom at a Kuwait wedding where a raging fire killed 43 women and children has confessed to starting the blaze as an act of revenge, local newspapers reported yesterday.

A BRITON convicted of having sex on a Dubai beach was re-arrested as he prepared to board a flight back to Britain, his lawyer has said.

Kuwait’s ailing crown prince, Sheikh Saad Al Abdullah Al Sabah, returned from a long trip abroad today amid expectations of leadership changes in the oil-rich Gulf state.

Michael Jackson has bought property in the Gulf state of Bahrain, it was claimed today.

An explosion was heard near a British school in Qatar tonight, the British Foreign Office said.

The Government and Palestinian Authority today issued a joint appeal for the release of Dublin-born aid worker Margaret Hassan held hostage in Iraq.

RUSSIA’s top general said yesterday he was ready to attack ‘terrorist bases’ anywhere in the world, as security services put an €8.5 million bounty on two Chechen rebels blamed for last week’s school siege.

THE family of an Irish journalist shot dead in a drive-by shooting in Saudi Arabia on Sunday were waiting last night to find out when the body will come home as security forces launched an investigation into the killing.

THE man who brokered the recent €1.7m sponsorship deal for show jumper Dermott Lennon says he is planning to announce a further arrangement next week that will make the first “look small”.

THE elderly father of an Irishman arrested following the suspicious death of a young English backpacker in India said all charges have been dropped against his son.

Saudi Arabians will be able to vote for the first time after the absolute monarchy announced it was to hold elections for municipal councils.

Two Kuwaitis shot at US Marines during war games on an island off the Gulf state today, killing one and wounding another in what the Kuwaiti government called a terrorist act. Fellow Marines shot dead the assailants.

SAUDI ARABIAN princes paid Osama bin Laden and the Taliban $200 million to spare targets in the oil-rich Gulf state, according to court papers.

Anti-globalisation protestors hurled Molotov cocktails at riot police in Geneva.