Robert Splaine will continue as manager of the Ireland show jumping team, following a review of his performance over the past two years.

Equestrian: Lady luck is capricious, as show jumper Cameron Hanley will attest.

Eventing rider Joseph Murphy experienced the highs and lows of the sport at Pau, France, at the weekend, the former seeing him achieve a career best fifth place in a four-star event with Sportsfield Othello.

With around 3,000 entries for this weekend’s Owners Pony and Young Riders Charity Show, in Millstreet, Co Cork, organisers expect the total funding raised for good causes to top €280,000.

Andy Lee blamed ring-rust for his underwhelming performance against Frank Horta but is now hoping to seal a world title shot at light-middleweight before the end of the year.

Aoife Clark continues to tap into a rich vein of form, giving Ireland its best ever result at the World Breeding Championships for Young Eventing Horses in Le Lion d’Angers, France, when second on Fernhill Adventure in the class for seven-year-olds.

Want to pull off your own €35m worldwide ATM heist? It might not be that easy, experts say. Paul Wagenseil reports.

A horse ridden by an Irish show jumper is believed to have tested positive for a prohibited substance earlier this year.

Madonna has announced her 2012 World Tour. It includes a July 24 date in Dublin's Aviva Stadium.

A former finance minister has won Finland’s presidential election and will become the country’s first conservative head of state in five decades.

CORK’S Billy Twomey rode Romanov II to seventh place in the second leg of the Rolex World Cup Series in Helsinki, Finland yesterday.

EVENTING IRELAND (EI) chairman John Wright yesterday revealed that the organisation’s membership has dropped by almost 40% in just three years.

A TEENAGER who developed software that tracks the movement of a tennis player has won the top prize in the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition.

European Athletics has awarded the 2014 European Athletics Championships to the Swiss city of Zurich.

Lily Allen thought she would have to have “her legs cut off” after falling on her coccyx.

Lily Allen broke down in tears on stage last night.

DUBLIN teenager Clara Peters made history this week when she became the first Irish competitor to take to the ice at an elite international figure skating competition.

Madonna has applied to close the seas around Helsinki, Finland so she can commandeer a small island to stage a gig for 80,000 people, according to reports.

Iceland’s central bank today raised its key interest rate by a massive 6% to 18%.

Pop star Bjork has been forced to pull out of another date in her current world tour - citing health problems for the cancellation.

Not music to Irish ears

Record prize money of £8.8m (€12.2m) will be on offer on the 2008 Ladies European Tour, it was announced today.

Far-reaching rules governing the European chemicals industry entered into force today, but environmentalists and consumer groups complained the legislation does not go far enough to protect human health.

The composer of Ireland’s worst-ever Eurovision entry today said he was “gutted” by the result.

The Palestinians are exploring possible participation in the Eurovision Song Contest next year, a Danish diplomat said today.

Former Smiths frontman Morrissey will no longer have any involvement in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest despite talks with the BBC about him writing the UK’s entry.

The European Union today gave its final approval to far-reaching EU rules governing the multibillion-euro chemicals industry.

Turkey’s foreign minister today said there would be no response to deadlines on the Cyprus problem, a day after the European Union warned Turkey that it must speed up efforts to resolve the stalemate.

Leaders at a 38-nation Asia-Europe summit in Helsinki, Finland, stood in silence today, remembering those killed in the September 11 terror attacks five years ago in the United States.

The European Commission today said it wanted to seek a closer relationship with Russia that could lead to a free-trade area comprising Russia and the 25-nation EU once Russia joins the World Trade Organisation.

Luciano Pavarotti has postponed eight concerts on his world farewell tour because of back pain.

Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has warned that a bird flu epidemic may prove deadlier than last year’s massive Indian Ocean tsunami, reports said today.

A helicopter carrying two pilots and 12 passengers crashed and sank in the Baltic Sea off the Estonian coast today.

Estonian maritime rescue service divers are searching for survivors in the Baltic Sea after a helicopter with two pilots and 12 passengers crashed off the coast from the Estonian capital today.

A helicopter with two pilots and 12 passengers crashed in the Baltic Sea off the coast from the Estonian capital today, rescuers said.

Indonesia’s tsunami death toll rose today by about 5,000 as workers continued burying victims in Aceh province as tourism chiefs gathered to discuss how to bring travellers back to ravaged Asian beaches.

The Indonesian government and separatist rebels will meet this week to discuss a formal ceasefire in tsunami-ravaged Aceh province, officials said today.

RESCUE teams converged on beaches and remote islands in search of the missing yesterday as authorities reported that more than 430 people, including a number of foreign tourists, were killed and 4,100 injured when earthquake-spawned tidal waves devastated idyllic resort areas of southern Thailand.

Rock legend David Bowie is to embark on his first major world tour in almost a decade, the singer announced today.

Zimbabwean authorities detained five foreign Lutheran church workers and a local journalist in a rural hotel today on suspicion that they violated the nation’s stringent security laws, the workers said.