A Russian spacecraft carrying an American and two Russians has blasted off successfully from the Kazakh steppes on a mission to the International Space Station.

BEFORE St Patrick’s Athletic even take to the field against Shakhtar Karagandy today (2pm Irish time), they will have felt like they’ve endured an entire Europa League campaign – let alone a mere qualifier.

A fire at a drug treatment centre in Kazakhstan with a history of safety violations killed 37 people as patients tried to escape through barred windows, officials said today.

A US software billionaire who won a junior cosmonaut contest as a child in Communist-ruled Hungary returned from a dream voyage to the international space station today, riding a Russian capsule to a soft landing on the Kazakh steppe along with a Russian and an American who spent seven months in orbit.

An Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane with 23 people on board crashed along the Caspian Sea shore tonight and all aboard were believed killed, police said.

Inmates at a prison outside the Kyrgyzstan capital Bishkek today shot and killed a politican who had arrived to look into prisoners’ living conditions.

A Russian space capsule carrying an Italian, a Russian and an American hurtled safely home to Earth from the International Space Station today, landing softly on the marshy Central Asian steppes in the early-morning darkness.