Kuwait police fired tear gas and stun grenades in a busy historic market to disperse several thousand protesters calling for the release of an opposition activist and a purge of corrupt judges.

As the Obamas and Britain’s Queen Elizabeth can all testify, Irish people are still considered to be among the friendliest in the world.

A snake on a plane caused chaos in the air resulting in an emergency landing.

Kuwait’s ruler has said parliamentary elections will be held on December 1 in a bid to ease months of deepening political turmoil that has pit the pro-Western ruling family against opposition forces led by Islamists.

Protesters gathered outside Kuwait’s main government building today to demand sweeping changes on how the country is run as another Gulf state joined the surge for reforms around the Arab world.

A massive fire that destroyed a Kuwaiti wedding tent and killed more than 40 women inside was started by the groom’s ex-wife, it emerged today.

The blaze that consumed a wedding tent in Kuwait claimed two more lives, raising the death toll to 43 women and children.

Joern Utzon, the Danish architect who designed the famous Sydney Opera House, has died. He was 90.

US presidential contender Barack Obama has arrived in Iraq where he will meet American commanders and troops in a war he has long opposed.

Women cast ballots and ran as candidates for the first time ever in Kuwait today when the conservative country held a municipal by-election.

Opec will consider another production hike of 500,000 barrels a day if oil prices do not fall in the next 10 days, the cartel’s president said today.

The alleged ringleader of a terror group accused of attacking Americans and Kuwaiti security has died of heart failure while in prison, an Interior Ministry official said today.

Diana Elias, Kuwait City

Three people were killed today after security forces stormed a building in a residential neighbourhood of Kuwait City and exchanged gunfire with suspected terrorists.

Kuwaiti police have killed a terrorist who had targeted westerners living in the Gulf emirate.

A KUWAITI man convicted of murder was hanged yesterday for shooting and then slitting the throat of a one-time friend with whom he had been arguing over money.

Saudi Arabia’s US ambassador told Americans in the oil-rich city of Yanbu: “Go home. We cannot protect you”, following the terror attack that killed six foreign workers.

ON this Saturday last year, 100,000 people took to the streets of Dublin to protest against an impending war. It was the biggest mass demonstration for 20 years or more, as were the ones in London and other European cities. None made a whit of difference.

A bus carrying Kuwaitis home from the funeral of a Muslim religious leader overturned in southern Iraq today, killing 17 people and injuring 33.

Brave Iraqi orphan Ali Ismaeel Abbas, who lost both his arms in an allied bombing raid, has left intensive care, his surgeon said tonight.

The 12-year-old Iraqi boy who suffered severe burns and lost both arms in the bombardment of Baghdad was recovering today from skin graft surgery, his plastic surgeon said.

Baghdad bombing victim Ali Ismaeel Abbas was today feeling well enough to request one of his favourite dishes – a spicy shish kebab.

A hospital in Kuwait City today received a 12-year-old boy who lost both his arms in a bomb and became a symbol of Iraqi war suffering.

A KUWAITI hospital was last night preparing to receive an Iraqi boy whose arms were blown off in a coalition air raid.

IRAQI troops released seven captured US soldiers - some wounded but in good condition - to US Marines yesterday, a surprise discovery near where troops were entering Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit.

Iraq was waking up to a future free of Saddam Hussein today while US forces continued to tighten their grip on the capital Baghdad.

An Iraqi missile was shot down by a Patriot missile defence battery today before it could reach Kuwait, a military spokesman said.

A MAN in civilian clothes drove a pick-up truck into a group of US soldiers standing outside a store at the Kuwaiti desert base of Camp Udairi yesterday.

A general from Saddam Hussein’s army has been captured in southern Iraq and is being pressed to provide strategic information, British officers said today.

A man in civilian clothes drove a pick-up truck into a group of soldiers on a United States military base in Kuwait today, injuring about six people.

A low-flying Iraqi missile has hit Kuwait City wrecking a seaside shopping mall.

A missile fell into the sea and exploded near a major shopping mall in Kuwait City early today, but officials said it caused no injuries and little damage.

Explosions have been heard in the last few minutes in Kuwait City.

IRAQ fired Scud missiles at Kuwait yesterday, officials said, sending US troops scrambling into chemical protective suits and setting air raid sirens blaring in Kuwait City.

A tactical ballistic missile has been launched by Iraq aimed at Kuwait City, US Army commanders said today.

The top American general in Kuwait pledged today that any use of chemical weapons by Iraq in a looming war would be met with a “dramatic” response.

Five Irish soldiers who were part of a UN mission monitoring the Iraq-Kuwait border are due to be evacuated from Kuwait in the coming days.

A United States Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crashed during a night training mission in Kuwait today, killing all four crew members, the US Army said.

KUWAIT yesterday said it had arrested three of its nationals planning to launch a terrorist attack against US troops in the emirate and seized weapons and ammunition in their possession.

A KUWAITI civil servant has confessed to opening fire on two Americans in Kuwait, killing one and wounding the other.

More than $650,000 (€604,700) in cash has been stolen from a US military base in Kuwait.

AN American civilian was killed and another man critically wounded yesterday after a gunman sprayed their vehicle with bullets during an ambush in Kuwait.

The US says the shooting of two of its citizens in Kuwait was a terrorist attack.

American troop reinforcements arrive in Kuwait daily in the biggest military buildup in the region since the Gulf War – but it’s hard to tell.