AIR passengers hoping to travel overseas this weekend should have little trouble with the volcanic ash cloud.

High levels of volcanic ash could return to the UK on Friday just as the bank holiday weekend getaway begins, forecasters have warned.

Irish airspace remained clear and UK flights began returning to normal this morning as disruption caused by the diminishing Icelandic ash cloud shifted towards northern Europe.

Irish airspace should remain open until at least 7.30pm this evening.

Prosecutors in Germany today said they were opening an investigation into the driver of a cargo train involved in a head-on crash that left 10 people dead and 23 injured.

A head-on train crash in eastern Germany killed 10 people and injured at least 33 others, eight of them severely, local firefighters said today, and police feared the death toll could rise.

A BUS carrying a group of senior citizens was hit by a truck in eastern Germany yesterday and plunged down an embankment, killing 13 people, authorities said.

A GRINNING Gerhard Schroeder leapt onto a giant stage to thumping music and applause from several thousand Social Democratic (SPD) supporters.

POLICE have discovered the remains of nine newborn babies buried in a garden in eastern Germany and arrested a woman believed to be the children’s mother, prosecutors said yesterday.

Northern Ireland’s Eamonn Magee failed in his attempt to unseat European light-welterweight champion Oktay Urkal in Magdeburg tonight, coming off second best in a unanimous points decision.

Authorities in eastern Germany cleaning up from disastrous flooding have been presented with deadlier hazards – Second World War ammunition left behind by the receding waters.

THE swollen Elbe River peaked early yesterday in the eastern German city of Magdeburg, which was spared a major evacuation effort as dykes held back the floods that have left a trail of devastation upstream.

The swollen Elbe River peaked early today in the eastern German city of Magdeburg, which was spared a major evacuation effort as dikes held back the floods that have left a trail of devastation upstream.

Floods spread through eastern Germany today, adding to the misery of tens of thousands of people forced from their homes as the country faced its biggest relief effort since the Second World War.

HELICOPTERS ferried sandbags to plug the crumbling dikes of flooding rivers in eastern Germany yesterday, as workers scrambled to protect a huge chemical complex and towns such as Wittenberg, once the home of religious reformer Martin Luther.

Thousands of workers continued to fight devastating floods in central Europe today as the death toll from the disaster rose to at least 105.

MORE than 30,000 people were evacuated from historic Dresden yesterday as floodwaters in the Elbe River surged past an all-time high, closing in on cultural landmarks already waterlogged by an earlier wave of high water.

More than 30,000 people were evacuated from historic Dresden today as floodwaters in the Elbe River surged past an all-time high, closing in on cultural landmarks already waterlogged by an earlier wave of high water.

FLOODWATERS in Dresden’s historic centre rose to the highest level in more than a century yesterday, threatening the Baroque city’s landmark opera and art collection as east Germany became the focus of flooding that has killed at least 100 people across Europe.