Today, May 1, was, for those of us old enough to remember, one of the great set pieces of the Cold War’s propaganda battles.

Revellers erupted in cheers amid a confetti-filled celebration in New York’s Times Square to welcome in the new year, part of star-studded celebrations and glittering fireworks displays around the world to usher in 2012.

REVELLERS worldwide met the new year with spectacular fireworks displays and joyful parties against a backdrop of tightened security.

Ukraine marked the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster today with pealing bells, candlelit ceremonies and parliamentary debates about how much the country still does not know – and how much it needs to do to bring relief to the millions affected by the world’s worst nuclear accident.

Eric Clapton will close the European leg of his world tour with his first concert in Moscow’s Red Square.

An emotional wreath-laying ceremony was held at the Soviet War Memorial in London today as the loss of 27 million soldiers and civilians from the former USSR in the Second World War was commemorated.

WORLD-RENOWNED Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli will perform a major outdoor concert on an historic army square in Cork this summer, it was confirmed yesterday after months of speculation.

Jordan Grand Prix brought Formula One to Russia today, presenting its racing car with 2005 Grand Prix race drivers Tiago Monteiro and Narain Karthikeyan in Moscow’s Red Square.

Eddie Jordan has cast light on his controversial sacking of German driver Heinz-Harald Frentzen in 2001, saying that he did it to save his Formula One team’s Honda engine supply.

A suspected suicide bomb tore through the Moscow metro during today’s morning rush hour, killing 30 people and wounding up to 150.

Five people were killed and 13 injured when a woman suicide bomber set off an explosion in a car near Moscow’s Red Square today.