New-York-based Irish Voice editor Niall O'Dowd has indicated that he is considering running for the Irish presidency, and is currently canvassing for votes.

Sudan’s president threatened to expel foreign observers over their recommendations to delay the country’s first multiparty elections in decades due in April.

SUNSHINE may follow rain, but it has taken eight long weeks before the director of Cork’s Lewis Glucksman Gallery saw anything to be sunny about.

IRAQI militias are increasingly torturing and executing men suspected of homosexuality, but the authorities in Baghdad are doing nothing to stop the violence, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.

AN EERIE calm settled over the streets of Tehran yesterday as state media reported at least 10 more deaths in post-election unrest and said authorities arrested the daughter and four other relatives of ex-President Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of Iran’s most powerful men.

Fresh takeover hopes and reports of a possible £10 billion loan boosted investor sentiment in crisis-hit Northern Rock today.

Motorists are set to face higher prices at the petrol pumps after the cost of oil today rocketed to its highest ever level.

HSBC is facing calls from an activist shareholder for a group-wide shake-up of the banking giant, it emerged today.

Russia’s top prosecutor today took charge of investigating the murder of a journalist who was a prominent critic of the war in Chechnya and planned to publish a story about torture and abductions in the region.

Two leading names in the travel industry were today bought for $1.1bn (€822,900) – the second major UK deal by US giant Cendant this month.

Iraq’s US-appointed Governing Council has met for the first time to look into ways of appointing judges to a new war crimes tribunal that could try Saddam Hussein.

Libya is willing in principle to pay compensation to relatives of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing but is still considering the amount, a minister in Colonel Gaddafi’s government said today.

Cambodia’s election committee accused parties contesting local polls for breaking campaign rules today as violence continued to mar the run-up to the vote.