TO send your children halfway around the world to learn a new language in a geographically and culturally distant place requires quite some doing – especially financially, if you have chosen an upscale language school and decided to send your kids off for six whole months.

Panama has charged the crew of a North Korean ship seized while carrying obsolete weaponry from Cuba hidden under bags of sugar

Cuba’s admission that it was secretly sending ageing weapons systems to North Korea turned the global spotlight on a little-known link in a secretive network of rusting freighters and charter jets that moves weapons to and from North Korea, defying United Nations sanctions.

This Magnificent Desolation

A €12m development of Foynes Port, announced yesterday, will have to be put on hold for more than two years while the port authority awaits the necessary foreshore licence from a government department.

A man who has sailed the wrong way round the world to avoid pirates will get a hero’s welcome when he sails in to his home town this weekend.

FORMER military strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega was flown home to Panama yesterday to be punished once again for crimes he committed during a career that saw him transformed from a Cold War ally of Washington to the target of a US invasion.

BIG world, or small world? For people like Bill Liao, it’s both.

A Chinese bulk carrier became the millionth vessel to cross the Panama Canal since it was built nearly 96 years ago.

TRIBUTES were paid yesterday to a Limerick man who completed a solo around-the-world voyage when he was in his 70s.

TEENAGER Mike Perham said his dream had come true as he became the youngest person to sail solo around the world with assistance.

A CONSERVATIVE supermarket magnate was favoured to win presidential elections yesterday that will determine who oversees expansion of the Panama Canal, the nation’s economic engine.

INDIAN DREAMS, a Dublin based travel company specialising in travel to the subcontinent don’t just offer the normal package holidays.

A lone British sailor has been rescued by the Australian Navy after his yacht ran aground on a remote reef.

The September 11 attacks, the Bali bombing and plots against British targets were among the confessions of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed during a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to a transcript released by the Pentagon.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie paid a visit to Panama City recently, where they spent time shopping for souvenirs and touring the Panama Canal.

Voters are expected to approve the largest modernisation project in the 92-year-history of the Panama Canal, a £3bn (€4.48bn) plan to expand the waterway to allow for larger ships while alleviating traffic problems.

PROJECT Travel has teamed up with Scandinavian Airlines to offer a special five-night Norwegian break from €769 per person sharing — three nights in Oslo and two in Bergen plus the special ‘Norway in a Nutshell’ journey between the two.

Garden lovers inspired by this year’s Chelsea Flower Show — which included the award-winning 100% Pure New Zealand garden — might like to consider a new Boutique Gardens of New Zealand holiday, exclusively offered by English-based specialist Bridge & Wickers.

Venezuelan investigators are picking through the shattered wreckage of a plane that crashed with 160 people on board, trying to determine what caused the engines to fail and sent the jet plunging from the sky in the country’s deadliest air disaster in history.

The ill-fated luxury cruise liner Aurora has arrived back in Southampton after her much-delayed world cruise was cancelled .

Martin Torrijos, the son of a former dictator, won Panama’s first presidential elections since the handover of the Panama Canal and withdrawal of US troops in December 1999, electoral authorities said.

An explosion and fire in the boiler room of a cruise ship docked in Florida killed at least three crew members and injured 20 others, eight critically.

By Ryle Dwyer

The ground-breaking venture to generate electricity in Ireland 75 years ago today took its historic place among international engineering feats like the Eiffel Tower and the Panama Canal.

Cruise giant P&O Princess’s merger with Royal Caribbean was under threat today after Cunard owner Carnival moved to scuttle the deal.