The Department of Foreign Affairs has said that the body of a man found in a river in the Polish City of Bydgoszcz this morning, is due to be formally identified later tonight.

Football hooligans clashed with opposing fans and police before and during Poland’s game against bitter rivals Russia, leaving 15 injured while more than 140 people were detained.

A newborn girl has been found abandoned in a holdall on a doorstep, police in Britain said.

Russia’s top military officer has threatened to launch a pre-emptive strike if Nato goes ahead with controversial plans for a missile defence system in Eastern Europe.

WELL, Happy New Year to ye all!

Mike Corcoran, proprietor, Mike’s BBQ & Catering, Spiller’s Lane, Clonakilty.

FRIENDS of a man suspected of stabbing his wife and two young children to death described them last night as “almost the perfect family”.

US president Barack Obama is to ask Polish leaders to use the lessons they learned during the fall of communism to aid fledgling democratic movements in the Middle East and North Africa.

Rock veterans Status Quo are stranded in Moscow – and face a lengthy rail and road slog to get home as a result of the air travel crisis.

IN Cork and Dublin they came in their thousands with candles, flowers and solemn prayers.

A dog floating alone on an ice floe 15 miles off the Polish coast was rescued by a passing ship.

Europe was struggling to restore roads and railways today after heavy snow caused hundreds of accidents, halted flights, downed power lines in Poland and trapped more than 160 people overnight on a frozen German road.

A search for five Polish fisherman whose boat went missing in the Baltic Sea was called off on today after rescue workers could only find remnants of the vessel, officials said.

RUSSIA has halted plans to deploy missiles near the Polish border, a Russian news agency quoted the military as saying yesterday, in the clearest sign yet Moscow is seeking better ties with the new US administration.

President-elect Barack Obama has named llinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel to serve him as chief of staff.

China today demanded richer countries set aside a fixed amount of their national income to help poorer nations fight global warming.

STRIKE action at one of the ESB’s largest power plants which was deferred in the early hours of yesterday morning, looked like it could be back on last night as the détente between union and employers appeared to be falling apart.

The number of people treated for exposure to toxic smoke from a phosphorus fire in Ukraine more than tripled today, from 20 to 69, a day after a train loaded with the chemical derailed and caught fire.

ONE group of Procter & Gamble workers headed off for the Hibernian in Pearse Street.

NATO’S commander in Afghanistan said yesterday that the alliance needed more troops to fight the Taliban, adding the next few weeks will be “decisive”.

A German woman accused of killing nine of her newborn babies is mentally fit to face criminal charges, a psychiatrist said at her trial today.

THREE more wild birds in north-eastern Germany have tested positive for the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, authorities said yesterday, bringing to 117 the total number of infected birds found in the region.

AIB has revised its earnings forecast for 2005 in its pre-close trading statement for the first six months of the year.

A POLISH pub just opened in Limerick is already the toast of the city.

The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, is due to travel to the Polish capital, Warsaw, today for a meeting of the 46-nation Council of Europe.

DEATH camp survivors, President Mary McAleese, government ministers, nearly two dozen ambassadors and various religious leaders gathered last night to remember the Holocaust.

Up to 46 miners escaped a raging fire in a coal mine in western Ukraine, rescue officials said today.