Pakistan's supreme court has exonerated a man convicted of blasphemy after he served nine years of a life sentence in prison.

A group of around 30 people, a small number of whom were parents of children attending nearby schools, protested outside a reception centre in Killarney Co Kerry today where the first of 55 men seeking international protection arrived.

A controversial Indian spiritual guru has been jailed for 10 years on charges of raping two female followers.

A CHARISMATIC personality can have influence far beyond the import of the cause they advance or the values they represent.

Mobs have rampaged across an Indian town, leaving 12 people dead and buildings in flames, after a court declared a quasi-religious sect leader guilty of raping two of his followers, according to officials.

A court in northern India has convicted a flamboyant guru of raping two of his followers.

Espionage at the very heart of the government has always occurred. Johanna Lowry-O’Reilly looks at some of the more famous cases in the United Kingdom.

Pakistan's ruling party has named senior politician Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as successor to the deposed prime minister, a day after the Supreme Court removed Nawaz Sharif from office for concealing assets.

Pakistan's prime minister cut short a trip abroad to rush to the side of victims of a massive fuel tanker fire as authorities raised the death toll from the blaze to 157.

Pakistani forces have killed and arrested dozens of suspects in sweeping raids as the death toll from a massive suicide bombing by Islamic State that targeted a famed shrine rose to 88.

A train crushed two motorised rickshaws on an unattended railway crossing in central Pakistan on Friday, killing seven schoolchildren and one of the rickshaw drivers, police and railway officials said.

Child survivors of the Nepal earthquake are being sold to British families for a few thousand pounds to work as domestic slaves, according to an investigation.

Good morning. Here’s everything you need to know before you start your day.

A suicide bomber killed at least 69 people, mostly women and children, at a public park in the Pakistani city of Lahore yesterday, striking at the heart of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s political base of Punjab.

Pakistan’s only paraplegic death-row inmate is set to be executed today at a high-security prison in the industrial city of Faisalabad, his mother and an international rights group said.

Pakistan has postponed the execution of the country’s first known paraplegic on death-row, about an hour before he was to be hanged.

A great-grandfather thought to be Europe’s oldest man has died at the age of 111 while visiting family in India, his grandson said.

Despite warnings about an impending attack, the Canadian government failed to take the necessary steps to prevent the Air India bombing off the coast of Ireland in 1985, writes Eddie Cassidy.

30 years ago next Tuesday,an Air India jumbo jet en route from Canada exploded over the West Cork coast, killing all 329 on board. Eddie Cassidy on the tragedy three nations can never forget

Landslides and flash floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains have killed nearly 300 people in northern India and Pakistan, officials said today.

School’s out for summer. Now you just need to keep the kids occupied for the next eight weeks.

A Pakistani woman dragged herself from a canal after being shot in the face by her family, stuffed in a sack, and left for dead.

The husband of a pregnant Pakistani woman bludgeoned to death outside a courthouse murdered his first wife, he told AFP yesterday, in a gruesome twist to a story that has shocked rights activists.

The death toll from heavy rains that caused flash floods and collapsed houses in Pakistan has risen to 80 over the past four days, a senior disaster management official said.

The death toll from two overnight bombings at a busy market in northern Pakistan rose to 49 today with 10 more people dying at a hospital, officials said.

Pakistan’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif looked poised today to return to office with a resounding election victory – a mandate that could make it easier to tackle the country’s daunting problems, including growing power cuts, weak economic growth and shaky finances.

Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif is headed for a third term in office after a resounding victory, according to initial returns.

Defying the danger of militant attacks, Pakistanis streamed to the polls today for a historic vote pitting a former cricket star against a two-time prime minister and an unpopular incumbent.

Another sexual attack has happened to another woman on a bus in India.

Shehrbano Taseer takes an insider’s look at the 15-year-old girl who may finally turn the tide on extremism

Northern India’s power grid crashed, halting hundreds of trains, forcing hospitals and airports to use back-up generators, and leaving 370m sweltering in the summer heat.

Dozens of militants from Afghanistan have taken scores of villagers hostage in Pakistan’s north west, sparking fighting that killed at least 10 people, Pakistani officials said.

Porky Pakistani policemen have been told to go on a diet or quit the force.

Big footfall due for culinary walking tour in Cork

A BOMB blast ripped through a religious procession in eastern Pakistan yesterday, killing 13 people and wounding at least 20, police said.

A bomb blast ripped through a religious procession in eastern Pakistan today, killing 13 people and wounding at least 20, police said.

A PAKISTANI gang rape victim who gained prominence for her outspoken stance on the oppression of women has given birth to a baby boy, her husband and hospital officials said.

EVERY now and then, a story emerges that seems so tragic and outrageous that the fact it comes from the other side of the world does nothing to dilute its impact.

IT WAS 8 o’clock on Sunday morning and I had woken early. Breakfast long since eaten, I thought I’d pop to church. What I hadn’t bargained for was a dozen or so armed policemen stationed outside and being frisked before I went in.