Eight suspected dissident republicans have been arrested in a massive anti-terror blitz across four counties.

Thousands of holidaymakers on the US east coast have been ordered to head home as Hurricane Irene approaches.

THE possibility of conscription into a non-existent EU army is emerging as a significant reason why a majority of voters rejected the Lisbon Treaty, Foreign Minister Micheál Martin has said.

IRISH soldiers have destroyed more than 150 unexploded rockets, grenades and army shells, potentially saving the lives of African villagers who would have come in contact with them.

Five workers were sucked into a manhole in Tokyo during repair work after sewage water suddenly rose as thunderstorms hit the city.

One soldier was killed and another wounded when a suicide car bomber drove into an Iraq army checkpoint in Baghdad today.

Workers rescued a 15-year-old boy alive 36 hours after the collapse of an eight-storey apartment building that left five people dead in south-eastern Turkey, the governor’s office announced.

A judge will rule today on whether human rights groups in Malawi can challenge Madonna over her adoption of baby David Banda.

A suicide bomber ploughed his explosives-laden car into a Nato-led force’s convoy in southern Afghanistan, killing one soldier, the force said. A purported Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack.

Windows were boarded up and the streets on Cedar Key in the Gulf of Mexico were desolate as the first tropical storm of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season started moving over Florida early today, but forecasters said they did not expect Alberto to strengthen into a hurricane.

Burma and India have announced culls of thousands of poultry to curb the spread of bird flu, while Sweden has confirmed its first cases of the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus in two wild birds.

A third child from the same family died of bird flu at a hospital within a week in this eastern Turkish city today, doctors said.

Armoured police cars were guarding government offices and authorities were distributing bread in a south-eastern Turkish town today, after a violent Kurdish riot left at least three people dead and 16 injured.

People lined up for food and water while others searched in vain for generators in the sweltering heat as Florida residents began cleaning up all over again, demoralised by the fourth hurricane in six weeks to batter the state.

Britney Spears filed for an annulment today of her two-day-old marriage to a childhood friend, saying she lacked understanding of her actions when she got hitched on the spur of the moment.

Two of seven foreign oil workers kidnapped by ethnic militants in Nigeria’s volatile oil delta have been released, a state government official said today.

Climber Aron Ralston has described how he did the unthinkable – cutting off his own arm to save his life – in his first interview since he walked, bloody and dehydrated, out of a remote Utah canyon.