Chinese president Xi Jinping offered a vigorous defence of free trade yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos in a speech that underscored Beijing’s desire to play a greater global role as the US turns inward.

Forget rescue dogs, felines are the new superheroes.

A “psycho” ex has been jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum of 30 years in jail for the gruesome stun gun murder of her love rival.

Politicians and business leaders gathering in the Swiss Alps this week face an increasingly divided world, with the poor falling further behind the super-rich and political fissures in the US, Europe, and the Middle East running deeper than at any time in decades.

Bridget Christie, who’s married to fellow comedian Stewart Lee, is a refreshingly new feminist voice in standup and her witty monologues leave Suzanne Harrington in stitches

England’s Danny Willett shot a five-under par 65 to win his third European Tour title in the Omega European Masters in Switzerland.

Danny Willett’s impressive form carried on in the Swiss Alps as he claimed an one-shot lead on the second day of the Omega European Masters.

World number 10 Sergio Garcia makes a long-awaited return to the Omega European Masters this week looking to maintain his excellent record in the Swiss Alps.

The highest of fives. Impressive.

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At least two train cars have derailed in the Swiss Alps after a landslide on the tracks.

A retired lecturer’s near fatal Alps accident and a recently completed 2,300k trek has prompted a memoir that says we are all to "passive and accepting" of self imposed limitations when it comes to getting older, writes Colette Sheridan.

The funeral of a 25-year-old Cork teacher who “packed a lot into a short life” takes place today in Ballinlough.

Two young men lost their lives in separate accidents over the Easter weekend.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has cracked her pelvis during a skiing accident in the Swiss Alps and will have to cut back on her work schedule for the next three weeks.

An Irishman who died in a skiing accident on the Swiss Alps on St Stephen’s Day was described at his requiem Mass yesterday as a courageous free spirit who packed an extraordinary amount in to his short life.

A 27-year-old Irish skier was one of four people killed as avalanches struck the Swiss and French Alps.

An Irish skier has died following an avalanche in the Swiss Alps.

After Sunday’s victory for Thomas Bjorn in the Swiss Alps, the battle for 2014 European Ryder Cup points continues this week in the KLM Dutch Open at Kennemer, Zandvoort, with a €1.8m prize fund on offer.

A British stuntman who parachuted into the Olympic Stadium dressed as James Bond during the opening ceremony of London 2012 has been killed in a wingsuit accident.

He has a new name and is out of prison, but a convicted fraudster who cheated British taxpayers out of £76m is back and doing business in Ireland, says Investigative Correspondent Conor Ryan

Des Smyth won his second Travis Perkins plc Senior Masters title in three years with a superb four under par 68 in the final round at Woburn.

Richie Ramsay claimed the second European Tour victory of his career after winning the Omega European Masters title by four shots at Crans-sur-Sierre in the Swiss Alps.

Pádraig Harrington’s omission from the European Ryder Cup team ends a run which began in 1999 with his debut in the infamous Battle of Brookline.

Spin the globe at the bottom of the screen and take a journey on the Rhaetian Railway through the Swiss Alps.

Oxford native Lucy Balmer trained as a chef but wanted a more flexible career, prompting a move to perfumery.

Astronomy tour to China

An incident on Wednesday where a Ryanair flight was forced to make an emergency descent over the Swiss Alps was the second such incident involving the company in as many months.

A British boy was among the 28 people killed in a horrific bus crash in a Swiss tunnel, it emerged today.

Relatives of the 28 people killed when a bus from Belgium crashed inside a Swiss tunnel faced the heartbreaking task of identifying the bodies ahead of their repatriation. Most of the dead were children.

A torchlight march, ravioli and meatball dinners, rides in a funicular railway, A singalong and a dress-up casino evening were some of the things that made a fateful Swiss Alps trip “mega-cool” for 24 Belgian schoolchildren.

A tourist bus that slammed into a concrete wall in a Swiss Alps tunnel, killing 28 people, was not speeding, Swiss police have said.

Swiss police said today that a tourist bus which crashed head-on into a concrete wall in a Swiss Alps tunnel, killing 28 people, was not speeding at the time.

Twenty-eight people, 22 of them children, were killed when a bus taking Belgian pupils back from a skiing holiday crashed in a Swiss tunnel, police said today.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has been accused of insincerity over his explanations for the cause of Ireland’s crippling economic crisis.

Ireland’s economic crisis was caused by people’s "mad" borrowing, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has told the Davos global gathering.

EUROPEAN leaders must work fast to overcome the current crisis or else new models of capitalism — such as that of China — may win the day, warns one leading American financial services figure.

Such is the Disneyesque look and feel of the Swiss lakeside city of Lucerne that one almost expects to encounter Beauty and the Beast’s Belle sauntering through its medieval streets with her nose stuck in a book, studiously avoiding the overbearing advances of the otherwise curiously attractive Gaston.

A CONFERENCE commemorating John Tyndall was held in Dublin last month.

TWO years after a one-shot defeat to Italian brothers Francesco and Edoardo Molinari, Graeme McDowell and Rory McIlroy return to Mission Hills in China bidding to capture the World Cup of Golf.

Two years ago, police in Zurich, Switzerland, led Roman Polanski away to prison - but the Oscar-winning director returned last night to a very different reception in the city.

Rory McIlroy still has every reason to think this could be a special two weeks for himself and girlfriend Caroline Wozniacki.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said today the attackers behind the deadly Moscow airport blast wanted to bring Russia "to its knees" and thwart his bid to court foreign investment.