A papal aide who compared the UK to a “Third World country” was facing growing pressure to apologise today as the Pope flew in for his historic visit.

Pope Benedict’s historic arrival in Britain today was overshadowed by comments comparing the nation with a “third world country”.

IN the litany of maternity care scandals at the Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, one stands out: symphysiotomy.

THE funding of a Government-led drug programme by a charity operating in developing countries raises serious questions about future drug funding, a leading voluntary drug service has said.

The report of the European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency makes alarming reading in relation to the apparent level of intolerance in this country.

Jessica Simpson dumped husband Nick Lachey after a soul-searching trip to Kenya, Africa.

A Nobel Peace Prize-winning aid agency will be demonstrating a Third World field clinic to the public at a cultural festival in Dublin this month.

A SYSTEM to recruit essential skilled workers from Third World countries to fill job vacancies in the EU will be unveiled in Brussels today.

HEALTH watchdogs strongly suspect one in 10 medicines on the market globally are fake, making €35 billion annually for the crime gangs that peddle the drugs.

PITY poor Bono — he spends half his life working to relieve poverty and disease in the Third World and, in an instant, his tax advisers have people calling for his head.

THE Government should take notice of rock star Bono’s call on the international community regarding the scourge of corruption, GOAL said yesterday.

LABOUR Leader Pat Rabbitte pledged there would be no tax increases under a Rainbow government as he moved his party firmly towards the centre ground of politics ahead of the next general election.

THE growing level of obesity in the developed world (including Ireland), the demise of the Irish sugar industry and the debacle at Irish Ferries all made headlines in recent times.

There were aspects of the recent agricultural deals for which the Government negotiators should be congratulated. Ireland will receive €14 billion from the European Union’s budget over the next seven years, despite being one of the wealthiest member states.

Oxfam Ireland is calling on the public to buy alternative Christmas presents designed to aid the Third World this year.

THE Department of Foreign Affairs last night rejected claims it had failed to deliver promised aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina in America.

LIKE the gathering in Gleneagles, the world summit in New York last week elected neatly to sidestep the substantive issues which need to be tackled, if the lot of the poor in the developing world is to be significantly improved.

SCHOOL kids can help bring water and life to children in the poorest parts of the world simply by wearing no uniforms next month.

MORE than 800,000 young people from all over the world, including about 2,000 from Ireland, will gather on the site of an old coalmine in northern Germany this weekend.

THEY were born six years and 10 miles apart in a city depressed and repressed, with a chip on its shoulder and uncertainty in its soul.

The UN was not monitoring several arms embargoes against conflict zones when Ireland joined the Security Council in 2001, it was claimed today.

“A CROWD of us was going along the Shepherds Bush Road when out of a lane came a chap with a donkey — just the sort of donkey and just the sort of cart they have at home,” Michael Collins explained, recalling his days in London.

Sectarian division in the North is costing more than £1bn (€1.4bn) a year, it was claimed today.

YESTERDAY thousands of Irish people denied themselves a day’s food for one of our country’s best traditions - the annual Concern Fast.

As British and US forces massed to invade Iraq last year, the director of CARE International operations in Baghdad said she was determined to stay.

THERE is hardly a parish in Ireland where parents are not put under pressure to raise funds for the upkeep and refurbishment of the local primary school.

AS the mother of two Irish children, I value their good fortune and privilege in being born in a country which respects their human rights and affords them opportunities to make the most of their lives.

IN the frequently male-dominated environment of the European Union an organisation calling itself Femmes d’Europe can be assumed to be a political one. Most would ask what else would survive?

Campaign groups, politicians and union leaders were joining forces today to launch a drive to recycle ships in the UK rather than send them to Third World countries to be dismantled.

A NIGERIAN delegation to a conference on the trafficking of women and children yesterday criticised gardaí after they snubbed the event.

SMALL farmers in Ireland know how hard it is to get an economic return for their produce.

MIGRANT workers are being forced to live in Third World-type ‘work camps’ on construction sites, a builders’ union claimed yesterday.

HEALTH MINISTER Micheál Martin is “buck-passing” on a funds issue threatening the development of a hospital where some equipment would not be out of place in the Third World, FG TD Jim O’Keeffe has said.

SETTING up a chocolate company to give away part of its revenue to the Third World isn't the average business plan but Chocaid in Kinsale is determined to make it a success.

By Noel Whelan

Kevin Mills, Business Editor

Animal-rights activism is colliding head-on with rural tradition in Oklahoma, where voters will decide on November 5 whether to ban cockfighting in one of the last three US states to allow it.

EVERYONE wants to have a regional airport in their area but nobody is willing to pay for such facilities, according to the chairman of Waterford Regional Airport.

WITH a call for an end to the “global apartheid” between rich and poor ringing in their ears, delegates to the Earth Summit in Johannesburg began talks yesterday aimed at relieving poverty and healing the planet.

Australia-born Christian Vieri is the injury-jinxed footballing nomad who names cricketing legend Allan Border as his sporting hero and caused alarm in the Vatican when Inter Milan signed him three years ago.

Vodafone and the Conservation Volunteers Ireland group have launched a new scheme aimed at recycling old mobile phones.