A leading Irish Interpol officer has warned of a “huge increase” in online grooming and says children as young as six are being encouraged to share intimate pictures with predators.

The heritage committee of Unesco has said the outlook for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is poor due to threats including pollution and climate change but stopped short of listing it as “in danger”.

First of all, it is surprising to hear Wexford giving out about where the game is going to be played.

The interfaces of Islamic and Western culture are many, but when Tinariwen guitarist Abdallah Ag Lamida was abducted by Islamist rebels in Mali in 2012, it was a potential watershed. The plentiful al-Qaida African affiliates seemed to be saying western music is satanic.

Dazzling is fancied to give her Epsom Oaks prospects a boost by landing the Group 3 Irish Stallion Farms EBF Blue Wind Stakes at Naas tonight.

The mayor of a town in central Mali said a boat carrying hundreds of passengers has capsized on the Niger River and dozens are missing.

Veteran travel correspondent Paul Theroux will talk at the Immrama writing festival, says Carl Dixon

A defiant Pat McEnaney has dismissed suggestions he is attempting to sanitise the game of hurling.

Now that the excitement of the Masters has abated, the rank and file members of the European Tour get back to business this week when the Spanish Open visits the outstanding El Saler course in Valencia.

WHEN Irish soldiers arrived in troubled Mali last week as part of an EU training force, they will have encountered a country where the security situation remains tense and a year-long conflict has had a catastrophic humanitarian impact on the population.

French troops have started to withdraw from Timbuktu after securing the fabled city as they ramped up their mission in another northern Mali city.

A limited number of manuscripts in Timbuktu were damaged or stolen by Islamist extremists last week before they fled the north Malian city, a South African university said today.

French forces in Mali have taken control of Kidal airport, seizing a key position in the last remaining urban stronghold of Islamist extremists.

Troops are in control of Kidal airport in northern Mali, seizing a key position in one of three provincial capitals the Islamist militants took last year.

French and Malian soldiers have won control of the desert city of Timbuktu following the retreat of Islamist extremists,

French and Malian troops retook control of Timbuktu, a Unesco World Heritage site, yesterday after Islamist rebel occupiers fled the ancient Sahara trading town and torched several buildings, including a priceless manuscript library.

Islamist extremists have set fire to a library containing historic manuscripts as French and Malian forces closed in on Timbuktu.

French and Malian forces have taken control of access to Timbuktu, a French military spokesman said today.

France has claimed that al-Qaida-linked extremists have been defeated in the key city of Gao in north-eastern Mali.

French fighter jets pounded Islamist rebel strongholds deep in northern Mali yesterday as Paris poured more troops into the capital Bamako, awaiting a West African force to dislodge al Qaeda-linked insurgents from the country’s north.

French air strikes in Mali have driven back Islamist rebels from a key city and destroyed a militant command centre, the French defence minister said today.

Illustrations of symptoms may help patients better describe what they feel, says Rachel Borrill.

Islamic extremists have seized control of the strategic town of Douentza, moving much closer to government-held territory in central Mali.

Larry Tompkins says he is undecided whether Seanie Johnston’s transfer to Kildare was for valid reasons, saying it would be incomprehensible to him that someone would leave his home club just to play county football elsewhere.

The UN Security Council threatened sanctions against Islamist fighters in northern Mali and condemned the destruction of heritage sites in the ancient city of Timbuktu in a resolution passed today.

Two rebel groups that seized control of the northern half of Mali have agreed to work together to create an independent Islamic state on the territory they occupy.

Mali’s Tuareg rebels, who seized control of the country’s north in the chaotic aftermath of a military coup, have declared independence of the Azawad nation.

Rebels who seized control of Mali’s remote north effectively partitioning the country in two have announced a ceasefire, saying they had reached their military goal.

The junior officer who overthrew Mali’s democratically elected leader last month and dissolved the nation’s constitution has made a public U-turn, declaring amid enormous international pressure that he is reinstating the 1992 constitution and planning to hold elections.

After seizing the strategic northern Mali towns of Kidal and Gao, Tuareg rebels today began besieging the ancient city of Timbuktu, taking their fight for a homeland for the nomadic people to the last major government holdout in the north.

Rebels today attacked Mali’s strategic northern city of Gao, a day after they took the provincial capital of Kidal, witnesses and an official said.

More than half a million people packed Dublin city centre today as the annual St Patrick’s Day parade got under way.

Gunmen murdered a German man in Mali’s most famous city and seized three men from the Netherlands, South Africa and Sweden, as officials ordered a plane to evacuate foreigners from the tourist destination.

A European tourist was shot dead and three others kidnapped by gunmen who burst into a restaurant in the Malian city of Timbuktu, a witness said today.

IT’S day 870 in Bertie’s Big Bother house.

FORMER taoiseach Bertie Ahern has denied that he ever owned a foreign bank or building society account.

A MANCHESTER businessman has admitted forgetting to inform the Mahon Tribunal that he had left Bertie Ahern a house in Dublin because he didn’t believe the document that bequeathed the property to him was a will.

Two British adventurers started their eco-journey to Timbuktu today in a lorry powered by chocolate.

THE Great Wall of China, Rome’s Colosseum, India’s Taj Mahal and three architectural marvels from Latin America were among the new seven wonders of the world chosen in a global poll.

The Great Wall of China, the Colosseum in Rome and Peru’s Machu Picchu are leading contenders to be among the new seven wonders of the world, as a massive poll draws to a close.

THE way Fianna Fáil plays it is always pure Hollywood.

The 11th stage of the Dakar Rally offered its competitors a well-deserved break from timed action, meaning Mitsubishi’s Stephane Peterhansel retains his lead at the head of the standings with just four stages left to run.

Reigning champion Luc Alphand is looking to join the ranks of motorsport’s elite by claiming victory in the 2007 Dakar Rally, which gets under way in Portugal tomorrow.