Survivors of the four-day crisis say they were strapped to explosives while some describe finding bodies riddled with bullets, their heads half blown away by the impact.
British prime minister David Cameron has confirmed that three Britons are dead and another three are presumed dead as other governments scramble for information on their citizens.
The Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has called for the immediate release of an Irish citizen reportedly among those kidnapped from a BP oil field in the south of Algeria.
The French government believes that its intervetion in the west African country will be over in a matter of weeks but officials have said that Islamist militants are better trained and armed than expected.
The wife of a convicted murderer wanted after escaping from a US prison and for allegedly hijacking a plane says she never quite believed he had broken out of prison.
The former Black Liberation Army member who hijacked a Delta Airlines flight in 1972 had been on the run for nearly 40 years. He was found living a seemingly idyllic lifestyle in Portugal
YESTERDAY THE HIGH Court ruled against a mother who refused to allow her five-year-old son to get his MMR and 4-in-one vaccinations, saying he must now receive the jabs, the Irish Examiner reports.
While this case was a dispute between the boy’s parents and not the merits of vaccination, it is not the first time that a parent has expressed opposition to vaccines for their children.
Concerns about the side-effects of early vaccinations have been raised by parents in Ireland, particularly about the possibility of a link to autism, though a US study has claimed there is no connection and with recent outbreaks of measles, the importance of these booster shots has been emphasised.
However, just last year, a report found that a swine flu vaccination was the cause of unique narcolepsy disorder in 54 people in Ireland, including several children.
So we want to know: Should vaccinations be compulsory for children?
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