Old guard cronies flee with their millions fearing Ukraine backlash.

THE tsunami disaster will force Tony Blair to rewrite his plans for addressing the most critical problems facing the world in the coming year.

BBC colleagues aghast that Newsnight presenter is playing host to First Minister in Majorca.

SCOTTISH Tory heavyweight Lord Lang was last night under further pressure to quit his lucrative post on the board of a huge American insurance company.

A RECLUSIVE Scottish artist has become a centrepiece of one of the world's top sculpture exhibitions.

COMEDIANS have voted the late Peter Cook the greatest comic of all time. More than 300 comedians, comedy writers, producers and directors on both sides of the Atlantic were asked to rank the biggest names in comedy.

MINISTERS were accused last night of exaggerating the terror threat. Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said the government was using "the politics of fear" to strip away historic civil liberties.

A RARE prehistoric tree thought to have been extinct for millions of years is to be the centrepiece of a newly refurbished tourist attraction in Scotland.

FIONA LEITHTHE art of the diary is dead, long live the diary.

TWO Norfolk brothers, Jake and Aleksis Zarins, who were holidaying in Sri Lanka have rightly been hailed as heroes for their response to the earthquake tragedy.

MIND and heart stood still." The memorable words with which Lord Home, then Foreign Secretary, responded to the death of President Kennedy might with equal validity be applied to the appalling carnage that a tsunami has visited upon two continents.

GERALD WARNERKIRSTY, I've got a hell of a hangover! I shouldnae have had six pints of yon local beer - Manzanilla, did ye call it? An' I've lost my sombrero an' toy donkey - I must have left them in

BRIAN BRADYPresident misses a golden opportunity to win back international support.

MAGNUS LINKLATERAS THE horror of the tidal wave disaster in South East Asia grew, did you leap to the telephone, dial 0870 6060900, and pledge as much money as you could afford?

WELCOME to 2005! Happy New Year! Bliadhna Sona! The 21st century has just experienced its first quinary.

A LEADING international aid agency has warned that children orphaned by last Sunday's tsunami are being bought and sold by ruthless traffickers in Sri Lanka.

THE three Irishmen convicted of training Marxist rebels may have fled Colombia, but according to security forces they have left a legacy that has changed the course of the 40-year civil conflict.

THE pilot of a light aircraft who got into difficulty while attempting a New Year transatlantic flight has landed safely in Ireland.

AFRICAN extremists threatened to assassinate Lady Churchill in 1954 if British troops did not pull out of Kenya, according to secret documents released today.

NEW Year celebrations around the world were more subdued than normal as revellers took time out to remember the victims of the Indian Ocean disaster.