- India restrict Pakistan to 105-8 in Women's T20 World Cup
- England target repeat of Pakistan Test whitewash
- Penrith Panthers win fourth straight NRL title after downing Storm
- Weary Sinner happy for day off after battling into Shanghai last 16
- Pakistan's Masood warns England still a force without Stokes
- Madrid's Carvajal to miss several months after serious knee injury
- Israel pounds Lebanon ahead of Hamas attack anniversary
- Two elephants die in flash flooding in northern Thailand
- Sabalenka targets world number one and Wuhan hat-trick
- Toddler among 4 dead in migrant Channel crossings
- Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election
- Bagnaia sets 'example' with Japan MotoGP win to cut gap on Martin
- Intense Israeli bombing rocks Beirut ahead of war anniversary
- Mozambique vote: no suspense but some disillusion
- Austrian rapper channels anti-racist rage in Romani hip-hop songs
- Ohtani magic powers Dodgers over Padres in MLB playoff thriller
- Five of the best: Pakistan-England Test thrillers
- Man sets arm on fire as marches across US mark Gaza war anniversary
- Vietnam's young coffee entrepreneurs brew up a revolution
- Trump rallies at site of failed assassination: 'Never quit'
- Too hot by day, Dubai's floodlit beaches are packed at night
- Is music finally reckoning with #MeToo?
- Fans hail Trump's 'guts' as he returns to site of rally shooting
- Lebanon state media says 'very violent' Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Guardians maul Tigers, miracle Mets rally in MLB series openers
- Lebanon state media says Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Miami on track for MLS record points after win in Toronto
- Madrid beat Villarreal but Carvajal suffers knee injury
- Madrid beat Villarreal to move level with Liga leaders Barcelona
- Monaco take top spot in Ligue 1 with win at Rennes
- French rugby player on rape charge whistled but 'serene' on return
- Madrid beat Villarreal to level Liga leaders Barca
- Thuram treble fires Inter past Torino and up to second
- 'Fight': defiant Trump jets in to site of rally shooting
- Toddler among 3 dead in migrant Channel crossings
- Mexico City's new mayor sworn in with pledges on water, housing
- Israel on alert ahead of Hamas attack anniversary
- Guardians maul Tigers in MLB playoff series opener
- Macron criticises Israel on Gaza, Lebanon operations
- French rugby player whistled but 'serene' on return amid ongoing rape case
- Kovacic stars as Man City sink Fulham to get title bid back on track
- Retegui hat-trick fires five-star Atalanta to hammering of Genoa
- Heavyweights Australia, England off to World Cup winning starts
- Visiting UN refugee agency chief decries 'terrible crisis' in Lebanon
- Spinners come to party as England defeat Bangladesh at T20 World Cup
- Search continues for missing in deadly Bosnia floods
- Man City sink Fulham to get title bid back on track
- France's Auradou whistled on Pau return in Perpignan loss amid ongoing rape case
- A 'forgotten' valley in storm-hit North Carolina, desperate for help
- Arsenal hit back in style after Southampton scare
NIreland court orders post-Brexit port checks to resume
Northern Ireland's High Court on Friday issued an interim order suspending a decision by Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots to stop post-Brexit checks on agri-food moving to and from mainland Britain.
The ruling, made by judge Adrian Colton, will stand until a judicial review against the unionist minister's decision can be heard in full.
The checks on trade between the province and mainland Britain are mandated by a post-Brexit EU protocol, but are deeply unpopular among the pro-British community.
Unionist parties say that checks on the Irish Sea border, to prevent unchecked goods entering the European single market via EU-member Ireland to the south, Northern Ireland risks being cast adrift from the rest of the UK.
The Irish government in Dublin and nationalist, pro-Irish parties in Northern Ireland said the order by Poots, of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), broke the law.
In his ruling, Colton said: "There shouldn't be any confusion hanging over those in the Civil Service, so I am persuaded this is a case where there should be interim relief.
"I therefore make the order to suspend the instruction given by the minister for agriculture until further order of this court."
The DUP is bitterly opposed to the Northern Ireland Protocol, an agreement reached between London and Brussels to regulate its trade when the UK left the European Union.
It and all other unionist parties argue the checks on goods coming from England, Scotland and Wales are damaging the Northern Ireland economy.
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said the threat by Poots amounted to a "breach of international law" and was "a very serious matter indeed".
- 'Halt all checks' -
"It's essentially playing politics with legal obligations. And I certainly hope that it doesn't happen, as has been threatened," he said.
London and Brussels have spent months trying to thrash out compromises to reform the protocol but Poots indicated he wanted to short-circuit the process.
He said his own legal advice stated he had the power to suspend the sanitary checks on plant and animal goods entering Northern Ireland from the UK mainland.
"I have now issued a formal instruction to my permanent secretary to halt all checks that were not in place on December 31, 2020 from midnight tonight," he said on Wednesday.
The DUP is trailing Sinn Fein in opinion polls as Northern Ireland gears up for elections in May, and other parties accuse it of growing increasingly desperate on the question of the protocol.
But the DUP insists that the EU agreement is a threat to Northern Ireland's pro-UK unionist population, and wants London to scrap it unilaterally.
On Thursday, the DUP's Paul Givan resigned as first minister of the power-sharing executive in Belfast, prompting calls from nationalists for early elections.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and EU commission vice president Maros Sefcovic are locked in talks to try to agree changes.
F.Dubois--AMWN