A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Choctaws donate $8,000 to Shell to Sea
A Choctaw native American community that sent money to Ireland in 1847 for famine relief is now donating an equivalent amount to the north Mayo Shell to Sea campaign, writes Lorna Siggins.
A cheque for $8,000 (€5,511) is to be presented by Choctaw artist Gary Whitedeer to Vincent McGrath of the Rossport five in Glenamoy, north Mayo, today.
By "pure and strange coincidence", the sum is equivalent to the €710 sent by the Choctaw community to Ireland to purchase grain for famine victims in 1847, Mr Whitedeer said.
Meanwhile, Minister for Environment John Gormley is seeking expert advice on the implications of a report on unauthorised drilling by Shell consultants RPS on the Special Area of Conservation in Glengad.
€1.5m worth of beer goes missing
Gardaí have begun an investigation into the theft of up to €1.5 million worth of beer from a drinks wholesalers on the outskirts of Cork city after an internal audit showed up huge shortfalls in stock.
Detectives believe that hundreds of crates containing slabs of Heineken cans were taken over a period of a year or more from a warehouse belonging to Nash Beverages at Little Island.
Funding for Chad peace force urged
The soldiers' representative body, PDforra, has called for Irish peacekeeping missions to be funded from the exchequer.
The organisation said yesterday it was concerned that the cost of funding the Irish peacekeeping mission to Chad would result in cutbacks in the Defence Forces at home.
Last month, Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea pledged 350 Irish troops to Chad as part of an EU mission backed by the UN.
Two suspects in Jamaican murder
Jamaican police expect to charge two men today with the murder of Henrik Litske, a 49-year-old Danish man whose body was discovered in a river beside his partially submerged car last week.
Mr Litske came to Ireland in 1988 to work at the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in Loughlinstown, Co Dublin.
A spokesman for the Jamaican police said yesterday said that the initial results of a post mortem on Mr Litske's body had confirmed he died from a blunt trauma to the head.
Cache of loyalist guns destroyed
A consignment of loyalist guns has been destroyed in the view of arms inspectors in Northern Ireland, it was confirmed last night.
However, sources close to the Ulster Defence Association insisted the handover to Gen John de Chastelain's Independent International Commission on Decommissioning was unauthorised.
The weapons were destroyed last Saturday at the Ballykinlar army barracks in Co Down.