Dublin  - As Ireland's Progressive Democrats (PDS) ground to a halt at the weekend, it seemed fitting, given the collapse of the low-taxation Celtic Tiger economy, that the party which peddled liberal free-market economic policies was "no longer politically viable."

One of the junior parties in the Irish coalition government, the PDs, which have just two seats in the lower house or Dail, voted to wind up the party by 201 votes to 161.

Los Angeles  - A third time with the Denver Nuggets wasn't the charm for Antonio McDyess, after the club agreed to a contract buyout and waived the veteran power forward on Monday.

The move comes a week after the Detroit Pistons shipped McDyess, along with Chauncey Billups and Cheikh Samb, to the Nuggets for Allen Iverson in the first blockbuster trade of the young season.

A fan favourite in Detroit, the 34-year-old McDyess is most likely to re-sign with the Pistons after clearing the required 30-day waiting period.

Sydney - A fa

Cairo  - Groups of Bedouins protested Monday in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, blocking a main road, after Egyptian security forces opened fire, killing one man and wounding another, security sources said.

Police shot the two men when they refused to stop their car at a security check point, sources told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa. Bedouins often accuse Egyptian police of discriminating against them, including arresting Bedouins without charge.

London - The Football Association confirmed Monday that they are considering disciplinary action against Newcastle manager Joe Kinnear, who called match official Martin Atkinson a "Mickey Mouse referee" following Sunday's 2-1 defeat to Fulham.

Kinnear was heavily critical of Atkinson's decision not to give Newcastle a free kick for a challenge between Fulham forward Andy Johnson and Newcatsle defender Claudio Cacapa, in the move that led to the penalty from which Fulham scored the winner.

New York  - US stock indices posted losses Monday after fresh earnings concerns arose for some of the country's top companies, outweighing a 588-billion-dollar Chinese economic stimulus package that had spurred gains on other stock exchanges around the world.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc, technology giant Google Inc and automaker General Motors Corp all suffered downgraded outlooks. Goldman, despite having weathered the financial storm better than other major US investment banks, may post its first quarterly loss since going public nine years ago, according to Barclays Plc.