Dublin  - Anger is rising in Ireland after the latest body blow to the economy with the panic nationalization of the scandal-hit Anglo Irish Bank, the country's third-largest bank.

Enraged Anglo Irish shareholders are demanding the resignation of the bank's directors and threatened legal action after it emerged that undisclosed loans to the bank's former chairman Sean Fitzpatrick totalled 129 million euros (171.5 dollars).

Dublin/London - Financially troubled prestige china and crystal firm Waterford Wedgwood announced Monday that parts of its business in Ireland and Britain had been placed into administration.

The Anglo-Irish group, with a history of 250 years, is best known for its Wedgwood pottery and Royal Doulton and Waterford crystal.

It said Monday receivers had been appointed to parts of its Irish business, based in Waterford, in the south of the Irish Republic, and in Stoke-on-Trent, in the county of Staffordshire in central England.

Dublin - Irish writer, academic and politician Conor Cruise O'Brien has died at the age of 91, national broadcaster RTE reported Friday.

Born in 1917 in Dublin in an Ireland that was still part of the British Empire to a journalist father and teacher mother, O'Brien's early career was as a civil servant in the foreign ministry.

He became a special representative for the United Nations to the Democratic Republic of Congo in the early 1960s and wrote To Katanga and Back in 1962 about Katanga province's secession from the newly independent DR Congo.

Dublin - A Dublin-based think tank issued its gloomiest outlook yet for the Irish economy Friday, forecasting a drop in economic activity of 4.6 per cent in 2009 and a jump in unemployment to almost 10 per cent.

"The Irish economy is in the midst of a contraction that is large by both historic and international comparisons," the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) said in a statement.

Ireland's gross national product, which does not include net investment from abroad, is expected to fall by 2.6 per cent this year before slumping by 4.6 per cent next year.

Investment in Ireland would drop by 19.3 per cent in 2009, the ESRI forecast, while consumption would drop 3.6 per cent.

Dublin/London - An Irish government minister was among several hostages held by

Dublin  - In a move aimed at restoring confidence in the banking system and encouraging lending, Ireland's government on Sunday announced a 10-billion-euro (13.4-billion-dollar) rescue plan for the country's banks amid the deepening global financial crisis.

The government said it would use money from the 18.7-billion-euro state pension fund to invest and also wants existing shareholders and private investors to support a recapitalization.