Belfast - Italian world class fencer Andrea Baldini has failed to have a six months ban for a doping violation overturned, the sports' governing body FIE said Friday. Baldini has, however, already served the suspension and is allowed to compete again.

The Italian, who won the silver medal at the world championships in 2006 and 2007, tested positive for the banned diuretic furosemide at the European championships in Kiev last July.

He has always maintained his innocence and said he had fallen victim to a campaign to frame him.

London/Belfast - The regional government of Northern Ireland said Thursday that it had been given a financial boost of 900 million pounds (1.4 billion dollars) by the government in London to help kick-start devolved government after five months of political stalemate.

Announcement of the aid package coincided with the resumption of "normal government" in Northern Ireland, where the power-sharing Executive (cabinet) met for the first time since June on Thursday.

The deal had been hammered out in talks in London the previous day with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and senior ministers, politicians in the province confirmed.

London/Belfast - Police in Northern Ireland said Friday they discovered a huge cache of weapons and ammunition linked to a formerly mainstream Protestant paramilitary group.

The more than 70 weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition were found during the search of a home in Belfast which led to further discoveries in lock-up premises in the city, police said.

The discovery was linked to the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a mainstream Protestant paramilitary group, which in May 2007 declared an end to its campaign of violence by announcing the organization was adopting a non-military and civilian role.

The UVF said it had ceased recruitment and military training and had placed all its guns "beyond reach."

Belfast - The 40th anniversary of a civil rights demonstration that changed the course of Irish history is being remembered at a conference in the Northern Irish city of Londonderry on Saturday, attended by Irish President Mary McAleese and Nobel Peace Laureate John Hume.

Belfast  - Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown praised Catholic and Protestant politicians in Northern Ireland Tuesday for having "shown the whole world that hope can triumph over fear."

Brown's speech to members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, the regional parliament, was an appeal to the province's political leaders to set aside differences over the controversial issues of justice and policing.

Belfast/London  - A massive arsenal of weapons destined for criminal gangs in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic has been recovered in a major cross-border police operation that also extended to the Netherlands, police in Belfast said Friday.

Hugh Orde, the police chief of Northern Ireland, said a total of 230 handguns, 10,000 rounds of ammunition, 450,000 euro in cash and drugs with an estimated street value of over four million euro were seized in the operation.