EVERY DAY, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you need to know with your morning cup of coffee.

1. #ROADS: Gardaí are appealing for information about a hit-and-run incident in Dublin last night, in which a teenage boy was seriously injured. The pedestrian was struck by a large light-coloured van which failed to stop on Lower Kimmage Road near the junction with Aideen Avenue at around 9.30pm.

2. #PAY CUTS: Minister of Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin has insisted the government is committed to avoiding more public sector pay cuts – but said there are no guarantees. Howlin said that “all bets are off” unless savings are delivered under the Croke Park deal.

3. #JOBBRIDGE: The government has decided to extend the Jobbridge internship scheme to primary teaching graduates who are required to find 100 days of experience to register with Teachers’ Council. Labour’s Colm Keaveney has said that the opportunity will allow teaching students up to nine months’ classroom experience and thus allow them to receive the necessary registration.

4. #LANGUAGES: The Royal Irish Academy says that Ireland cannot hope to compete internationally without a coherent foreign language teaching strategy. Ireland has the highest percentage of people in the European Union who admit to speaking only their mother-tongue, RTÉ reports.

5. #GREECE: Workers in Greece are staging strikes against cutbacks in the country. There is will be widespread disruption at Athens airport, and hospitals and schools will also close, Reuters reports.

6. #ITALY: Italy’s credit rating has been cut by three notches by ratings agency Moody’s, which cited “the uncertain market environment and the risk of further deterioration in investor sentiment” as reasons for its decision. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has said that the development was “expected” and stressed that Italy remained committed to reaching its budget targets.

7. #PERU: Almost 300 women being held in sexual slavery in the Amazon region of Peru have been rescued by police. At least four people have been arrested on suspicion of human trafficking, the BBC reports.

8. #SYRIA: China and Russia have vetoed a UN resolution condemning Syria’s crackdown on anti-government protesters. The European-drafted resolution, which had already dropped any direct reference to sanctions, was rejected by Beijing and Moscow because it proposed “targeted measures” against Bashar al-Assad’s government, reports the Telegraph.

9. #THE SUN: Europe is to lead an ambitious space mission to examine the behaviour of the Sun. The probe sent to study the star, Solar Orbiter, will operate just 42 million km from the Sun – the closest any spacecraft will have ever gone. The probe is expected to launch in 2017, Space Daily reports.