Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and “smart!” You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it! When I read President Trump’s tweet last week, I was shaken – just like…
“Divided we fall” said the front page of the British newspaper, The Economist, in the days leading up the vote. The debate over the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union ended the 23 June 2016, when the British electorate voted in favour of quitting the EU. Appealing to the Article 50 of…
The UK daily papers are full of outrage that Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) blocked proposals yesterday that would have moved Northern Ireland’s customs border to the Irish Sea. The 10 DUP MPs are currently propping up Theresa May’s minority Conservative government on a confidence and supply basis. Theresa May’s premiership could not continue…
Who knows what will be on the menu when Theresa May dines with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker today? Until after they meet, there can be no certainty about the terms that have been placed on the table. Ireland have already said that they doubt enough progress has been made over the weekend to avoid…
In Hamlet, Marcellus, an officer of the palace guard, seeing the ghost of the dead king, walking over the palace walls, observes, ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark’. Shakespeare would be spoiled for choice for a location for those words today – whether in Brussels, Washington, Westminster. Or indeed, at Stormont,…
This morning, I read this piece on hurricanes, climate change and human responsibilities in Social News by Max Fanni Canelles. It made me think of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s recent visit to Derry, the walled city in Northern Ireland, as a guest of the organisation ‘Children in Crossfire’ which is marking 20 years of…
The Brexit Saga No one could have foreseen the future the way it actually unfolded. When David Cameron proposed the referendum which would determine the future of the UK in the European Union, it was seen as a tactical move for the prime minister to insure his reelection. However, the unexpected became reality, and on…
The old world is dying, and the new world is struggling to be born; now is the time of monsters. Gramsci The 21st century has been marked so far by uncertainty, chaos and change. From 9/11 to the execution of Osama bin Laden by US forces in 2011. To the arrogance of Donald Trump, who…
The EU view – England’s difficulty and Ireland’s opportunity? Just after the start of the First World War in 1914, a group of Irish separatists took the decision to launch a rebellion before the war ended. Their key belief was the credo that ‘England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity’. In other words, the British state would…
Charlie Wilson’s War is a 2008 film loosely based on the true story of a Texas congressman. Wilson is best known for leading the US Congress into supporting Operation Cyclone, the largest-ever Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) covert operation which, under the Carter and Reagan administrations, supplied military equipment like the Redeye to the Afghan Mujahedeen…
