Irish party says U.S. ‘opposed to EU integration’ – The Washington Times
April 30th, 2008
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080430/FOREIGN/383010006/1001
DUBLIN — The party once led by the current European Union ambassador to Washington is claiming that the U.S. is actively opposing European integration, posing a potential embarrassment as Prime Minister Bertie Ahern prepares to address a joint session of Congress today.
Lucinda Creighton, a spokeswoman for Ireland’s largest opposition party, Fine Gael, says in a Web posting that “U.S. foreign policy has traditionally been opposed to EU integration.”
“The U.S. supports the EU as an economic bloc but nothing more. The idea of a politically strong EU, acting as a check or counterbalance on the U.S. does not sit well with our trans-Atlantic friends,” says the spokeswoman, a member of Ireland’s Parliament. (more…)
War in Darfur – ISN
April 18th, 2008
Conflict in the Darfur region in western Sudan has raged since early 2003, with massive loss of life, displacement and suffering.
The protagonists are Sudanese armed forces and their Janjaweed Arab militia allies on the one hand, and various African-Darfurian-Sudanese resistance groups on the other. Also included are some Arab tribes siding with anti-government forces and various rebel factions engaging in sporadic mutual conflict. Estimates of deaths from the conflict range from 9,000 – 450,000.
Multiple causes
The conflict in Darfur has multiple causes. (more…)
The global food fight – ISN/The Irish Examiner
April 14th, 2008
The biofuel craze, commodity speculation, growing demand in emerging economies and soaring energy prices coalesce to boost food prices, with mass hunger and political instability looming, Simon Roughneen writes for ISN Security Watch.
“A hungry man is an angry man” – this was Brenda Barton’s (the World Food Programme Deputy Director for Communications) apposite summing-up to ISN Security Watch last week.
Jacques Diouf, Head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), took this further, wondering aloud to the world’s press why he had not been asked to brief the UN Security Council about a looming crisis that leaves 37 countries without enough affordable food.
In recent weeks protests have taken place in Indonesia, Peru, Mauritania, Yemen, Burkina Faso, Bolivia and Uzbekistan. In Egypt and Haiti riots turned deadly, with seven and four people killed, respectively, in both countries in the past 10 days, while over 40 died in Cameroon’s February food unrest. (more…)
US Woes danger to Celtic Tiger – The Washington Times
April 8th, 2008
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/apr/08/us-woes-danger-to-celtic-tiger/
Croagh Patrick, on top of which St Patrick emulated Christ's 40 days in the desert. Each St Patricks Day the Irish PM meets the US President at the While House (Simon Roughneen)
DUBLIN — Before his recent resignation, outgoing Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern prefaced the annual St. Patrick”s Day pilgrimage to the White House by predicting “a hard year” ahead for the Irish economy.
The banking crisis and credit crunch in the United States, as well as the falling dollar, worry Irish policy-makers. Ireland has 25 percent of its trade in dollars and has bet much of its recent economic boom on a 12 percent corporate tax rate — an enormous incentive for U.S. multinationals such as Intel and Microsoft to run pan-European operations out of Ireland.
Google has the headquarters of its European and Middle East operations in Dublin.
“The company is very pleased with how the Dublin operation continues to develop,” a Google spokesman said.
The spokesman, who asked not to be named in keeping with company policy, said the company “was attracted to Ireland for a number of reasons, including its highly educated work force, multilingual talent pool, where there are in excess of 140 languages spoken, and its solid economic environment.”
The unanswered question is: How will the present economic slowdown in the U.S. affect Ireland?
Dublin”s Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) is predicting the lowest economic growth in 20 years, at just 1.6 percent. Others are even more pessimistic, predicting zero growth. (more…)
Good old Bob – ISN
April 4th, 2008
A meeting of minds - Robert Mugabe and Mahmoud Ahmedinijad (ISNA)
Meeting Robert Mugabe at the outset of his presidency in 1980, former Rhodesian leader Ian Smith noted his erstwhile enemy’s “reasonableness and fair play.” Twenty-eight years after Mugabe’s Marxist rebels defeated the white-led government and established an independent Zimbabwe, Smith would doubtlessly rethink his views, were he still alive. But his death last year has not stopped him being registered to vote in last Saturday’s elections – and almost certainly matching his 1980 assessment with a posthumous vote for the incumbent.
But stuffing the electoral roll with dead or non-existent voters seems venial relative to Mugabe’s litany of mortal oppression. After a decade of demagogue-driven economic disaster, “Africa’s (former) breadbasket” depends on food aid for 4 million of its 11 million population. Three million others have left Zimbabwe, mostly white farmers and black urban middle classes, the country’s economic lynchpins. With inflation at 160,000 percent – and counting – a wheelbarrow of cash would hardly buy a few strips of biltong – a type of local sun dried meat or jerky – if any could be had that is.
And now a country where electricity supplies are intermittent at best is in the dark about its political future. “Good old Bob” has hedged his bets so far on his next move: The electoral commission has given the parliamentary win to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), but as yet no results from the presidential election are forthcoming. (more…)
Ahern to quit leadership post – The Washington Times
April 3rd, 2008
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/apr/03/ahern-to-quit-leadership-post/
Bertie Ahern announces his resignation
DUBLIN — Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern announced yesterday that he will step down next month after accusations of corruption.
Ireland achieved record economic growth and peace with Northern Ireland during Mr. Ahern’s 11-year tenure, but an ongoing inquest into the prime minister’s personal finances raised questions about more than $1 million in payments.
Mr. Ahern will formally step down May 6. He is scheduled to address Congress in Washington on April 30 and then host the Japanese prime minister in Dublin.
“I have done no wrong and wronged no one,” an emotional Mr. Ahern told reporters. He was surrounded by his government ministers, most of whom learned of the resignation only hours before the announcement.
Mr. Ahern said he had “never done anything to corrupt my office.”
On Monday, Mr. Ahern challenged a tribunal that had homed in during the past year on a plethora of cash gifts and loans in the early 1990s, when he was finance minister. (more…)
Ahern resigns; denies wrongdoing – The Washington Times
April 2nd, 2008
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/apr/02/ahern-resigns-denies-wrongdoing/
DUBLIN — Prime Minister Bertie Ahern this morning announced his resignation after 11 years in power.
Mr. Ahern’s tenure saw Ireland achieve record economic growth, with Northern Ireland at peace. However, a recent inquest into Mr. Ahern’s personal finances saw questions raised over almost $781,000 in payments.
Mr. Ahern will formally step down on May 6, after addressing Congress in Washington and receiving the Japanese prime minister here.
“I have done no wrong and wronged no one,” said a visibly emotional Mr. Ahern at a press conference on the steps outside Dublin’s government buildings this morning. (more…)
Basra Fighting may overshadow NATO Summit – Sunday Business Post
March 30th, 2008
http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2008/03/30/story31621.asp
Civil war may loom again, with Moqtada al-Sadr and Abdul Hakim – both Shi’ite warlords – now facing-off, and Sunni tribes armed by the US increasingly disenchanted at being sidelined by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shi’ite-dominated government, whose army has been unable to stop the fighting and has little sway with al-Sadr or Hakim. This fiendishly-complex tinderbox will likely overshadow next week’s NATO summit, which already had plenty on its plate.
The alliance turns 60 next year, and since Communism’s European collapse removed its founding raison d’etre, a midlife crisis ensued. After 9/11, however, NATO invoked its collective defence provision for the only time in its history, and in 2006 it took over leadership of UN-sanctioned military operations in Afghanistan. (more…)
Sudan: The last ten percent – ISN
March 25th, 2008
Darfurian girl branded by janjaweed (ISN)
Despite renewed violence in Darfur and Abyei, Sudan’s government thinks the country is more or less at peace, Simon Roughneen writes for ISN Security Watch.
Since early February, Sudanese air strikes and ground attacks in western Darfur, carried out in tandem with janjaweed militia elements, have displaced between 30,000-60,000 people and left unknown numbers dead or missing.
Meanwhile, deadlock over the future status of Abyei, an oil-rich disputed region along the north-south divide in Sudan, has contributed to a recent upsurge in fighting between the southern army and local Arab pastoralists affiliated to the National Congress Party (NCP), the dominant component in the country’s national unity government.
Despite this upsurge in violence, the peace deal between north and south is already 90 percent implemented, this according to Dr Rabbi Abdul-Atti, an adviser to the Sudanese information minister, speaking to reporters in Nairobi.
The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) is the former southern rebel group now in uneasy government partnership with the NCP. (more…)
Zimbabwe braced for election – Sunday Business Post
March 23rd, 2008
http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2008/03/23/story31422.asp
Zimbabwe will elect a new president, parliament and senate on Saturday, amid fears of post-election violence.
ZANU-PF leader and president Robert Mugabe has ruled since independence, and will run against opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. The Movement for Democratic Change leader was a narrow loser in the 2002 elections, which were widely believed to have been rigged. (more…)
