Political parties in Northern Ireland are gearing up for September talks in England at Leeds Castle in an effort to restore the dissolved Northern Ireland Assembly. Arms decommissioning, policing, and demilitarization are again expected to top the agenda, and although there is little sign of where a breakthrough can be made, pre-talks overtures from the main parties – the … [Read more...] about News: Fresh Talks to Kick-Start Assembly
Sinn Fein
News: Fresh Talks to
Kick-Start Assembly
Political parties in Northern Ireland are gearing up for September talks in England at Leeds Castle in an effort to restore the dissolved Northern Ireland Assembly. Arms decommissioning, policing, and demilitarization are again expected to top the agenda, and although there is little sign of where a breakthrough can be made, pre-talks overtures from the main parties – the … [Read more...] about News: Fresh Talks to
Kick-Start Assembly
Sinn Féin and PUP Angry Over New Report
On April 20, 2004, Paul Murphy, Secretary of State of Northern Ireland, announced that the International Monitoring Commission (IMC) had recommended monetary sanctions upon Sinn Féin for the alleged abduction of a dissident Republican by the IRA and on the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) for its connection to the Ulster Volunteer Force, a loyalist paramilitary group. Angry … [Read more...] about Sinn Féin and PUP Angry Over New Report
Northern Ireland’s Political Crisis Deepens
The political crisis in the North looks set to continue in the coming months. It seems that both Dublin and London are now resigned to the fact that it will take a lot of work to re-establish some trust between Nationalists and Unionists which would enable the institutions in the North to get up and running again. Elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly are due in May and … [Read more...] about Northern Ireland’s Political Crisis Deepens
The Last Word: A Pall of Darkness Falls on Belfast
Thank Christ the murdered man was Catholic. No Catholic will say that on the record, but every northern Catholic knows what it means, and no Catholic has to amplify when it is said privately. It means that if Gerard Lawlor, aged 19, shot dead by loyalists last Sunday night [7.21.02] in north Belfast, had been a Protestant, there would have been political hell to pay, and an … [Read more...] about The Last Word: A Pall of Darkness Falls on Belfast