Who would ever have thought it? Ian Paisley will be first minister in Stormont come March 2007. He will head up a joint powersharing executive with Sinn Féin, with Martin McGuiness as deputy first minister.

The relationship between the traditional print media and the online world of blogs and ‘citizen journalism' is often one of mutual hostility. On the one hand, journalists and publishers decry the lack of professionalism, credibility and objectivity of non-commercial online news sources. On the other, one of the most popular topics of the blogosphere is the failings and bias of mainstream media, or MSM as it's often abbreviated online. The internet has endless space in which these failings can be put under the microscope.

As the world marks World Aids Day on 1 December, little has changed in the Ugandan village where the first cases of the virus were discovered 25 years ago. The fishing community of Kasensero has been ravaged by HIV/Aids and is in desperate need of direct aid, says Killian Stokes

Myers' despicable libel on Douglas Gageby

A book of essays on the late Douglas Gageby is about to be published: Bright, Brilliant Days: Douglas Gageby and The Irish Times, amid a welter of controversy. And the controversy arises from two contributions: one by Kevin Myers and the other by James Downey.

There must remain a scepticism that the powersharing deal involving the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin will actually happen next March. And the essential reason is that for too many on the unionist side, accepting Sinn Fein – the political manifestation of the IRA which murdered so many in their community – is for now a step too far

Government has refused to investigate CIA flights through Irish airports and has rejected Irish Human Rights Commission's advice on renditions. By Justine McCarthy

Ian Paisley faces a delicate political balancing act if devolved government is to be restored in the North, without isolating fundamentalist DUP voters. By Alan Murray 

Those self-congratulatory media reports of Mary Robinson's praise for Ireland in combating global violence against women did not convey the whole truth of what the former president said.

A  Cork city council meeting ended in disorder and was adjourned by the chairman on 27 November after a councillor refused to withdraw comments comparing An Garda Síochána's behaviour at the Shell protests in Mayo to that of the B-specials in the North and Thatcher's militarised police force during the 1980s mining protests.

Michael D Higgins despises Margaret Thatcher as much as ever, struggles to see the ‘brilliance' of Michael McDowell and finds the dealings of Pat Rabitte and Enda Kenny ‘fairly daft'. Justine McCarthy meets Labour's Limerick-born literatus as he prepares to publish his ‘revealing' new book