Politics

Village, 6 April 2006

After Frankfurt airport, Shannon is Europe's most popular stopover airport for CIA planes, according to a new Amnesty report. Colin Murphy reports

Village, 13 April 2006

A shell company recently exposed by Amnesty International as a company linked to rendition flights on behalf of the CIA, bringing people to be tortured, continues to use Shannon as a stop-over. Colin Murphy reports.

Aircraft associated with the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) are continuing to use Shannon airport as a stop-over.

On the night of 31 March, a private jet operated by a shell company linked to the CIA landed at Shannon, and was seen there by anti-war plane-spotters.

Village 5 January 2006

British Foreign Office documents reveal US and UK complicity in torture and raise further questions on the use of Shannon by the CIA. By David Shanks.

The former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has released documents which show US and UK complicity in the torture of terror suspects in Uzbekistan. The documents have not been published officially in the UK because of restrictions under the Official Secrets Act.

On Tuesday, on behalf of the United Left Alliance and a number of members of the Dáil Technical Group, Clare Daly TD tabled a Private Members’ motion with regard to the proposed overhaul of the Joint Labour Committee system.

On tabling the motion, she described it as of “huge importance”, saying, “The wages and conditions of more than 250,000 workers are at stake.” She called on the Labour Party to vote against any proposal to "lessen [the] terms and conditions of the lowest paid in our society."

Her speech is below.

An amendment to the forthcoming European Stability Mechanism unveiled by Eurozone finance ministers at a meeting on Monday which Michael Noonan described as "very good news for Ireland" is anything but, writes Ann Pettifor.

There is so much happening on a weekly basis that it is difficult to keep up to date all the time – a bit like following your tail. Aside from topics raised in the Dáil chamber there are always a lot of other things happening on a daily basis, but clearly the most effect is to be gained in the chamber itself.

There was never any real prospect that a new government would be any more successful renegotiating the EU-IMF rescue deal than the outgoing Fianna Fail/Green government were in negotiating it, writes Vincent Browne.

Neither was there any prospect that the priorities which would inform the policies of the new government would be any different to that of the outgoing government: deference to markets and the financial powers, indifference to inequality, if not hostility to the idea of equality.

Interviewed by Cathal MacCoille on today’s Morning Ireland, Micheál Martin gave the new Government ‘three or four out of ten’ for their first hundred days in office. He went on to say that,

I think it’s an anniversary that has been overhyped. I personally wouldn’t have put as much emphasis on the one hundred days as Enda Kenny himself has done. I think he over-promised what they would achieve in the first hundred days. In reality the government has yet to take any hard decisions.

His handling of the banking crisis reflected the variety of politics he practised – not the type of person he was, writes Vincent Browne.

The problem with Brian Lenihan was his politics. No, not that he was a member of Fianna Fáil, but his politics. He was a fine fellow, generous, sociable, funny, clever, articulate, well-read, musical, courageous, committed to this society and us its people. But the politics...

Brian Lenihan was uninsultable - as was his father and as is his brother, Conor. It is a lovely trait, bespeaking humility and tolerance. Quite a contrast from the more familiar characteristic of preciousness, that capacity to search for insult and offence in the most casual remarks.