Lorraine Courtney reviews Martin Gilman's No Precedent, No Plan: Inside Russia's 1998 Default.
Back before the global economic slump, the IMF was hastily careering down the path towards irrelevance. But that was then. Now, it is back in town, right at the front line of bail-out packages, wrangling over government spending and tax reform.
Urgent action is required in the area of sustainable transport to stem global warming according to Julia King, a Professor and Vice-Chancellor of Aston University.
This week student nurses and midwives began a concerted campaign against the government's plans to cut their pay with protests at hospitals across the country.
On Wednesday (9 February), around 3,500 students staged demonstrations at 13 hospitals in the first phase of a campaign of resistance against planned pay cuts. The campaign is supported by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Association (INMO) and students were joined at the protests by their qualified staff colleagues.
Speaking on Morning Ireland on 7 January, Minister of State in the Department of Health and Children Barry Andrews said there was no future for co-location. This is the first public acknowledgment that Fianna Fáil have abandoned one of Mary Harney's pet projects – the plan to co-location private hospitals on the grounds of public hospitals.
Up to this, co-location was going ahead, despite doubts and persistent questioning from many. The Ministerial and Departmental line was that it would go ahead even though it was dropped from HSE 2011 Service Plan.
With jobs and the economy top of the election 2011 agenda, is health really a concern for voters and candidates in this election, asks Sara Burke.
Health tends to come high up on voters' priority lists but it's definitely not top this time. Of course, the focus is on jobs, economy, and the bank bailout. And while there is lots of rhetoric on health, we have yet to see much of the detail from political parties and candidates.
Despite the total lack of discussion from all the parties, this issue is not just a fixation of loony-left mavericks, writes Vincent Browne.
There is a consensus that the big issue in this campaign is jobs and, in a sense, it is. Jobs are crucial for income, the means to support one's family and oneself.
Jobs are crucial also for identity, for developing and maintaining a sense of self-worth; one of the cruelties of joblessness is not just the loss of income, but the loss of self-esteem.
Unavailable for years, Anthony Cronin's The Life of Riley is a first-rate comic novel, about life in the bohemian Irish cultural scene of the 1960's, that also manages to pack a serious punch. Ed O'Hare pays tribute.
Unnatural Pursuits and How's That For Telling 'Em, Fat Lady?, playwright Simon Gray's painfully funny account of two shambolic productions of his works in London the 1980's, are the most amusing and eye-opening theatrical memoirs yet written. By Edward O'Hare.
As each day passes, the damage this government has done to the people of Ireland and their health becomes clearer, writes Sara Burke. This article has been cross-posted from the website of Village Magazine.
Government policy since 1997 created the biggest boom and bust experienced by any first-world country since the 1930s.
A coalition of trade unions and community sector organisations marked the cutting of the National Minimum Wage with a protest outside Leinster House today entitled 'Ireland's Day of Shame'. By Alison Spillane
Speaking at the ceremony, hotel worker Bernie Casey described the move as a 'disgrace', and said that taking €40 a week out of the household budget [of tens of thousands of families] was shameful. "What chance have we of living in decency and providing for our families on €7.65 an hour?", she asked.