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The Celtic Tiger devours its tail: is Ireland on the brink of economic civil war?

John Drennan
Irish Independent
Sun, 05 Jul 2009 18:55 UTC

On the last Questions and Answers (and we're all grateful for that release), Brian Cowen was certainly playing the brave soldier as he told the nation to "pull together" and trust in the "good instincts" of our politicians.

These fine, if banal, words bear no relation to the realities Mr Cowen must face, because not only do our political Spoilt Princes lack good instincts, but the nation certainly isn't pulling together.

On one level, the defeatist cynical despair is understandable, for it is an astonishing indictment of how we had been governed that Brian Lenihan's two terror budgets have been nothing more than acts of liposuction.

Even as the Government tries to build up enough courage to even publish the report of An Bord Snip Nua, the bad news is that the amputation stage of the process will begin in the autumn.

MI6 boss in Facebook entry row

BBC News
Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:00 UTC

Personal details about the life of the next head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, have been removed from social networking site Facebook amid security concerns.

The Mail on Sunday said his wife had put details about their children and the location of their flat on the site.

The details were removed after the paper contacted the Foreign Office.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband denied claims security had been compromised, saying: "You know he wears a Speedo swimsuit. That's not a state secret."

Tracy McVeigh & Tom Kington
The Guardian
Sun, 05 Jul 2009 12:36 UTC

Aftershocks have rocked the Italian town of L'Aquila, where the G8 summit is due to open this week.

The tremors, which have reached 4.1 on the Richter scale, have forced the Italians to consider moving the conference and newspapers are reporting that the security concerns for leaders, including Gordon Brown and Barack Obama, could cause the summit to move to Rome

In the meantime briefing papers that have gone out to all eight leaders contain a sheet of instructions in the event of an earthquake, a British diplomat confirmed.

The logistical nightmare for delegates and their security as well as the charities, observers, journalists and strategists booked to attend the summit are further complications for what is becoming the most chaotic G8 ever. It is also another credibility blow to Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, the current G8 president. His perfomances on both the world stage and in his private life have been subjected to derision.

'Sanader Will Remain Master Of Puppets'

Mladen Starcevic
javno.hr
Sun, 05 Jul 2009 08:21 UTC

© Unknown
Croatian out going prime minister, Ivo Sanader, stands next to prime minister-designate, Jadranka Kosor, during a party meeting in Zagreb on July 4, 2009.

Zagreb,Croatia - Machiavelli said: 'When a ruler is in great trouble, he has to surprise everyone with a total turnover - professor at the Zagreb Faculty of Political Sciences and political analyst Damir Grubisa said.

Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader announced on Wednesday that he was resigning for personal reasons.

Grubisa does not think the reason for the premier's resignation lies in medical charts and results, but he believes that the premier's move was taken in "his prime".

- This is a premeditated act. Sanader abandoned the ship even before it started to sink - Grubisa went on, pointing out that with this move, Sanader has secured himself not just running at the presidential elections, but victory as well.

Kosor was sacrificed?

Regarding Jadranka Kosor, deputy PM and Sanader's successor as the premier, professor Grubisa called the act of appointing her "sacrifice".

- Kosor has been sacrificed. If he [Sanader] wanted a male premier who would keep things going, he would take Kalmeta, his most powerful minister. Sanader will remain a puppet master, the one who pulls all the strings on a marionette - Grubisa concluded.

Italy adopts law to curb migrants

BBC News
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:00 UTC

Italy's parliament has given final approval to a law criminalising illegal immigration and allowing citizens' patrols to help the police keep order. The new measures have been strongly criticised by human rights groups and the Vatican.

Illegal immigration will be punishable by a hefty fine and those who knowingly house illegal migrants will face up to three years in prison. The law also extends detention periods for illegal migrants to six months.

It was passed in the Senate (upper house) on Thursday, with 157 in favour and 124 against. The lower house passed it in May.

Tom Brady
Irish Independent
Sun, 05 Jul 2009 02:06 UTC

Only one in five people called for jury service in Limerick criminal trials are turning up because of fear of intimidation. The number has dropped dramatically from four in five as major gangland figures sit in the front row in court, when their associates are on trial, in order to intimidate jurors.

The shocking rise in intimidation was revealed in the Dail yesterday by the Government's two security ministers during a debate on new legislation, which proposes to move gangland trials to the non-jury Special Criminal Court, if the DPP approves.

Other incidents of attempts to tamper with jurors are included in confidential information supplied to the Government by Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy.

Mark Tran
The Guardian
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:26 UTC

The EU decided today to summon all Iranian ambassadors in capitals across Europe in a co-ordinated protest over the detention of UK embassy staff. The move came after a senior cleric said some of the staff accused of inciting protests following last month's disputed presidential election would be put on trial.

The head of Iran's guardian council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, said the detained staff members had "made confessions" in connection with the unrest.

The surprise move by the council, Iran's top legislative body, will cause relations between London and Tehran to deteriorate further after tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions last week.

Sweden, which holds the rotating EU presidency, said in a statement: "It's not acceptable to file charges against the ones released or to the ones still in custody."

Comment: The brutal response by Iranian security forces against demonstrators is presented as fact when the evidence so far points to western intelligence-trained agents provocateurs being responsible for the street violence:

MKO (aka PMOI) provoked Iran's post-vote unrest: Iraq

Flashback: US recruiting 'dissidents' to spy on Iranians

The PMOI is an Iranian opposition movement seeking regime change in Iran. It is considered a terrorist organization by several nations for its violent action against Iran in the 1980s, but the group claims to have abandoned its militant tactics in 2003.

The Guardian
Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:58 UTC

The Formula One commercial rights holder, Bernie Ecclestone, has stoked up controversy by claiming that Adolf Hitler was a man who "was able to get things done", that democracy has not worked out for Britain and that his colleague Max Mosley would make a good Prime Minister.

Ecclestone had previously stirred outrage when he suggested in 2008 that racist comments on a website about the British driver Lewis Hamilton had "started as just a joke".

Yesterday a spokesman for the board of Deputies of British Jews said: "Mr Ecclestone's comments regarding Hitler, female, black and Jewish racing drivers are quite bizarre. He says 'Politics are not for me' and we are inclined to agree."

Comment: Is this a glimpse of the intensity of pathology we can expect to replace 'old' New Labour?

A vacation into filth: The motorsport boss Max Mosley reveals his lifelong interest in sado-masochistic sex

MI5 linked to Max Mosley - the Formula One racing chief - sex scandal

Dowjones Business News
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:57 UTC

Frosty ties between the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and member state Russia deteriorated Friday when the OSCE voted to condemn Nazism and Soviet-era Stalinism alike.

A session of the 56-nation OSCE overwhelmingly approved a resolution proposed by host Lithuania and fellow ex-communist Slovenia.

It acted despite stiff opposition from Russia, which resists fiercely any attempt to equate the regimes of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

Newsroom Solutions
Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:04 UTC

Italy's prime minister has moved next week's G8 summit on the global economy to an Italian city flattened by an earthquake in April.

World leaders attending the three-day meeting, including President Obama, will stay in police barracks in L'Aquila.

That facility is where the entire international summit on the financial crisis and climate change will take place.

The April 6th earthquake killed nearly 300 people in the medieval city and left most of its population of 68-thousand homeless.

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