International
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By Kieran Fitzpatrick. The Aarhus Convention aims to protect the environment and proclaims the public to be the best guardian of the environment. There are three strands to the convention: 1) Access to information; 2)Public participation; and 3) Access to justice to review environment-related decisions or to enforce environmental law. Ireland was the last […]
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Stasis in the Southern heat
Ken Phelan On a typically fine July afternoon in California, three buses pull into the small, parched border town of Murrieta, but don’t outstay their welcome. Awaiting their arrival is a group of protesters, ventilating placards and pent-up vitriol in the heat. “USA, USA”, they chant, “Go back home!”. Inside the buses, approximately 140 […]
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Frank Armstrong Iraq came shuddering back into the news this summer after the spectacular conquest by ISIS (The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, now preferring the term ‘The Islamic State’) of Mosul, the country’s second city. This was closely followed by the fall of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s birthplace, and threats to a petrified […]
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Getting married in China
Garreth Byrne Confucius (d. 479 BC) was an ethical teacher who laid down guiding principles for intending mandarin rulers in a feudal society. He stressed the importance of observing traditional rites to elicit harmonious responses from the Will of Heaven. A central part of his teaching was the duties of husbands towards wives and […]
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If Ireland were Palestine
John Gibbons It’s almost 30 years since an IRA no-warning bomb exploded in the Grand Hotel, Brighton, killing five people. Its primary target, British PM, Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet, escaped serious injury. Thatcher defiantly responded by saying that “all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail”. Her composure in the immediate aftermath […]
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Lorna Gold Since mid-2012 talks have been going on under the auspices of the UN to decide what will replace the Millennium Development Goals when they expire in 2015. The new development framework under discussion is to be universally applicable across all countries, rich and poor. This could be described as an exercise in ‘fixing […]
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Stasis in the Southern heat
Immigration reform should provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, an easier legal immigration system, better enforcement and more border security. By Ken Phelan