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5 July 2001 Edition

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Dúirt siad...

``Quite clearly, the coverage was aimed at placing extra pressure on the republican leadership to deliver before Trimble's self-imposed deadline expired at midnight. Indeed, the coverage might have been placed under the heading `UUP leadership crisis', because that is the primary crisis of the moment.''

Frank Connolly, of the Sunday Business Post, on 1 July, commenting on an article in the previous Tuesday's Irish Times headed `Decommissioning Crisis'


``Catholic mothers in the Ardoyne offered the option of taking their children to school along one side of the street only - perhaps Loyalist overlords would prefer them to walk in Indian file with white stars stitched to their gymslips!

Two bewildered Coleraine children and a rose-clutching mother following the coffin of a young man murdered, not because of his religious or political beliefs, but because he was deemed ethnically unsuitable to live in the neighbourhood.''

Barry Cowen, in Ireland on Sunday, 1 July, assessing the previous week's sectarian attacks by loyalists


``What we had here today was dozens and dozens of RUC Land Rovers, water cannons, hundreds of heavily armed RUC men, to force an Orange Parade and loyalist paramilitaries down a Catholic Road.''

Sinn Féin's Gerry Kelly relating the situation on the Whiterock Road on Saturday, to Monday, 2 July's Irish News


``But the truth, as Monday's shameful exploits in the Dome of Delights showed, is that unionism has made Belfast a city of division, bitterness and hatred. A city where unionists ensure the untermenschen are kept in their place.''

Editorial in Belfast's Andersonstown News, Saturday 30 June, relating the digust of republicans and nationalists as the Alliance Party ensured the election of anti-Agreement unionist, Jim Rodgers as Belfast Mayor, over Sinn Féin's Alex Maskey


``Despite valid claims by the Government that it has increased spending by 25% we are actually spending proportionally less on health than in 1980, while the average spend has been increasing throughout the OECD.''

Front page article in the Irish Examiner, Tuesday 3 July


``Unionists knew there was no commitment by republicans on decommissioning, and the proof was their frenzy to disguise that reality with a letter obtained from Tony Blair within hours of the Agreement being signed.''

Vincent Browne in Wednesday 4 July's Irish Times


``Pressed by Judge May to say whether he wanted the full 32-page indictment read out, the defendant answered, in a peremptory style familiar to the western leader who negotiated with him during the bloody wars of Yugoslav succession: `That's your problem.'''

Ian Black, writing in the Guardian, Wednesday 4 July from the War Crimes Tribunal trying Slobodan Milosevic


``For all the excellent work which it produces at its rare best, RTÉ has too often failed to live up to its aspirations and its promise, especially in the current affairs field. If it improved its service, it would have a better call on Government and public sympathy.''

Irish Independent editorial, Wednesday 4 June, getting a dig at the RTÉ license fee hike

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