THE Programme for Government and investment strategy announced at Stormont last week puts tackling poverty and disadvantage at the heart of governance in the Six Counties. Addressing the Assembly, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness MP spoke of a "seismic shift", declaring "this place" to be "truly under new management". Free article

THE 2006 CENSUS paints a picture of an Ireland in transition. No longer are we characterised solely by a relatively young population or higher than average birth rates. Ireland, North and South, is an island going through a period of rapid social change. Free article

THEY haven't gone away you know. Racism and sectarianism are alive and well and living in the mainly predominant unionist areas of the North, despite the denials of politicians, pastors and those charged with promoting community relations. Free article

NICKY KEHOE has announced that he is resigning his seat on Dublin City Council, sparking all sorts of mischief-making stories by political opponents and the Establishment media even though Nicky is still in the Party. ELLA O'DWYER spoke to Nicky in his Cabra heartland about his work as a councillor and why he's resigning his council seat. Free article

Mícheál MacDonncha continues a monthly series marking the 50th anniversary of the IRA's Resistance Campaign - more widely known as the Border Campaign - which commenced in December 1956. The series is based on the monthly republican newspaper of the time An tÉireannach Aontaithe/ The United Irishman. Free article

State of Emergency, a documentary broadcast on ITV on Monday evening, 29 October, was billed as a programme in which Moreland Sanders looked at how the closures of some Accident and Emergency departments across England "could affect patients whose lives depend on getting treatment within minutes". Free article

I was incredulous when I read Frank Farrell's Media View (An Phoblacht 25/10/07). Of all Ministers, Frank attempts to absolve Noel Dempsey as Minister for Transport from his responsibility for the ending of the Aer Lingus Shannon-Heathrow service. Whatever about who knew what and when the fact remains that Noel Dempsey has for a decade been a member of a Cabinet that planned and completed the disgraceful privatisation of the national airline, Aer Lingus. Yet the word privatisation was not mentioned once in Frank's article. Without the sell-off of the airline the decision in question would never have been made. Free article

Sheasaigh cúigear nó seisear de fheara bratógacha le balla binne shean tí ag taobh an bhóthar ag ithe greim bia agus ag iarraidh carranna a stopadh agus a gcuid brioscai agus milseáin a dhíol l'aon duine a stopfadh daofa agus gan orthu ach stiucháin de bhróga agus bríste gearra le cóta déanta as plaisteach ag coinneál an fheartainn amuigh Free article

NOVEMBER marks the 140th anniversary of the execution of William Allen and Michael O'Brien from Cork and Offaly man Michael Larkin. The three Fenians, hanged in Manchester, England, on 23 November 1867, are popularly known as the Manchester Maryrs. Free article

THESE DAYS, The Irish Times is a bit more subtle. There was a time when our paper of record was quite open in its efforts to recruit young working-class Irishmen to go and fight on behalf of somebody else's 'King and Country' and teach the little brown, yellow or black people a lesson. Free article