MAYBE the global debt crisis has unhinged John Coulter, the Colonel Blimp of that pseudo Irish paper, The Irish Star. Free article

De Brún at United Nations climate change meetings, Deal on CAP reform hammered out, New Left party in France, European Parliament President backs Conflict Resolution Centre, Tacaíonn de Brún le 'scéim torthaí scoileanna' and Swedish parliament ratifies Lisbon Green and Left Party MPs vote against Free article

THE election that saw 'people power' sweep Barack Obama to the White House and become the new president of the United States has given many of those who have suffered injustice new hope for the future, and none more so than Leonard Peltier. Free article

For the best part of this year the Irish print media has engaged in a relentless recruitment exercise in the 26 counties on behalf of the British Army. Articles about the adventurous life of squaddies, the craic and camaraderie in the barracks and the soldierly solidarity that overcomes the normal sectarian barriers have filled pages of newsprint, with The Irish Times being chief but not sole recruiting agent. This week, RTE's Northern correspondent, Tommie Gorman, who should and does know better, got in on the act with a special report from Aldershot Barracks, (home of the British Parachute Regiment) glorifying the Irish Guards and their activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Free article

An Phoblacht's famous weekly satirical column. Free article

AS some of you may have noticed over the years, I am not a great fan of the use of video evidence to indict players after matches unless the camera happens to pick up a particularly nasty off-the-ball incident that does serious damage to another player. Too often, however, the camera is used to conduct mini show-trials of players on The Sunday Game, as occurred on one or two occasions during the summer. Free article

BY THE END of 1973, the British Army had been redeployed in force on the streets of the Six Counties for over four years. Internment without trial had been imposed in August 1971 and hundreds of nationalists were imprisoned in the Cages of Long Kesh. Nationalist districts were heavily occupied by the British Army and there were frequent IRA attacks against the crown forces and bombings of commercial targets. Free article