It’s a truism of Northern Irish politics that, whenever the political process breaks down, the paramilitaries step in to fill the vacuum. With this in mind, it has been a pleasant surprise that the current impasse has not been accompanied by the rattle of paramilitary guns. Ten people were killed by paramilitaries last year. That’s ten too many but, compared to other peace process years, the number is low. Intimidation and punishment attacks continue as ever but no group has tried to “take the w...

The Hutton report into the suicide of British weapons expert David Kelly is to be published in the coming weeks. Already the media and political elite inside the Westminster bubble are frothing at the mouth with excitement. Will Hutton call Blair a liar? Is Hoon finished? Should Gilligan start looking for alternative employment? All very interesting of course. I, myself will be following events closely. However we should not lose sight of the main issue. This time last year Blair was engaged ...

On Saturday night two Chinese families and an African family were viciously assaulted in south Belfast. This is the latest in a long line of attacks on Belfast’s tiny non-white population. Worst of all, two of those injured at the weekend were heavily pregnant women, one due to give birth on Christmas Day. Even with our long history of savage violence, the deliberate targeting of pregnant women represents a new low. Returning home after two years away I was struck by the higher number of bla...

For the Christian population of the Palestinian city of Bethlehem there is little to be merry about this yuletide. Once a booming tourist-driven success, the city has been in a slump since the start of the intifada three years ago. Tourism has all but evaporated and with it the jobs on which many had depended. Israel controls all entry and exit points in to the city often forcing people to wait for hours to pass. It’s little wonder that so many, both Christian and Muslim, are emigrating. It’...

Next year sees the tenth anniversary of Tony Blair’s election as leader of the British Labour Party. For most of this time his position has been unassailable. Taking over a party which had lost four elections in a row, Blair systematically gutted Labour’s core principles in order to win power. Many in the party who were unhappy about this chose to remain silent, such was their desire to win power. It was hard to criticise their silence as Labour won a landslide victory in 1997 followed by an unp...

More than three years into the second intifada, is it possible to view the uprising as anything other than a disaster for the Palestinian people? Thousands dead, tens of thousands injured and imprisoned, homes and fields destroyed, the PA smashed, rampant unemployment and emigration. Was all this sacrifice in vain? Sadly, it seems that it was. The prospect of a Palestinian state, never bright, seems dimmer than at any time since the Algiers conference of 1988. This is not to say that the pre-...

With their WMD argument hanging by the loosest of threads, the hawks have tried to focus attention on the nature of the regime which their illegal war in Iraq overthrew. "O.K.". goes the argument, "we made up all that stuff about WMD, but look, we got rid of the bad guy so alls well that ends well." The problem with this is that Bush and Blair refuse to accept the logic of their own argument. There are many repressive regimes in the world, why not overthrow them? If, as the hawks claim, it's...

Even for those of us who opposed, and continue to oppose, the war in Iraq, it's impossible not to take some pleasure at the sight of the Butcher of Baghdad paraded in front of the cameras. Looking like Karl Marx after a few too many, this is an ignominious end for a man who once terrified millions. The hawks have been cock-a-hoop over Saddam's capture. I say let them have their day in the sun. It's been nothing but bad news for them for the past few months. Each good day is followed by dozen...

Monday, 10th November,2003 Arrive in Beijing at 2:30 p.m. and promptly make the first of many mistakes. Accept the offer of a hotel room from the bright young man behind the left-luggage counter. It is, he assures me, “close” to the Forbidden City. I later discover that “close” translates as a one hour walk. The Hua Feng Hotel isn’t too bad in the end complete with surly staff and toilets which flush at least four times out of ten. In the evening I go for a stroll in the vague direction o...