Belfast and Beyond

While Northern Ireland's Consultative Group on the Past won’t be publishing their report till the summer, yesterday it’s co-chairs, Archbishop Robin Eames and Denis Bradley, set out to trail their findings with a joint keynote speech...

President George Bush will be honouring Belfast with a flying visit next month. The BBC reports that "it is understood that Mr Bush wants to put his seal of approval on devolution." No doubt the President would like to claim a bit of...

Belfast 2008: Protesting Deportations – What Next? In collaborationwith the Refugee Action Group, Belfast Exposed has organised a paneldiscussion around the issue of UK deportation. Do come along to this free discusson event on 27 May...

Meant to blog this before now, but was reminded to do so yesterday as I witnessed former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern being awarded an honorary doctorate in law by Queen's University Belfast. Tony Blair got one too (by video!), as a tribute...

"Do you know they got rid off the Magna Carta, about six months ago?" – Gore Vidal. I previously blogged on the inestimable Gore Vidal and quoted some of his famous words from down the years. C4 News' Jon Snow interviewed the writer...

Finally David Miliband has broken with his US mentors and stated that there can be no military solution to the "insurgencies" in Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal areas. This marks a major policy shift between the two allies, the US...

I really hate it when people who have not seen a film or play take it upon themelves to comment publicly on it – usually to criticise it in a Mary Whitehouse-style way, slamming the producers and urging others not to see it either. So...

That brilliant American man of letters, Gore Vidal , was featured on the South Bank Show last night. Melvyn Bragg had secured an interview with the great man in his new LA home, after decades of self-imposed exile in Italy. I have...

What are you doing next Wednesday? Earl Wesley Berry will die. Almost certainly. He is scheduled to be executed in Mississippi on May 21 for the murder of Mary Bounds. So Brian, over at the ever-improving Amnesty USA blogs , tells us...

Waow! Yesterday I went to a lecture delivered by Human Rights lawyer Philippe Sands, hosted by Queens University School of Law. The Lecture was based on Philippe Sands book "Torture Team: Deception Cruelty and the Compromise of Law". I...

As mentioned yesterday , Israelis are celebrating 60 years since the foundation of their State. Meanwhile, Palestinians have been marking 60 years of 'al Nakba', the catastrophe. The Guardian has a short article here and a good photo...

US President Bush has arrived in Tel Aviv to help Israel mark the anniversary of its declaration of independence. As Israelis celebrate sixty years of Statehood, so Palestinians mark sixty years of 'al Nakba' – 'the catastrophe'. In...

Who do they think they are kidding? The terrorists who bombed an off-duty PSNI officer in Tyrone last night have nothing to offer modern-day Ireland, north or south, but a return to the worst of the 1970s – bad hair, bad clothes, bad...

I think that we can definitely call Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish/ German ex-detainee from Guantanamo Bay’s visit to Northern Ireland a success! He visited the Foyle Amnesty group and launched his book in Northern Ireland at the Cathedral...

Amnesty are presenting in association with the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival a play called “The Lady of Burma”. I will paste below the introduction I am presenting before the play which I will confess draws heavily on an article in...