Category: Ireland

Policeman dies after car-bomb attack

Suspected republican hardliners killed a police officer with a car bomb in Omagh on Saturday afternoon.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but police and politicians blamed Irish Republican Army dissidents who are believed to have been planting bombs underneath off-duty Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officers’ private cars.

Until Saturday such booby-trap attacks had badly maimed two PSNI officers but had not killed anyone.

PSNI Chief Constable Matt Baggott paid tribute to his colleague, who has been named as Ronan Kerr.

“We have lost one of our brave and courageous police recruits, someone who joined this fine service simply to do good, joined to serve the community impartially and to be someone I describe as a modern-day hero,” he said.

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams TD condemned those responsible for Saturday’s bomb attack and sent his condolences to Mr Kerr’s family.

Mr Adams said that Sinn Fein was “determined that those responsible will not set back the progress of the peace and political process.”

Morning Star Online

April 4, 2011
Thousands expected to protest Irish austerity plan

Tens of thousands of demonstrators are expected in Dublin to oppose the government’s harsh austerity plan, aimed at slashing the country’s budget deficit to meet the terms of a bailout for its humbled economy.

The labor union-organized rally Saturday follows Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen’s announcement Wednesday of a four-year package to cut spending, raise taxes and ax thousands of state jobs, the toughest budget measures in the nation’s history.

Cowen acknowledged that living standards will fall, but insisted action is needed to tackle a 2010 deficit running at 32 percent of GDP, the highest in Europe since World War II.

His government will unveil an emergency annual budget on Dec. 7, which must be passed to allow an euro85 billion ($113 billion) loan from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

Ireland’s Congress of Trade Unions — an umbrella group which represents labor unions with about 832,000 members — said the protest would be a final chance to influence the budget.

“It’s difficult to see any justification — either economic, social, or indeed moral, for what the government proposes to do, and we’ll oppose them in every way we can,” said David Begg, general secretary of the group.

Cowen’s 2011 budget will seek euro4.5 billion ($6 billion) in spending cuts and to raise an extra euro1.5 billion ($2 billion) in taxes.

Though he is expected to have the plan endorsed at Ireland’s parliament, his governing Fianna Fail party lost a special election Friday, reducing the government’s majority.

Cowen has vowed to call a national election after the 2011 budget is passed into law.

Sally Anne Kinahan, of the labor union congress, said Saturday’s protest would allow people to “express their frustration and fear at the direction government policy is taking us in.”

Some have expressed surprise that Ireland’s public has so far restrained from rowdy protests. Greece saw violent clashes ahead of its own bailout, and imperiled Portugal has suffered a daylong strike that partially paralyzed public services.

In Ireland, demonstrations so far have been esoteric, not angry.

Comedian Morgan Jones led a silent protest Tuesday outside Parliament.

In September, artist Fergal McCarthy floated giant Monopoly pieces — red and green houses — along Dublin’s River Liffey, to highlight real estate speculation which prompted to bailouts of some Irish banks.

Begg insisted the city center protest — a march to the General Post Office, headquarters of the leaders of Ireland’s 1916 uprising — would be free from violence.

Even so, Irish police chief superintendent Michael O’Sullivan said officers would be on guard for trouble. “There are individuals and groups who seek to exploit such events for their own ends,” he said.

Labour Party deputy leader Joan Burton has urged demonstrators to consider the image of Ireland that violent protests would send across the world.

“I appeal to people in some of the smaller political organizations — I know some people are mad as hell and do not want to take anymore — not to be used as photo fodder presenting the worst image of Ireland,” she said.

osman kadri koca

By DAVID STRINGER and SHAWN POGATCHNIK ( mail times )

Osman Kadri Koca – Economist

Media Watch

November 27, 2010
Turkey’s role in Europe

A chara, – I can see no reason why your editorial of September 10th on Turkey’s domestic politics should have been so fixated on the 1980 coup.

It fails to reflect the deep and lasting changes that have taken place in Turkey, transforming the country into one of the largest democracies in the world and an important member of the G20.

The editorial contains too many worn-out cliches, unbefitting this paper’s well-appreciated intellectual rigour and evasion of shoddy, opinionated handling of important issues.

Certainly, if Turkey is a negotiating country for full membership of the EU, it is because it has already fulfilled the Copenhagen criteria.

Surely the EU would not have opened the negotiations for accession if the Kurds were oppressed in the way you make it sound. Indeed, the expanding process of democratisation, as witnessed by the referendum last Sunday, and the vibrancy of that whole process, do not come out neither in sense nor in style.

With recurrent references to an entirely different era, your readers are led to believe that the Turks somehow continue to live suspended in time.

Turkey left that era behind at about the same time when European nations, in the west and in the east of the continent, grasped the chance to fully embrace democracy.

Some 77 per cent of Turkish voters participated in last Sunday’s referendum. Indeed, Turks have been traditionally enjoying probably the highest voter turnouts, while European nations, including Ireland, send deputies to the European Parliament with participation rates that seldom exceed a paltry 40 per cent.

Democracy is not solely about participation rates, I agree, but an editorial of this sort should not have allowed itself to be captured by so powerful an undercurrent of anachronism.

– Is mise,

ALTAY CENGIZER, Ambassador of Turkey, Clyde Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.

Irish Times

October 19, 2010
Bomb explodes in N.Ireland, police say targeted

BELFAST (Reuters) – A bomb destroyed a bridge in Northern Ireland late on Saturday in an attack police said was targeted at its officers.

The blast happened on a country road near the south Armagh border. No one was injured. It came as police in the Republic of Ireland questioned five men as part of a probe into dissident Republican militants active in Northern Ireland.

Police Chief Superintendent Alisdair Robinson said the explosion was “a totally reckless act that could easily have led to loss of life if anybody had been driving past at the time.”

“However I believe at this stage the real target was my officers. This was an attempt to lure police into the area to injure or kill them,” he said.

A 1998 peace agreement largely ended three decades of violence between predominantly Catholic groups who want a united Ireland and mainly Protestant unionists who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom.

The main paramilitary organisations on both sides, such as the Provisional IRA, have surrendered their weapons, but militant splinter groups have stepped up attacks recently.

Dissidents have attacked security forces several times, with the Real IRA believed to be leading much of the campaign including car bombings and shooting at police officers.

The bridge attack took place ahead of a day of parades on Monday by the pro-British Orange Order, made up of Protestants who want Northern Ireland to remain a British province.

The marchers, who wear orange sashes and bowler hats to commemorate a 17th century victory of Protestants over Catholics, cause tension each year with the Catholic minority, many of whom would like to see a united Ireland.

Last year, nationalist rioters attacked police with bricks, bottles and other missiles on the day.

(Reporting by Ian Graham, Writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Editing by Maria Golovnina)

The Star Online

July 11, 2010
‘Mossad Chief to leave post’

By JPOST.COM STAFF
06/26/2010 00:21

Report claims Meir Dagan’s request to keep his job was rejected.

Photo by: AP

Mossad Chief Meir Dagan is to leave his post in three months, Channel 2 news reported on Friday.

According to the report, Dagan, who has been head of the Mossad for the last eight years, requested to work another year in the role, but was refused.

Dagan was appointed to the position in 2002 by former prime minister Ariel Sharon.

Since then his appointment has been extended twice and is due to expire at the end of 2010.

The decision not to renew Dagan’s appointment is likely related to the fallout from the recent attempt to assassinate Hamas commander Mahmoud al Mabhouh in Dubai.

A number of states who are normally friendly towards Israel were offended by the use of their passports in the killing. Britain has stopped issuing passports in Tel-Aviv and diplomats were expelled from Britain, Ireland and Australia.

Source: https://www.jpost.com/Israel/Mossad-Chief-to-leave-post

June 26, 2010
Israel owes Turkey an apology over killings

ALTAY CENGIZER

OPINION: Turkey has not become anti-Israel but Israel steadily alienates people around the world by its conduct. Future historians may have a different perspective to the one predicted on these pages recently by the Israeli ambassador

IT WAS only a few months ago that Israel placed the Turkish ambassador in a lower seat and banished the Turkish flag. The incident was childish more than anything else, but Israel had the good sense to apologise for it.

Now, more than a fortnight after the killing of nine compatriots of mine on the high seas aboard the Mavi Marmara , carrying much needed humanitarian aid to the besieged people of Gaza, Israel has yet to apologise. The Israeli government seems to think it does not owe us, at the very least, an apology for what it believes was an act of self-defence.

This is exactly where the crux of the problem lies: Israel’s self-image and its doctrine of self-defence. The reaction of the Israeli authorities to this grave event has been appalling. Instead of showing genuine remorse for what took place in international waters in the early hours of May 31st, and not even feigning concern, they initiated a wide-ranging campaign to depict the activists as terrorists with links to al-Qaeda.

A 19-year-old boy and men in their 50s and 60s hardly make for a terrorist gang.

Are we not to feel strongly any more about anything, without the threat of being labelled as terrorists? After all, the urge for a humanitarian aid flotilla was already there as world opinion continued to witness the perilously deteriorating conditions in the open-air prison that is Gaza.

A year ago, the Middle East quartet – the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia – called for the unimpeded provision of humanitarian aid to Gaza, where even house plants, cocoa powder and coriander are banned from entry for reasons that are anyone’s guess.

The victims had multiple gunshot wounds, they were shot in the back or in the back of the head. A total of 32 bullets were extracted from their bodies. It took more than an hour for medical help to arrive while the wounded bled. The ship was carrying no weapons at all. There was absolutely no need to employ the Shaiatet 13 elite commandos.

Thanks to recent research, we now know that even bottlenose dolphins use short vocal bursts to send messages to avoid conflict at times of high excitement and aggression. But Israel stormed a civilian vessel 72 nautical miles off Gaza, nowhere near the blockade zone.

Hours passed, and the Israeli authorities did nothing to alleviate the gravity of the situation. They handcuffed everyone, and imposed a blackout on communications. This is why we did not see the video footage of Dr Uysal on the Mavi Marmara cleaning and treating the bruises of an Israeli commando.

Contrary to what Israel is saying, Turks from all walks of life and of different political persuasions were part of the humanitarian aid group. It is not that the Turks are becoming more radical vis-a-vis Israel, but that Israel steadily alienates large segments of public opinion, almost everywhere, including Turkey.

Now, if we are to believe the general tone emanating from Israel, Turkey is no longer a member of the comity of western nations, just on account of its diplomacy. Pretty much nonsense!

There is nothing un-western or un-European in asking for the lifting of the inhumane blockade on Gaza.

Neither is it un-western to try to exhaust diplomacy and all legitimate means at the international community’s disposal before punishing Iran, which would be a step with unpredictable consequences.

In its defence, the government of Israel refers to an obscure document called the San Remo manual.

This is not an international convention. Nobody was requested to sign up to it, and it relates specifically to legal practice in time of war. Israel is not at war with Turkey, but it attacked a ship flying the Turkish flag in international waters. This is precisely why there must be an international commission of inquiry. Then we can talk of credibility and transparency.

Only in 2008, the Israeli-Turkish trade reached a record high of $3.5 billion. Only in 2008, Turkey was just about to broker a historic political deal between Israel and Syria. One should wonder what took place to warrant this crisis. Israel’s assault on Gaza in December 2008 that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, 431 of them children, lies at the centre of this chasm. Sadly, it has deepened even further with the killing of nine innocent Turks.

Historians may well ask what kind of hubris, what degree of intransigence and what levels of indifference caused Israel to lose Turkey, a land where Jews have felt a genuine welcome for so many centuries, and a traditional friend.

Whether May 31st, 2010, comes to signify a positive or a negative turning point for this important relationship, as well as for the whole region, depends on what Israel chooses to do now.

Altay Cengizer is Turkish ambassador to Ireland

June 18, 2010