Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, including the latest healthcheck of Europe's service sectors, the AstraZeneca bid, Barclay's results, and a shock profits warning at Balfour Beatty 8.12am BST Barclays UK retail bank going great guns, problem (for once) is slump in revenue in investment bank (specifically fixed income down 41%) 8.10am BST 2014 has not been a great year for...
Tony O'Reilly is finally severing his links to Independent News & Media, the Irish newspaper publisher he turned into a global media company. According to articles in the Sunday Business Post and in the Irish edition of the Sunday Times , he has begun selling down his holding in INM. Continue reading... ...
In September last year I wrote about the disturbing case of investigative journalist Gemma O'Doherty, who was fired from the Irish Independent in strange circumstances. She was made compulsorily redundant by the paper's publisher, Independent News & Media (INM), after she revealed that Ireland's police chief had had speeding penalty points wiped from his driving record. Continue reading... ...
Saturday's leader wisely stated that "fame does not grant impunity" regarding the trial and subsequent sentencing of Max Clifford ( Getting the message , 3 May). Though in the same issue, Jonathan Freedland declares that "Whatever Gerry Adams' past, peace trumps justice" ( Comment , 3 May). Followed to its logical conclusion, this could mean an unofficial immunity for senior Northern...
Gerry Adams's arrest has plunged the country into the horrors of the past. Can it ever escape those shadows? On a winter night a few years ago, in a hospital in the North of Ireland, a hail shower briefly clattered against the windows. People looked up, remarked on its sudden fierceness. But one man, 75 and dying, became so distraught that nurses rushed to his bedside to calm him. After his death,...
Survey in Sunday Business Post newspaper comes as detention of Gerry Adams in Northern Ireland extended by 48 hours Sinn Féin is in contention to win three of the Irish Republic's 11 seats in the European parliament, a poll showed on Saturday, before an election the party says the arrest of leader Gerry Adams was timed to disrupt. Northern Ireland police extended the detention of Adams by another...
Cross-border hosting of Giro d'Italia involves three stages and was inspired by abortive attempt to take race to Washington DC Eyebrows will be raised this week when the Giro d'Italia starts in Belfast and heads for Italy via the Armagh Coast, Dundalk, Dublin and a lengthy air transfer. But bizarre as it may sound, this will be building on a long tradition in the race that cycling fans consider second...
A US academic project by a former IRA prisoner threw open the decades-old case and led to Sinn Féin leader's arrest November 1972 : Police in Belfast find a woman disoriented and distressed after being abducted from a bingo hall, taken to a house in the Lower Falls area of the city and beaten by an IRA member who accused her of being an informer. She is Jean McConville, a Protestant woman who converted...
Enda Kenny signals Irish government won't support Sinn Féin in opposing party leader's arrest over Jean McConville murder Ireland's prime minister has indicated Dublin will provide no political support for Sinn Féin in its opposition to Gerry Adams's arrest over the murder of the IRA victim Jean McConville. The taoiseach, Enda Kenny, said on Friday night he was more concerned about the safety...
"Best professional practice in journalism grows like coral on the seabed slowly and it forms a vital part of an ecosystem which is continually changing and adapting to the circumstances in which it finds itself." Wise words delivered this week by John Horgan as he prepares to depart from his post as Ireland's press ombudsman. "Press freedom is typically understood to mean freedom from...
Price, angry with Sinn Féin's strategy and Adams' denial of IRA membership, broke the omertà surrounding the McConville case Dolours Price bombed her way into the IRA's pantheon when she was part of a team that exploded bombs outside the Old Bailey in 1973. She was arrested alongside her sister Marian at Heathrow Airport on her way back to Ireland from the bomb scene in central London. Like Brendan...
Just days ago Adams was the Irish Republic's most popular leader but the other big parties won't go into office with him now We can be confident that Gerry Adams has not been sitting in his cell chewing on self-doubt. The president of Sinn Féin, who was arrested this week in connection with the 1972 kidnapping, murder and burial of widowed mother-of-10 Jean McConville , has been the target of...
A 47-year-old has been arrested in connection with the explosives that were found in flats in New Lodge area of the city Police have discovered what is being described as a substantial quantity of explosives in a republican district of north Belfast this evening. A 47-year-old has been arrested in connection with the explosives find in flats in the New Lodge area. The discovery was made during searches...
After campaigning for 20 years to bring her mother's killers to justice, McKendry says she is now prepared to name names Helen McKendry witnessed first hand with her nine siblings how her mother was dragged out of their flat at the height of the Troubles by an armed IRA gang of up to 12 men and women. It was 1972 and the last time that she saw her mother alive. After campaigning tenaciously for 20...
Emails and private information from customers of US companies must be handed over even if data is stored outside US The private emails and personal information of web users can be handed over to US law enforcement even if that data is stored on servers outside the US, according to a New York court ruling. Privacy campaigners have warned that the decision, which would affect users of US internet services,...
Judge rules out jail term because regulator failed to warn Patrick Whelan and William McAteer about illegality of loan scheme Two former Anglo Irish Bank executives have been spared jaily despite being found guilty of handing out illegal loans from the financial institution at the heart of Ireland's economic collapse. Justice Martin Nolan said it would be wrong to jail Patrick Whelan, the bank's former...
As The Silver Tassie is revived at the National, Ciarán Hinds, Niamh Cusack and Aidan McArdle reflect on playing O'Casey's characters and the rhythm of his writing The Silver Tassie review a fine revival of O'Casey's tumultuous play Hinds played "Captain" Jack Boyle in Juno and the Paycock at the Glasgow Citizens theatre in 1983 and again in 2011 at the Abbey theatre, Dublin and the National...
Eight institutions face checks to see if they can survive 35% slump in property prices and interest rates jumping to 5% The Bank of England is preparing to order eight of the UK's biggest banks and building societies to ensure they are strong enough to withstand sharp drops in house prices and sudden rises in interest rates. Before the formal publication of the tests, Sky News said banks would be required...
Oscar-nominated director's Dublin-based festival will showcase the best cinema from North Africa and the Middle East and welcome the Egyptian icon as a guest of honour Omar Sharif is undoubtedly the biggest film star from the Arab world, an icon since he first emerged as a wobbling, pixelated speck on a desert horizon in Lawrence of Arabia. Unfortunately, to many he's the only film star from the Arab...
Sebastian Barry reads from his new book The Temporary Gentleman and talks family history; John Carey tells how he has spent his life teaching literature. Continue reading... ...