Obelisk

This morning, the United States of America effectively declared war on the Islamic Republic of Iran (technically only Congress can declare war but bypassing Congress is something Trump has no compunction about doing). This brings the enmity that has defined their relationship for the past half-century to a violent head, perhaps where it was always destined to go. At the time of writing, there have been strikes in multiple Iranian cities, inside Israel and in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the …

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It is said that Vladimir Putin and the Russian military expected that their task in Ukraine would be a relatively straightforward one. A rapid thrust to Kyiv, the removal and likely assassination of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the installation of a puppet regime quite happy to do the bidding of the Kremlin. It would all be over in days, so quickly in fact that Russian forces were apparently carrying their dress uniforms for the anticipated victory parade through the …

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A bad-tempered spat occurred between Justice Minister (and Alliance Party leader) Naomi Long and the SDLP’s leader of the opposition Matthew O’Toole on Tuesday of this week. As John Manley writes in ‘The Irish News’… When Mrs Long was asked by the SDLP representative why she had not sought “explicit in-writing guarantees” about what was deliverable during this mandate, the minister accused the South Belfast MLA of double standards. “What I find a bit rich is that the member whose …

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Today is January 20th 2026. Nine years ago today, Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States for the first time after his shocking win over Hilary Clinton in the 2016 election. His inauguration is remembered both for his speech decrying the preceding Obama administration as a period of ‘American carnage’ and his insistence that the attending crowds constituted ‘the largest ever’ at such an event in spite of the preponderance of evidence that they were not. Five …

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From October of 2023 through to October 2025 we were faced with the spectacle of a genocide being broadcast into our homes. And just in case the seventy-three thousand deaths that occurred is hard to wrap your head around (nearly equivalent to the population of Lisburn), there was heart-wrenching story after heart-wrenching story after heart-wrenching story after heart-wrenching story personalising the horror. History will rightfully condemn the hypocrisy of those who make a virtue of how they stand by Ukraine …

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In recent years, Elon Musk has become increasingly entangled in politics. He buddied up with Donald Trump and for a few months before their inevitable falling out the Tech Mogul was allowed to rampage through American bureaucracy with his ‘Department of Governmental Efficiency’. His DOGE then scythed through established programs on the pretext of cutting waste with scant regard for what was being done. Not that there was much of a plan beyond simple cutting, Musk seems to have simply …

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“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” The famous line from Shelley’s poem Ozymandias invites us to consider the legacy of an ancient King, the eponymous Ozymandias. A great King and a great builder Ozymandias may have been, but time had literally reduced his legacy to dust. It’s a meditation on how no matter who you are or what you do, time eventually sweeps it all away. On the other hand, at least …

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As the year draws to an end, the Financial Times has posted a story revealing that Tokyo has been displaced as the world’s largest city by the Indonesian capital of Jakarta…   Alfiyan Elfatah spends four hours each day commuting between Jakarta’s far-flung periphery and his workplace in the heart of the Indonesian capital. The 31-year-old has endured the slog for eight years — but only now is he officially crossing the biggest city in the world. Last month, the …

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I firmly believe that Northern Ireland doesn’t work, Northern Ireland has never worked and Northern Ireland is never going to work. These are words which I am aware most Unionists who hear them finds very provocative. The usual retort made when I, or any other Nationalist, makes that argument is that we are indulging in some wishful thinking. Nationalists after all want a United Ireland, this involves voters in the north deciding that a United Ireland is a superior choice …

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The world is on fire. There are wars in Africa. There are conflicts in Asia. There is the ongoing, grinding bloodbath in Ukraine. And of course, there is Israel versus everyone seemingly within striking distance. So why has Donald Trump been ratcheting up the pressure on Venezuela since the Summer, seemingly risking yet another bloody conflagration? This is the man apparently so committed to peace that he regarded NOT receiving the Nobel Peace Prize this year as something of a …

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The first jingle of a bell I heard this year was in early September. Yes, early September. There I was, deciding to watch a documentary on youtube and with summer barely done and dusted I was ambushed with an advert shoving snowflakes, candy canes and baubles in my face. What was going on? Spar, advertising their Twelve deals of Christmas. Now I won’t lie to you, that first tinkle put my back right up. And could you blame me? It was …

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It is no secret that the recent Presidential race represented something of a setback for Taoiseach Micheál Martin. Martin had championed Jim Gavin as the nominee of Fianna Fáil, even stamping on the ambitions of other party members, only to watch as Gavin’s candidacy imploded over a financial scandal nearly a month before polling day. Now Martin did apologise to the angry rank and file of his party but there are consequences. There are always consequences. He built a considerable …

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The saga over Paul Givan’s controversial visit to Israel and the occupied territories reached a crescendo yesterday with a bad-tempered row in the Assembly and it was a sorry sight indeed as the no-confidence vote in the minister failed due to a lack of cross-community consent, even as a majority of MLAs supported the motion. In today’s Belfast Telegraph Sam McBride writes the following of what went on “Shouting is easy, but governing is hard… Yesterday, many MLAs were in …

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I’ve mentioned before I have a love of Greek myths, and one of the more tragic stories is that of the Trojan Priestess Cassandra, cursed to predict the future only to be ignored or not believed. She famously warned her people that the big wooden horse left by the departing Greeks was not what it seemed and of course we all know how that turned out. When reading works by some of our local political commentators, I am often put …

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As we edge closer to the no-confidence vote in the Assembly in Education Minister Paul Givan over his recent controversial visit to Israel and the Occupied Territories, the minister himself put in a lengthy appearance on yesterday’s ‘Nolan Show’ where he gave a barnstorming defence of his actions and criticised People Before Profit, the SDLP, Sinn Féin and the Alliance Party. Sinn Féin and the Alliance Party are, of course, in government with Paul Givan and the DUP. When Stephen …

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It’s that time of the year once again when we all got an extra hour in bed as the clocks fell back (I hope everyone is well rested). We pay for it in the Spring of course when the clocks move forward and we LOSE an hour in bed, but that will be a problem for us then. But just as predictably, the debate over Daylight Savings has returned as well and Ireland, both North and South, is uniquely exposed. …

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I have always had an immense reverence for the role of President, seeing in it the triumph of the Irish system of government as one of the best ways of running a proper democracy. Better than the American system which combines head of government and head of state into one office, where the foremost partisan politician is also tasked with uniting the people. Better than the pot luck of a hereditary monarch, where for every Queen Elizabeth II you have …

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‘Go tell the Spartans, thou who passest by, That here, obedient to their laws, we lie’ One of the things I did when I visited Greece was visit Thermopylae, site of the eponymous battle, where King Leonidas and his three hundred fellow Spartans fell delaying the advancing Persians and entered legend. The passage I quoted at the start is inscribed on a plaque installed at the top of a low hill in memory of their sacrifice. The plaque is not …

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“Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Dylan Thomas’s ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’ is one of my favourite poems. It is simply so very Human in how Thomas exhorts his subject not to yield to the inevitability of the end but to fight it, to go down kicking and screaming and in doing so assert a kind …

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President Donald Trump just spoke at the UN General Assembly in New York. Nobody in the hall quite knew what to expect though I imagine few had a positive outlook as to what was to come. After all, it was his first time returning to the General Assembly in six years due to the Biden interregnum, his first time addressing such a gathering of the world’s leaders since he was sworn back in. He was a man with a lot …

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