Ireland’s two largest parties agreed to form a new coalition government yesterday, clinching a quick deal that will allow it to press European leaders to ease the terms of the country’s 85 billion euro (US$118.9 billion) EU-IMF bailout.
The center-right Fine Gael, winner of last week’s election, had been in talks since Monday last week with the second-placed, center-left Labour after voters handed the ruling Fianna Fail a record defeat over its handling of Ireland’s economic meltdown.
“I am happy to tell you that we have concluded an agreement, some of the finer details are now being worked out for presentation to both parties,” Irish taoiseach (prime minister) in waiting, Enda Kenny told reporters.
Labour was to ask both its party members and lawmakers to approve the program for government later yesterday, while Fine Gael’s parliamentary party was also to meet to okay the deal.
The two parties took divergent views during the campaign on the scale of public sector cutbacks, the split between taxes and spending cuts and the time frame for cutting the budget deficit to an EU limit of 3 percent of GDP.
Both Kenny and Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said the deal reached on these points would be made known when the program for government was published later yesterday.
“They are issues that we will be signing off on in the morning,” Gilmore said, adding that he was happy with the structure of the government, but refusing to say how many seats his junior party had secured at the Cabinet table.
Both parties ran on a platform of renegotiating the rescue deal struck last November. While they may be given a reduced interest rate on the loans, demands for bondholders in Irish banks to shoulder more losses have been more or less ruled out.
Kenny acknowledged on Friday that many European governments opposed his wish to make senior bondholders share the pain and was told by one leader that there would be “no free lunches.”
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique