Northern Ireland's legislature, dormant for three-and-a-half years, was to reconvene yesterday so that its members could try to form a Catholic-Protestant administration, the long-elusive goal of the Good Friday peace accord forged amid high hopes eight years ago.
But even as the 108 members of the Northern Ireland Assembly take their seats and reprise well-honed arguments across the Stormont Parliamentary Building floor, their work is being overshadowed by the slaying of a Catholic teenager, the latest of more than 3,600 deaths in the four-decade conflict over this British territory.
Michael McIlveen, 15, was to be buried yesterday hours after the assembly reconvened. Members expect to hold a minute's silence in his honor, and could cut proceedings short so that lawmakers from Michael's predominantly Protestant hometown, Ballymena, can attend the funeral.
The lawmakers are supposed within weeks to try to elect a cross-community coalition. Several previous diplomatic efforts have failed to revive the power-sharing administration that governed Northern Ireland sporadically until its collapse in October 2002 over an Irish Republican Army (IRA) spying scandal.
The British government warns it will pull the plug on the assembly for good if both sides can't come together by a Nov. 24 deadline.
However, hopes are running low that the major Protestant group, Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists, will cooperate with Sinn Fein, the IRA-linked party that represents most Catholics.
British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Hain warned lawmakers that ordinary citizens' patience was running out.
Hain said that assembly members had each received an annual average of ?85,000 (US$160,000) over the past three-and-a-half years "not to do their jobs."
Hain said there would be "no blinking" on the Nov. 24 deadline and appealed to both sides: "Take the powers away from me and do the job you were elected to do."
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has warned his party could withdraw from the assembly long before Nov. 24 if the Democratic Unionists veto power-sharing.
But Paisley says he won't budge unless the IRA disbands and Sinn Fein accepts the authority of the province's mostly Protestant police force, both monumental hurdles that the Sinn Fein-IRA movement appears unlikely to clear by the deadline.
Paisley says he won't even negotiate directly with Adams, much less share a Cabinet table with him, until this happens.
"My principle says to me you don't negotiate with terrorists," he said.
Both sides' politicians do agree on one point: the May 8 killing of Michael McIlveen demonstrates how bitterly divided this society remains despite the 1990s cease-fires by the IRA and its Protestant paramilitary enemies.
The truces have reduced politically motivated bloodshed to a trickle -- but done nothing to ease grassroots hatred.
Michael suffered fatal brain damage after a Protestant gang chased him a kilometer from Ballymena's cinema to a cul-de-sac, where they cornered and bludg-eoned him with baseball bats.
One of Michael's friends last year survived a similar assault, when Protestants used a work-man's knife to carve the image of a Union Jack on his chest.
Since his killing, a Protestant girlfriend of Michael has received death threats from school girls wielding Gaelic camogie sticks, a piece of sports equipment used only by the Catholic side.
Across Northern Ireland, more than 90 percent of its 1.7 million residents live on exclusively British Protestant or Irish Catholic turf, partly to feel safe from assault.
Analysts say the brutally slow politics of the peace process -- where voters have backed the most hard-line politicians to gain advantage in what feels like never-ending negotiations -- has exac-erbated divisions.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese