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.”
Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has died of pneumonia at the age of 48 while on a trip to Japan, where she contracted influenza during the Lunar New Year holiday, her sister confirmed today through an agent. "Our whole family came to Japan for a trip, and my dearest and most kindhearted sister Barbie Hsu died of influenza-induced pneumonia and unfortunately left us," Hsu's sister and talk show hostess Dee Hsu (徐熙娣) said. "I was grateful to be her sister in this life and that we got to care for and spend time with each other. I will always be grateful to
REMINDER: Of the 6.78 million doses of flu vaccine Taiwan purchased for this flu season, about 200,000 are still available, an official said, following Big S’ death As news broke of the death of Taiwanese actress and singer Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛), also known as Big S (大S), from severe flu complications, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and doctors yesterday urged people at high risk to get vaccinated and be alert to signs of severe illness. Hsu’s family yesterday confirmed that the actress died on a family holiday in Japan due to pneumonia during the Lunar New Year holiday. CDC Deputy Director-General Tseng Shu-hui (曾淑慧) told an impromptu news conference that hospital visits for flu-like illnesses from Jan. 19 to Jan. 25 reached 162,352 — the highest
TAIWAN DEFENSE: The initiative would involve integrating various systems in a fast-paced manner through the use of common software to obstruct a Chinese invasion The first tranche of the US Navy’s “Replicator” initiative aimed at obstructing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be ready by August, a US Naval Institute (USNI) News report on Tuesday said. The initiative is part of a larger defense strategy for Taiwan, and would involve launching thousands of uncrewed submarines, surface vessels and aerial vehicles around Taiwan to buy the nation and its partners time to assemble a response. The plan was first made public by the Washington Post in June last year, when it cited comments by US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue
COMBINING FORCES: The 66th Marine Brigade would support the 202nd Military Police Command in its defense of Taipei against ‘decapitation strikes,’ a source said The Marine Corps has deployed more than 100 soldiers and officers of the 66th Marine Brigade to Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) as part of an effort to bolster defenses around the capital, a source with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. Two weeks ago, a military source said that the Ministry of National Defense ordered the Marine Corps to increase soldier deployments in the Taipei area. The 66th Marine Brigade has been tasked with protecting key areas in Taipei, with the 202nd Military Police Command also continuing to defend the capital. That came after a 2017 decision by the ministry to station