US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Britain on Sunday to give Northern Ireland authority over its justice system to complete a peace process that was boosted when a paramilitary group said it would end violence.
Clinton, who met Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen in Dublin and held talks with leaders in Belfast yesterday, said the peace process on the island was a model for other world hot spots, but more work needed to be done.
Fighting between pro-British and Irish nationalist groups killed 3,600 people before a 1998 peace deal that was followed by pledges by the main militant organizations on both sides, including the Irish Republican Army (IRA) to disarm.
“It will take the leaders of both communities working together ... to make day-to-day governing a reality and I am confident that is within reach,” Clinton told a joint press conference with Cowen.
The fragile balance within the Belfast power-sharing executive that includes former IRA guerrillas and hardline pro-British leaders has been tested by tensions over the timing of devolving policing and justice powers from Westminster.
“The step of devolution for policing and justice is an absolutely essential milestone,” Clinton said. “Clearly, there are questions and some apprehensions but ... the parties understand this is a step they must take together.”
The peace process got a further lift on Sunday as the paramilitary group the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) said it would end its violent activities.
“The Republican Socialist Movement has been informed by the Irish National Liberation Army that ... it has concluded that the armed struggle is over,” Martin McMonagle, a spokesman for the INLA’s political ally the Irish Republican Socialist Party, said at an event in Bray, a seaside resort south of Dublin.
Together with moves by pro-British militant groups earlier this year to disarm, the INLA announcement showed growing political stability, Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said.
“Indications from any group who have been involved in violent activity in the North to the effect that they are ceasing such activity, that’s a welcome development,” Martin told reporters ahead of Clinton’s arrival.
The IRA’s political ally Sinn Fein said it welcomed the statement from the INLA, adding that it would be met with some skepticism given the history of the organization.
“However, if it is followed by the actions that are necessary, this is a welcome development,” Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said in a statement.
Underlining the continuing security threat in the UK province, 10 police officers were wounded in a “serious disturbance” involving more than 150 people in County Armagh in the early hours of Sunday, police said.
They said the crowd attacked a police patrol, smashing the windows of police vehicles and kicking and punching officers, but added that none of the injuries were believed to be serious.
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
RELATIONS: Cultural spats, such as China’s claims over the origins of kimchi, have soured public opinion in South Korea against Beijing over the past few years Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday met South Korean counterpart Lee Jae-myung, after taking center stage at an Asian summit in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s departure. The talks on the sidelines of the APEC gathering came the final day of Xi’s first trip to South Korea in more than a decade, and a day after his meeting with the Canadian prime minister that was a reset of the nations’ damaged ties. Trump had flown to South Korea for the summit, but promptly jetted home on Thursday after sealing a trade war pause with Xi, with the two
RSS