Archives for September 3, 2007

I spent most of today working on a story about Martin McGuinness, Jeffrey Donaldson, Billy Hutchinson, Lord Alderdice, Sinn Fein adviser and former IRA hunger striker Leo Green and public relations consultant Quintin Oliver talking to Iraqi factions about the lessons of Northern Ireland. The seminar took place in an undisclosed location in a Finnish forest. The discussions began on Friday and ended today.
Click here

But are our lessons relevant to a conflict on the scale of Iraq? Brigadier General Tauno Nieminen who worked for the Decommissioning Body thinks some might be
Click here
So does the former Secretary of State, Peter Hain
Click here
But on the American Prospect magazine site, there's an alternative view
Click here

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Newsvine |
• NowPublic |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

Dedicated readers of this blog might remember that in July I wrote an entry about Alex Salmond, who was then pondering changing the title of his administration from Scottish Executive to Scottish government. Today my Scottish colleagues are reporting that he is going ahead with the rebranding at a cost of £100,000. He is quoted as saying that Northern Ireland is the only place where the word "executive" is used to describe a layer of government and most people don't know what it means.

So will Stormont follow suit, or will allegiances to the governments in Dublin or Westminster rule such a move out?

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Newsvine |
• NowPublic |
• Reddit
• - What's this?