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THE Government has appointed extra Garda Special Branch officers to protect the US and Israeli embassies in Dublin following warnings that they are among the most vulnerable to terrorist attacks in Europe. The US embassy, which installed a blast wall and a reinforced steel and concrete entrance after the September 11 attacks, was assessed as the most vulnerable US embassy last year after threats were issued by Al-Qaeda to attack "smaller, softer targets." The risk assessment of attack in Dublin was carried out by army specialists before Ireland's EU presidency. The security of US embassies across Europe was also looked...

While Tony Blair tries to relax in Barbados, his B team, headed by John Prescott as acting prime minister, is grappling with a complex and awkward challenge to the democratic authority of his government. The threat comes from the rapid increase in the intensity of campaigning by activists who want to halt the use of live animals in medical and other research. Prescott himself has been at the centre of this controversy because he recently over-ruled the planning inspector in Cambridge and gave the university authorities permission to go ahead with the building of a new neuroscience facility which will...

JUST when you think that Michael Moore - the US film-maker whose Fahrenheit 9/11 is currently fanning the flames of anti-Americanism across the world (as if they needed any fanning) - has made his most ludicrous statement ever; the man surpasses himself. His comments about Ireland have always been particularly in(s)ane, not least his assertion that the solution to the Troubles is for Protestants to convert to Catholicism, a statement so unashamedly stupid that it even temporarily embarrassed his adoring fans at the West Belfast Festivala couple of years ago when herepeated it. Moore's latest pronouncement is that there might...

DOCTORS in Britain can give abortions to children without telling their parents, the Labour government said yesterday. The Department of Health issued new guidelines on treating unwanted pregnancies among under-16s. The document says that confidentiality must be maintained if the children insist on it. The move infuriated pro-life campaigners who said it made a mockery of the concept of parental responsibility. Speaking against the move, Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe said: "What about 10-year-olds? Surely the parents of 10-year-olds need to know if their children are sexually active, let alone having an abortion." Health professionals welcomed the document. Dr Vivienne Nathanson,...

TO anyone following Russian news bulletins, the plight of the world's exotic and most endangered species, the oligarchs, offers fiction-novel suspense replete with Versace-clad divas, and the dusty academism of Sovietology - the science of predicting Russia's future on the basis of who wears what at a Kremlin gathering. Over the last few years, European elites from Berlin to Paris had come to terms with the arrival of Russian billionaires - some fresh from the Siberian wilderness, many from the old Soviet nomenklatura. According to Forbes Magazine, Moscow today has a wealth class that is second only to New York...

TRADING with foreigners has always been riddled with potential Lost in Translation moments. There are apocryphal stories told at business school about how, for example, the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" when translated for Taiwan, actually meant "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead". "Finger Licking Good" apparently translated into Chinese as "Eat your fingers off". My own favourite has always been the slogan for Frank Perdue's Perdue Farms. The slogan "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken" was translated into Spanish to mean "It takes a hard man to get a...

A MYSTERY tobacco crusader has been visiting pubs in the south of the country. The phantom smoker, who goes by the name of Wandering Minstrel, has unleashed a campaign of defiance against the anti-smoking crackdown by visiting pubs nationwide, openly smoking - and then leaving his calling card. He launched his campaign in Cork but his defiance has now taken in other counties. The Wandering Minstrel immediately leaves a premises once instructed to put out his cigarette. While the campaign was initially greeted with grudging admiration by publicans, the heavy fines threatened against all premises breaching the regulations has sparked...

APPARENTLY Sharon Stone wants Gabriel Byrne to star in thefollow-up to her soft porndebut, and her last hit film, Basic Instinct . Basic Instinct , you will remember was the movie where Sharon Stone infamously uncrossed her legs to flash a bunch of cops who were interrogating her. Like a tamer version of what goes on in Donegal, you could say. Now far be it from us to do a fellow Paddy out of a bit of work, but you have to wonder if Sharon really knows what she's at getting an Irish guy involved in a cinematic orgy of...

SENATOR John Kerry's campaign for election to the Presidency has now run into trouble. In my opinion the trouble is now deep: indeed in my opinion it is probably already terminal. Many Democrats are reported to be "livid at the party's failure to give Hillary Clinton a speaking slot at its Boston convention this month." Hillary herself made no public comment. It was reported that she "will make only a brief appearance but make no speech." Her brief and silent appearance can be taken as indicating support for the Party's Presidential candidate, but not enthusiastic support. Or, as Lenin explained...

It's going through the motions of embracing the gender revolution. But the fact that women's lib was/is led by a centralised militant group of shrill feminists, becomes more pronounced every day. The more belligerent the feministas get, the more resolute the grassroots become about moving in the opposite direction. Unconsciously, women seek to be overwhelmed by men. To surrender power for love is feminine. When men do it, women lose respect. What else can explain the 82 per cent avalanche of women who answered "Yes, we do prefer men who treat us badly" in the Observer's recent survey on men?...

Drinkers are paying for the opportunity to cry into their beer at a new weeping bar in China. Tissues, menthol drops and onions are provided at the bar in Nanjing for customers who need help with bursting into tears. Bar staff also play sad music and there are dolls available for customers to throw around or beat to vent their anger after a broken relationship. Customers pay €5 an hour, on top of their drinks bill, for the privilege of weeping and wailing, a local newspaper reported. The bleating bar has been a success and is attracting crowds of gloomy...

IT WAS clear it had all gone too far when an article appeared, in a prominent position in last Monday week's Irish Times about anti-war protest in Dublin the previous Saturday. No surprise there, you might think. After all, acres of coverage were devoted, before and after the fact, to various anti-Bush protests. The strange thing about this protest appearing in a prominent position in the paper of record was that there were only 100 people marching. Apparently they shouted, "One, two, three, four, we don't want your bloody war!" In fairness Monday's Irish Times often has to scrape the...

"Freedom is when you forget the spelling of the tyrant's name and your mouth's saliva is sweeter than Persian Pie, and though your brain is wrung tight as the horn of a ram, nothing drops from your pale-blue eye." THESE words belong to a man who knew the value and responsibility of real freedom: by 1976, the date attributed to this poem, Joseph Brodsky had been through a Soviet show trial, labour camp and forced exile. A far cry from the venomous spite piled upon Iraqi history by the well-fed, nothing-to-fear pundits of doom and gloom greeting last week's handover...

THE week just ended was a truly wonderful one for the people of Iraq. It follows, therefore, that it was a truly awful one for the anti-war brigade. To maintain the fiction that George Bush is the bad guy, you see, it's not enough to wave a placard, go to a Christy Moore gig or tell all your friends what a great girl Carole Coleman is. That's the easy bit. You've also got to discredit every single piece of positive news that comes out of the country you believe should have been left as it was in the first place....

LONDON - Libya's decision to pay compensation for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland was not an admission of guilt, the Libyan prime minister said in an interview broadcast Tuesday. In August, Libya formally accepted responsibility for the 1988 bombing of the Pan Am jetliner that killed 270 people, agreeing to pay $2.7 billion in compensation to the victims' families. Libya said it "accepts responsibility for the actions of its officials," one of whom was convicted of the bombing. Prime Minister Shokri Ghanem told British Broadcasting Corp. radio that Libya agreed to the payment to help...

May 6 was the anniversary of the assassination of Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. For those who don’t remember, Pim Fortuyn was the leader of the Dutch right wing political party, rather narcissistically named List Pim Fortuyn. He was killed the radical Green extremist Volkert van der Graaf, who showed little or no remorse for the crime. Pim Fortuyn’s political party won over 26 seats in the subsequent Dutch election in 2002; more recently, it was reduced to 8 seats, following infighting and squabbling among his remaining followers. So is that the end of the story, really? Was he just a...

IN politics as in life we crave some kind of closure. So why did we drop Iraq without any political or moral inventory? For six weeks or more the Irish media were all worked up against the Anglo-American action in Iraq. Then suddenly, without saying whether they had been right or wrong about the war, the media moved on to Brian Cowen's lips - and Fintan O'Toole suddenly found his voice again. These sudden bouts of mass hysteria - whether it be the World Cup or the Irish anti-war movement - are both stimulating and sinister. At least in the...

WE are frequently told by the Scottish Nationalists that it is time Scotland took its place in the world as a fully independent nation. The SNP is fond of citing the so-called "velvet divorce" that led to the separation of the Czech Republic from Slovakia as an example of civilised secession. Yet they are not so keen to draw our attention to events that do not fit their world view. Amid the stories of war, the threat of Sars and even the Scottish election you would be forgiven for missing an event of great relevance to Scots politics. Last week,...

IF THE only thing worse than being talked about is not to be talked about at all, George Galloway might, in Oscar Wilde’s opinion, have had something to smile about yesterday. But whether the publicity-loving MP for Glasgow Kelvin would have been happy had he eavesdropped on the chatter in his constituency yesterday, one can only speculate. For of all the questions being asked about the Telegraph’s allegations , one was being shouted louder than most. "What is the motivation behind George Galloway’s visits to the Middle East, anyway?" asked Bill Watson, 45, an English teacher and constituent of Mr...

GEORGE Galloway has enjoyed considerable success in the courts during his political career, winning an estimated total of £250,000 in libel damages. In some cases, the disputes have been settled before they reach the courts, but the Labour MP has proved time and again he will call on expensive lawyers when crossed. Mr Galloway’s biggest libel win was against the Daily Mirror and its sister paper in Scotland, the Daily Record, in December 1992. It followed the so-called "Mirrorgate" affair in which a US journalist claimed the Daily Mirror’s then foreign editor, Nick Davies, had been involved in arms dealing...