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On Friday, Prime Minister Leo Varadkar made a commitment to take strong action against individuals with racist views who engaged in violent confrontations with riot police. He described this as a pivotal moment for a country that was ill-prepared to tackle the increasing hostility toward immigrants within its working-class communities.The previous night's riots, driven by anti-immigration sentiments, were sparked by an Algerian man stabbing three, one critically, young children and an adult caregiver outside a school in central Dublin. (snip)The Irish public television, RTE, conducted a poll which found that only 19% of the Irish public were in support of...

The Taoiseach has told farmers that climate change is the biggest threat facing Ireland today and it is not clear what type of agriculture we will have in 20, 30 or 40 years time. Speaking at the AGM of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA), Leo Varadkar said the climate is getting warmer and drier, and in order to rise to the climate challenge, openness to significant change will be needed. He said farming income can be protected with other things like forestry and carbon farming. He said the agri-sector will not be asked to take a disproportionate part...

Pope Francis has accused Britain of placing greed over humanity by refusing to hand over a disputed island archipelago in the Indian Ocean to Mauritius. In an unusually muscular foreign policy intervention, the pope suggested that Britain’s failure to heed a United Nations vote calling on it relinquish sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory was uncivilised. “Not all things that are right for humanity are right for our pocket, but international institutions must be obeyed,” the pope told journalists as he left Mauritius at the end of a three-nation tour of Africa. “If there is an internal dispute or...

Francis warns of ideology 'infiltrating' some quarters of US Catholic Church 'A schism is always snobbish ideology detached from doctrine,' pope says ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT FROM MADAGASCAR — Pope Francis warned Sept. 10 that ideology is "infiltrating" the religious teaching of some quarters of the U.S. Catholic Church, and said that in past centuries such infiltrations have led to schisms. In a press conference aboard the papal flight back to Rome after his three-nation visit to Southern Africa, the pontiff said that while he was unafraid of schism, he was also praying that one would not occur. Asked about...

VATICAN – The lives of 19 religious men and women martyred during the Algerian civil war are a testament to God’s plan of love and peaceful coexistence between Christians and Muslims, Pope Francis said…. Both Christians and Muslims in Algeria “have been victims of the same violence for having lived, with faithfulness and respect for each other, their duties as believers and citizens in this blessed land. It is for them, too, that we pray and express our grateful tribute,” the Pope said. Among those who were beatified were Blessed Christian de Cherge and six of his fellow Trappists –...