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A new vision needed for China
China's Communist Party congress, meeting this week for the 17th time, has two broad purposes: to choose leaders and set out broad policies for the next five years. These are daunting tasks for the 2,200 delegates representing 73 million members in a country with one-fifth of the world's population. p
Family law caseload
The Courts Service has just published the third report of its pilot project on the workings of family law. It focuses on the caseload of the District Court where almost 80 per cent of family law issues are dealt with. These are also usually the most urgent - women or elderly parents seeking protection from violent partners or adult children; fathers applying for access to their children; mothers pursuing maintenance which has not been paid; and, of course, the HSE seeking to intervene in families where the children are at risk. p
Opinion
Exchanging mystique for clarity in the annual budget ritual
This year's budget will be a Big Bang affair - with all spending and taxation decisions announced in one fell swoop. Brian Cowen explains why pLetting the emotion hang out
It was sensible of the pharmacists not to withhold prescribed medication from the thousands of their customers who are taking statins. If they had opted for that unwise course of action, many pharmacists would have been assaulted with golf clubs, rolled up copies of the RTÉ Guide and the occasional gardening tool. They would have died in a blaze of V-necked sweaters. pThe inconvenient truth is Gore didn't deserve prize
Newton's optic Former US vice-president Al Gore has been ordered not to show his Nobel Peace prize to schoolchildren after a judge found 13 factual errors in the medal committee's proceedings writes Newton Emerson p
An Irishman's Diary
If you think the streets of Dublin are dangerous now, be grateful you didn't have to walk them 200 years ago. I owe this admittedly unremarkable insight to Thomas and Valerie Pakenham, whose Traveller's Companion to Dublin - first published in 1988 and re-released in 2003 - is a fascinating collection of vignettes from the city's history. p
