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Comparison with 1974 shows just how far we have come
Have we passed the Point of No Return? This was the phrase used by Hugo Patterson, the spokesman for the Northern Ireland Electricity Service, on BBC Radio Ulster on May 28th, 1974. He was saying that a complete shutdown of power in Northern Ireland had already begun and could not be reversed. p

IN TIME'S EYE

"UP THERE"
A man from Dublin, having just booked into a hotel in the North for a short holiday, was asked why he went there as distinct from Conamara or Kerry. One reason, he said, was that he had scenery and sea there (it was in Co Antrim) as fine as any further west or south. Moreover, quite a while before he had been on a radio programme about Belfast and its environs, more impressionistic than political, in fact not political at all, and as a result he got a letter from a woman in Andersonstown - and he pulled it out of his wallet, for he had been carrying it around since receiving it - addressing him by Christian name. "It was refreshing to hear your warm and kind words about what we are really like here in the North. I hear us being referred to so often as `them people up there'. I am 72 years old, bred and reared in Co Westmeath. My family, which includes my husband and two children have lived here in Andersonstown for almost 35 years. It was very pleasant to hear something nice being said about us for a change. I appreciate your kind words." p

AN IRISHMAN'S DIARY

An Irishman's Diary
How strange that I heard not a murmur of feminist joy last week over the jailing of Charles Blewett, of Mansfield, Nottingham. (Mansfield, eh? Must get the gender-free nomenclatural committee working on that one.) No doubt feminists are so sated with their numerous large victories that a tiny skirmish over Charles Blewett is hardly worth raising a glass of Piat D'Or to, never mind cracking open a crate or two of the '89 Grand Dame. There are other, greater fish to fry; what care we of tiny whitebait such as Charles Blewitt, convicted rapist? p

EDITORIAL COMMENT

Making Babies
If a specially selected multi-disciplinary subcommittee appointed by the executive council of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists cannot, after several years of work, come up with a coherent report on the subject of assisted human reproduction, it can reasonably be assumed that it will take some considerable time before any kind of national consensus can be developed on such subjects as the treatment of infertility, "test-tube" babies, artificial insemination by donor (AID) and all the newly-developing technologies available to assist those couples otherwise incapable of conceiving a pregnancy. And when the chairman of the institute has to insert a note in the report pointing out that not all members of the institute are happy with either all or part of the report, then even a professional medical consensus on the issues involved must still be a long way off. The becoming honesty of the report lies in the fact that the chairman of the expert committee felt it necessary in so many instances to set out how many members of the committee were in favour, and how many opposed, and how many were undecided on the issues discussed by the committee in the long course of its work. p
Towards A Trade War
The EU and the US appear poised for another damaging trade war after the World Trade Organisation (WTO) this week cleared the way for Washington to level tariffs on $116 million worth of European Union products. The latest dispute involves the EU's 11-year ban on hormone-treated beef imports from the US. Irish exporters are certain to get caught in the crossfire between Brussels and Washington; the final list of affected products has still to be finalised but it appears that some £10 million worth of Irish exports including pork and bacon products, cereals and confectionery, are at risk. Other EU products, including ham, poultry, French cheese and possibly some industrial goods like motorcycles, could also be affected. Brussels claims that the use of such hormones in US beef represents an unacceptable health risk to EU citizens but the WTO, the arbitration body in international trading disputes, does not agree. The WTO has formally ruled that there is no scientific evidence to justify Brussels' concerns. But the EU refuses to comply with the WTO decision until it has completed its own scientific tests. p

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Comparison with 1974 shows just how far we have come

"UP THERE"

An Irishman's Diary

Making Babies

Towards A Trade War

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