Word: aherne
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...abuse. But they also seethed with frustration. "It's ridiculous," said Moira Gorman, 35, from Dublin. "If it's finance, [the government] acts quickly. If it's children, they take their time." The groundswell of outrage put pressure on the nine-year-old coalition led by Prime Minister Bertie Ahern. Later on Friday the Parliament passed the new statutory-rape law (whose age of consent, 17, fits uneasily with survey data placing the average start of sexual intercourse in Ireland at 15 1/2). Critics say the law should have been fixed years ago. Britain and Canada recently reformed their laws...
...killing may have been about much more than settling old scores. Donaldson was killed two days before the Prime Ministers of Britain and Ireland, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, were due to launch a joint plan for reviving the faltering political process in Northern Ireland. Thanks to continuing mistrust between Protestant unionist leaders and Sinn Fein, efforts to restart the kind of coalition local government that was borne out of the 1998 Good Friday peace accords have been stalled for the past three years. And the murder of Donaldson, a convicted IRA bomber who served time in prison along with...
...Blair and Ahern both suggested the murder may have been a deliberate attempt to derail their plan to finish the job of establishing a peaceful Northern Ireland. "If there are people who are trying to wreck the political process by these appalling and barbaric acts of violence," Blair said, "the single best message is to say 'No, you're not going to succeed.'" That sounds good in theory, but as Donaldson's killing has shown once again, violence usually has the final say in Northern Ireland...
...Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern reportedly said after a Washington meeting with Rice that she expected U.S. allies to take it on trust that the U.S. does not allow abuses of prisoners. But the administration appears to be distinguishing between abuse - which it denies - and holding ?ghost? detainees in secret prisons abroad, which it has not denied, but only refused to confirm on the record or give details. Indeed, U.S. officials hint that at least some foreign officials have been in the know on movements of CIA aircraft, secret holding facilities or other operations, those governments may be getting...
...I.R.A.'s influence waned. Led by Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein is now the biggest nationalist party in Northern Ireland, with 24 seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. And they have gradually become an influential political force in the Irish Republic, too, where they even threaten Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern's hold on working-class North Dublin. But there's also a risk that splinter groups could keep the violence going. "Nothing has changed," a defiant source from the Continuity I.R.A. told Time. "There is still a British presence that has to be removed." To counter that threat, I.R.A. members...