Babak Belurs

Selasa, 11 April 2023

Biden arrives in Northern Ireland to mark peace deal anniversary - Reuters

Summary

Biden to mark 25 years of peace in Northern Ireland
Power-sharing government collapsed over a year ago
President to travel south to celebrate Irish roots

BELFAST, April 11 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden was welcomed to Northern Ireland by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Tuesday as he flew in for a brief visit to mark the 25th anniversary of a peace deal that largely ended 30 years of bloodshed.

Biden, who is fiercely proud of his Irish heritage, will spend just over half a day in the British-run region before travelling to the Republic of Ireland for almost three days of meetings with officials and distant relatives.

Biden, who was met by Sunak on the runway at a windy Belfast International Airport, arrives at a delicate time in Northern Ireland and will need to tread carefully as the largest pro-British party continues to boycott the devolved power-sharing government, a key part of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

The president spoke for a few minutes to officials on the tarmac, flanked by Joseph Kennedy III, of the storied Irish American political family, whom he appointed as the U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland for economic affairs in December.

Biden and Sunak will hold a meeting early on Wednesday, and Biden will also engage with each of the leaders of Northern Ireland's five main political parties ahead of his speech at a Belfast university.

Speaking to reporters before boarding Air Force One, Biden said supporting the recent Windsor Framework deal agreed by the European Union and Britain to ease post-Brexit trade barriers in Northern Ireland was one of his top priorities.

"Make sure the Irish accords and the Windsor Agreement stay in place. Keep the peace. That's the main thing." he said. "Keep your fingers crossed."

Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has said Biden's visit - the first by a U.S. president in 10 years - will not pressure it to end its protest at post-Brexit trade rules that treat the province differently to the rest of the UK.

The DUP wants further changes to the revised post-Brexit deal for the province but London has said that is not possible.

Biden, who clashed with the British government at times during the Brexit talks, drawing ire from DUP lawmakers, will float the possibility of closer investment ties between the U.S. and Northern Ireland to try to encourage an end to the impasse.

Security concerns were also highlighted on Tuesday by the discovery of four pipe bombs, small improvised explosive devices, in Londonderry, a city 110 km (70 miles) from where Biden is to stay. Police in a statement linked the devices to Irish nationalist rioters who attacked police there on Monday.

'WE DO NEED HELP'

The latest political stalemate - which followed a three-year collapse of the devolved government from 2017 to 2020 - is set to overshadow the visit and the anniversary of the peace deal the U.S. helped broker between Irish nationalists seeking a united Ireland and pro-British unionists wanting to remain part of the UK.

"It might spur things along and maybe things will be taken a bit more seriously," said Niamh McNutt, a 21-year-old student adviser in Belfast, where security was tight ahead of the visit. "We do need help right now to get things in order and maybe this will give people the push that they need."

There is still some sporadic violence by small groups opposed to the peace process. In February, an off-duty police officer was seriously injured after he was shot by two gunmen in front of his son.

Britain's MI5 intelligence agency increased the threat level in Northern Ireland from domestic terrorism to "severe" following the shooting - meaning an attack is highly likely. It has been mostly at that level since its introduction in 2010.

In Ireland, Biden, who speaks proudly of his Irish roots and frequently quotes Irish poets such as Seamus Heaney, will address the parliament in Dublin, meet Prime Minister Leo Varadkar and visit his ancestral homes on either coast.

The president will travel to County Louth on Wednesday, where his great-grandfather James Finnegan was born, and end his visit with a public address in the western county of Mayo, where his great-great-grandfather Edward Blewitt grew up.

"Since (John F.) Kennedy there hasn't been as Irish American a president as Joe Biden and we're really looking forward to welcoming him home," Varadkar said on Sunday.

Additional reporting by Amanda Ferguson and Aiden Nulty in Belfast; Writing by Padraic Halpin in Dublin; Editing by Alistair Bell and Rosalba O'Brien

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2023-04-11 22:25:00Z
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CBI head Tony Danker sacked after misconduct claims - Financial Times

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2023-04-11 17:27:16Z
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‘I’m here because I care’: junior doctors on NHS picket lines - The Guardian

Having grown up in Romania and spent some time in hospital as a child, Dr Cristina Costache thinks she has seen the future of the NHS if the government does not urgently invest in its staff and services.

The kind of specialist paediatric work Costache does across two hospitals in Leeds is done by voluntary organisations in Romania and resources are thin on the ground, which is why she began working in the UK seven years ago.

On Tuesday, she was joined by dozens of colleagues – and large piles of donated snacks – outside Leeds General Infirmary, some of the thousands of junior doctors taking part across England in a 96-hour walkout over pay and conditions.

“It’s sad to see the NHS going that way,” she said. “I’ve experienced that and I don’t want anyone here to see that. It’s scary. I’ve seen how bad it can be and I’m on the picket to prevent things from going that badly.”

Costache said she has seen the NHS decline significantly over the last decade.

She added: “I teach students adult medicine and some of them who don’t have hospital experience ask, ‘is it usually this bad?’. And I say ‘sorry, but it is’.

“For example, there are patients finding out they have diabetes from their discharge notes because there’s nobody to chat to them. And yet, healthcare is a right.”

“I love this job so much. I wanted to give the care that children deserve. Some children end up spending their whole lives in hospital.

“Emotionally, this job has a big toll. You see things that are hard to see. If you have a child die, you have to switch and not pass on the sadness to the next child.

“What I really like about the UK is compassionate care. My fiance is trying to get me to leave because he sees me coming home exhausted and getting ill. I left a country once and I could leave again, but it’s because I care that I’m here.”

Junior doctors on the picket line outside University College hospital in London.

Outside University College hospital in central London, supportive drivers were honking, sound systems were blaring and demands were being chanted as junior doctors picketed.

Rebecca Lissmann, 29, a junior doctor, said she felt “sick in her stomach” when the strikes were announced.

“I don’t want to be on strike, but I hope patients can see that this action is also about keeping doctors in the NHS and to save the service.”

Lissmann is a trainee in obstetrics and gynaecology. “I absolutely love my job but it is a really hard job. People’s lives are genuinely at risk.

“In obstetrics, you deal with people having some of the best or the hardest days of their life. You have big conversations with people having miscarriages.

“To do that in a service that is chronically underfunded, where there are gaps in the rota being filled last minute, all the time, where I’m missing lunch and staying late. I think a lot of junior doctors feel they are not able to provide the care they would like to see for their patients because of the current situation.”

Thousands of striking junior doctors protest in Trafalgar Square, London.

At Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge, cars honked in support of a 10-person picket line that had been holding placards and thanking passersby for their support since 8am.

For Tanmay Anand, 26, a junior doctor in his second foundation year currently working on trauma and orthopaedics, the decision to strike comes from concern for patient care and to improve conditions for future junior doctors.

“The system is now so under-resourced that [they] do not have the capacity to train me.” Anand said this affects his ability to care for his patients and become the doctor he always dreamed of being.

He said overtime is also a given. “You’re contracted to work an average of 48 hours a week but there was not a single week in my first rotation where I worked 48 hours. The average was at least 60 hours. Those 12 extra hours are unpaid.

“There was one week that I counted because I was so tired, where I worked 114 hours. Across those four months in that first rotation, I lost half a stone in weight.”

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2023-04-11 20:47:00Z
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