Ireland may have a slim portfolio of notable rock acts even for its size, but it more than makes up for it in the quality of stars it has produced. From the Brian Wilson-Jimi Hendrix hybrid that is Kevin Shields to the philanthropist/mystic storyteller Bono, Ireland has a rich history of powerful frontmen.

The 2021 Formula 1 season provided exhilarating action from start to finish. But as always, there could only be one winner. This specific championship battle was between Red Bull driver, Max Verstappen, and 7-time F1 champion and Mercedes driver, Lewis Hamilton.

Nigeria and Ghana share many historical and cultural similarities with both sharing an affinity for similar cuisines, fashion, and music among others. Both Anglophone countries continuously engage in healthy competition to expose West Africa to the world.

In recent days, Kilkenny Young Fine Gael have called on Fine Gael leader and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar to resign as leader of the party amid a cycle of poor poll ratings as well as the ongoing criminal investigation into his actions.  

With a variety of restaurants in Nigeria's cities, grabbing a bite is becoming more diverse. From eating options like street food, fast food and luxury dining, Nigerians seem to be enjoying the blessings of a thriving food industry.

Following Ethiopian leader Abiy Ahmed’s catastrophic and failed assault on the northern province of Tigray, rebels have not only pushed back government forces from their homeland, but are now threatening the capital city of Addis Ababa. This has prompted the Prime Minister to impose a nationwide state of emergency as well as calls for a ceasefire by African and western leaders.

On Wednesday, the 27th of October, Turkey was given the green light to join several EU schemes, while the UK is still waiting to join such schemes following its withdrawal from the EU.

At the latest G20 summit in Rome, world leaders have declared their support for the 15% global minimum corporate tax rate. This rate sets a minimum rate of corporation tax which countries worldwide must abide by.

On Saturday, Sinn Féin members voted to end its long-associated opposition to the Special Criminal Court in its Ard Fheis. According to The Irish Times, the party voted on a ‘motion recommending the change’ and was passed by party officials at the Ard Fheis.

In recent days, Direct Provision resident Nadim Hussain has ended his hunger strike, which lasted for a total of 9 days.

British-Iranian aid worker, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has had her court appeal quashed by an Iranian court after being given a further one-year jail sentence. According to BBC, ‘The British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has lost an appeal against a second jail sentence in Iran.

Following Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 US presidential election, there was cautious optimism that the United States would quickly return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA or the “Iran nuclear deal”) under the new Biden Administration. However, nine months after Biden’s inauguration, neither the US nor Iran have expressed much interest in keeping the deal alive.

Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was the first Black American to hold the position, has died aged 84 due to complications following his Covid-19 diagnosis.

On Friday the 15th of October, Conservative MP Sir David Amess was stabbed to death. According to the BBC, ‘Conservative MP Sir David Amess has died after being stabbed multiple times at his constituency surgery in Essex.

Fine Gael’s support has plummeted in the latest Ipsos/MRBI poll, published last week. According to the poll, support for the party has slipped to 22%. In contrast, Sinn Féin has gained five points since the last poll and now leads by ten points at 32%, while Fianna Fáil has held at 20%. This is the highest Ipsos/MRBI poll rating for Sinn Féin.

Cillian O'Gara

In recent days, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has resigned in the wake of a corruption scandal in a bid to save his coalition government. According to Politico, ‘Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz resigned Saturday evening, bowing to growing pressure over a bombshell corruption probe that has rocked the country’s political establishment to its core. 

The High Court of Australia, in a recent decision, has held that media companies are liable for defamatory comments left on their public social media pages. This has prompted companies including CNN to delete their Facebook page in Australia.

There has been widespread criticism of the British Labour Party leader Keir Starmer’s decision to write an opinion piece for The Sun newspaper. This follows his previous pledge not to speak to the publication during the Labour leadership contest in January 2020.

The current form of the internet, known as 'Web 2.0', shifted the internet’s focus from static web pages designed for single sided narration and information consumption on the users’ end, to interactive experiences and user driven web creation, leading to the rise of modern media and information technology. At first, this new phase of the internet led to a never-ending network of webpages and online brands emerging regularly, but over time witnessed centralization of the internet over applications owned by a handful of corporations.

For years following Wikileaks’ 2010 publication of classified material regarding the US’ conduct in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, successive US administrations have sought to punish the organisation and in particular its founder, Julian Assange. However, an investigative report published by Yahoo News claiming that the CIA plotted to assassinate Assange in recent years has shone the spotlight on the shadowy intelligence agency as well as senior figures in the Trump administration.

On Thursday, one of Poland’s largest state owned companies, KGHM, signed a deal with the US NuScale Power to lay the foundation for the construction of the country’s first nuclear power plant, which, according to media reports, would be up and running by 2029 or 2031 at the latest.

Iceland narrowly missed out on achieving the first female majority parliament after initial results in its election on Saturday, produced 33 out of a possible 63 seats that were won by women. However, a recount meant that Iceland slightly fell short of achieving a female majority parliament as 30 out of 63 seats were won by women.

Despite Northern Ireland being largely spared of Brexit-related shortages including food and carbon dioxide needed for producing soft drinks thanks to the Northern Ireland Protocol, unionist parties have continued to rail against it. In particular, DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson has threatened to pull his ministers out of the Northern Ireland Executive, thus collapsing it and reverting Northern Ireland back to direct British rule.

Days before the federal elections in Germany, it is worth looking at three minor parties, their leaders and policies as they may play a crucial role in forming the next coalition government. The two frontrunners the SPD and the CDU/CSU (Union) are neck and neck in the polls, with the SPD polling between 3-5% ahead of the Union, and the SPD Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz holding the highest popularity rating out of the three candidates.

After a three-day election was held, President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party has retained its majority in the Russian Parliament. This corresponds with a failed attempt by the imprisoned dissident Alexei Navalny and his team, who established a strategy called Smart Voting, to garner votes away from the Kremlin.

The trial of Elizabeth Holmes, former Chief Executive of medical company, Theranos, continued this week with testimony from a former employee, Erika Cheung. Holmes and former Theranos COO, Ramesh Balwani, are charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and nine counts of wire fraud.

The 2021 German federal election is expected to be held on 26 September 2021 to elect the members of the 20th Bundestag. On the same day, the state elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern will also be held. Incumbent Chancellor Angela Merkel will not run in this election meaning it’s time to look at the main political parties for this election.   Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU)   The Christian Democratic Union of Germany is a Christian-democratic and liberal-conservative political party. It is the major catch-all party of the centre-right in German politics. Armin Laschet has been federal chairman of the CDU since January 2021 replacing Angela Merkel. The CDU is the largest party in the Bundestag, the German federal legislature (parliament), holding 200 out of 709 seats.   According to German Federal Electoral Law, members of a parliamentary group which share the same basic political aims must not compete with one another in any federal state which is why they form a union with fellow Christian Democratic Party the CSU. The CSU also reflects the particular concerns of the largely rural, Catholic south Germany. While the two Christian Democratic parties are commonly described as sister parties, they have been sharing a common parliamentary group since 1949.   Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) The Christian Social Union in Bavaria is a Christian-democratic and conservative political party in Germany. Having a regionalist identity, the CSU operates only in Bavaria while its larger counterpart, the Christian Democratic Union, operates in the other 15 states of Germany. It differs from the CDU by being somewhat more conservative.  

The High Court on Friday has upheld a legal challenge to works proceeding on a cycling infrastructure trial on the Strand Road in South Dublin, RTÉ News is reporting. The proposed works would have restricted cars and other motorised traffic to a single lane outbound coming out of the city, with the space created as a result being used to implement a 2 way segregated cycle lane. This scheme would have been initially put in place as part of a 6 month trial.

Fianna Fáil TD for Sligo – Leitrim, Marc Mac Sharry has resigned from the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party ahead of a no-confidence motion in Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence, Simon Coveney.

This week, a recall election to decide the fate of California governor Gavin Newsom has taken place. While Newsom won the gubernatorial election in 2018 and was not due to face re-election until 2022, his response to crises related to homelessness and taxation among others has attracted immense criticism, particularly by conservative commentators.

Since the end of July Germany’s social democrats, the SPD, have been gaining in the polls. At the end of August, they overtook the CDU/CSU bloc and are now leading in every single poll. Partially, this is due to their candidate Olaf Scholz who has been serving as Vice-Chancellor & Minister of Finance in Merkel’s cabinet.

Following on from the highly popular book, ‘Home: Why Public Housing is the Answer’, which was published in 2019, Sinn Féin TD and Spokesperson on Housing, Eoin Ó Broin, has written his second consecutive book on the topic. This is the latest book of intrigue and is available in most local bookshops.

A French Special Court has charged the former French Minister of Health, Agnès Buzyn, over her handling of the pandemic with “endangering the lives of others”, finding that there exists grounds for her prosecution.

Texas Governor, Greg Abbot, signed into law new restrictions banning abortions in the state after 6 weeks of pregnancy. The law makes no exceptions for incest or rape. The only exemption is if there is a danger to the woman's health.

This month started with perhaps the most bizarre disaster we have ever witnessed. With images of the ocean being on fire being shared July 2nd onwards, everyone wondered how such a thing could be possible and how it could even be dealt with.

The Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya is visiting Ireland this week to meet with the minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney. The exiled opposition leader entered the political spotlight last year after she ran against the long standing president Alexander Lukashenko in the presidential elections.Her connection with Ireland stretches back much longer than her involvement in politics.

It is one thing to look like your parents, but it is quite another to be as tall as them. Have you ever noticed that in spite of obvious similarities in body shape, facial expressions and complexion, you might not necessarily reach the same height as your parents? This article aims to deal with this unexpected outcome. 

The recent Dublin Bay South by-election, which was triggered by the resignation of Eoghan Murphy as Fine Gael TD for the constituency, brought about some interesting results. Ivana Bacik for the Labour Party won the by-election with 13,382 votes on the ninth count, ahead of James Geoghegan for Fine Gael who earned 9,235 votes overall.

Last week, Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed, offered up what could only be seen as a colossal military disaster in the form of a unilateral ceasefire declaration. This was preceded by the stunning capture of the Tigrayan region capital, Mekelle, by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, who routed Ethiopian forces and captured nearly 6000 prisoners.

According to a United Nations report, military drones may have attacked human targets autonomously last year. The complete details of the event have not been released to the public and so it is currently unclear if there were any casualties, but this incident highlights the fact that international movements and petitions to ban the use of autonomous weapons might be too late.

Global Tax Reform Ratified, As Ireland Object

The second round of the French regional elections is now behind us, on Sunday night the exit polls showed that nationally the conservative Les Republicans received 38% of the vote with Greens & Socialist just 3% behind them at 35%. Front National came third with 20% while LREM, the party which President Emmanuel Macron has founded, finished at single digits. With absenteeism at 66%. One year before France's presidential elections both Macron and Le Pen failed to gain ground at regional level.

While his political career spanned decades, Donald Rumsfeld was most notorious for his role in fabricating the story of the existence of “Weapons of Mass Destruction” and planning the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.

German authorities report a knife attack in the city of Wurzburg on the 25th of this month, stating three deaths and five serious injuries, and a number of others sustaining milder injuries. Police identified the suspect as a 24 year old Somali man living in Wurzburg. He was shot and subdued, the shot being reported as non lethal and not posing a threat to his life according to a spokeswoman. “The attacker was overpowered after the police used firearms,” said police on Twitter.

Micheál Martin has been Fianna Fáil leader since January 2011, after being elected in a leadership race, replacing outgoing Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, who oversaw a government, which lost control of its finances. 

A deal on the continuation of the EU Common Agricultural Policy has been reached. After months of tense and often fractured debate the negotiations scame to an end last week.The deal was ratified by the council of agricultural ministers on Monday.

Inspired by the recent meeting between Biden and Putin, the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel and the French President Emmanuel Macron proposed a combined EU/Russia summit at the last EU council summit; the idea was also supported by Mario Draghi, the Italian Prime Minister. In the end, however, the proposal was rejected after a number of states which border with Russia raised their objections.