Author Archives: Bodger



Tonight.

Citywest Hotel, Dublin.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar gives the closing address on the second day of the Fine Gael Ard Fheis where he promised “five more years” of income tax cuts.

Rollingnews

Earlier:

This morning/afternoon.

Citywest Hotel.

Scenes from Day 2 of the Fine Gael Ard Fheis which culminates this evening with a leadership address by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar..

From top: (left to right) Simon Coveney, Richard Bruton and Chalie Flanagan; as before with prospective Fine Gael dáil candidate Eileen O’Malley Dunlop, of the National Women’s Council (right) Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Regina Doherty; from left: Heather Humphries, Paschal Donohoe and Eoghan Murphy; audience shot; the podium this morning; Fine Gael supporters; from left: Caroline Hofman, Former Rose of Tralee Maria Walsh, Maksuda Akhter and Fine Gael Sean Kelly MEP; audience shot; as before; Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

Government’s focus is on Brexit, not elections – Varadkar (RTÉ)

Sam Boal/Rollingnews

Meanwhile…

Um.

Dublin Rental Investigator tweetz:

These short-lets put people in precarious situations, the person taking the lease and the person expecting to return, not to mention the people already living in the room. Spotted on Facebook by @GazzaONuallain. Thanks for your support.

Sigh.

This afternoon.

On Bloomberg.

A five-minute interview with Digicel Group Chairman Denis O’Brien who’s currently in Papua New Guinea.

He talks about Brexit, Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May and the “terrific” job carried out by Tánaiste Simon Coveney on Brexit.

He says he reckons Ms May will lose parliamentary approval for the Brexit draft agreement and there will be a general election and then, after that, “we’re in no man’s land”.

Mr O’Brien also talks about Digicel’s bond swap and the possibility of asset sales.

And we wish him all the very best with that.

May’s deal is the best of a bad deal, says Digicel’s chairman (Bloomberg)

Pol Pot henchmen Nuon Chea (right) and Khieu Samphan

An international criminal tribunal convicted two aging former Khmer Rouge leaders in a historic ruling that for the first time legally defines the regime’s crimes as genocide.

The defendants, Nuon Chea, 92, and Khieu Samphan, 87, are among the last surviving chieftains of the Khmer Rouge, a brutal regime that decimated Cambodia from 1975-1979 in an effort to recreate a utopian agrarian society. An estimated 1.7 million people—or more than 20% of the population—died.

Despite their blood-drenched pasts, neither Nuon Chea, who was described as the “loyal right-hand man” of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, nor Khieu Samphan, who served as head of state, were previously charged with genocide.

Friday’s verdict was the first time in 12 years of meting out justice that the tribunal delivered a genocide verdict—internationally, a rare pronouncement……

Cambodian Court Convicts Former Khmer Rouge Leaders of Genocide in Historic Ruling (Time)

Pic: Getty

What about the CHILDREN?

Liveline tweetz:

Is the Irish Book Awards running an Acid Drop Ad Campaign? Alice says this image is “mimicking someone taking an acid tab….Why are they normalizing illegal drug taking and linking reading with getting high? Preposterous. Ignorant. Dangerous.”

Sigh.

An Post Irish Book Awards

Can you help Irish Daily Mail columnist Philip Nolan – who won the award for Columnist of the Year in the popular newspapers category at yesterday’s Journalism Awards – find his award?

Anyone?

Yesterday: The Big Short

And rising.

A petition calling for the State not to pay for the legal representation of former Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan in an action taken against him by Maurice McCabe has reached more than 22,000 signatures.

Previously: The Bill

The petition can be signed here

Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger at the Spire on Dublin’s O’Connell Street on Wednesday; Ms Coppinger in the Dáil on Tuesday

A criminal trial in Ireland, in which the lawyer of a man accused of rape cited the lacy underwear worn by a woman as a sign of her consent, has ignited outrage across the country and beyond.

During the closing argument, the defense lawyer asked the jury to consider the underwear worn by the 17-year-old woman at the time prosecutors said she was raped in a muddy alleyway by a 27-year-old man.

“Does the evidence out-rule the possibility that she was attracted to the defendant and was open to meeting someone and being with someone?” the lawyer asked, according to The Irish Times. “You have to look at the way she was dressed. She was wearing a thong with a lace front.”

The man was acquitted, and the case immediately drew calls for accountability and sparked a national dialogue about consent and victim blaming. Hundreds of women and men with posters and lace underwear in hand protested in five cities across the country on Wednesday.

Defense Lawyer Suggests a Thong Equals Consent — and Ireland Erupts (New York Times)

Pic: BBC Woman’s Hour

Previously: Intimate Revolt

Smalls Minded

Free Tomorrow?

‘The Way She Was Dressed’

Meanwhile…

Morning Ireland tweetz:

Spotted in Portobello in the same location as mural earlier this year