Veterans to use ‘sleeping flags’ to highlight homelessness (Irish Times)

Previously: ‘As Much As €40,000 Each’

Listen to “News Burp #158” on Spreaker.

News Burp.

The weekly current affairs show presented by Matt McGuirk (top left) & Adam Lynch (right).

Episode #158 – The Existential Crisis

Matt is having trouble grasping the concept of importance and relevance after too many documentaries and podcasts about how expansive and old the universe is.

And in Weekly Weird Wupdates we have stories about CEOs faking their own deaths in India and a naked woman chasing down a man that ran from her hotel room.

News Burp

Part of the Podskwod network.

Sweny’s, the chemist featured in Joyce’s Ulysses; proprietor PJ Murphy (right). Rent on the property has doubled recently

Sweny’s Pharmacy, Lincoln Place, Dublin 2

Kenji writes:

As you might already know, the interior of Sweny’s is 172 years old and preserved very well. That’s PJ (centre) greeting a visitor. The counter there is the very same as from James Joyce’s time. Nora and James would have walked on the same floorboard and touched the same furniture.

Last year, the landlord doubled our rent, probably in an attempt to sell the building at a premium. It was either his way or the highway, so we had to sign that new lease, but that left us with the problem of how to raise the €1,500 per month that is needed to keep our tenancy.

At the moment, we are paying the difference from our savings, but this is running dry pretty fast. After exploring different options, what is working well so far is our online fundraiser page (see below). Thank you.

Sweny’s Pharmacy (Patreon)

Thanks Emma

Yesterday.

Daft.ie released it’s latest rental report.

From the report:

“Rents now 31% higher than their 2008 peak.

“The average market rent nationwide has risen by 81% since bottoming out in late 2011 and, having exceeded its 2008 peak in 2016, is now 30.8% above the previous high.

“In Dublin, rents are now an average of 37% above their previous peak while in Cork and Galway cities, rents are 30% and 47% above levels recorded a little over a decade ago.

“Outside the cities, the average rent is 22% above its previous peak.”

In the report, Ronan Lyons writes:

“…we are still discussing substantial price increases, even if in percentage terms the increases in key markets have fallen below a noteworthy threshold.

“The average Dublin rent rose by €160 during 2018, compared to €180 in 2017. It is unlikely that any new or existing tenants will be celebrating just because the new all-time high is less dramatically above the previous high than it was compared to the figure from two years ago.

“Indeed, one possible reason for the slowdown in inflation could be that the market has reached the limits of what tenants can pay. Digging beneath the figures, though, another reason suggests itself: improved supply. If true, this could indicate that the mild improvement in market conditions in Ireland’s rental market may continue.

“On January 1st 2019, there were 3,641 properties available to rent nationwide, an increase of over 11% on the same date in 2018, when there were just 3,270 homes on the market.

“As shown in the graph accompanying this piece, (above) this is still the second lowest start-of-year total on record, going back to 2006. It is also below the 2016 and 2017 totals (both just below 3,900) and well below the previous market crunch in 2006/2007 when there were just under 5,000 homes available to rent.

“But an improvement is still an improvement, even if it is off a very low base. When availability improves, it is either due to a fall in demand or an increase in supply. Obviously, with Brexit looming, a fall-off in demand cannot be ruled out. However, that seems at odds with the evidence: employment and incomes are, at least at the moment, still going up.

“So, at a time of apparently strong rental demand, especially in the Dublin market, there are some signs that availability is improving and inflation easing, however slightly. A further possibility presents itself. It is possible that the numbers are something of an aberration ‐ one swallow does not a summer make.“

Read Daft’s Rental Price Report for the fourth quarter of 2018 in full here

Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum, a daughter of Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, meets Mary Robinson in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on December 15, 2018.

Anything good in The New York Times?

Depends…

Via The New York Times:

On Christmas Eve, Dubai released the first public photos of Sheikha Latifa since her disappearance. They showed her sitting with Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, who confirmed that she had met the sheikha at her family’s request.

Ms. Robinson said Sheikha Latifa was safe with her family, but said she was receiving psychiatric care, calling her a “troubled young woman” with a “serious medical condition.”

“This is a family matter now,” Ms. Robinson said.

The sheikha’s advocates were taken aback that a respected human rights crusader had seemingly embraced Dubai’s official line. They disputed that she had a psychiatric condition, apart from any she might have developed because of imprisonment or drugging.

“I know 100 percent for sure that she doesn’t need mental care,” Ms. Martinengo said. “Maybe now, after all these treatments, but not before. How can you think that a person who’s been in prison for nine months wouldn’t seem troubled?”

Friends also found Sheikha Latifa’s appearance in the photos — slightly dazed, her eyes missing the camera — concerning.

With negative attention thickening around her, Ms. Robinson issued a statement saying that she had made her assessment “in good faith and to the best of my ability,” adding that the sheikha’s “vulnerability was apparent.”

By mid-January, a lawyer who had been working with activists left the sheikha’s case without explanation. Several friends still in Dubai said they were too frightened to speak, while Mr. Jaubert abruptly stopped responding to requests to be interviewed for this article.

Sheikha Latifa had little doubt about what would happen to her.

“If you are watching this video, it’s not such a good thing,” she said in her video. “Either I’m dead, or I’m in a very, very, very bad situation.”

A Princess Vanishes. A Video Offers Alarming Clues (New York Times)

Previously: Oh, Mary

Pic: United Arab Emirates Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation via AP

Thanks Eoin

Using a quickly knocked together trampoline, a few handfuls of magnetite sand and some powerful neodymium magnets, YouTuber Magnetic Games reveals the otherwise invisible magnetic fields at play.

awesomer

Broadsheet.ie