By Jyotirmoy Banerjee
As early as 2010 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke of the need for U.S. naval cooperation with the Indian Navy, given the importance of the Indo-Pacific basin for world trade. Although the Pacific was already an American lake since the end of World War II,
1 in 2011 President Obama launched the new strategy of “rebalancing “Asia-Pacific as a “pivot.” This, notes a Philippine study,
2 was an indication of the growing alarm that the U.S. and many Indo-Pacific littorals continued to feel about the dramatic rise of China’s economic and military power. Further, as a U.S. commentary noted, “China scared everybody into our arms”
Christel Yardley/Stuff
Rotorua Deputy Mayor Dave Donaldson said forest ‘counters’ recorded a 50 per cent spike in visitors once New Zealand came out of Covid lockdown. In 2019, the International Mountain Biking Association named the trail network at Whakarewarewa as among the six best in the world, awarding a gold level accreditation as “the best of the best”. More importantly in the closed borders, Covid-19 climate of today, it’s proved a boon to a tourist town that now finds itself in competition with the rest of New Zealand for the domestic visitor dollar. The value of mountain biking was spelt out in a 2018 report commissioned by Rotorua Lakes Council, from Michael Connell & Associates, which found spending by both locals and visitors of between $29.2m and $47.4m per annum.
A GAA club chief who hasn’t left his house since last March says he is looking forward to getting out and seeing people kick a ball freely again once he has the Covid-19 vaccination.
Michael Connell (81), from Kells, Co Meath, needs full-time care and has been a wheelchair user since last year due to a muscle-wasting disease.
The usually sociable chairman of Gaeil Colmcille GAA club has taught himself how to do all his shopping online and admits that, for the first time ever, there isn’t “a cent” of cash in his wallet.
The rolling lockdowns and the fear of Covid-19 means he has not left his home for almost a year.
By Dr. Kevin Barrett
Mainstream media presstitutes are aghast at President Donald Trump’s unwillingness to concede the 2020 election. They say they aren’t worried that Mr. Trump might win any one case and remain in office. Instead, they say he is “damaging democracy.” How so? Peter Baker of
The New York Times, among many others, charges Mr. Trump with “undermining public faith in the electoral system.”
So, President Trump is committing a crime against faith? Should he be impeached for heresy? That is the unspoken implication. Does Peter Baker really think democracy (rule by the people) is a religion? If he does, he is not entirely wrong. Democracy, like other religions, is a widely shared faith-based system of symbols and rituals that unites (and occasionally divides) a people.
Facing up to loneliness in Kells
Updated / Friday, 18 Dec 2020
10:22
Prime Time Reporter
The generation gap has never been more acute than 2020, as large swathes of our older people were locked away behind the unflattering cocooning label.
However a school project undertaken by a group of Meath schoolgirls prior to the pandemic proved invaluable to older people when Covid-19 hit.
Last year, RTÉ s Prime Time filmed students from Eureka Secondary School in Kells collaborating with a group of elderly locals on an innovative project.
The transition year students developed an eight-week programme with senior citizens to help combat loneliness and social isolation.