This weekend, as we relax between two bank holiday weekends, maybe we should for a fleeting moment — anything longer would be too frightening — imagine ourselves Cypriot.

It must be a cause for concern that 47 people have been killed on our roads this year.

Even though a great number of people have had to accept a reduced standard of living, some a greatly reduced standard, the presentation by Ita Mangan, chairman of the Advisory Group on Tax and Social Welfare, to an Oireachtas committee must provoke some soul searching for anyone who imagines they have a social conscience.

The phenomenal success of YouTube — 1bn visitors a month — is as good a way as any to try to understand how our world is changing.

With bankruptcy hanging over Cyprus, the people of Ireland probably have greater understanding than most Europeans of the plight of the beleaguered citizens of the Mediterranean island.

With internet bullying now endemic, there is merit in the claim by Google that putting digital literacy on the school curriculum could dramatically improve the safety of children online.

When Barack Obama was sworn in as 44th President of the United States on Jan 20, 2009, the event was expected to spark great, positive change.

In recent decades, Ireland’s deer population has reached almost unprecedented levels.

The raid on Cypriot bank deposits, held in the name of ordinary people, businesses, institutions, communities, and prudent savers, breaks one of the fundamental trust-based relationships that has sustained western societies for centuries.

Yesterday’s apology from Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier in South Africa is welcome and appropriate.