We are to join three of our European Union partners by banning onshore fracking. France, Germany and Bulgaria have vetoed the destructive practice, one that feeds our unsustainable dependence on carbon fuels.

Nearly every flashpoint issue bedevilling our world is rooted in how wealth generated in a society is used or shared — or if should be shared at all — to benefit everyone in that society. The eternal stand-off between property rights and the common good remains unresolved and, if history is anything to go by, it is likely to remain so.

THE ability to travel overseas on generally recognised and accepted documents is a benefit which seems to have been with us forever. It has been the engine of international tourism and all the attendant industries and businesses which depend upon it and grow from its fruits.

THE dysfunction within some aspects of Irish sport which bedevilled the Rio Olympics has a way to go to being fully explained and comprehended by those watching, sometimes aghast, at home. 

THERE could be few more poignant locations for Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s final overseas official duty than next week’s visit to Messines, scene of one of the most resounding battles of the First World War.

Ireland has escaped the unfortunate side of immigration — so far at least.

The former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega died on Monday.

Later this week the saga to identify Enda Kenny’s successor will end. Irrespective of who is chosen, the challenges facing the next Taoiseach — if they are the same person — are spectacular, varied, polarising and unprecedented.

THE announcement that the Sisters of Charity will not be involved in a new national maternity hospital must have been a bitter pill to swallow for the order, the Catholic hierarchy and the wider tradition of Irish Catholicism. 

HAD he lived John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United Sates would have been 100 years old yesterday — even if such longevity seems unlikely for a man of his profession and legendary appetites.