TODAY, as we mark the 40th anniversary of that terrible indictment of the North’s then corrupted democracy — the Battle of the Bogside — it is important to remember that many of the world’s population still live in a society where they have little or no say in how that society is run or who runs it.

TOMORROW over 55,000 young people will get their Leaving Certificate results.

JUST in case we were running short on the pessimism front, energy regulator Dermot Nolan yesterday reiterated the, by now, threadbare warning that we are facing a bleak future because of our dependence on fossil fuels.

When the current financial crisis first erupted, the Government came up with imaginative proposals to rescue the banks.

The dire repercussions of the worst recession in living memory may be causing serious mental health problems for people finding it impossible to make ends meet.

IT WAS only a matter of time before some professional group or trade union found itself in court fighting the Government to try to defend fat-of-the-land arrangements made before our economy imploded.

SONIA SOTOMAYOR has been confirmed as the first Hispanic justice of the United States Supreme Court. She is President Obama’s first supreme court nominee.

WHEN Brian Cowen became Taoiseach just 15 months ago there was, for a time at least, a sense of optimism that the new brush might sweep clean. There was a feeling that the staleness of the discredited, stultifying Ahern leadership might be replaced with something vigorous and uplifting.

EVEN the sun endorsed the adventure by making a welcome reappearance over Dunmanway yesterday afternoon for the visit of one of the great clubs of world soccer.

When a death is expected newspapers will usually have the obituary ready. So it was with Cork City Football Club yesterday. At mid-afternoon, the prospects for the survival of the club did not sound great, which made the outcome all the more welcome.