THE moment of truth is approaching in the North. On past performance one might be hard pressed to believe Ian Paisley is finally going to say ‘yes’.

ON October 31, 1992, Pope John Paul II apologised on behalf of the Vatican for the persecution of Galileo Galilei over 350 years earlier. Poor Galileo had the nerve to say that the sun, not the earth, was the centre of our universe.

YESTERDAY was a double anniversary. Both relate to the birth date of short-lived minority governments. Each lasted for less than a year.

AN editorial this week in the Wall Street Journal provided a frightening insight into US thinking about the behaviour of European governments in relation to extraordinary rendition.

“A CROWD of us were going along the Shepherd’s Bush Road when out of a lane came a chap with a donkey — just the sort of donkey and just the sort of cart they have at home,” Michael Collins recalled. “He came out quite suddenly and abruptly and we all cheered him. Nobody who has not been in exile will understand me, but I stand for that.”

THE judicial tribunals came in for some stick this week. There is little doubt that people have been turned off by extravagant costs.

DURING the week Bertie Ahern made an extraordinary admission about costing the State a fortune.

BACK in the first week in January four prominent American political figures raised the need for the abolition of nuclear weapons. The issue was followed up this week in an article by Mikhail Gorbachev calling for urgent action.

FROM comments about the Nuala O’Loan report one would think that collusion between the RUC and murderers was a particularly British phenomenon in which the police essentially gave a licence to an informant to murder people and engage in criminal activity as part of his supposed cover.

BRENDAN HOWLIN and Pat Rabbitte were squabbling about what Labour will or will not do after the next general election.