ONE of the first books on Irish neutrality was a 1969 collection of essays in RTÉ’s Thomas Davis lecture series. It was published in time to exploit the 25th anniversary of the end of World War II.

MANY political pundits have been writing off John Kerry because he is clearly behind in the public opinion polls.

DRUGS Minister Noel Ahern caused a bit of stir when he suggested that prison authorities should provide clean needles for drug addicts in prison.

NOW it’s official: we have the highest cost of living in the eurozone. Nobody should really be surprised.

IT IS hard to understand how anybody in his or her right mind could ever try to justify what happened in Beslan last week.

WITH the American presidential election campaign about to start officially on Monday, the nightmare of Vietnam looms ever larger.

SOME weeks ago I wrote about a persistent rumour that the gardaí involved in the raid on Judge Brian Curtin's home had actually checked with the relevant authorities beforehand and were told to go ahead with a flawed search warrant.

AS usual, swimming took pride of place during the first week of the Olympics and one of the features has been Germany’s failure to win a gold medal. As of yesterday they were reduced to just one bronze.

DURING the Cold War, governments used sport for political ends. The communists pointed to the successes of their athletes as proof of the superiority of their system.

PRIVATE Lynndie England, 21, was brought before a court in North Carolina this week to decide whether to court martial her for abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. She could face up to 38 years in jail.