IT was the Seven Dwarfs vs the Three Stooges, but it symbolised perhaps one of the weirdest weeks ever in Irish politics.

Barack Obama has won Pennsylvania in an early sign that he will become the first black president of the United States, exit polls said today.

THE refusal by the US Congress initially to sanction President Bush’s $700 billion financial bailout amid the current global financial crisis provides a fittingly chaotic and ignoble curtain call for the Bush era.