Welcome to China, Mr Ahern - just don't mention human rights

IT'S just as well that Dubya's attention was focused on blowing up balloons for his inauguration party yesterday, or he might have noticed that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was trying to slip a fast one by him.

Better to be blowing up balloons than blowing up anything else, I suppose, but Bertie Ahern upset his friends in the great US of A this week by suggesting that the European Union was about to lift the current arms embargo on China.

Leading a trade delegation there at the moment, he probably thought the Yanks would be yee-hawing too much in Washington to notice what he was up to in the land of the dragon. Plus such an announcement would go down well with the Chinese and it wouldn't do any harm to the prospect of Irish firms signing a few contracts.