Brian Clifford Pope

3 weeks ago | sluggerotoole.com | Brian Clifford Pope

Time is running out for millions of people in the world’s poorest nations as the US takes a step closer to making drastic cuts to its international aid budget. Tariffs, Ukraine and Gaza have dominated the headlines, for good reason, but we should not forget Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s plans for USAID and the Republican Party’s complicit role in its destruction.

4 weeks ago | sluggerotoole.com | Brian Clifford Pope |Mick Fealty

Infrastructure Minister, Liz Kimmins, has just made a shock announcement to the Assembly to send forensic accountants into NI Water to investigate a potential budget overspend. The short-term and long-term funding of the water industry and infrastructure is clearly becoming a political ‘hot potato’!Back in 2020 the then Infrastructure Minister, Nichola Mallon, published a report from the Ministerial Advisory Panel on Infrastructure detailing proposals for new Infrastructure Commission.

1 month ago | sluggerotoole.com | Brian Clifford Pope |David McCann

Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins has just issued a public consultation on Developer Contributions for Wastewater Infrastructure but unfortunately this won’t be enough to resolve a few decades of underfunding. The 35 page document Developer Contributions for Wastewater Infrastructure – Consultation Document is aimed at raising desperately needed funds to upgrade and improve our dilapidated drainage system.

1 month ago | sluggerotoole.com | Brian Clifford Pope

Over the last few weeks Donald Trump has unleashed a whirlwind of executive orders, tariff announcements, foreign policy declarations and intentions, and, more generally, he’s managed to shakeup the whole world, but what’s this all about? Currently, there are an increasing number of voices in America who point to the role or influence of the tech billionaires in the US administration and a type of techno-authoritarianism future.

1 month ago | sluggerotoole.com | Brian Clifford Pope

The prospect of a £1.6bn contract for the Thales missile factory in east Belfast to deliver 5,000 lightweight missiles to Ukraine shows that Northern Ireland has a role to play in world affairs. (Gail Walker, Comment March 8)Regardless of whether this plant might theoretically become one of Putin’s targets, no matter how remote that possibility might be, it makes Northern Ireland a strategic partner in the so-called ‘coalition of the willing’.