Violent clashes broke out in central Dublin on Thursday evening, with vehicles torched and riot police attacked, after a 5-year-old girl was seriously injured in a knife attack earlier in the day that also saw a woman and two other young children hospitalized.
Irish police said the girl was receiving emergency medical treatment in a Dublin hospital following the attack outside a school. Soon after that announcement, at least 100 people took to the streets, some armed with metal bars and covering their faces.
Police said over 400 officers including many in riot gear, were deployed in Dublin city center to contain the unrest, which they said was “caused by a small group of thugs.” A police cordon was also set up around the Irish Parliament building, Leinster House, and officers from the Mounted Support Unit were in nearby Grafton Street.
There were clashes with riot police as some demonstrators let off flares and fireworks, while others grabbed chairs and stools outside bars and restaurants.
A number of police vehicles and a tram were damaged during the disorder, while a bus and car were also set on fire on the city’s O’Connell Bridge.
A bus and car on fire on O’Connell Street in Dublin after violent scenes unfolded, Thursday, Nov. 23, 2023.Brian Lawless—PA Images/Getty Images
Shop windows were routinely smashed and a Foot Locker store was looted. All public transport in the city — trams and buses — was suspended and many firms have urged their staff to work from home on Friday.
“We have a complete lunatic hooligan faction driven by far-right ideology, and also then this disruptive tendency engaged in serious violence,” said Ireland’s top police officer, Drew Harris.
Police and politicians called for calm and warned against misinformation over the attack earlier in the day.
“The scenes we are witnessing this evening in our city center cannot and will not be tolerated,” said Justice Minister Helen McEntee. “A thuggish and manipulative element must not be allowed to use an appalling tragedy to wreak havoc.”
Earlier, police said a man in his 50s, who also was seriously injured, is a “person of interest” in their investigation. No other details about his identity were revealed.
At a press briefing in the evening, Harris was asked about a potential terrorist link, and he didn’t rule it out.
“I have never ruled out any possible motive for this attack … all lines of inquiry are open to determine the motive for this attack,” he said.
That appeared to be a slight change in stance from earlier, when Superintendent Liam Geraghty said police were keeping an open mind in terms of the investigation but were “satisfied there is no terrorist link.”
A woman in her 30s also suffered serious injuries during the knife attack shortly after 1:30 p.m. The two other children, a 5-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl, sustained less serious injuries. and the boy was discharged from a hospital,
Geraghty said at a media briefing that preliminary indications are that a man attacked a number of people on Parnell Square East.
He said that police believe that it was “a standalone incident, not necessarily connected to any wider issues that are ongoing in the country or in the city, and we need to identify the exact reasons for that happening.”
Geraghty confirmed earlier witness reports that a knife was used in the attack, but he couldn’t provide more details on the nature of the injuries. He also confirmed that witnesses sought to disarm the man as soon as they saw what was going on.
“My understanding is members of the public did intervene at a very, very early stage and we would applaud those members of the public for getting involved in such a traumatic and potentially dangerous situation for themselves,” Geraghty said.
Police say they have not ruled out any motive behind stabbing incident, and warn against spread of ‘misinformation’.
Violent protests have erupted in Ireland‘s capital, Dublin, after four people including three young children were injured in a suspected knife attack.
Crowds of protesters clashed with police in the city centre on Thursday hours after a five-year-old girl and a woman in her 30s were seriously injured in the attack outside a school in Dublin. Police said they were receiving emergency treatment.
Two other children, a five-year-old boy and a six-year-old girl, suffered less serious injuries. The boy has been discharged from hospital. According to Irish broadcaster RTE, the woman works at the school and cares for the children.
A man in his 50s was detained in relation to the incident, and was also hospitalised with serious injuries.
Police said in a statement they were “following a definite line of inquiry” and were “not looking for any other person at this time”.
“I’m very strongly satisfied from our inquiries that there is no terror-related activity,” Superintendent Liam Geraghty told reporters after the attack, adding: “It would appear to be a standalone attack.”
Ireland’s police chief Drew Harris later told the media that “all lines of inquiry” were open to determine the motive.
“I never ruled out any possible motive for this attack,” Harris said.
Protesters clash with police
Later in the evening, RTE reported that clashes had broken out between police and protesters.
The broadcaster reported that a police car and a bus had been set on fire in the centre of the city, and that some people had broken into a footwear store and were seen running away with items.
Police chief Harris condemned “disgraceful scenes” and blamed a “complete lunatic faction driven by far-right ideology” for the disorder, warning against the spread of “misinformation”.
Irish media and witnesses reported that a man armed with a knife had stabbed the victims outside the primary school shortly after 1:30pm (13:30 GMT).
Siobhan Kearney, who witnessed the stabbing incident, said the scene was “absolutely bedlam” as she initially watched events unfold from the other side of the street.
“Without thinking, I just took across the road to help out,” she told Irish national broadcaster RTE.
“We got another young man, disarmed [the attacker] with the knife, another man took the knife and put it away for the [police] to find it.”
Kearney said a group of people restrained the suspect on the ground, as some of those injured were taken back inside the school.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said he was shocked by the incident.
“The emergency services responded very quickly and were on site within minutes. I thank them for that,” he said in a statement.
“Gardai have detained a suspect and are following a definite line of inquiry.”
Local lawmaker Aodhan O Riordain, of the Irish Labour Party, said the incident was “disturbing”.
“Understand an individual has been detained. Hope injuries are not serious but it will be extremely traumatising regardless for all involved,” he wrote on X.
Mary Lou McDonald, leader of the Sinn Fein opposition party, said she was “horrified” by what had happened.
“There is shock throughout the community. I have just spoken to the Principal of Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire and relayed my support to the school community,” she said in a statement.
“I want to send my solidarity to the families of those attacked. As a parent, I can only imagine what they are going through right now,” she added, praising the police for their swift response.
BERLIN — Germans gave the world schadenfreude for a reason. And southern Europe couldn’t be more pleased.
For countries that spent years on the receiving end of Europe’s German-inspired fiscal Inquisition, there’s no sweeter sight than to see Germany splayed on the high altar of Teutonic parsimony.
The irony is that Germany put itself there on purpose and has no clue how it will find redemption.
A jaw-dropping constitutional court ruling earlier this month effectively rendered the core of the German government’s legislative agenda null and void left the country in a collective shock. In order to circumvent Germany’s self-imposed deficit strictures, which give governments little room to spend more than they collect in taxes, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition relied on a network of “special funds” outside the main budget. Scholz was convinced the government could tap the money without violating the so-called debt brake.
The court, in no uncertain terms, disagreed. The ruling raises questions about the government’s ability to access a total of €869 billion parked outside the federal budget in 29 “special funds.” The court’s move forced the government to both freeze new spending and put approval of next year’s budget on hold.
Nearly two weeks after the decision, both the magnitude of the ruling and the reality that there’s no easy way out have become increasingly clear. Though Scholz has promised to come up with a new plan “very quickly,” few see a resolution without imposing austerity.
The expectation in the Bundestag is that Scholz will find enough cuts to deal with the immediate €20 billion hole the decision created in next year’s budget, but not much more.
In the meantime, his government is on edge. While Economy Minister Robert Habeck, a Green, has been telling any microphone he can find that Germany’s economic future is hanging in the balance, Finance Minister Christian Lindner has triggered panic and confusion by announcing a series of ill-defined spending freezes.
On Thursday, the government was forced to deny a report that a special fund created to bolster Germany’s armed forces after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine would be affected by the cuts.
At a press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni late Wednesday, Scholz endured the humiliation of a reporter asking his guest whether she considered Germany to be a reliable partner given its budget crisis. A magnanimous Meloni, whose country knows a thing or two about creative accounting, gave Scholz a shot in the arm, responding that in her experience he was “very reliable.”
Greek accounting
Between the lines, the justices of Germany’s constitutional court suggested the use of the shadow funds by Scholz’s coalition amounted to a bookkeeping sleight of hand — the same sort of accounting alchemy Berlin upbraided Greece for more than a decade ago. Perhaps unwittingly, the court ruling echoed then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s unsolicited advice to Athens during Greece’s debt crisis: “Now is the time to do the homework!”
For eurozone countries with a recent history of debt trouble — a group that alongside Greece includes the likes of Spain, Portugal and Italy — Germany’s financial pickle must feel like déjà vu all over again. From 2010 onwards, they found themselves in the unenviable position of trying to explain to Wolfgang Schäuble, Merkel’s taskmaster finance minister, how they planned to return to the path of fiscal rectitude. At Schäuble’s urging, Greece nearly ditched the euro altogether.
The expectation in the Bundestag is that Scholz will find enough cuts to deal with the immediate €20 billion hole the decision created in next year’s budget, but not much more | Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images
In recent months, Germany has once again assumed the role of the fiscal scold in Brussels, where officials have been negotiating a new framework for the eurozone’s rulebook on government spending, known as the Stability and Growth Pact. The pact, which dates to 1997, has been suspended since the pandemic hit, but it is set to take effect again next year. Many countries want to loosen the rules given the huge budget pressures that have followed multiple crises in recent years. Berlin is open to reform but skeptical of granting its fellow euro countries too much leeway on spending.
The latest budget mess certainly won’t help the Germans make their case.
Simple hubris
The allure of the strategy the court has now deemed illegal was that the government thought it could spend money it salted away in the special funds without violating Germany’s constitutional debt brake, which restricts the federal deficit to 0.35 percent of GDP, except in times of emergency.
Put simply, Scholz’s coalition wanted to have its cake and eat it too, creating a veneer of fiscal discipline while spending freely to finance an ambitious agenda.
Despite ample warning from legal experts that the government’s plan to repurpose a huge chunk of emergency pandemic-related funds might not withstand a court challenge, Scholz and his partners went ahead anyway. What’s more, they staked their entire political agenda on the assumption that the strategy would go off without a hitch.
Last week’s court decision is the national equivalent of a rich kid being cut off from his trust fund: Daddy’s money is still there, but junior can’t touch it and has to exchange his Porsche for an Opel.
What many in Berlin cite as the main reason for what they are calling derSchlamassel (fiasco), however, is simple hubris.
Scholz’s mild-mannered public persona belies a know-it-all approach to governing. A lawyer by training who has served for decades in the top ranks of German government, Scholz, at least in his own mind, is generally the smartest person in the room.
During coalition negotiations in 2021, Scholz sold the budget trick idea to his future partners — the conservative liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and the Greens — as a way to square the circle between the welfare agenda of his own Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens’ expensive climate agenda, and the FDP’s demands for fiscal rigor (or at least the appearance thereof).
Indeed, it’s doubtful the coalition would have ever been formed in the first place without the plan. The Greens and FDP happily went along; after all Scholz, Germany’s finance minister from 2018-2021, knew what he was doing. Or so they thought.
Finance minister or ‘fuck-up’?
Scholz’s role notwithstanding, his successor as finance minister, FDP leader Christian Lindner, shares a lot of the responsibility for the snafu, for the simple reason that it was his ministry that oversaw the strategy.
During the coalition talks in 2021, Lindner was torn between a desire to govern and the fiscal strictures long championed by his party. Scholz offered him what appeared to be an elegant way to do both.
Scholz’s role notwithstanding, his successor as finance minister, FDP leader Christian Lindner, shares a lot of the responsibility for the snafu | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
When Lindner, who had never served in an executive government role before, was poised to secure the finance ministry, some critics questioned his qualifications to lead the financial affairs of Europe’s largest economy.
Many Germans have no doubt made their determinations in recent weeks.
Green machine
In contrast to the FDP, the Greens, had no qualms about endorsing Scholz’s bookkeeping tricks.
When it comes to realizing the Greens’ environmental goals, the ends have long justified the means.
In the early 2000s, for example, party leaders sold Germans on the idea of switching off the country’s nuclear plants and transitioning to renewables. They won the argument by promising that the subsidies consumers would be forced to finance to pay for the rollout of solar and wind power wouldn’t cost more every month than a “scoop of ice cream.”
In the end, the collective annual bill for German households was €25 billion, enough to have cornered the global ice cream market many times over.
The Greens’ ice cream strategy — secure difficult-to-reverse legislative commitments and worry about the financial details later — also informed their approach to what they call the “social, ecological transformation,” a plan to make Germany’s economy carbon neutral.
That’s why the shock of the court decision has hit the Greens hardest. After more than 15 years in opposition, the Greens saw the alliance with Scholz and Lindner as the culmination of their effort to convince Germans to embrace their ecological vision for the future. Just as the hoped-for revolution was within reach, it has slipped from their grasp.
Habeck, the face of the Green transformation, has looked like a man at his wits’ end in recent days, making dire predictions about the coming economic Armageddon.
“This marks a turning point for both the German economy and the job market,” Habeck told German public television this week, predicting that it would become much more difficult for the country to maintain the level of prosperity it has enjoyed for decades.
Road to perdition
For all his candor, Habeck failed to address the elephant in the room: It’s a fake debt crisis.
There is no objective reason for Germany to be in this dilemma. A best-of-class credit rating means Berlin can borrow money on better terms than almost any country on the planet. With a budget deficit of 2.6 percent of GDP last year and a total debt load amounting to 66 percent of GDP, Germany is also well above average compared to its eurozone peers in terms of fiscal discipline — even counting the debt raised for the special funds.
The only reason Germany can’t spend the money in the special funds is not because it can’t afford to, but rather because it remains beholden to an almost religious fiscal orthodoxy that views deficit debt as the road to perdition.
That conviction prompted Germany to anchor the so-called debt brake in its constitution in 2009, thereby allowing the government to run only a minor deficit, barring a natural disaster or other emergency, such as a war.
For eurozone countries with a recent history of debt trouble — a group that alongside Greece includes the likes of Spain, Portugal and Italy — Germany’s financial pickle must feel like déjà vu all over again | Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images
The constitutional amendment passed by a comfortable margin with broad support from both the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the SPD, which shared power in a grand coalition led by Merkel. At the time, Germany was still recovering from the shock triggered by the 2008 collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers and had to commit billions to shore up its banking sector.
The country’s federal government and states had begun planning a reform of fiscal rules even before the crisis. The emergency gave them additional impetus to pursue a debt brake enshrined in the constitution as a way to restore public trust.
In that respect, it worked as planned. As countries such as Greece and Spain struggled with their public finances in the years that followed, Germany’s debt brake looked prescient.
Even as southern Europe struggled, the German economy went into high gear powered by strong demand for its wares from Asia and North America, allowing the government to not just balance its budget but to run a string of surpluses, peaking in 2018 with a €58 billion windfall.
Goodbye to all that
The good times ended with the pandemic. Germany, along with the rest of the world, was forced to dig deep. It had the fiscal capacity to do so, however, as the pandemic justified lifting the debt brake in both 2020 and 2021.
The fallout from Russia’s attack on Ukraine forced the government to do so again in 2022.
By drawing from special funds, Scholz and Lindner believed they could avoid a repeat in 2023. But the court’s ruling dashed that plan.
Long before the current crisis, it had become clear to most in government — both conservative and left-leaning — that the debt brake was a hampering investment in public infrastructure (Merkel’s coalition emphasized paying down debt instead of investing the surpluses) and, by extension, Germany’s economic competitiveness. Hence the liberal use of the now-closed special fund loophole.
Trouble is, even as many politicians have woken up to the perils of the debt brake, the public remains strongly in favor of it. Nearly two-thirds of Germans continue to support the measure, according to a poll published this week by Der Spiegel.
Repealing or even reforming the brake would require Germany’s political class not just to convince them otherwise, but also to muster a super majority in parliament, which at the moment is unlikely.
Late Thursday, the finance minister signaled that the debt brake would have to fall for 2023 as well. That means the government will have to retroactively declare an emergency — likely in connection with the war in Ukraine — and then hope that the constitutional court buys it.
Sadly the case of the mysterious dismembered body and the case of the missing filmmaker may be one and the same…
On Friday a headless, armless body was discovered lying on the sand at Breezy Point Beach in Queens, New York. The horrifying discovery seems to be the answer to a seemingly unrelated missing persons case — as law enforcement sources told NBC News on Monday the body is believed to be that of a missing Irish filmmaker.
Ross McDonnell, a filmmaker who won an Emmy for his work as a cinematographer on Showtime‘s The Trade, has been missing since November 4. He had last been seen leaving his Bed-Stuy apartment on his bicycle. The bike was later found abandoned at Fort Tilden Beach, not too far from Breezy Point. Now they think they’ve found him…
Shockingly, authorities do NOT suspect foul play in McDonnell’s death. It’s believed he may have gone for a swim and drowned. The dismemberment is thought to have been caused by the body’s exposure to nature over multiple days, before washing up on shore.
Damn. That’s terrible.
It’s unclear why this body is believed to be McDonnell, but they must be pretty sure if they’re willing to tell the press. Authorities are working with the Irish consulate on the investigation. They’re currently awaiting DNA test results to confirm McDonnell’s identity. Still, anyone with information about McDonnell is being asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
McDonald’s is sprinkled all across the U.K. and employs thousands of Brits in its locations—and this week, concerns about the safety of those workers came to a head.
The boss of McDonald’s in the U.K. said that the company has received over 400 complaints of sexual harassment in four months—sometimes up to two a week—during a Business and Trade Select Committee meeting on Tuesday.
Alistair Macrow, who runs McDonald’s U.K. & Ireland, told MPs that the experiences of some of the fast food chain’s workers were “truly horrific” and “very hard to listen to.”
“These cases… are absolutely horrendous. What I would like to be clear about is that we will tackle them and make sure that we do everything we can to eradicate them from the business,” Macrow said.
The U.K. chief’s statement comes after an initial investigation by the BBC in July shed light on McDonald’s staff who were routinely harassed, bullied or sexually assaulted while at work. The report said that over 100 current and recent workers had allegedly been on the receiving end of such behaviors, following which the company kicked off an investigation. At the time, McDonald’s apologized and said it had “fallen short.”
So far, the company has investigated 157 of the 407 cases of varying nature, Macrow told MPs. Some of those resulted in terminations while others led to disciplinary action. Of the sexual harassment cases, it’s unclear if the workers reported them to the police.
”I am absolutely determined to root out any of these behaviours, identify individuals who are responsible for them and make sure that they are eradicated from our business,” Macrow said.
McDonald’s has over 170,000 workers across its 1,450 restaurants in the U.K.—89% of those locations are franchises, Macrow said.
Workers of the 21st Century
Complaints about harassment or forms of abuse had been cropping up for several years, Ian Hodson, the national president at the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, told the Business and Trade Select Committee on Tuesday. He was first alerted of the growing number of claims five years ago, and said the group had spoken to workers across its London stores.
“We need to make sure that this is the opportunity to make employers accountable for protecting people when they go to work,” Hodson said. “In the 21st century in the U.K., it should not happen. When a global corporation, the second biggest employer in the world, which makes billions and billions of pounds, can’t protect their workforce, it’s awful.”
The BBC’s investigation has spurred more McDonald’s workers to pursue legal action through law firm Leigh Day last week.
McDonald’s didn’t immediately return Fortune’s request for comment.
Subscribe to the new Fortune CEO Weekly Europe newsletter to get corner office insights on the biggest business stories in Europe. Sign up before it launches Nov. 29.
In Omagh, Co Tyrone, a mysterious humming noise has left residents tossing and turning.
Since late October, the persistent humming sound has been the soundtrack to many sleepless nights across this Northern Irish town. The curious case of the nocturnal hum has not only disturbed the peace but sparked widespread intrigue and a variety of theories.
The Mysterious Humming Noise
Local residents describe the sound as a “sustained, persistent buzz or hum,” often accompanied by a tangible vibration. It’s a noise that doesn’t discriminate, affecting various parts of Omagh and its diverse population. Alliance councillor Stephen Donnelly, although not personally plagued by the hum, acknowledges the widespread discomfort it has caused. He reports that the council is on the hunt for both the cause and a solution, reaching out for specialized equipment and expertise to aid in their quest.
The intensity of the disturbance is not to be understated. For a “significant number of people,” the quality of sleep and, consequently, life has plummeted. As the hum chooses the night to make its presence known, the darkness brings with it the dread of another restless experience for the townsfolk.
The Sound of Speculation
The source of the hum remains as elusive as a whisper in the wind. While some suspect the nocturnal drone of generators, the lack of concrete evidence leaves room for speculation. The council’s environmental health officers are grappling with the challenge, their task complicated by the vast area over which the hum has cast its acoustic shadow. They’re considering bringing in a specialist company to detect the elusive source.
Councillor Donnelly urges caution against fanciful speculation, despite the colorful array of theories populating local gossip. From extraterrestrial visits to paranormal activities, the hum has inspired a spectrum of supernatural and outlandish explanations. Yet, Donnelly remains confident that the hum’s origins, when finally uncovered, will likely be rooted in the mundane rather than the fantastical.
It’s not just Omagh that’s abuzz about the hum; the story has echoed across the globe, reaching as far as Australia. This international spotlight has turned a local nuisance into a global conversation piece. It seems the world is just as curious about the hum as the residents of Omagh are desperate for a solution.
The Search Continues for the Source of the Hum
As the investigation continues, the people of Omagh await a resolution with bated breath. The council is committed to solving the mystery, hopeful that the introduction of advanced technology will bring answers and relief. Until then, the hum remains Omagh’s unsolved nocturne, a nightly enigma that has turned sleep into a sought-after treasure.
In the meantime, residents hold onto hope that the hum will soon be silenced and that their nights will once again be filled with the sound of silence.
MÁLAGA, Spain — The leader of Israel’s center-left Labor Party says something has gone “very wrong” with the political left around the world, with supposed progressives now aligning themselves with Islamist militants who oppose the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people.
Over a month after Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people and captured some 240, Israeli officials revised their death toll downwards as Israel wages a retaliatory war against Hamas in Gaza, which has now killed more than 11,000 Palestinians — according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Mass protests have been held in cities across the EU and U.S. calling for an immediate cease-fire, with many using the slogan “from the river to the sea,” regarded by many Jews and Israelis as a call for the annihilation of the state of Israel but by Palestinians and their supporters as anon-violent rallying cry against the occupation.
At the protests and on university campuses, some protestors describing themselves as left-wing have expressed support for Hamas — proscribed as a terror organization by the U.S., EU and U.K. Tensions in the left-wing camp have already boiled over in France and Britain. The far-left France Unbowed party led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, for example, avoids describing Hamas as terrorists and was the only major political party not to attend a rally against rising antisemitism last weekend. Meanwhile, Keir Starmer, the U.K. Labour Party leader, has been pummelled by the left of his party for refusing to call for a cease-fire.
“I think something very bad is happening on the left,” Labor leader Merav Michaeli told POLITICO in an interview. “It became very, very clear in this attack that people who consider themselves to be democratic, progressive, are supporting a totalitarian terror regime that oppresses women [and] the LGBTQ+ community,” she said on the fringes of an international meeting of Socialist and social democrat parties in Spain.
Some politicians on the far left have primarily blamed Israel for the the latest cycle of violence.
“The more you go to the left, the more there’s a big mix-up. Something went very wrong on the way,” Michaeli told POLITICO, adding that Israel has some “very strong allies” on the center-left.
“I fail to see how shouting jihad and calling for a mass murder of Jews is pro-Palestinian,” she added. “It’s important for me to emphasize to them that when you do not very strongly go against Hamas, and what it does in Gaza including to its own people, you are complicit.”
Israel has imposed a total siege on Gaza, allowing only a trickle of humanitarian aid into the densely-inhabited territory and obliging hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to move south to escape daily bombardments.
Michaeli, a transport minister in the previous Israeli government, is a long-time critic of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is leading a far-right coalition and formed a war cabinet with centrist Benny Gantz after October 7. Michaeli called during the interview for Netanyahu to “go now.”
But she also sought to focus attention on the trauma suffered by Israeli society in the wake of the October 7 attacks.
“When I’m speaking to people outside of Israel, then they need to understand that even the biggest peace activists and even the biggest believers in the two state solutions are now under a horrible attack,” she said.
Protesters demand immediate ceasefire in Gaza at Place de la Republique in Brussels | John Thys/AFP via Getty Images
Labor and its antecedent political movements dominated Israeli politics for some 30 years after the birth of the nation in 1948, with members including such prominent politicians as Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and EhudBarak. But as Israel shifted to the right, Labor was sidelined as a political force, with now only four members – including Michaeli herself — in the 120-seat Knesset.
“The way to rebuild Israel is to take it back,” she said, before correcting herself: “It’s not even back, it’s to put it on the Zionist democratic, liberal path.” Michaeli explained that this means pushing for a two-state solution as outlined under the Oslo accords that Rabin, her predecessor as Labor Party leader, negotiated in the 1990s.
Cease-fire divisions
At the meeting in Spain, calls by some national parties from countries such as France, Ireland and Belgium for a cease-fire in Gaza divided delegates and did not make it into the final agreed text. The left more broadly has been rocked by divisions over how to respond to the war in Gaza.
Michaeli, whose party is a mere observer to the Party of European Socialists, could not directly negotiate the final text that was agreed upon in Málaga.
But she said: “[Calling for a] cease-fire now is giving permission to Hamas to continue rearming itself, continue stealing food, water, medicine and fuel from its own people and yes, rebasing itself.” She suggested that calls for a cease-fire were being influenced by “PR” for Hamas.
She put the blame for thousands of civilian deaths in Gaza on Hamas, rather than on the Israeli army, whose actions she defended.
“They are dying because Hamas is using them as human shields, because they have based everything from equipment to missiles to their headquarters in the midst of the most civilian functions there are,” Michaeli said.
She criticized what she perceived as a lack of support among EU politicians to push for the release of some 240 hostages kidnapped by Hamas. “I would have loved to hear more about that than just a mention, at least as much as they’re talking about the humanitarian needs in Gaza,” she said.
A fighter’s job is to fight. Plain and simple. Sometimes he fights the best, other times, not so much.
“King” Callum Walsh, from Cork, Ireland, and living in Hollywood, Calif., is a fighter plain and simple.
Line them up and he fights them. He doesn’t worry about who they are or their status.
“That’s why I’ve never turned down an opponent,” says Walsh, a quietly confident 23-year-old southpaw rated 16th by the WBC. He will headline the card at The Theater at Madison Square Garden on Thursday, Nov. 9. “I don’t even know who they are. It makes no difference.”
Walsh sounds like a No. 1 contender hankering for a title shot but in reality the 154-pounder is the main event fighter with a record of only 8-0 with seven knockouts and he has a secret.
He is not enamored with the Sweet Science.
“To be honest, I watch no boxing,” he admits at the New York press conference announcing his upcoming fight. “When I was a kid growing up, I never watched boxing. Even right now, I still don’t watch.
“I was put in a boxing ring when I was six years old. I didn’t get into boxing through watching it. I didn’t get into boxing through anything. I just got stuck in there. That was my life.
“That’s all I know.”
He was saying this four days before Canelo Alvarez and Jermell Charlo would fight for the undisputed super-middleweight title. Interested?
“I have no interest,” he coolly says. “I’m just focused on my own career. This is my job.”
Fighting. Not watching.
The late Hall of Famer Pernell “Sweet Pea” Whitaker used to say he never watched tape on his opponent because what you see on the tape may not happen in the ring.
Walsh agrees.
“When you’re relying on tape too much, your game plan can go out the window, then you’re thinking, what do I do?
“I’m fighting 10 rounds and I’ve got 30 minutes to figure it out.”
Helping him figure it out is his Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach. A seven-time Trainer of the Year, Roach, who has trained over 40 world champions, saw something special in Walsh.
Fighting in the ring without outside pressure is a plus when your team is top-shelf. Besides Roach, who has trained Manny Pacquiao, Mike Tyson and Oscar De La Hoya amongst others, Walsh is promoted by Tom Loeffler and this is not his first rodeo.
Loeffler has promoted many fights at the Garden and some fighters you may have heard of like heavyweight champs Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko and former middleweight boss Gennady “Triple G” Golovkin.
“I saw him sparring in the Wild Card Gym and I asked Freddie about him,” recalls Loeffler now head of 360 Promotions. “Freddie has had 42 world champions, and he isn’t impressed very easily with new fighters coming to his gym.
“He said Callum was one of the best young fighters he’s ever seen.”
Walsh walked into Roach’s Wild Card Gym in California two years ago unannounced and wanted to train and Roach told him that today was sparring day and to get in the ring.
“He spars right off the bat,” recalls Roach. “He’s hard-working and gifted and he wants to work every day.”
Plus, he’s committed.
“Sometimes I tell him the gym is closed on Sunday and don’t come in,” states Roach. “He still comes anyway. I say what are you doing here, and he says, ‘I have a key.’”
“I come from a big amateur background,” declares Walsh who is a six-time Irish National champ. “I had a very amateur style and now I am able to mix in Freddie’s pro-style and I can do both.
“If I’m in a fight and I have to box, I can win it through boxing. Mostly, I’m going to stand down and try to finish it early.”
After Walsh’s pro debut (a knockout), Loeffler went into action.
“Signed him to a contract and I flew to Vegas to introduce him to Dana. He took a liking to him,” Loeffler states with a smile.
Dana White, CEO and president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) didn’t seem to be a boxing fan, although Loeffler said he was looking for the right opportunity.
“I’ve known Dana since the ‘Triple G’ days,” says Loeffler. “I told him we could put him on Fight Pass [UFC’s broadcast entity], and he automatically gave us four dates last year and seven this year.”
Nov. 9 is the end of this deal, but probably not his final one because his last seven fights have been on UFC Fight Pass.
Now before you think Loeffler is looking for a shovel to dig up Walsh’s next opponent, think again. He found a tough local opponent.
Walsh steps up against the Bronx’s Ismael “Maelo” Villarreal with a record of 13-1 with nine knockouts. In his last outing, Villarreal stopped John David Martinez (then 19-3; 16 KOs) breaking his eight-fight winning streak and the Bronxite has never been stopped.
In fact, both fighters have avoided facing the ever-present “tomato can.”
In their last four bouts, Villarreal’s opponents have a combined record of 63-6 while Walsh’s were 95-24-3.
Having Walsh fight in the Garden is good for local boxers searching for work.
“We want to put as many locals on the show as possible,” says Loeffler. “We did it in Boston and we plan to do it here in New York.”
Walsh has a crowd-pleasing style that’s all action.
“He understands he’s got to put on a show for the fans, especially the UFC fans,” states Loeffler. “They don’t want to watch a 10 or 12-round boxing match and a points decision. They want to see a knockout.”
The UFC combat sports crowd will be in town for Walsh’s fight and UFC 295 in its Garden debut on Nov. 11.
Irish fighters have graced the squared circle for decades. You can go back to the 1920s and ‘30s with all-time great Hall of Famer Jimmy McLarnin, the two-time welterweight champ who fought in the old Garden sixteen times; heavyweights Jerry Quarry and Long Island’s own “Gentlemen” Gerry Cooney; and don’t forget Micky Ward, he of the Arturo Gatti trilogy.
The fighter who most mirrors Walsh’s journey is fellow Irishman John Duddy from Derry, Ireland. He fought nine times in the Garden.
“I fought under Miguel Cotto a few times, so I was called ‘Juan’ Duddy,” says the bearded Duddy with a smile about the Puerto Rican Hall of Famer. He posted a 29-2 record with 18 KO’s and retired in 2011.
Duddy had a huge Irish following, but New York fight fans found his style pleasing and that’s the key to boxing success.
For Walsh, it’s just boxing and more boxing even if he’s not watching.
“There’s no time to relax,” he says with a grin. “I’m fighting every two, three months. After my last fight, I fought on a Saturday, took Sunday off and I got back in the gym Monday. If this fight was tomorrow, I’m ready.”
And if he does good on Nov. 9?
“The Irish are going to come out and support one of their own any day of the week,” acknowledges Duddy. “He’s got a promotion team around him that are tried and tested and know what they’re doing.
“He’s shown he’s got the dedication. It’s only a formality that the likes of the Irish and New York fight fans are going to get behind him 100 percent.”
Walsh may not watch boxing, but the boxing world will be watching him as he hopes to fight for a world title in a year or so.
“I don’t feel any pressure. I feel like I was destined for greatness,” declares Walsh. “I didn’t care about school and didn’t care about working. I worked jobs, but I didn’t really care if I got fired or whatever.
“I always felt like I was here to do big things and I am here to just do that.”
Northern Irish independent sportsbook with over 60 stores on the high street and a popular betting platform online, Bet McLean, has decided to continue its fruitful decade-old collaboration with Linfield FC, the popular Northern Irish professional soccer club that plays in the Northern Ireland Football League Championship Irish Premiership.
To mark the decision, the two parties agreed to print the Bet McLean branded logo on the first team shirt sleeve as well as on the team shorts. Even more, the sportsbook will have four promotional trackside signs in each of the club’s stands located at Windsor Park.
Linfield, “Pleased to Continue Working with Paul McLean”
Linfield FC’s chairman, Roy McGivern, commented on the decision, praising the long sponsorship agreement with Bet McLean while expressing excitement about the opportunity to keep harnessing their partnership next to Paul McLean and his team for the remainder of the 2023/24 season.
McGivern also spoke about the clear passion proven by the sportsbook for “promoting and growing local sport,” further expressing their delight for the deal expansion from the position of Northern Ireland’s greatest football club.
On a similar note, Linfield’s general manager, David Graham, spoke well of his collaboration with Paul Mclean, explaining that “it has been a pleasure” to work next to him since he joined Linfield earlier in the year. Graham also mentioned the discussions they had revolving around the way they could maximize their partnership to the fullest for both parties.
Graham also took the opportunity to express their satisfaction for having secured the four trackside signs along with the first team sponsorship from “a local company with such a strong reputation.” The GM explained that sponsorships represent the primary facet they can use to secure and grow the club’s commercial revenue.
Finally, while mentioning their desire to boost match attendance and improve the overall matchday experience for its supporters, Graham expressed hope to be able to keep proving that Linfield represents “fertile ground” where businesses can grow via strong partnerships and where they can promote their brands.
Bet McLean has also inked a similar deal with the Northern Ireland Football League Cup, sponsoring it from the 2017–18 season onward.
In August, a new Caytoo study revealed that gambling companies continue to be in the lead when it comes to soccer sponsorships. The results came in spite of an anticipated ban on front-of-shirt gambling sponsorships.
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has chosen Ireland as its main operational and regulatory hub in the European Union, the company told CNBC in an exclusive interview.
Coinbase submitted its application for a license under the EU’s new Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, which is set to come into force by December 2024, with the Central Bank of Ireland.
If and when it is approved, Coinbase will have a universal “MiCA license” in Ireland, which it can then use to “passport” its services into Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and other EU countries.
That makes it easier for Coinbase to launch new products in those markets without having to apply for individual licenses in each country. Coinbase says it’s confident it will be able to win this license.
The company is planning to be operational with its MiCA license from “day one,” Nana Murugesan, Coinbase’s vice president of international, told CNBC in an interview earlier this week.
MiCA is the EU’s attempt at introducing a pan-European regulatory framework for crypto companies. It seeks to introduce protections for investors buying and selling crypto assets, like bitcoin and ethereum.
The rules will allow crypto companies to use one license in one country to operate across all 27 EU member states.
The regulation imposes a number of requirements on crypto firms, particularly exchanges, including the requirement that they don’t commingle client funds with their own assets.
“As soon as MiCA was passed into law, and even before that, we’ve been considering a number of member states,” Murugesan said. “It was a long decision making process and we’ve been very impressed with the engagement from Ireland throughout.”
“It was really important for us to choose a member state that is not only a sophisticated regulator with significant experience in regulating financial services, but also recognises the importance of a globally integrated business model, the way we are structured as a company, and also the potential of this innovative new technology.”
Currently, Coinbase has an electronic money institution license and virtual asset service provider registration in Ireland; a crypto license in Germany; and national registrations in other EU member states including Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.
The company, which is headquartered in San Francisco, is one of the largest crypto trading venues globally.
The expansion move comes at a difficult time for the crypto industry. Crypto companies have been seeing their volumes decline, while fundraising has slowed, as macroeconomic conditions have gotten tougher and regulatory scrutiny has mounted.
Coinbase is banking on growth in the European Union, a continent with a total population of 450 million, and other international hubs, as it faces regulatory pressure back home — not least from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which accuses the company of operating an illegal securities venue.
Coinbase disputes the SEC’s claims, and is fighting the case. However, its aim is for there to be formal crypto legislation, rather than constant litigation in the courts.
Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, said that progress has been “slower” than he’d like when it comes to achieving crypto regulation in the U.S. But he’s hopeful for more regulatory clarity in the future.
“We’re now seeing in court cases real questions being asked about the U.S. approach to crypto regulation and in particular securities regulation,” he said. “Judge after judge is asking serious questions about the SEC’s interpretation of our US securities laws and, frankly, challenging some fundamental points that the SEC has pressed on whether tokens are securities at all.”
“MiCA, on the other hand, I think offers … a more substantial and serious approach to crypto regulation in that it isn’t caught up with the jurisdictional fights the turf battles that we have the United States over whether particular transactions or securities transactions or commodities transactions. Instead, the focus is on keeping consumers and investors safe.”
As a market for crypto, digital asset usage is less prevalent than it is in the U.S. According to Chainalysis data, Central, Northern, and Western Europe is the second-biggest crypto economy in the world, behind only North America. However, Coinbase expects lots of growth in the region.
“In recent quarters, Coinbase has earned as much as 15%, or even 20%, of top line revenue from across Europe,” Grewal told CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal — the firm reported $808.3 million of sales globally in the second quarter of 2023, according to its latest earnings report.
“But for us, we’re going to approach the opportunity in a responsible, measured way, we’re going to let our customers drive our investments and drive our focus on what opportunities to pursue. It’s an exciting future.”
Coinbase has also decided to make Germany its regional “talent hub,” and will look to ramp up its hiring in that market to localize and tailor its product specifically for Germany.
“We are very grateful to Germany for all the support they have provided,” Murugesan told CNBC. “Our German operation has grown from strength to strength and more than doubled in headcount.”
Coinbase may even look to launch new products in Europe first before rolling them out in the U.S., Murugesan said.
The EU will be a “testbed” for Coinbase to think about “utilitarian” functions of crypto that people need in their daily lives, such as payments and transacting rather than trading, he told CNBC.
“With MiCA and the clarity that it offers, it allows us to innovate,” he added. “And hopefully, we’ll see some of those daily use cases roll out in EU first.”
Daniel Seifert, vice president of EMEA for Coinbase, said the company is also looking to launch integrations with other payment providers to make it easier for users to access digital tokens through Coinbase.
“There’s lots of exciting plans for the region that we’re going to see in the coming weeks and months,” Seifert said.
Israel aviation authority advises airlines still flying in its airspace to carry extra fuel as delays are to be expected.
Leading international airlines have suspended or reduced flights to Israel’s capital Tel Aviv amid the conflict with Hamas and escalating attacks on Gaza.
About half of all scheduled flights at the airport did not operate on Sunday and a third were cancelled as of Monday evening.
American Airlines, Air Canada, Air France, Delta Air Lines, Egypt Air, Emirates, Finland’s Finnair, Dutch carrier KLM, Germany’s Lufthansa, Norwegian Air, Portugal’s TAP, Polish carrier LOT, Ryanair and United Airlines were among those suspending or reducing flight to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport.
Russia banned night flights to Israel and regulators including the US Federal Aviation Authority, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency and Israel’s aviation authority urged airlines to use caution in Israeli airspace but stopped short of suspending flights.
Russia said it had restricted flights from going to Israel before 09:00 GMT due to what it called an “unstable political and military situation” and advised airlines to continue to monitor risks during daylight hours.
Israel’s civil aviation authority said airlines should “review current security and threat information” and had changed some air traffic routes. The authority noted that delays should be expected and advised airlines flying to Israel to carry extra fuel as a precaution.
British Airways said it was planning to continue operating flights to Israel “over the coming days with adjusted departure times”.
Virgin Atlantic said it would continue to run some flights but that customers could rebook or request a refund on their tickets.
The United Kingdom’s easyJet halted flights to Tel Aviv on Sunday and Monday, and Hungarian budget carrier Wizz Air cancelled flights to and from Tel Aviv until further notice. Other airlines suspending flights included Aegean, Swiss and Austrian Airlines.
Airlines flying from China, Hong Kong and South Korea also cancelled flights to Tel Aviv.
Hong Kong’s main carrier, Cathay Pacific Airways, said that “in view of the latest situation in Israel”, it was cancelling its Tel Aviv flights scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday.
“The safety of our passengers and crew are our top priority. We will continue to monitor the situation very closely,” the airline said on its website, adding it would provide updates on the site.
Israel’s national carrier El Al said that it was maintaining its Tel Aviv flights for now, “in accordance with the instructions of the Israeli security forces”, with all flights now departing only from Terminal Three at Ben Gurion airport.
A 2022 video of a young Black Irish girl being seemingly passed over during a medal ceremony went viral and drew worldwide condemnation, but it took about 18 months before Gymnastics Ireland issued a public apology. Haley Ott has more.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Early 1960s – Joins Sinn Fein, which supports the reunion of British-ruled Northern Ireland with the rest of Ireland.
1972 – Suspected of being an Irish Republican Army leader, Adams is interned without trial.
July 1972 – Is released to participate in secret peace talks with the British government.
1973-1977 – After peace talks fail, Adams is imprisoned again.
1978 – Elected vice president of Sinn Fein.
1983 – Elected president of Sinn Fein.
1983-1992 – Is the elected representative for West Belfast in the British House of Commons. Following Sinn Fein policy, Adams never takes his seat in order to avoid taking the obligatory oath of loyalty to the Queen of England.
1984 – Is shot and seriously wounded during an assassination attempt.
1988 – Begins talks with John Hume, the leader of Northern Ireland’s Social Democratic and Labour Party.
1993 – Adams and Hume issue a statement suggesting ways to peacefully settle the conflict in Northern Ireland.
February 10, 2018 – Steps down as president of Sinn Fein.
July 13, 2018 – An explosive device is thrown at Adams’ home in Belfast, and at the home of Bobby Storey, another Sinn Fein leader. An arrest is made on July 17 in connection to the attacks.
October 2018 – “The Negotiator’s Cook Book,” which contains recipes Adam’s calls “the best-kept secrets” behind the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, is published.
October 17, 2019 – A Belfast court dismisses a case against former IRA member Ivor Bell, also clearing Adams of any links to the murder of McConville.
February 2020 – The Guardian reports that Adams is part of Sinn Fein’s government formation negotiating team, according to a leaked brief. His name does not appear on the list of the negotiating team released by the party. This follows Sinn Fein’s win of a number of seats during Ireland’s general election earlier in the month. In his blog, Adams writes the that the party has always had additional advisers.
May 13, 2020 – The United Kingdom’s Supreme Court rules that Adams was unlawfully imprisoned in the 1970s and overturns two convictions against him for trying to escape from prison.
April 28, 2023 – Belfast’s high court rules that Adams was wrongly denied compensation after his convictions were overturned in 2020.
July 4, 2023 – The House of Lords announces amendments to the government’s legacy bill which would deny compensation to Adams and others who were imprisoned without trial in the 1970s.
The biggest-ever drug seizure in the history of Ireland was intercepted off the coast of Cork in the southeast of the country on Tuesday, Irish police said.
Cocaine weighing 2,253 kg, worth an estimated 157 million euros ($165 million), was seized from the vessel “MV Matthew” traveling from South America, Director General of Revenue and Customs Gerry Harrahill said at a news conference in Dublin Wednesday.
“It is the largest drug seizure in the history of the State,” Justin Kelly, Assistant Commissioner of An Garda Síochána, Ireland’s police force, said at the same conference.
“This is a hugely significant operation and it shows our unrelenting determination to disrupt and dismantle networks which are determined to bring drugs into our country,” Kelly added.
Three men, aged 31, 50 and 60, have been arrested on suspicion of organized crime and are currently being questioned at Garda stations in County Wexford, according to a Garda press release.
Officers said the drugs originated from South America and were bound for crime groups in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Europe.
A task force made up of members of the Irish Revenue Customs Service, the navy, and An Garda Síochána coordinated to detain the Panamanian registered bulk cargo vessel in the early hours of Tuesday, according to the Garda press release.
Video shared by the Irish Defence Forces on X, formerly Twitter, shows the army fast-roping from a helicopter onto the deck amid challenging weather conditions as the vessel attempted to make its way back out of Irish waters.
After the army secured the vessel, members of the task force were transferred on board and escorted by a naval ship to Cork harbor, where it is currently being forensically examined.
“Yesterday was an extremely complex day from a military perspective and the defense forces ran an extremely complex military operation,” Tony Geraghty, fleet commander of the Irish Naval Service, said at the Dublin press briefing.
“It was (made) even more complex by environments that we had no control over. The weather was extremely poor and also we were trying to predict the actions of a number of crime gangs and how that would impact on us. But it was very successful from a defense force point of view.”
The intelligence-led operation was conducted in collaboration with the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre – Narcotics (MAOC-N) based in Lisbon, according to a Garda press release. The MAOC-N is an initiative by seven EU member countries, including France, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Portugal, and the UK, with financial support from the European Union.
LONDON — It was the gleaming smiles and mutual backslapping of two 40-something banker bros which signalled a new era of U.K.-EU relations.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron looked like natural bedfellows as they riffed off one another at a friendly Paris press conference in March, announcing a sizeable £478 million package to deter migrant crossings through the English Channel.
The contrast with the petty name-calling of the Boris Johnson and Liz Truss eras was clear to see.
Sunak’s warm and productive summit with Europe’s most high-profile leader confirmed a more collaborative relationship with the EU and its national capitals after the turmoil of the Brexit era. Less than two weeks earlier, the British PM’s landmark Windsor Framework agreement with Brussels had finally resolved post-Brexit trading issues in Northern Ireland.
“My hope is that [theagreement] opens up other areas of constructive engagement and dialogue and cooperation with the EU,” Sunak told POLITICO en route to the Paris summit.
Six months on, his words have been borne out.
In addition to the Windsor Framework and English Channel agreements, Britain has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Brussels on regulatory cooperation in financial services, and this month rejoined the EU’s massive €96 billion Horizon and Copernicus science research programs — a major result for the U.K.’s research and university sectors after two years of uncertainty.
Next on the agenda is a cooperation deal between the British government and the EU’s border protection agency Frontex — another move that brings Britain closer to the EU in a small but meaningful way.
The deal, confirmed by the Home Secretary Suella Braverman on Tuesday, is expected to be similar to other deals Frontex has with non-EU countries, like Albania, which allow the sharing of data on migration flows.
“We have seen concrete steps created by a new climate of good faith,” said a London-based European diplomat, granted anonymity — like others in this article — to speak candidly about diplomatic relations.
“We missed that before, and so that’s the Sunak effect. I wouldn’t say he’s done an amazing job, but he’s changed the state of mind — and therefore he has changed everything.”
A new hope
In addition to a renewed focus on relations with fellow leaders, Sunak has impressed EU diplomats with his willingness to face down the vocal Brexiteer wing of his own party, which has long seemed — to European eyes — to hold outsized influence over successive Tory prime ministers.
Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak proclaimed a “new chapter” in post-Brexit relations with the European Union after securing a breakthrough deal to regulate trade in Northern Ireland | Pool photo by Dan Kitwood/AFP via Getty Images
Earlier this year Sunak enraged Tory right-wingers by abandoning a controversial pledge to scrap or rewrite thousands of EU-era regulatory laws which remain on the British statute book by the end of this year, to the delight of EU capitals.
“The improving relationship is built on the fact there’s now a willingness to find solutions and engage in a way that wasn’t there in the previous administrations,” a second London-based European diplomat said.
Negotiations continue between Sunak’s government and Brussels over other outstanding areas of dispute — chief among them tough new tariffs due to be imposed in January on electric vehicles (EVs) being shipped in and out of the U.K. which do not conform to strict sourcing requirements for electric batteries.
On Wednesday the U.K.-EU Trade Specialised Committee will meet to discuss the issue, with British ministers increasingly hopeful Brussels will agree to scrap the end-of-year deadline after heavy lobbying from German automakers and its own European Commissioner for trade, Valdis Dombrovskis.
Catherine Barnard, a European law professor at Cambridge University, said overall Sunak had overseen a “much more positive relationship” with Europe, albeit one conducted on a “pay-as-you-go basis.”
“This is looking much more positive and it’s putting some meaning on dealing with our European neighbors as friends, rather than as foes,” she said.
“But equally, we’re not talking about a comprehensive and thorough renegotiation — quite the contrary.”
No. 10 Downing Street agrees the shift is less profound than some media observers — or grumbling Tory MPs — would like to think.
A No. 10 aide said Sunak sees his diplomatic efforts as “normal government,” noting that “we’ve just forgotten what it looks like” after the turmoil of the post-Brexit era.
“I know it’s following Brexit and all that nonsense we’ve seen over the last few years, and it’s nice to see any small win or small argument to bridge that divide, but this is just normal government relations,” the aide said.
But his opponent, U.K. Labour leader Keir Starmer, has made clear he too wants closer cooperation with Europe should he seize power.
A senior moderate Tory MP said that despite the attacks on Starmer, Sunak is “not overly ideological when it comes to the EU” | Kiran Ridley/Getty Images
Starmer said this month a future Labour government would use the upcoming review of the post-Brexit trade deal, expected in 2025 or 2026, as a chance to reduce border checks through the signing of a veterinary agreement and to increase U.K.-EU mobility for some sectors of the economy.
And he told a conference in Montreal last weekend that that “we don’t want to diverge from the EU” in areas such as working conditions or environmental standards.
These comments were seized upon by Tory ministers as evidence that Starmer would bring the U.K. even further into the EU’s orbit than he has publicly admitted — something the Labour leader denies. Tory campaigners hope to use such comments in campaign attacks painting Starmer as an anti-Brexit europhile.
But some observers suggest such political attacks are ironic, given Sunak’s own direction of travel. Barnard, quoted above, says that “what Keir Starmer was saying in Canada last week is pretty much a description of where we’re at at the moment.”
A senior moderate Tory MP said that despite the attacks on Starmer, Sunak is “not overly ideological when it comes to the EU.”
“There’s always been a belief in Brussels that we would inevitably come crawling back to them, and we’re seeing that a bit now,” they said.
Nevertheless, it is unclear how much closer Britain and the EU can get without a fundamental renegotiation of the terms of Brexit — something all sides insist is off the table.
One area for agreement is the need for enhanced security and defence links, with next year’s European Political Community Summit in Britain providing a potential opportunity for further announcements.
Some in Westminster speculate that this could come in the form of Britain joining individual projects of the EU’s Permanent Structured Cooperation — a body which coordinates the bloc’s security and defence policy. The European Council invited Britain to join its “military mobility project” alongside Canada, Norway and the U.S. in November 2022.
Anand Menon, director of the UK in a Changing Europe think tank , said he’s “not convinced” of the potential benefits for Britain, considering the U.K.’s existing position in NATO and other organizations.
He believes the British government will run out of road in finding mutually beneficial areas of cooperation with Brussels.
“The EU is relatively happy with the status quo,” Menon said. “It’s only in the U.K. where people say we need to move closer … There are so many bigger fish to fry for the EU.”
Booming social media application TikTok needs to pay up in Europe for violating children’s privacy.
The popular Chinese-owned app failed to protect children’s personal information by making their accounts publicly accessible by default and insufficiently tackled risks that under-13 users could access its platform, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) said in a decision published Friday.
The regulator slapped TikTok with a €345 million fine for breaching the EU’s landmark privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The penalty comes amid high tensions between the European Union and China, following the EU’s announcement that it plans to probe Chinese state subsidies of electric cars. European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová is also set to visit China next Monday-Tuesday and meet Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing to discuss the two sides’ technology policies, amid growing concerns over Beijing’s data gathering and cyber espionage practices.
“Alone the fine of [€345 million] is a headline sanction to impose but reflects the extent to which the DPC identified child users were exposed to risk in particular arising from TikTok’s decision at the time to default child user accounts to public settings on registration,” said Helen Dixon, the Irish data protection commissioner, in a written statement.
The Irish privacy regulator said that, in the period from July to December 2020, TikTok had unlawfully made accounts of users aged 13 to 17 public by default, effectively making it possible for anyone to watch and comment on videos they posted. The company also did not appropriately assess the risks that users under the age of 13 could gain access to its platform. It also found that TikTok is still pushing teenagers joining the platform to make their accounts and videos public through manipulative pop-ups. The regulator ordered the firm to change these misleading designs, known as dark patterns, within the next three months.
Minors’ accounts could be paired up with unverified adult accounts during the second half of 2020. The authority said the video platform had also previously failed to explain to teenagersthe consequences of making their content and accounts public.
“We respectfully disagree with the decision, particularly the level of the fine imposed,” said Morgan Evans, a TikTok spokesperson. “The [Data Protection Commission]’s criticisms are focused on features and settings that were in place three years ago, and that we made changes to well before the investigation even began, such as setting all under-16 accounts to private by default.”
TikTok added it will comply with the order to change misleading designs by extending such default-privacy settings to accounts of new users aged 16 and 17 later in September. It will also roll out in the next three months changes to the pop-up young users get when they first post a video.
The decision marks the largest-ever privacy fine for TikTok, which is now actively used by 134 million Europeans monthly, and the fifth-largest fine imposed on any tech company under the GDPR.
The platform popular among teenagers has previously faced criticism for insufficiently mitigating harms it poses to its young users, including deadly viral challenges and its addictive algorithm. TikTok — like 18 other online platforms — also now has to limit risks like cyberbullying or face steep fines under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
The costly fine adds to TikTok’s woes in Europe, after it saw a wave of new restrictions on its use earlier this year due to concerns about its connection to China.
The social media app, whose parent company ByteDance is based in Beijing, has struggled to quash concerns over its data security. The company said this month it had started moving its European data to a center within the bloc. Yet, it is still under investigation by the Irish Data Protection Commission over the potentially unlawful transfer of European users’ data to China.
The social media app, whose parent company ByteDance is based in Beijing, has struggled to quash concerns over its data security | Roslan Rahman/AFP via Getty Images
The Irish data authority in 2021 started probing whether TikTok was respecting children’s privacy requirements. TikTok set up its legal EU headquarters in Dublin in late 2020, meaning the Irish privacy watchdog has been the company’s supervisor for the whole bloc under the GDPR.
Other national watchdogs weighed in on the investigation over the summer via the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), after two German privacy agencies and Italy’s regulator disagreed with Ireland’s initial findings. The group instructed Ireland to sanction TikTok for nudging its users toward public accounts in its misleading pop-ups.
The board of European regulators also had “serious doubts” that TikTok’s measures to keep under-13 users off its platform were effective in the second half of 2020. The EDPB said the mechanisms “could be easily circumvented” and that TikTok was not checking ages “in a sufficiently systematic manner” for existing users. The group said, however, that it couldn’t find an infringement because of a lack of informationavailable during their cooperation process.
The United Kingdom’s data regulator in April fined TikTok £12.7 million (€14.8 million) for letting children under 13 on its platform and using their data. The company also received a €750,000 fine in 2021 from the Dutch privacy authority for failing to protect Dutch children by not having a privacy policy in their native language.
VIENNA — No one does victimhood quite like Austria.
Over the past century, the Central European country has presented itself to the outside world as an innocent bystander on an island of gemütlichkeit, doing what it can to get by in a treacherous global environment.
“Austria was always apolitical,” insists Herr Karl, the archetypal Austrian opportunist, brought to life in 1961 by Helmut Qualtinger, the country’s greatest satirist. “We were never political people.”
Recalling Austria’s collaboration with the Nazis, Herr Karl, a portly stockist who speaks in a working-class Viennese dialect, was full of self pity: “We scraped a bit of cash together — we had to make a living…How we struggled to survive!”
Russia’s war on Ukraine offers a bitter reminder that Austria remains a country of Herr Karls, playing all sides, professing devotion to Western ideals, even as they quietly look for ways to continue to profit from the country’s friendly relations with Moscow.
The most glaring example of this hypocrisy is Austria’s continued reliance on Russian natural gas, which accounts for about 55 percent of the country’s overall consumption. Though that’s down from 80 percent at the beginning of 2022, Austria, in contrast to most other EU countries, remains dependent on Russia.
Confront an Austrian government official with this fact and you’ll be met with a lengthy whinge over how the country, one of the world’s richest, is struggling to cope with the economic crosswinds triggered by the war. That will be followed by a litany of examples of how a host of other EU countries is guilty of much more egregious behavior vis a vis Moscow.
The unspoken, if inevitable, conclusion: the real victim here is Austria.
The myth of Austrian victimhood has long been a leitmotif of the country’s bilious tabloids, which serve readers regular helpings of all the ways in which the outside world, especially Brussels and Washington, undermines them.
Outside supervision
Earlier this month, the EU’s representative in Austria, Martin Selmayr, ended up in the sights of the tabloids — and the government — for uttering the inconvenient truth that the millions Vienna pays to Russia for gas every month amounted to “blood money.”
“He’s acting like a colonial army officer,” fumed Andreas Mölzer, a right-wing commentator for the Kronen Zeitung, Austria’s best-selling tabloid, noting with delight that both of Selmayr’s grandfathers were German generals in the war.
A few weeks before his “blood money” remarks, Selmayr told a Vienna newspaper that “the European army is NATO” | Patrick Seeger/EPA
“The Eurocrats have this attitude that they can just tell Austrians what to do,” Mölzer concluded.
Yet if Austria’s history since the collapse of the Habsburg empire in 1918 has shown anything, it’s that the country needs outside supervision. Left to their own devices, Austrians’ worst instincts take hold.
One needn’t look further than 1938 to understand the implications. But there’s no shortage of other examples: voters’ enthusiastic support for former United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim as president in 1986, despite credible evidence that he had lied about his wartime service as an intelligence officer for the Nazis; the state’s foot-dragging on paying reparations to slave laborers used by Austrian companies during the war; the resistance to return valuable artworks looted from Jews by the Nazis to their rightful owners.
Not that Austrians learn from their mistakes. To this day, Austrians rarely heed the better angels of their nature unless the outside world forces them to, either by shaming them into submission or brute force.
That said, the West is almost as much to blame for Austria’s moral shortcomings as the Austrians themselves.
The Magna Carta for Austria’s cult of victimhood can be found in the so-called Moscow Declarations of 1943, in which the allied powers declared the country “the first free country to fall a victim to Hitlerite aggression.” Though the text also stresses that Austria bears a responsibility — “which she cannot evade” — for collaborating with the Nazis, the Austrians latched onto the “victim” label after the war and didn’t look back.
In the decades that followed, the country relied on its stunning natural beauty and faded imperial charm to transform its international image into that of an alpine Shangri-La, a snow-globe filled with prancing Lipizzaners and jolly folk enjoying Wiener schnitzel and Sachertorte.
Convenient excuse
A key element of that gauzy fantasy was the country’s neutrality, imposed on it in 1955 by the Soviet Union as a condition for ending Austria’s postwar allied occupation. At the time, Austrians viewed neutrality as a necessary evil towards regaining full sovereignty.
During the course of the Cold War, however, neutrality took on an almost religious quality. In the popular imagination, it was neutrality, coupled with Austrians’ deft handling of Soviet leaders, that allowed the country to escape the fate of its Warsaw Pact neighbors (while also doing business with the Eastern Bloc).
Today, Austrian neutrality is little more than a convenient excuse to avoid responsibility.
Austria’s center-right-led government insists that on Ukraine it is only neutral in terms of military action, not on political principle. In other words, it won’t send weapons to Kyiv, but it does support the EU’s sanctions and allows arms shipments destined for Ukraine to pass through Austrian territory.
Andreas Babler took over as leader of the Social Democrats in June AND has a long history of opposing not just NATO, but Austrian participation in any EU defense initiatives | Helmut Fohringer/APA/AFP via Getty Images
In the Austrian population as a whole, decades of fetishizing neutrality has left many convinced that it’s their birthright not to take sides. Most are blissfully unaware of the EU’s mutual defense clause, under which member states agree to come to one another’s aid in the event of “armed aggression.”
That mentality explains why Austria’s political parties — with the notable exception of the liberal Neos — refuse to touch, or even debate, the country’s neutrality and its security implications.
In March, just as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy began an address via video to Austria’s parliament, Freedom Party MPs placed signs stamped with “Neutrality” and “Peace” on their desks before standing up in unison and leaving the chamber.
The far right wasn’t alone in its disapproval of Zelenskyy. More than half of the Social Democratic MPs also boycotted the event to avoid upsetting Russia.
Geographic good fortune
Andreas Babler, who took over as leader of the Social Democrats in June, has a long history of opposing not just NATO, but Austrian participation in any EU defense initiatives.
In 2020, he characterized the EU as “the most aggressive military alliance that has ever existed,” adding that it “was worse than NATO.”
It’s an extraordinary assertion given that NATO is the only thing that kept the Soviet Union from swallowing Austria during the Cold War. The defense alliance, which Austrian leaders briefly entertained joining in the 1990s, remains the linchpin of the country’s security for a simple reason: Austria’s only non-NATO neighbor is Switzerland.
Austria’s neutrality and geographic good fortune have led it to spend next to nothing on defense. Last year, for example, spending fell to just 0.8 percent of GDP from 0.9 percent, putting it near the bottom of the EU league table with the likes of Luxembourg, Ireland and Malta.
A few years ago, the country’s defense minister even proposed doing away with “national defense” altogether so that the army could concentrate on challenges such as natural disaster relief and combatting cyber threats. The idea was ultimately rejected, but that it was proposed at all — by the person who oversees the military no less — illustrates how seriously Austria takes its security needs.
Over the past year, the government has pledged to increase defense spending, yet those plans are still well below what the country would be obligated to pay were it in NATO.
Put simply, Austria is freeloading on its neighbors and the United States and will continue to do so until it’s pressured to change course.
Reality check
That’s why it needs more straight talk from people like Selmayr, not less.
A few weeks before his “blood money” remarks, the diplomat told a Vienna newspaper that “the European army is NATO,” noting that the accession of Sweden and Finland to the alliance would leave only Austria and a few small island states outside the tent.
Austria’s neutrality and geographic good fortune have led it to spend next to nothing on defense | Joe Klamar/AFP via Getty Images
The reality check dashed Austria’s hope that it could avoid paying its share for EU defense by waiting for Brussels to create its own force.
Even so, rhetoric alone is not going to convince Austria to shift course. Nearly 80 percent of Austrians support neutrality because it’s so comfortable. The EU and the U.S. need to make it uncomfortable.
At the moment, most Austrians only see the upsides to neutrality; yet that’s only because the West has refused to impose any costs on the country for freeriding. That needs to change.
Critics of a more aggressive approach towards Vienna argue that it will only harden the population’s resolve to sustain neutrality and bolster the far right. That may be true in the short term, but the history of foreign pressure on Austria, especially from Washington — be it the isolation it faced during the Waldheim affair or the push to compensate slave laborers from the war — shows that the interventions ultimately work.
If forced to choose between remaining in the Western fold or facing isolation, Austrians will always chose the former.
Though almost no Austrian security officials will say so publicly, few have any illusions about the necessity of a sea change. More than one-third acknowledge that the country’s neutrality is no longer credible, according to a study published this month by the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy. A further third say the country’s participation in the EU’s common foreign and security policy has a “strong influence” on the credibility of its neutrality claim (presumably not in a good way).
And nearly 60 percent say the country needs to improve its interoperability with NATO in order to fight alongside its EU allies in the event of an armed conflict.
The problem is that no one is forcing them.
If Austria’s partners continue to avoid a confrontation, the country is likely to continue its slide towards Orbánism.
The Freedom Party, which wants to suspend EU aid for Ukraine and lift sanctions against Russia, leads the polls by a widening margin with just a year until the next national election. With neighboring Slovakia on a similar trajectory, Russian President Vladimir Putin may soon have a major foothold in the heart of the EU.
So far, the EU and Washington have been silent on the Freedom Party’s worrying rise, counting on Austrians to snap out of it.
Barring foreign pressure, they won’t. Why would they? With its populist prescriptions and beer hall rhetoric, the Freedom Party encourages Austrians to see themselves as what they most want to be: victims.
Or as Herr Karl famously put it: “Nothing that they accused us of was true.”
NEW DELHI — With the clock likely ticking on his time in Downing Street, Rishi Sunak wants to secure a legacy on the world stage. The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) may be just what he needs.
The British prime minister faces a general election next year with his Conservative Party languishing 18 points behind the Labour opposition in the polls.
But though Sunak told reporters travelling with him to the G20 leaders’ summit in India this weekend he was “entirely confident” he can still win re-election, U.K. government insiders say the PM already has one eye on his possible post-Downing Street legacy.
Sunak takes pride in how he has helped repair the U.K.’s diplomatic standing after the rancour of Boris Johnson’s premiership and Liz Truss’ brief but disastrous stint in power. He sees the Windsor Framework — the agreement on post-Brexit trade checks in Ireland which markedly improved U.K. relations with the EU and the U.S. — as his signature achievement so far.
Now the bigger prize in Sunak’s sights is the opportunity to position the U.K. as the leading authority on the governance of AI.
“He sees it as one of his long-term legacy pieces,” one government adviser told POLITICO. “Shaping the world’s response to a paradigm-shifting technology would be a big deal — and it would be recognized as a big deal.” A second government official said Sunak “never misses a chance” to bring up AI.
There are several existing international forums for governments to discuss AI regulation, including a G7 process and the EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council. Sunak’s challenge is to convince countries to take the U.K. seriously as a place to bring existing initiatives together and fold in unrepresented countries. And that will require some skillful diplomacy.
From G20 to AI summit
Sunak used conversations with other world leaders at the G20 to drum up interest in his landmark AI safety summit, which is taking place in the U.K. in November. The invitation list has yet to be made public, but is expected to include a range of countries including China.
The prime minister told POLITICO en route to New Delhi: “So far, the response we’ve had has been really positive, people are really keen to participate and they recognize that the U.K. can play a leadership role in AI.”
At a technology-focused session of the summit on Sunday the PM made comments on the need to develop AI responsibly. He praised India for “bringing AI to the top of the agenda at the G20” and said that there was “an opportunity for human progress that could surpass the industrial revolution in both speed and breadth.”
He told leaders that first and foremost, the development of AI had to be done safely to manage risks. “This requires international cooperation,” he said. “The U.K. will be hosting the first ever international AI Safety Summit in November to help drive this forward.”
Sunak added that the technology must also be developed securely “to protect the digital economy from malevolent actors and states” and fairly to “ensure inclusivity.”
“Getting this right is one of the greatest challenges and opportunities of our age,” Sunak said. “Let’s work together to make sure we all benefit.”
Lacking luster
But to make Sunak’s summit a success — and help secure his legacy — he will be reliant on the buy-in and active participation of fellow world leaders.
Despite Sunak congratulating his host Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a successful summit, the G20 was noteworthy for the absence of powerful figures including China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Sunak will be hoping to avoid similar ‘no shows’ at his AI summit. He has already been dealt a blow with news last month that U.S. President Joe Biden will not be attending.
Key European leaders have also failed to confirm their attendance. In comments to POLITICO, one French official questioned the need for U.K. mediation, given alternative international avenues for discussing AI.
Sunak’s experience at the G20 also demonstrates the difficulties of choreographing the good optics and effective diplomacy required for a successful summit.
Predictions from U.K. government figures that Sunak would be mobbed by the adoring public did not materialize in a locked-down New Delhi where there were few people on the streets.
There were also hiccups in Sunak’s summit agenda. He had been due to meet Modi at his house on Friday but that was replaced with a 20-minute meeting on the margins of the summit on Saturday. On Friday night Modi hosted President Biden for dinner instead. The two leaders held talks for about an hour.
A planned business reception for Sunak on Friday at the British High Commission was also cancelled, because of transport issues. Sunak’s spokesperson said rescheduling was “part and parcel” of any summit.
Things did improve over the weekend for the British PM. Modi and Sunak were filmed bear-hugging each other when they met. According to the U.K. government’s readout, Modi “noted the warm reception” Sunak had had in India, and the pair had agreed to continue moving towards a free trade agreement “at pace.”
The Indian government said Modi has now formally invited Sunak for a bilateral visit, after POLITICO reported that U.K. officials were already drawing up plans for a possible return trip for Sunak later this year.
On Tuesday morning, the people of Ireland said goodbye to singer and songwriter Sinéad O’Connor.
Thousands of mourning fans gathered in the seaside town of Bray in County Wicklow, Ireland, on Tuesday morning to pay their respects to O’Connor, who died last month. She was 56.
Teary-eyed admirers lined the streets with signs, candles and poems to watch the funeral procession pass. The singer’s family invited the public to watch the procession and send their best wishes, though the actual funeral was kept private.
According to the New York Times, the procession kept with tradition and carried the star’s coffin past her last family home. Outside the residence, fans left flowers, handwritten notes, gifts and photos of O’Connor throughout her long, tumultuous career.
O’Connor lived in Bray for 15 years, the BBC reported.
People leave flowers and messages outside the former home of the late Sinéad O’Connor on Tuesday, in Bray, Ireland.
Charles McQuillan/Getty Images
Her casket was carried in a classic Volkswagen van adorned with flowers and rainbow and Rastafarian flags. Music played from a speaker attached to the top, blasting a number of O’Connor’s own hits and her favourite songs, including Natural Mystic by Bob Marley and the Wailers.
Nobody ever has to ask if Sinead O’Connor was loved. The air is filled with sadness and heartfelt love in equal measures. #SineadOConnorpic.twitter.com/wuAy2VuaSc
Fans danced, sang and cried to O’Connor’s music in the streets, with many people dressed in the colours of the Irish flag. Others held signs that read “Black Lives Matter,” “Gay Rights” and “Fight the Real Enemy,” a nod to O’Connor’s passion for social justice and advocacy.
People attend the funeral of 56-year-old Irish musician Sinéad O’Connor, in Bray, North Wicklow, Ireland on Tuesday.
Mostafa Darwish/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
For many of O’Connor’s fans, her rebellious spirit and anti-establishment beliefs — particularly toward the Roman Catholic Church — are as important a legacy as her music.
“She was so passionate, and she was so forthright, and she stood up for people who couldn’t stand up for themselves,” said Pauline Scullion, a mourner who attended the funeral procession. “She spoke for people who couldn’t speak for themselves, and she was vilified for it, and that was just wrong. Time has proven that she was right.”
Sinéad O’Connor’s coffin is seen inside a classic Volkswagen van on Tuesday.
Paul Faith/AFP via Getty Images
Irish President Michael D Higgins, his wife Sabina and Irish Prime Minister (called Taoiseach) Leo Varadkar attended the private funeral service.
Story continues below advertisement
“The outpouring of grief and appreciation of the life and work of Sinéad O’Connor demonstrates the profound impact which she had on the Irish people,” Higgins said. “The unique contribution of Sinéad involved the experience of a great vulnerability combined with a superb, exceptional level of creativity that she chose to deliver through her voice, her music and her songs.”
The cause of O’Connor’s death has not been released publicly. She was found unresponsive in her London home on July 26. Police have said the singer’s death is not suspicious.
O’Connor reached true superstardom when she released her cover of Prince’s ballad Nothing Compares 2 U in 1990, a shattering performance that topped charts from Europe to Australia.
Flowers and tributes are pictured outside the former home of Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor, in Bray, eastern Ireland, ahead of her funeral on Tuesday.
Paul Faith/AFP via Getty Images
She was a lifelong non-conformist — she would say that she shaved her head in response to record executives pressuring her to be conventionally glamourous — but her political and cultural stances and troubled private life often overshadowed her music. O’Connor was also widely known for tearing up a photo of Pope John Paul II while appearing live on NBC’s Saturday Night Live.
Story continues below advertisement
O’Connor announced in 2018 that she had converted to Islam and would be adopting the name Shuhada’ Sadaqat — although she continued to use Sinéad O’Connor professionally.
Sinéad O’Connor‘s death at her London home “is not being treated as suspicious,” the Metropolitan Police said in a statement Thursday. The statement did not name O’Connor — a legendary Irish singer-songwriter known best for her hit “Nothing Compares 2 U” — in line with U.K. police protocols.
The London police’s statement said “a 56-year-old woman was pronounced dead at the scene” at a south London residence Wednesday by officers responding to reports of “an unresponsive woman.”
“A file will be prepared for the Coroner,” the statement added.
O’Connor’s family announced her death Wednesday “with great sadness.”
Sinéad O’Connor is seen onstage, March 4, 1988.
Independent Newspapers Ireland/NLI Collection
“Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time,” they said in a statement.
Many around the world took to social media following news of her death to share tributes to the artist. Actress Jamie Lee Curtis dedicated a post on Instagram to O’Connor, recognizing the artist’s “beautiful” voice and “brilliant” personality. Singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge called O’Connor’s death “a tragedy,” and rapper Ice T offered his “respect to Sinead.”
O’Connor overcame a difficult childhood to achieve her first major musical success in the late 1980s with her debut album “The Lion and the Cobra.” But it was her second album, “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got,” that made her a household name.
She won one Grammy, was nominated for the prestigious music award eight times and was named Rolling Stone’s artist of the year in 1991.
Along with her music, O’Connor was known for her outspoken stance on political and social issues, and was open about her struggles with mental health.
Her cause of death has not been revealed.
Simrin Singh contributed to this article.
Thanks for reading CBS NEWS.
Create your free account or log in for more features.
