Displaying items by tag: disagreement

Thursday, 08 April 2021 21:30

Northern Ireland: bombs and bricks

On 8 April the gates of Belfast's so-called peace wall were prised open and set alight, police were attacked, petrol bombs thrown and a bus burnt in another night of violence. Over the week 41 police were injured, and ten people arrested. The most recent violence saw eight more officers hurt on both sides of an interface between several hundred loyalists and nationalists throwing petrol bombs in both directions in the loyalist Shankill Road and the nationalist Springfield Road. The power-sharing executive has met to consider the situation; the escalation in disorder requires a united response. It is hard to know how ministers will work in unity when they have not been on the same page about why the violence has been happening. Also criminals are orchestrating violence by putting petrol bombs into the hands of 12-year-olds: see

Published in British Isles
Thursday, 15 October 2020 21:31

Belgium: Brexit fish fight fallout

Fish are one of the main issues at the centre of Brexit negotiations. Three times a week, at 6 am, vessels return to Ostend loaded with fish for the auction. Three-quarters of the fish sold here were caught in British waters, which contain more fish than those of the North Sea. Many Belgian fishermen hope that after Brexit they’ll keep on having a good catch. Bruno Decordiar spends 60% of his time fishing solely in British waters. He’s worried that Brexit could harm his activity. ‘We are often at English ports and when we speak with British fishermen they tell us that we take all their fish,’ he said. ‘If they close the waters I'm sure we'll lose half of our income.’ Most fish landed by British fishermen are sold to the EU. A no-deal Brexit ‘fish fight’ increases competition between Europeans. If there is no fishing agreement, there will be no global trade agreement.

Published in Europe