Unionism in Ireland

The UK's parliament's standards watchdog has launched an investigation into a Northern Ireland MP over an alleged breach of lobbying rules in his support for the Turkish-occupied northern part of Cyprus.

US President Joe Biden urged political compromise in Northern Ireland on Wednesday, using a brief visit to promote the benefits of enduring peace and investment, but faced heated criticism from pro-UK hardliners.

President Joe Biden is in Northern Ireland to participate in marking the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to this part of the United Kingdom after the U.S. helped negotiate an end to decades of sectarian violence that killed thousands.

The Mitsotakis government on Friday evening tabled a landmark draft bill envisioning reforms in much of the country's labor sector, changes that the pro-business and pro-market government underlined as long overdue, but which are expected to generate heightened criticism by the political opposition and Greece's still formidable unions.

There was further unrest and violence in Belfast on Thursday night as nationalist and loyalist youths clashed at interfaces in the west of the city.

As The Irish Times report, police resorted to using water cannons to try to bring the situation under control.

Britain's prime minister has condemned another night of violence in Northern Ireland, after crowds threw petrol bombs and a bus was set on fire in Belfast.

The violence follows a week of rioting which some have suggested is the first evidence Brexit turbulence may be boiling into unrest in the British province, where post-EU rules are stoking fury among pro-U.K. sections.

When it comes to acknowledging the problems plaguing Greece's higher education system, there is hardly any disagreement. All sides admit that lawlessness and violence cast a long shadow over the country's universities.

All - or almost all - Greek governments in recent decades have lamented the occupation of university spaces by outside forces, whether they be unionists or simply delinquents.

For the first time, however, a plan has been drawn up to protect universities from such outside forces.

Unionism on the level of local administration has ended up acting against its best own interests. 

Repeated strike action by sanitation workers, a quasi-ritual that undermines the interests of society, has stripped unionists of their legitimacy. 

Nobody questions the right to strike - the only question concerns the way this right is often wasted. Nobody questions the value of unionism either, without which employees would be greatly disadvantaged. But unionism does not exist to further the interests of trade unionists.