Former Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharazi seriously injured in US-Israeli strike
Former Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharazi has been gravely wounded, and his wife killed, in a targeted United States-Israeli strike on their Tehran home. As head of Iran’s foreign affairs council, Kharazi has been an influential figure in guiding his country’s policy. He advised Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who was assassinated on February 28th when the US-Israel war on Iran began. Kharazi was recently involved in Pakistani efforts to arrange a meeting between senior Iranian officials and US vice-president JD Vance. After Iran’s 1979 revolution, Kharazi held media, academic, governmental and diplomatic positions, and chaired Iranian delegations at international conferences.
Source:The Irish Times
April 03, 2026 08:34 UTC
In 1980s Dublin, the communists had the best Good Friday shindigs – The Irish Times
It was revealed to me, amid attempts to persuade me that Stalin was a very good thing, that the Communist Party had the best shindig in town on Good Fridays. This was before widgets that made canned stout allegedly taste like the real thing, and further technological developments which made it taste more like the real thing. The only alternative to the real thing in those days was a bottle of stout, and while bottled stout had its connoisseurs, it was emphatically not the real thing. [ ‘A blessing for the country’ how The Irish Times greeted the Good Friday drink law in 1927Opens in new window ]So the goo contributed to left-wing causes in the inner city. The north inner city had long been designated the most disadvantaged area in the country, with tragic levels of unemployment, bad housing and educational neglect.
Source:The Irish Times
April 03, 2026 08:05 UTC
Trump’s dire failure of moral imagination
The presidency of the United States carries a global weight. It is especially troubling when such rhetoric is directed towards a civilisation that has contributed so richly to humanity. To reduce such a people to caricature or contempt is not only unjust, it is a failure of historical memory and moral imagination. What is needed is not escalation, but reflection; not threats, but a renewed commitment to dialogue and the common good. By tearing up the rule books of international organisations, the United States is exposing the democratic world to serious risk.
Source:The Irish Times
April 03, 2026 08:01 UTC
Fracked gas from the US another sign of our ‘pure hypocrisy’ on energy – The Irish Times
To make matters worse, five years ago, the then government, at the insistence of the Greens, banned exploration for natural gas off our shores. The rationale for the policy was to promote the use of non-carbon sources for electricity generation, but the move never made sense on any level. We still rely on natural gas for almost half our electricity generation, but 80 per cent of it is imported. So far, instead of allowing exploration for natural gas to resume in our coastal waters, the State is planning to take the lead in building a liquid natural gas storage (LNG) facility in the Shannon Estuary with the aim of giving us a strategic reserve by 2030. [ Irish people fail to understand how fragile our electricity supply isOpens in new window ]“Ireland’s position right now is one of pure hypocrisy when it comes to electricity generation.
Source:The Irish Times
April 03, 2026 08:01 UTC
Is Good Friday a bank holiday? Who works and who does not, according to the law
“Good Friday is not a public holiday and is a normal working day,” the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) tells us in its guidance on entitlements to days off. “The terms bank holiday and public holiday are often used interchangeably in the Republic, but they are not the same thing,” said Leeanne Connolly, Head of Employment Services at HR consultants Peninsula Ireland. “A public holiday, on the other hand, is a day when employees have a legal right to a day off or extra pay. “Unless a business decides otherwise, employees are not legally entitled to a day off work on Good Friday.”How many public holidays are there? In addition, those on maternity leave, parental leave, paternity leave, adoptive leave, or domestic violence leave are entitled to benefit from the public holiday, while those on long-term sick leave are generally not.
Source:The Irish Times
April 03, 2026 07:51 UTC
James McAvoy: ‘I’m 75% Donegal. We’re so similar yet so different. I think the difference is independence’
James McAvoy blusters into the room with the same unpretentious energy I remember from 20 years ago. “I think they’re really happy with it and really proud of it. I think I’m a storyteller. We think of those colossal projects as being in a whole different medium from independent film. As soon as I started to work with some really good people I realised magical stuff was happening and I couldn’t f**king see how.
Source:The Irish Times
April 03, 2026 07:18 UTC
Empathy for students facing Sunday exams
Sir, – I wish to empathise with Caoimhe Buckley (Bad timing on Spanish Oral: Letters to the Editor; March 31st). Holding such a potentially life-altering exam on a Sunday and especially last Sunday is fraught with traps for those distracted by stress. I hope her letter is circulating to those who set the schedules for state exams emblazoned with the words: “Think laterally”. – Yours, etc,JOHN HILLERY,Blackrock,Co Dublin.
Source:The Irish Times
April 03, 2026 07:12 UTC
Merz’s 80% return plan for Syrians in Germany stirs controversy
German chancellor Friedrich Merz and Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa at a press conference in Berlin this week. The Syrian president said the '80 per cent' was mentioned by Merz. “It is not about a number but the [return] project as such.”Of the 944,000 Syrian citizens in Germany, 663,000 have temporary, war-related residency permits. Around 250,000 Syrians have already acquired German citizenship in the past decade while official figures suggest around 3,700 Syrians returned home last year. Many in the chancellor’s party doubt that loud talk of deportations will impress – and win back – voters who have turned to the anti-immigration, anti-Islam Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Source:The Irish Times
April 03, 2026 07:04 UTC
Europe must prepare for ‘long-lasting’ energy shock; Trump renews threat to attack Iran’s infrastructure
The attack caused material damage to parts of the facility, Kuwait’s ministry of electricity, water and renewable energy said. Kuwait and other Gulf nations have been bearing the brunt of Iranian strikes since war erupted on February 28th. Hyundai Motor, the world’s third-biggest automaker by sales with its affiliate Kia Corp, warned that even if the Iran war ended soon the impact would linger. More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran during the war, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel. According to Iran’s state media, eight people were killed and 95 others were wounded in the US attack.
Source:The Irish Times
April 03, 2026 06:56 UTC
Extra 300 people join live register amid warnings of softening jobs market
An additional 300 people joined the live register last month amid warnings of a softening in the jobs market to bring the seasonally adjusted total to 171,100. The unadjusted live register total stood at 168,072 people for March, of which 56.3 per cent were male and 71 per cent were Irish. The 25-34 years age group made up the largest number of those on the live register in March at 39,854 people, or 23.7 per cent of the total. “This softening of the jobs market has been ongoing for an extended period and suggests a slowdown in job creation,” Kennedy said. There were 115,199 people on the live register for less than one year, which was 11,230 more people – up 10.8 per cent – than in March last year.
Source:The Irish Times
April 03, 2026 06:54 UTC
Celebrity influencer initiates High Court damages claim against Web Summit company
Simonetta Lein at the World Influencers and Bloggers Awards in Cannes in 2022. Photograph: Tim P Whitby/GettyA celebrity model, influencer and businesswoman has initiated High Court proceedings seeking damages arising from alleged breach of an alleged agreement for her participation in the Web Summit in Doha in February. Simonetta Amabile, otherwise Simonetta Lein, is suing Connected Intelligence Limited, trading as Web Summit, with registered offices at Dartry Road, Dublin. She is host of The Simonetta Lein Show and chief executive and co-founder of Ausonia Partners, a media and public relations agency with headquarters in Pennsylvania. She is seeking damages on grounds including alleged breach of agreement, alleged negligent misstatement and/or misrepresentation, alleged defamation and alleged economic loss.
Source:The Irish Times
April 03, 2026 06:34 UTC
‘Nobody wants to live like this’: Pearse House residents say they live with rats, mould
Eileen Nalty and her granddaughter Zia at Pearse House Blocks L, M, N and P – known as the ’Small Flats’ – which are due an upgrade. Eileen Nalty and her granddaughter Zia (18 months) at Pearse House. Photograph: Bryan O’BrienDamp and mould under the kitchen sink of Eileen Nalty's flat at Pearse House. I don’t work, I look after the kids, so we won’t get a mortgage.”Joanne lawless at her Pearse House flat. Pearse House Blocks L,M,N and P known as the ’Small Flats’.
Source:The Irish Times
April 03, 2026 06:33 UTC
This German thinker sounded an alarm about the EU and the US – are we ready to listen? – The Irish Times
The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, who died last month, was understandably despondent about much in the autumn of his career. One of the consistent warnings of Habermas this century related to the implications of US foreign policy. In 2003, he authored an article with fellow famed philosopher Jacques Derrida, in the context of the US invasion of Iraq. Habermas returned to these ideas last year; the need, he suggested, was for the EU “to find a redemptive response to the new situation”. These are questions that will dominate Ireland’s presidency of the Council of the EU this year.
Source:The Irish Times
April 03, 2026 06:32 UTC
MetroLink chief’s shock resignation could spook construction market
Sean Sweeney, MetroLink programme director, was instrumental in securing the deal with the residents, which he later revealed would cost about €30 million. Then, on Thursday, came the shock announcement of Sweeney’s resignation, to take effect from June. Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), Sweeney’s employer, and Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien were quick to say his resignation would not delay MetroLink. TII is just weeks away from submitting fresh cost estimates to the Government for sanction to seek bids to build MetroLink. The new estimates will undoubtedly be higher, and while they would have to be at the extreme upper end to pose a real risk to the project, MetroLink is not through the gap yet.
Source:The Irish Times
April 03, 2026 06:31 UTC
Struggling French vineyards turn excess wine into ethanol
Brussels has approved plans that will see excess wine produced in Bordeaux, Burgundy and other French regions used for other purposes. French vineyards are struggling due to shifting drinking habits that have seen people consume less alcohol. Burgundy is one of the regions where excess wine will be distilled into ethanol due to oversupply. The French government has separately been subsidising vineyards to uproot vines, in an attempt to tamp down the amount of wine produced. In a statement, EU agriculture commissioner Christophe Hansen said French wine producers, the “backbone of Europe’s viticultural heritage”, were facing “unprecedented” challenges.
Source:The Irish Times
April 03, 2026 06:31 UTC