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This DD India video shows the prime ministers of all the Nordic Nations in meetings with prime minster Modi of India- the prime ministers of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland. India has strengthened relations on 3 levels - the bilateral, Nordics as a group, Nordics as part of European Union, for close understanding and close cooperation over the next 15 years. Norway has a plan for 15 year collaboration with India in a range of fields including for its Sovereign Fund. It is now at the level of a new Green and Strategic Partnership that shares close goals and a common spirit. The PM of India used the word "sambandh", and the PM of Iceland brought this up as a spiritual basis of the cooperation that was the main and common feeling bringing these nations of Northern Europe into a spiritual bonding with India over the next 15 years around shared values of democracy, rules based order, and rule of law, everything that India treasures in Western civilization and Europe in Indian civilization. The relationship is shared across all fields including scientific and technological cooperation, education, space, agriculture and fisheries, industry, renewable energy, defense, other fields. ...

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No one in Northern Ireland wants to go back to the sectarian clashes of the twentieth century says one resident of the region. Most people recall the divided barricaded border with watchtowers and helicopters with extreme anguish. All that was dismantled long ago. But Northern Ireland still looks to the outside for help. Will president Biden bring new investment in the region? Can the Sinn Fein and DUP be persuaded to work together with US participation. A new generation has moved away from the sectarian to the economic issues of the cost of living and provision of public services in education and healthcare across the region. This was affirmed by Sinn Fein winning 27 seats the largest bloc in the 2022 election where focus was on economic issues and the quality of life. Because of Mr. Biden's very personal connection to Ireland there is much hope in Ireland for a new chapter to be written again. There is also a different sentiment in Britain with Keir Starmer's experience as human rights adviser to the Northern Ireland Policing Board. Starmer attributes his decision to go into politics to this experience seeing the changes he could make in Northern Ireland from the inside. The switch to a government by Labour could come at a good time for Northern Ireland and for Scotland.  ...

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Something profound is taking place in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Colonial attitudes of the British for centuries are making way for a new generationof Protestants and Catholics who are taking interest in the Irish language and the feeling of being both Irish and British, seeing all that was Irish from the early period of Christianity many centuries ago. Irish cosigns with English and classes/schools in Irish in Belfast ,Northern Ireland, as Unionist areas take up Irish along with the British identity. The Washington Post provides this wonderful look at this ancient language. In Irish Belfast is "Beal Fierste" meaning mouth of the Sandy Ford. Maidin mhaith is "good morning" and one can hear short audio practice of Irish in this report. The government is actively promoting Irish and buses show Irish as they make their way from East Belfast to West Belfast. A sense of equality is in the air and Irish is now spoken on the streets of Belfast. Protestant parents are signing up their children jn Irish language preschools and 35 primary schools are in Irish in Belfast. Such is the change happening to Ireland these days. ...

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Polls show about 69% of people in Northern Ireland support the Good Friday Agreement that was signed 25 years ago with US help. About 55% see improvements can be made to that agreement. With the new generation of Irish there is now a significant part of Northern Ireland that sees itself as not identifying with the Unionists who favor links with Britain or the Nationalists who favor reunification with Ireland. Over this period of peaceful coexistence of the Catholics and the Protestants in Northern Ireland who are still largely segregated, there is even a sense that reunification and joining the European Union is an option for Northern Ireland following Brexit. 

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Riots in Northern Ireland in April 2021 with the combined effects of crime, Brexit and the coronavirus leading to social unrest.

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It is a sign of hope in Europe that the period known as the "Troubles" is over. Emma Little-Pengelly of the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland has dropped the boycott of the Assembly. She is assuming the post of second minister.  Little Pengelly says that we are shaped by the past but we are not defined by it. The party with most seats in the Assembly gained by looking out for people of both communities for housing and other basic needs is Sinn Fein's Michelle O'Neill. This is a new form of what PM Modi has called "Nari Shakti" or women's outlook and strength in Britain bringing peace and development to the island of Ireland. The Indian parliament was recently opened by a woman president Ms. Murmu and the Budget presented the next day by Ms. Sitharaman. Michelle O'Neill says we are not asking to move on, we are asking only to move forward. Such are the changes happening on opposite ends of the former British Empire as Modi moves forward with "sab ka vikas sab ke sath," development for all by all, and in Ireland with release of $4 billion by the Sunak UK government northern Ireland can move forward with meeting people's needs. Both Catholic and Protestant communities are asked to work with each other under the Good Friday Agreement and power is shared for helping people of both communities get better housing, education and other needs for themselves and their children. ...

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Queen Elizabeth felt deeply for the Irish people and their struggles under British after 1603, and sent a clear message to people in England through her visits to Ireland and Northern Ireland.  

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In working class areas of Northern Ireland, both Catholic and protestant, there is areal sense of disillusionment. As sense that the promise of opportunities never materialized. Educational underachievement and child poverty has increased, made worse by the cost of living crisis. Twenty five years after the Good Friday Agreement ended sectarian clashes between Catholics and Protestants, there is the feeling that this part of Ireland has been left behind economically. The lack of a government in Stormont means decisions for improving health and education or providing social services are not taken.

The 2020 elections showed Sinn Fein focusing on the economy and improvements in the quality of living. In this sense all Irish people are looking for a better life, better governance, and interest in their future from the outside, particularly now that the pandemic is over.

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President Biden whose ancestors are Irish will visit Northern Ireland in an effort to hail the 25 year old deal that brought an uneasy peace between the two communities in Northern Ireland, the Catholics and the Protestants. The Catholics were discriminated against for centuries and wished to join Ireland, and the Protestants identified with Britain and wanted to remain part of Britain. Joining him will be the prime ministers of Britain and Ireland.

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Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland says in the NYT that some way has to be found to respect the vote of 55% in Northern Ireland in favor of remaining in the European Union. He says Northern Ireland and Scotland should not be made to leave the EU because of a different preference expressed in England and Wales. He points to one of the most harmful effects of the Brexit i- the return to a hard  border between the EU state of Ireland and Northern Ireland. This will affect the economic, healthcare, tourism, business and cultural links of Ireland in the north and south, and reverses the gains of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. He calls it a result of factional infighting in the Tory party, the rise of far right anti immigrant groups such as UKIP, and the Gove faction which never really supported the peace deal in Ireland that has brought two decades of peace. Adams says concurrent referendums for a united Ireland is one solution to this problem. Another is an All Ireland forum of political parties and civic partners to meet, and for the Irish Government to stand behind the Good Friday Agreement, so that the Brexit does not hurt the interests of Ireland as a whole. ...

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Brexit Leave was only supported by a minority of Northern Ireland voters, only 44%. British prime minister May insists that the open borders established through the 1998 Good Friday Agreement will be maintained between Northern Ireland and Ireland. May met with Northern Ireland's leader, Martin McGuiness, following a meeting with Scotland's SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, to assure other parts of the UK that opposed "Leave" that their views will be respected. May says the union is very important to her, and says about the  border- "We had a common travel area between the UK and the Republic of Ireland many years before either country was a member of the European Union. Nobody wants to return to the borders of the past."

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Peter Baker accompanied president Clinton for the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland in 1998. US president Biden now visits Northern Ireland and parts of Ireland where his ancestors lived.

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Ireland's prime minister Enda Kenny says following the Brexit vote that is seen as a disaster for Northern Ireland-"My first interest is Ireland's interests, the protection of the common travel area, the peace process, the open border." Other issues facing Ireland are economic- British people will find Ireland's exports costlier by 10 percent, and make Ireland costlier for British tourists who make up 41% of all Ireland's tourists. Ireland's effort to build an all island health system is also at risk. As Ireland tackles this economic problem it is also moving to attract new business to relocate in Dublin. Among ordinary people the fears are more basic- no one wants to go back to the old days and the sectarian strife and conflicts. For most people the open borders mean a great deal- an achievement that took a long, long time, and no one can see this being reversed overnight, which is why Northern Ireland voted 58% to remain in the EU. ...

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The Guardian newspaper in Britain says the EU proposals of Boris Johnson's minority government do not face up to the realities. The three problems with the proposals are failure to consider the will of all the people of Ireland and Northern Ireland who favor a open and free border between the two Irelands. The DUP is the party in Ireland that does not speak for the whole of Ireland or Northern Ireland, its people voted to Remain in the European Union, and Johnson is following the DUP.  The Good Friday Agreement and the Irish peace accords include moral and political obligations made by Britain. Boris Johnson and Tory hardliners do not plan to respect these commitments to an open free flowing border in Ireland.  The vague customs arrangements between the UK and the EU are not what the EU would consider as normal and are problem for consumers and public. It creates a hole in EU customs arrangements and is not a workable solution. For these reasons the Guardian rejects the idea that this is a compromise, and finds the word "perfidy," or breaking promises to the Irish people, and in new ways from Tory hardliners from the past. ...

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The government of Theresa May and the EU appear to be on a collision course with the release of the EU draft legal agreement that says Northern Ireland must remain in the customs union and future arbitration or appeal would be under the European Court of Justice.

Ireland favors the EU draft and sees it as a default solution to avoiding a hard border with Northern Ireland if it becomes necessary. Theresa May and the DUP party of Ireland on whom the prime minister depends for her coalition government's thin majority support in parliament, both reject the EU solution. 

The Labor Party says it would solve the Irish border issue by entering into a new customs union with the EU, so that no checks are needed at the border for people and goods. The Labor party sees it as vital to prevent any effort to undermine the Good Friday Agreement that forms the basis of the peace in Northern Ireland.

 

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Boris Johnson's new Brexit plan leaves Northern Ireland out of the customs union with the European Union which could be a sticking point for Ireland and the European Union. The plan has other issues that will require to be resolved including the lack of adequate customs checks for goods entering Britain from the European Union. Northern Ireland's government can change any association with the European Union in 4 years is another sticking point that could put at risk the peace agreement in Northern Ireland.

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King Charles view that Britain "is not an island" are opposite of Brexiters and Liz Truss who see Britain as an island apart from Europe, says this editorial in The Guardian. King Charles views on Irish issues are well known and the efforts of the Tories to make things difficult for Ireland and Northern Ireland to work within the Peace Accords is seen by The Guardian as a sign that Ms. Truss and Mr. Johnson now find themselves working against the views held by Prince Charles as the constitutional head of Britain's government. Queen Elizabeth and the royal family have worked for decades to build good relations with Ireland, setting history aside. The Tories have said clearly that the monarchy has not just the right but a duty to make its views known, says the Guardian. And Charles has no hesitation in making these views known. Will the Tories and Liz Truss, now work with the Irish government under Michael Martin and take the advice of president Biden to build relations of the two Irelands within the Irish peace Accords, asks this editorial. ...