Sinn Fein assembly member Alex Maskey is recovering after suffering a minor heart attack.
Mr Maskey was brought to hospital after he fell ill on Christmas Day.
The party said in a statement that the South Belfast MLA remained in a stable condition and was now resting.
The 53-year-old, who became Sinn Fein’s first lord mayor of Belfast in June 2002, was said to be responding well to treatment in hospital.
By David Gordon
26 December 2005
A total of 77 PSNI officers have been detected speeding on duty in a single year and none of them has received a ticket, newly released figures showed today.
The statistics relate to the period September 30, 2004 to September 30 this year and have been compiled in a UK-wide investigation by the London-based news agency the Press Association (PA).
The special report found that to date, all the speeding Ulster officers have been exempted under road traffic regulations from receiving a fixed penalty notice or being prosecuted.
It was also revealed by PA that the PSNI had a rate of 0.01 speeding incidents per officer.
This put it well down the UK league table for police forces.
Essex police topped the table with 5,269 in just six months - a rate of 3.26 per officer per year.
Second highest was Bedfordshire with 2,519 in a year, or a rate of 2.04 for each officer.
The survey data, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, showed huge variations in the number of speeding cases in forces, and in how senior officers decided to deal with them.
The Metropolitan Police recorded the highest number of offences, 25,486, but only 16 officers were convicted of an offence.
In comparison, 251 Greater Manchester officers were photographed by speed cameras and 27 either paid fines or were taken to court (11% of the total);
The RAC Foundation’s head of traffic and road safety Kevin Delaney, who was a policeman for 30 years, said:
“It is difficult to explain the huge difference between the Met and Greater Manchester Police, which are both large urban forces with presumably broadly similar numbers of cameras.
“It seems the Met is working from a presumption that every cop who triggers a speed camera must have a good reason to do so. That presumption is the wrong way around.”
The PSNI had no comment to make today on the PA figures.
Deceased said he was Sean Angus Donnelly of Omagh
By Ben Lowry
26 December 2005
A Kentucky coroner has made a fresh appeal for help in identifying a man, believed to be from Northern Ireland, who was buried as a pauper.
Hopes that the mystery man, who is thought to have been living under an assumed identity, would be named by Christmas failed.
The man had told his partner, who lived with him in Louisville for the last two years of his life, that his name was Sean Angus Donnelly, and that he was aged 45, but she never saw documentation to this effect.
The man told her that he was an Irish nationalist from Omagh who had been shot at one of the Army checkpoints in Belfast, but she never met relatives of his or heard him talking to them.
The dead man lay embalmed for a month after he died of natural causes on October 29.
He was then buried in a pauper’s grave at the end of November because no next of kin had been located. The service was only attended by a number of staff from the coroner’s office.
The Deputy Coroner for Jefferson County, Jo Ann Farmer, has now appealed for someone in the PSNI to get in touch.
“At this time of year, we find it very sad to bury someone with no-one who knows him there, particularly when there is a good chance that he has family somewhere,” she said,
Ms Farmer added: “We can’t find anything on him. I wonder if someone from the police department there could contact us. I suspect he has probably been arrested and has spent time there (Northern Ireland).
“If someone from the police department contacts me, then we will try to get them a copy of the fingerprints and then maybe we will be able to make a positive identification.”
The Belfast Telegraph has been passed this picture of Mr Donnelly by Jefferson County Coroner’s Office as part of the bid to identify him.
The man was around 6ft tall, spoke with a “thick” Irish accent and had a Playboy tattoo on his left arm.
Ms Farmer can be contacted by telephone on (00 1) 502 777 87 16.
It is the second security alert within two months
Racing at Down Royal racecourse in County Down has been abandoned following a bomb alert.
Thousands were forced to leave the Boxing Day meeting near Hillsborough after a telephone warning that a bomb had been left at the course.
Mike Todd, manager of Down Royal, said the remaining six races would be run on Tuesday with free admission for all.
In November, the Continuity IRA was blamed for an alert which cut short the high-profile NI Festival of Racing.
Organisers said that alert cost them tens of thousands of pounds.
Afterwards, the organisers promised a free £5 bet to everyone attending the next races - the Boxing Day meeting.
On Monday, the committee of the racecourse thanked everyone for leaving in an orderly manner.
They condemned those behind the bomb warning, but said they would not be outdone by a “tiny minority who are determined to ruin one of the few shared sporting events in this region”.
Edward Davie
Mon, 26 Dec 2005 00:01:00 GMT+00
Peter Hain has attacked the Tories for abandoning the cross-party approach to the Northern Ireland peace process, and has called on David Cameron to restore co-operation.
Describing the Conservatives’ position as “a great shame,” the Ulster secretary attacked the opposition for failing to support the government as they bid to restore devolution.
Hain is particularly angry that the Tories have been trying to block the Northern Ireland offences bill which includes controversial measures to allow ‘on the run’ terror suspects to escape jail.
Hain told this website: “I think there is a need for more inclusivity on the floor of the House of Commons.”
And he went on: “It’s not to say you can’t have an argument over a detail in a bill, but when it is an essential building block to getting peace then we are entitled to their support, having backed them on similar, if not even more controversial moves.”
The cabinet minister said the Conservatives’ current attitude is in stark contrast to Labour’s approach when John Major’s government was negotiating with the IRA.
He said: “The opposition parties used to support the government, as we did when we were in opposition and John Major started talking to the IRA.
“We supported him and it was a tough thing to do, people didn’t like the fact that we supported the government when the IRA had only recently being setting off bombs.
“They set off the bomb in Canary Wharf after his government started negotiating with the IRA, and we still backed the Tory’s dialogue with them.”
And he went on call for newly elected Conservative leader David Cameron to change his party’s approach.
“I think we are entitled to expect more bi-partisan support from the opposition than we’ve got in recent times.
“I hope there will be a fresh approach under the new Tory leadership.
“I think it is a great shame that the bipartisan policy which helped deliver peace and stability, unparalleled peace and stability for Northern Ireland, should have been broken by the opposition in recent years,” he said.
Here is a fellow Livejournaler who posts the ’subscription’ only news from Sinn Féin.
This is the link for the most recent edition:
**Great photo for this week too!
RHIANNON EDWARD
Mon 26 Dec 2005
Charlotte at home with her mother Debbie yesterday
Key points
• ‘Right-to-life’ case baby enjoys first Christmas at home
• Family decribe Charlotte Wyatt as ‘happy and relaxed’
Key quote
“She was looking at the Christmas tree with all the lights. She was looking around the room and taking it all in.” - Debbie Wyatt
PROFOUNDLY disabled Charlotte Wyatt was surrounded by presents as she spent her first Christmas at home with her family yesterday.
Debbie Wyatt, 24, and Darren, 33, said their baby girl was happy and relaxed at their home in Portsmouth, Hampshire, during her two-hour, unsupervised visit. Mrs Wyatt said: “It was the best Christmas present we could ask for having Charlotte home.
“She was looking at the Christmas tree with all the lights. She was looking around the room and taking it all in. She seemed happy and she was really relaxed. We didn’t have any problems at all with her.”
The two-year-old weighed only 1lb and measured just 5in long when she was born three months prematurely on 21 October, 2003. She has serious brain, lung and kidney damage and was at the centre of a right-to-life court case.
Her survival has confounded predictions that she would succumb to a respiratory infection.
Mr Wyatt collected his daughter in a taxi from St Mary’s Hospital, in Portsmouth, and pushed her in a buggy into their home where a pile of presents was waiting. Mrs Wyatt said: “She opened her presents and she was playing with her toys. She was even watching the cartoons on the television.
“She needs stimulating, so we bought her lots of things with bright lights and sounds.”
She added: “It made Christmas complete because last year Charlotte was in an oxygen box. The year before that she was in an incubator. Hopefully next year we should have her home for good.
“I just want to say thank you to the hospital because they have kept Charlotte alive and just to say thank you for letting us have Charlotte home for Christmas.”
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