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This is where you can come for my take on the big Stormont stories and the politicians making the news
3 hours ago
Have you given much thought lately to how we might settle the Transdniestrian problem?
I confess I haven't - as a former United Nations correspondent I like to think I keep across a fair range of international news - Syria, Libya, Afghanistan etc...
15:55 UK time, Friday, 3 February 2012
After finishing off last night's Maze Conflict Transformation Centre report for BBC Newsline, I headed up to Ashfield Boys' School to chair this year's East Belfast Speaks Out event.
Because I had been working right up to 6.30pm I must admit I didn't have much time to research my introductions to the political panellists.
06:32 UK time, Tuesday, 31 January 2012
After returning from a week trying to ski I thought I was the world's expert at falling flat on my face, going backwards when I should be going forwards and colliding into my nearest and dearest. Then I clocked back in to work at Stormont and realised the Ulster Unionists were providing me with stiff competition.
Having been stuck in a snowy rut as others swept effortlessly past, I can appreciate a bit of what Tom Elliott must have felt as he learned of Peter Robinson's trip to the McKenna cup.
22:56 UK time, Friday, 13 January 2012
Alex Salmond reckons the Westminster politicians have been behaving like bullies.
Nick Clegg tells the Scottish First Minister not to get so "jumpy".
21:56 UK time, Monday, 9 January 2012
After visting Edinburgh last June, I speculated that Alex Salmond would introduce a third option of fiscal autonomy into his independence referendum in order to guarantee the SNP a victory of some kind.
David Cameron's Conservatives are now considering cutting that option off, by dictating the timing of the poll and insisting it should be a straight choice between staying in or leaving the UK.
16:07 UK time, Sunday, 8 January 2012
Should the mainstream Stormont parties engage in dialogue with dissident republicans?
Would such a process serve any purpose, or simply provide such factions with, what Margaret Thatcher, much in the news this week, used to refer to as, the "oxygen of publicity"?
15:23 UK time, Thursday, 5 January 2012
So Michael O'Neill wants to make the Northern Ireland football team more inclusive and persuade some of those players who have opted for the Republic of Ireland to reconsider their decisions.
As the contributors to Shane Harrison's package on Good Morning Ulster pointed out on Thursday, there are a variety of potential obstacles in the way, including the national anthem and the Windsor Park venue for home internationals.
14:37 UK time, Wednesday, 4 January 2012
Anyone assuming 2012 would be the year during which the SDLP and UUP launch a collective fight-back against the DUP/Sinn Fein duopoly at Stormont won't have had to wait too long before having their expectations challenged.
Instead both parties appear to be involved in navel gazing.
16:16 UK time, Tuesday, 13 December 2011
Thursday sees the first meeting of the joint group on corporation tax which brings Stormont and Westminster politicians together.
Although the outcome of last week's Euro summit may have put a question mark over the future rate of Irish corporation tax, the executive remains agreed in principle that it wants the tax devolved.
18:16 UK time, Monday, 5 December 2011
So are you a unionist or a nationalist?
I'm not talking about all that British and Irish stuff we spend every waking hour talking about.
15:17 UK time, Monday, 28 November 2011
We are just two days into Peter Robinson's new era of "all of us" politics replacing the old "them and us" confrontations. So I thought I would dip into assembly proceedings to check how it's going.
There was the Employment and Learning Minister Stephen Farry on his feet. The minister was dealing with the sustainability of Northern Ireland's separate teacher training colleges - Stranmillis in south Belfast which trains teachers for the non-denominational state sector and St Mary's in west Belfast which caters for Catholic maintained schools.
15:53 UK time, Friday, 25 November 2011
I've been looking through the BBC's archive in recent days, selecting a few clips of past reports for an anecdotal talk on Tuesday of next week, for which you can find more details here.
One clip I came across from an old Spotlight programme features the former direct rule minister Richard Needham talking about his mobile phone conversations being intercepted by paramilitaries.
16:20 UK time, Wednesday, 23 November 2011
The initial response from the main UK parties to Sir Christopher Kelly's report on political finance has been lukewarm.
The main theme echoed by politicians is that the current economic climate makes it hard to conceive of any more taxpayers' money being diverted to fund political parties.
18:20 UK time, Thursday, 17 November 2011
Sometimes at Stormont you just can't make it up. I was trying to record a TV broadcast in the Great Hall, analysing the content of the executive's draft programme for government, when I found myself distracted not by headline grabbing investment targets, but by a collection of would be beauty queens.
They turned out to be contestants in a "Miss Ulster" competition taking place in the assembly building.
18:19 UK time, Tuesday, 8 November 2011
Remember the marathon talks at Hillsborough Castle in January and February 2010? Those of us who got chilblains hanging around outside won't forget them in a hurry.
Gordon Brown, Brian Cowen and their ministers worked around the clock to ensure the peace process didn't run off the rails.
13:28 UK time, Monday, 7 November 2011
Last week my colleague Gareth Gordon had a bit of fun, analysing the unlikely rock anthems which political parties choose to play as their leaders stride towards their conference stages. If he had held off a few days he might have had another couple of ditties to add to his list.
Not so much Martin Solveig and Dragonette's "Hello", which greeted Alasdair McDonnell as he climbed the steps towards the SDLP's podium, but "Blinded By The Light", the old 70s Bruce Springsteen number taken to the Number One slot by Manfred Mann's Earth Band.
20:13 UK time, Saturday, 5 November 2011
When Patsy McGlone decided to challenge Margaret Ritchie for the SDLP leadership, one of his first stops was the Glens of Antrim holiday home of the South Belfast MP Alasdair McDonnell.
Mr McGlone and Mr McDonnell were firm friends, who worked closely together when the South Belfast MP last stood unsuccessfully for his party's top job.
16:21 UK time, Monday, 31 October 2011
Martina Purdy, standing in for Mark Devenport, looks at where the Irish presidential election result leaves Martin McGuinness.
"I don't think Martin has lost an election," said Sinn Fein's Conor Murphy, speaking on BBC Radio Ulster about the Republic of Ireland presidential election result. "Not that I can recall," he quickly added.
16:08 UK time, Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Having spent much of the Irish Presidential campaign criticising the media for its trenchant questions about his IRA past, last night Martin McGuinness turned interrogator during RTE's final election debate.
Armed with information about the role played by independent candidate Sean Gallagher in a Fianna Fail fund raising event in Dundalk in July 2008, Mr McGuinness first elicited what sounded like a denial from the candidate, then warned him he was getting into "deep trouble".
12:41 UK time, Friday, 21 October 2011
Two major international stories were featured on the BBC 10 o'clock news on Thursday night, both with a direct connection to Northern Ireland.
The grisly death of Muammar Gaddafi inevitably dominated, but the bulletin also found space for the Basque separatist Eta's "definitive cessation of violence".
BBC journalist since 1980s. Reporter for Spotlight, Ireland Correspondent covering IRA ceasefire and Good Friday Agreement, United Nations Correspondent in New York, Stormont Political Editor since 2001.
Covered stories in Somalia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Israel.
Author of Flash Frames -12 Years Reporting Belfast and co -author of Man of War, Man of Peace: a biography of Gerry Adams
Once worked as a trainee reporter for Indian newspaper "The Hindu".
Educated in Oxford before going to university in Cambridge to study history
Liverpool and Oxford United supporter.
Mark has an inherited condition which means he can't eat sweets
Betsan Powys
Political editor, Wales
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