IN a world where opinions are free but facts are sacred, there is real value to reliable news.
HOW appropriate that the Justice Department at Stormont should choose Halloween as the backdrop for their latest billboard campaign warning of the alleged threat from criminal gangs marauding through West Belfast.
IN a quite extraordinary development, the Arts Council has again awarded substantial sums of money to loyalist bands which took part in a Shankill parade paying tribute to a UVF killer.
DOES PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher simply have no idea what he’s doing? Or does he know full well what he’s doing and just doesn’t care?
IT took two years for a United Nations Commission of Inquiry to find that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Two years in which how many innocents died while the wheels of international justice turned?
Our political leaders were blindsided by the most seismic change of the last two decades — the advent of social media powered by internet giants — and in the process bequeathed us arterial routes bereft of small businesses, the normalisation of racist and inflammatory hate speech, and, thank you Instagram, young people of increasingly parlous mental health driven to self-harm and suicide by cyber-bullying and trolling.
THE utter failure of unionism to address in any meaningful way the spiralling problem of sectarian and racist violence in its midst is as cynical as it is shameful.
TWO more 5G mobile phone mast have been targeted in West Belfast in the past week.
The political pooh-bahs in Leinster House are sweating profusely this week, and not because a heatwave is on the way but rather because a certain Mary Lou McDonald is pondering a run at the Áras.
OUR front page story this week about staff of the Falls Leisure Centre saving the life of Gerard Bradley, who collapsed after his regular visit to the facility, is an inspirational story of human heroism.
TRANSLINK has a big Glider problem that it needs to sort out as a matter of urgency. To be more precise, Translink has a big West Belfast Glider problem that it needs to sort out as a matter of urgency if it wants to stop a success story turning into a failure.
THE sight of the Orange Order pontificating on the local media is an odd one, when you take a step back and think about it. It has spent the past few months organising parades which feature bands supporting loyalist paramilitaries and bands which bang out viciously anti-Catholic songs, and yet it reacts hysterically when it’s called out.
The official opening of the new West Belfast Partnership Board managed offices on the Falls last week — home to both the umbrella community group and local businesses (including the Andytown News) — seems like an appropriate time to take stock of the economic wellbeing of the West.
THE annual loyalist hijacking of the old Millwall football chant, ‘No-one likes us, we don’t care’, is currently at full volume and having the desired effect in terms of the perception of unionist culture, and bonfires in particular.
THIS week we carry the first pictures of the large pile of asbestos beside a bonfire adjacent to the Westlink. The deadly waste has been the subject of some controversy in recent weeks as the large pile of toxic material is a lethal threat to the many people gathered at the site to build the structure or to drink and socialise there.
