Latest news with #Finucane
Belfast Telegraph
6 days ago
- General
- Belfast Telegraph
UK government must provide certainty to Troubles victims, Sinn Fein says
John Finucane was commenting after he and party vice president Michelle O'Neill met Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn in Belfast to discuss legacy issues. Since taking office last year, the Labour government has pledged to repeal and replace some of the provisions of the contentious Legacy Act that was introduced by the last Conservative government, and bring forward a revised framework for dealing with cases linked to the Troubles. The Irish government has been involved in the process, and political leaders in Dublin have said intensive engagement is ongoing to see if a 'landing zone' can be arrived at in the coming weeks. The Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 halted scores of civil cases and inquests into Troubles deaths and also offered conditional immunity to perpetrators of conflict-related crimes in exchange for their co-operation with a new investigatory and truth recovery body. The Act was opposed by all the main political parties in Northern Ireland, the Irish government and many victims' representative groups. In 2023, the Irish government initiated an interstate legal case against the UK in the European Court of Human Rights, claiming the Legacy Act breached the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The case remains active, with ministers in Dublin wanting to see how Labour resolves its concerns over the legislation before any decision is taken to withdraw the action. Mr Benn's engagement with Sinn Fein on Wednesday was part of a round of discussions with the main Stormont parties. Alliance leader Naomi Long and deputy leader Eoin Tennyson also had a meeting at the NIO offices in Belfast city centre on Wednesday. The UUP held an online meeting with Mr Benn while the SDLP's discussions took place on Tuesday. The DUP will hold a meeting with the Northern Ireland Secretary at a later date. After the Sinn Fein meeting, Mr Finucane said there was a need for families to have a route to seek truth and justice. 'Today was an opportunity for us to reiterate and speak on behalf of those families that have been treated disgracefully by the Legacy Act and that have been left in limbo really since Labour came into government last July,' he told reporters. 'Those families who have had their inquests halted, those families who have uncertainty and who, after many years, still find themselves in a position where they don't know if they will receive truth and justice.' Mr Finucane said he and Ms O'Neill also raised the case of murdered GAA official Sean Brown. Mr Benn has applied for a Supreme Court appeal on judicial rulings in Belfast that compel him to establish a public inquiry into the 1997 murder by loyalist paramilitaries. Mr Brown, 61, the then-chairman of Wolfe Tones GAA Club in the Co Londonderry town of Bellaghy, was ambushed, kidnapped and murdered as he locked the gates of the club in May 1997. No-one has ever been convicted of his killing. Mr Finucane said: 'We made it very clear in the meeting that on behalf of Sean Brown's family that there needs to be a full public inquiry established and announced without any further delay. 'We talked about the fact that five High Court judges here have endorsed consistently the family's position and we criticised without any equivocation his (Mr Benn's) decision to take this family, to take Bridie Brown (Mr Brown's 87-year-old widow) and her family to London for an appeal.' Alliance leader Ms Long described her meeting with Mr Benn as 'constructive'. 'We're very conscious of the impact that the legacy process and lack of a formal and comprehensive legacy process has had on victims, and our priority in all of this is to ensure that victims' families' rights and needs are properly respected in that process,' she said. 'We're on record as having said that we don't believe that the Legacy Act as passed by the last government is fit for purpose, and the courts agreed with us in that regard. 'I would have preferred if that Legacy Act had been repealed and replaced (in full) and we have said that. However, that's not the space we're in, and so what we are doing now is trying to ensure that whatever the Secretary of State brings forward is a clean and fresh start in terms of how we deal with legacy and one that puts the victims at the heart of all that we do.' Ms Long, who is Stormont's Justice minister, said achieving 'consensus' on a new framework was key. 'We're not in that space yet, but I remain hopeful that there is a possibility we could be in that space, and I think that that would be the best outcome for everyone,' she said. 'This being a contested space where nothing progresses, where nothing moves forward, is not good for families. It's not fair on them that they are constantly at the whim of political change. What we need now is substantive progress.' Ahead of Wednesday's meetings, Mr Benn said the Government was committed to finding a system 'capable of delivering for all families who are seeking answers around the loss of their loved ones'. 'I am continuing to work with all of the Northern Ireland parties over what should be included in that legislation,' he said. 'It is important that new legacy arrangements are capable of commanding the confidence of families and of all communities.'
Wales Online
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wales Online
Documentary celebrates success of Welsh cycling hero Emma Finucane
Documentary celebrates success of Welsh cycling hero Emma Finucane Finucane became the first British woman in 60 years to win three medals at the same Olympic Games in Paris last summer Olympic champion Emma Finucane (Image: John Myers ) A documentary has been made about the young life and meteoric rise of Welsh cyclist and Olympic hero Emma Finucane. The cycling star, 22, made history in Paris last summer when she became the first British woman in 60 years to win three medals at the same Olympic Games and the first Welsh athlete to ever achieve that feat. The Paris Olympics was not the Carmarthen cyclist's first taste of success by a long shot - in 2022 she came home from the Commonwealth Games having won two bronze medals for Wales, while in 2023 she won a gold medal at the World Championships in Glasgow, a feat she repeated last year at the 2024 championships in Denmark. It's all a far cry from when Finucane used to whizz around the historic velodrome at Carmarthen Park as a young girl with Towy Riders cycle club, a group which is still going strong today. Stay informed on Carms news by signing up to our newsletter here . Now, a Cardiff-based student has made a 'powerful short documentary' capturing Finucane's rise to the top of world cycling. The film - Pedal to Paris: The Emma Finucane Story - will premiere at Nantgaredig Rugby Club, in partnership with Towy Riders, next Monday. The film will then be made publicly available the following day, on Tuesday, June 3. Finucane celebrates with friends and family after winning one of her three medals at the Paris Olympics last year (Image: Getty Images ) Article continues below We caught up with Finucane at Carmarthen Park last year, just weeks after she returned home from Paris with three Olympic medals around her neck. 'I remember, when I was seven years old, coming here with my brother and sister,' she said. 'We lived just across the road. I would go round and round the track on my little pink bike with tassels on it. That was it - I was hooked.' On her success, she said: 'It has changed my life. I'm still the same old Emma, but you are kind of in a bubble at the Olympics so you don't really see what's going on around you. "But then you come back home and I've been asked for pictures in Tesco a couple of times and people say: 'Ooh, I've seen you on the telly!' 'I love it. I love being home and coming back to see everyone. I'm very honoured to be asked to attend events. I don't come home often and to be recognised for what I've done at the Olympics is amazing. 'As athletes we obviously have our own ambitions in terms of winning but I want people to watch us and get on their bikes. I want to inspire people to get out there and cycle - it's a healthy way of life. Article continues below "Sport is amazing, it gives you energy, and I want to use my platform to help young girls and boys get into sprint cycling.'
The Guardian
27-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
The real problem with the Signal chat leak is it shows systemic dishonesty
The problem with the now infamous Signal chat read around the world is not just that sensitive military-operations details were broadcast, but that this reveals a pattern of what appears to be institutional dishonesty inside the Trump administration and the legal ramifications that presents. The leak exposes a system of broken accountability, where high-ranking officials can spill military secrets with apparent near-total immunity. Despite potential violations of classification protocols, federal record-keeping laws and promises of operational security, the leaders look to face no meaningful legal consequences. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, and the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, have doubled down on the administration's position that none of the messages in the Signal chat were classified, claiming they amounted to a 'team update' that did not name intelligence-collection sources or methods. But Brian Finucane, a former state department attorney with extensive experience in counter-terrorism and military operations, including deliberating and advising on past US military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen, said the specificity of the information about the aircraft types suggests it was classified. 'If I had seen that sort of information beforehand, that was shared with the special operation, in my experience, it would have been classified,' Finucane said. 'I can't guarantee what the state of the information was that Hegseth shared, but in my experience, this kind of pre-operational detail would have been classified.' The US Department of Defense's own classification guidelines suggest the kind of detailed military plans in the Signal chat would typically be classified at least at the 'secret' level, while some of the real-time updates could have risen to a higher level of classification. The information shared by Hegseth included a summary of operational details about the operation to strike Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, such as the launch times of F-18 fighter jets, the time that the first bombs were expected to drop, and the time that naval Tomahawk missiles would be launched. Hegseth's update was sent before the operation had been carried out, and his reference to 'clean on OPSEC' – operational security – indicated he recognized the sensitivity. According to the classification guide, information about the 'date and time mission/operation begins', 'time lines/schedules' and 'concept of operations including order of battle, execution circumstances, operating locations, resources required, tactical maneuvers, deployments' would all usually be classified. The chat also included a message from Mike Waltz, the national security adviser, who shared a real-time update ('first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend's building and it's now collapsed'), which had the potential to reveal the capabilities and assets the US had in the region. Finucane explained that the primary areas of legal concern would be the Espionage Act, typically used to target whistleblowers; the Federal Records Act, for federal agencies to preserve documentation; and the Presidential Records Act, which requires the president to save all their records to be transferred to the National Archives post-term. 'The bigger-picture question is, who actually authorized what in respect to Yemen?' Finucane said. 'It's not clear what decision Trump actually made. We don't know what Trump authorized.' A former White House official said that while many in the government use Signal for convenience, this incident can only be summed up as 'complete amateur hour', and that Hegseth's over-sharing would have resulted in immediate security-clearance revocation in previous administrations. 'I would have lost my clearance,' the official said. 'I mean, these guys won't lose their clearances, because no one fucking cares about anything anymore, but if I would have done this, I would have been investigated, and I would have lost my clearance.' The web of potential misrepresentations extends beyond the White House's official denial of the chat containing any classified information. Waltz, who according to the screenshots created and invited members into the group, attempted to distance himself from the incident, claiming he had 'never met, don't know, never communicated with' Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic editor in chief – a statement complicated by the Atlantic's reporting suggesting prior communication between the two. More than a dozen top-level Trump administration leaders use a Signal group chat, rather than secure government communication channels that they are all well aware of, which raises additional questions about information handling. The officials face a potential Department of Defense inspector general investigation that could become embarrassing for the Trump administration, after the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate armed services committee asked for a review in a rare bipartisan letter on Wednesday. But the officials appear to face no criminal exposure under the Espionage Act, which makes it a crime to improperly disclose 'national defense information' regardless of its classification, in part because the Trump justice department is unlikely to prosecute its own cabinet officials. Trump said at an event with his nominees for US ambassadorships at the White House on Tuesday that it was 'not really' a matter for the FBI to investigate. Former FBI agents suggested that could be true since it did not involve an act of espionage for a foreign adversary. The immediate legal consequence is likely to come in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday that accuses Hegseth; the CIA director, John Ratcliffe; the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and others of flouting federal records-retention laws. In the 18-page suit, the watchdog group American Oversight asks a federal judge to compel the Trump administration to preserve the messages in the Signal chat, arguing that the use of a function that automatically deleted the messages after a certain time was unlawful. The suit was assigned on Wednesday to James Boasberg, the chief US district judge in Washington DC, who is also presiding in the other major national security case involving the administration, over the deportations of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act. At issue for the administration in that case is that it flouted Boasberg's verbal order to turn back flights that had already departed, and then stonewalled his inquiry into the possible violation of the order by invoking national security protections. The aggressive approach that the administration took in the deportations case could become awkward in the new lawsuit over the Signal chat, with Boasberg likely to be skeptical from the outset of officials' shifting interpretations of which materials are classified. What that would mean in practical terms remains unclear. The Atlantic magazine releasing the full Signal text chain renders some of the suit redundant, since the messages are now in the public domain. But Boasberg could, for instance, order some fact-finding into the matter.
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump vows peace but faces hard realities as war rages
Donald Trump began his second term vowing to be a peacemaker. Two months in, Israel has launched a major new offensive in Gaza, US forces are pounding Yemen, and Ukraine and Russia are exchanging fire despite his mediation. Speaking as he was sworn in on January 20, Trump said: "My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier." He pointed to a just-concluded deal, conceived by outgoing president Joe Biden but pushed through by Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff, that halted Israel's military operations in Gaza in return for the release of some hostages by Hamas, which attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. In recent days, Israel has relaunched air strikes, killing hundreds of people according to the Gaza health ministry, and renewed its ground operations. The State Department said Hamas bore "total responsibility" after rejecting a proposal by Witkoff, a Trump friend also mediating with Russia, to move toward a second phase of the Gaza ceasefire. Trump has also ordered military strikes on Yemen's Huthi insurgents after the Iranian-backed forces reopened attacks on Red Sea shipping in professed solidarity with the Palestinians. Brian Finucane, a former State Department official now at the International Crisis Group, which promotes conflict resolution, said that the narrative of Trump as peacemaker was always overstated and that his approach was erratic. Trump likes to claim wins and would relish earning the Nobel Peace Prize, seeing it as a "one of life's great achievements," Finucane said. "He was happy to claim credit for the Gaza ceasefire in January, but then unwilling to put pressure on the Israelis to move to phase two," Finucane said. Another Trump envoy held the first-ever direct US talks with Hamas, unthinkable for previous administrations, but Trump also has called for the mass removal of Gaza's two million people. "None of this is terribly coherent, but neither is it terribly surprising," Finucane said. He pointed to Trump's first term in which he threatened to annihilate North Korea before holding unprecedented summits with leader Kim Jong Un and saying that they "fell in love." - Preference for peace, but if not - Trump's aides have described his bellicose posture as part of a strategy as he seeks an ultimate goal of peace. "He's been abundantly clear. He's a president that wants to promote peace," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a radio interview Wednesday. Trump, who had boasted that he would end the Ukraine war within a day, held successive calls this week with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and voiced optimism about reaching a truce. But Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022, launched a barrage of missile and drone attacks hours after the Trump call. Jennifer Kavanaugh, director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, which supports restraint, said there was reason for optimism from Trump's Ukraine diplomacy, but that Putin has the upper hand on the ground and is not going to compromise easily. She said that Trump also did not appear to offer any concessions to Putin, despite outside criticism of his ties with the Russian leader and Trump's earlier berating of Zelensky that alarmed European allies. "To me, this was a positive step forward that set the ground for some confidence building, both between Ukraine and Russia and between Trump and European allies who are very concerned about his negotiating style," she said. - 'Hard realities' - She said it was not yet "time to give up hope for peace" from Trump. "I think what we've seen is that promises run into the hard realities of how difficult it is to get to peace in these very difficult and intractable conflicts," she said. Sina Toossi, a fellow at the progressive Center for International Policy, was less hopeful. Compared with his first term, Trump's aides such as Rubio are "more loyalists than independent power players," giving the president freer rein including for brinksmanship, Toossi said. "For Trump, foreign policy isn't about carefully negotiated peace deals. It's about performance, leverage and crafting a narrative that sells," he said. Referring to Trump's book as a hotel developer, Toossi said: "He approaches diplomacy the way he approached real estate in 'The Art of the Deal:' -- escalate tensions, maximize threats, push the situation to the brink of disaster and then, at the last minute, strike a deal." lb-sct/
