Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said on Friday the prospect of Britain introducing laws to unilaterally overrule parts of the Northern Ireland protocol governing post-Brexit trade is causing friction in talks with the European Union.
Britain and the EU have spent months trying to agree on how to remove many of the checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK agreed to under the protocol.
A British minister said on Thursday that the two sides were at an impasse.
Local media have reported that Britain is preparing laws that could be announced as soon as next month to do away with parts of the protocol. Ministers have said they are looking at a range of options.
“What we're hearing from some voices in London at the moment is that the British government is going to effectively pass domestic legislation to override elements of international law … in order to do away with elements of the protocol,” Mr Coveney said at an event in the US.
“That is causing tension between the British government and the EU.”
Perceptions that the protocol erodes Northern Ireland's place in the UK have sparked anger in pro-British communities.
The largest unionist party, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), has said it will not enter a new power-sharing government after elections next week in the British-run province unless the protocol is completely overhauled.
Mr Coveney said the DUP stance, along with anxiety in parts of the unionist community over polls showing Irish nationalists Sinn Fein set to become the biggest party for the first time, will make forming a new administration “very, very difficult".
He said the institutions established under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement were “perhaps under more threat now than they have been at any point” since then and added that he remained hopeful that Northern Ireland would find a way out of the impasse.
The Good Friday Agreement largely ended three decades of violence between mainly Catholic nationalists seeking to merge with Ireland and Protestant unionists who want to remain part of the UK.
How to play the stock market recovery in 2021?
If you are looking to build your long-term wealth in 2021 and beyond, the stock market is still the best place to do it as equities powered on despite the pandemic.
Investing in individual stocks is not for everyone and most private investors should stick to mutual funds and ETFs, but there are some thrilling opportunities for those who understand the risks.
Peter Garnry, head of equity strategy at Saxo Bank, says the 20 best-performing US and European stocks have delivered an average return year-to-date of 148 per cent, measured in local currency terms.
Online marketplace Etsy was the best performer with a return of 330.6 per cent, followed by communications software company Sinch (315.4 per cent), online supermarket HelloFresh (232.8 per cent) and fuel cells specialist NEL (191.7 per cent).
Mr Garnry says digital companies benefited from the lockdown, while green energy firms flew as efforts to combat climate change were ramped up, helped in part by the European Union’s green deal.
Electric car company Tesla would be on the list if it had been part of the S&P 500 Index, but it only joined on December 21. “Tesla has become one of the most valuable companies in the world this year as demand for electric vehicles has grown dramatically,” Mr Garnry says.
By contrast, the 20 worst-performing European stocks fell 54 per cent on average, with European banks hit by the economic fallout from the pandemic, while cruise liners and airline stocks suffered due to travel restrictions.
As demand for energy fell, the oil and gas industry had a tough year, too.
Mr Garnry says the biggest story this year was the “absolute crunch” in so-called value stocks, companies that trade at low valuations compared to their earnings and growth potential.
He says they are “heavily tilted towards financials, miners, energy, utilities and industrials, which have all been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic”. “The last year saw these cheap stocks become cheaper and expensive stocks have become more expensive.”
This has triggered excited talk about the “great value rotation” but Mr Garnry remains sceptical. “We need to see a breakout of interest rates combined with higher inflation before we join the crowd.”
Always remember that past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. Last year’s winners often turn out to be this year’s losers, and vice-versa.
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Dr Amal Khalid Alias revealed a recent case of a woman with daughters, who specifically wanted a boy.
A semen analysis of the father showed abnormal sperm so the couple required IVF.
Out of 21 eggs collected, six were unused leaving 15 suitable for IVF.
A specific procedure was used, called intracytoplasmic sperm injection where a single sperm cell is inserted into the egg.
On day three of the process, 14 embryos were biopsied for gender selection.
The next day, a pre-implantation genetic report revealed four normal male embryos, three female and seven abnormal samples.
Day five of the treatment saw two male embryos transferred to the patient.
The woman recorded a positive pregnancy test two weeks later.
