Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Places’ Category

Northern Ireland hasn’t been in the international news much lately but that’s not really an indication of peace as such, more an indication that violence isn’t happening which isn’t quite the same thing (welcome as non-violence always is, of course).

In fact the first indications of the arrival of peace was on its way started quite a number of years ago and, to my mind, was the arrival of the supermarket chain Tesco in 1997.  Prior to that the only UK supermarket chain operating in Northern Ireland was Marks & Spencer which had opened in 1967, 2 years prior to the start of the troubles, and hadn’t bothered expanding much since then. Nothing really says that peace is coming quite like big chunks of cash being invested.

However, the more certain arrival of peace (as opposed merely to reducing violence) was really only in the last few years and that has been marked in two very noticeable ways. Firstly the investments being made in the local economy are massive these days: you can’t drive more than a mile or two in Belfast without seeing building works of some kind. That’s also an aspect of the second point which is that there has been a large scale migration to Northern Ireland by everyone from the Poles to those that left because of the violence. Combine those two and the booming of the economy is very noticeable.

One very obvious side-effect of that mass immigration is that the house prices are going through the roof (hence the building work everywhere, of course) which is effectively a catching up on rises that didn’t happen in the last 30 years. The banks don’t seem to know what has hit them and mortgages are now available for up to 8 time salary (vs the maximum of 3 times just 3 or 4 years ago).

Anyway, at least Northern Ireland can now stand as an example of what it’s like when you do get to the end of the violence. Hopefully, it’ll provide an encouraging example to areas of the world that are still immersed in a culture of violence such as Colombia.

Kyle over at immigration orange always has thought provoking articles and one of the most thought provoking that he has had recently was his piece on the support of terrorists in Colombia by Chiquita Brands.

Chiquita didn’t just decide to support terrorists for the sake of killing people, it justified paying $1.7 million by considering it as protection money for its employees. Does that make it right though? Well, no, it doesn’t but it’s only one high profile example of people making decisions that are expedient at the time.

However, that’s the least of the problems that such support causes. Although the public perception of their aims might be different, terrorist organisations often co-operate with one another and some of that money from Chiquita no doubt found its way back to fund killing of people in Northern Ireland. Would Chiquita be quite so happy if some of their money is found to have been used to fund terrorism in America too?

The fundamental problem is that a number of products that everyone buys are produced in countries where peace is something that might come in the future and the reality of the present day is violence from one or more groups within the country. Doing business in a country like that does entail problems and there is no short-term way around that.

Unfortunately the short-term alternatives aren’t great either. Chiquita and others pulling out of Colombia doesn’t make the problem go away as others will take over the plantations and those bananas will still be sold internationally. In fact, if that wasn’t the case the impact on the Colombian economy could be catastrophic which wouldn’t be good for the cause of peace either: as seems very clear with the recent experiences in Northern Ireland, a strong economy makes the incentive for terrorism dry up very quickly.

We can’t know for sure what Chiquita’s money was used for but $1.7 million is an awful lot of money that would have been much better spent in the cause of peace.

I’m sure that it’s been there for ages but I just noticed that the playground in the ground of the Stormont Estate had been dedicated to the memory of Mo Mowlam.Mo was one of the many politicians who have fallen by the wayside along the path to peace in Northern Ireland. As Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 1997 to 1999 it was she who presided over the Good Friday Agreement which is essentially the basis that has established peace although, as can only be expected, it did take quite a while after the signing of that agreement way back in 1998 before various pieces of the puzzle fell into place and a few years after that before people in NI and elsewhere finally got around to accepting that peace had apparently arrived.

As befits its status as the largest inland lake in the British Isles, Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland is host to numerous water activities in the tourist season.

What’s on offer varies around the circumferance of the lake with some areas being devoted to nature reserves, others to more active water sports and nearly everywhere various boating activities. Naturally, these are combined in various spots and in the area near the town of Antrim there is a particularly mixed bag with quite a reasonable nature reserve running along the coastline, a golf course on one side, a small café, marina and boating activities on offer ranging from a boat trip on a pirate ship to jet skis.

This particular area is quite rich in other tourist sites too with numerous small castles within perhaps 20 minutes of Antrim along with a number of historic homesteads (eg that of the Bronte sisters and a few with links to various American presidents). Well under an hour from here will let you sample exhibitions on the history of the plantation and on the emigration from Ireland over the centuries.

It’s quite an interesting spot to base a holiday and Belfast International Airport (BFS) is just around the corner.

If you’re moving to live in France, you might think that it would be impossible to prove that you still live in the UK but in fact it’s both possible and useful to be able to do it.

If you live in the UK, there’s generally no problem proving where you live so long as you’ve been there for a year or two. You’ll have electric bills, tax demands, bank statements and the like to do that. If you’ve moving abroad or have moved it’s a different matter though.

Even if you have kept your house in the UK, chances are that you have tenants in it and therefore it can be impractical to use that address and if you’ve sold up then, of course, you definitely can’t use it.

Although you may be living in France, there are times when you’ll find it useful to “prove” that you are actually in the UK. For example, Sky won’t let you keep a UK TV service unless they have a UK address for you and you won’t be able to renew a UK driving license without a UK address either.

The simplest thing to do is to move one or two credit card or bank account addresses to the UK address of a friend or family member before you leave the country. Doing this has the effect of moving your credit history to the new address as it looks like a normal house move to the credit card people. Whilst you’re doing this, it’s worthwhile to set up a UK local rate number for yourself and quote that to the credit card companies; these are free and excellent for friends & family too.

The only downside of this is that if you’re using one of the credit cards with a UK address on it then after a while you’ll generally find the card blocked or services limited as it can look like your card has been stolen. To avoid this, it’s best to limit use of such cards or restrict using them to times when you are in the UK or perhaps for Internet purchases. The advantages far outweigh any minor inconvenience on this front.