The Prime Minister of the Irish Republic Brian Cowen has resigned as leader of the governing Fianna Fail party, but says he will stay on as prime minister until after a general election due in March. The opposition is demanding an immediate dissolution of parliament. Claire Savage reports.
After two-and-a-half years in office, Brian Cowen says he acted on his own counsel to resign as leader of Fianna Fail. Although he won a secret leadership ballot on Tuesday, it was still a week of huge political turmoil for him, in which he saw the resignation of six of his government ministers. The Irish prime minister’s ratings plummeted after criticism over his handling of the country’s economic crisis.
Talks in Istanbul between world powers and Iran over the Iranian nuclear programme have broken up without progress. The chief negotiator for the six world powers, Catherine Ashton, said it was clear that Iran was not ready for detailed discussions and had insisted on preconditions including the lifting of sanctions. The Iranian negotiator said the talks needed common logic and must avoid subjects that give rise to animosity. No new talks have been arranged.
The influential Iraqi Shia cleric, Moqtada Sadr, is reported to have gone back to Iran, less than three weeks after he returned to Iraq in a blaze of international publicity from self-imposed exile in Iran. It’s not clear how long he’ll stay out of Iraq, though one source told BBC the cleric was resuming his religious studies in Iran.