The National:

THE possibility that Sinn Fein could form part of a new government of the Republic of Ireland has emerged following shock opinion polls which show that the left-wing party is currently in the lead ahead of the general election later this week.

According to the latest Irish Times/ Ipsos MRBI opinion poll, the party led by Mary Lou McDonald now stands at 25%, up four points. Support for incumbent Taoiseach (first minister) Leo Varadkar’s Fine Gael party has slipped again to 20% ,while Fianna Fail is also down two points to 23%.

The latter two parties have dominated Irish politics for decades, but should Sinn Fein get into power it will give the idea of Irish reunification a real boost. Especially following on as it does from the party winning just one seat less than the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland in the UK General Election.

Sinn Fein is fighting chiefly on issues such as housing and McDonald says the desire for change on the part of the Irish public is driving her party’s late surge.

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“This is a different type of election. I’m struck by the extent to which people are saying openly that they want change,” McDonald said as she canvassed voters in the capital.

“I think the penny has perhaps dropped that, after almost a century, there is life and politics and government beyond Fine Gael and Fianna Fail.”

Tanaiste (deputy first minister) Simon Coveney, told the Irish Examiner the election was “still to play for” as, even in the days running up to this weekend’s ballot, a lot of the electorate had still to make up their mind.

“I would appeal to those casting their votes on Saturday to think of how far we have travelled since the days of hundreds of thousands of job losses, a property crash, an international bailout and mass emigration of our young people – breaking many businesses and families.”

Fine Gael’s preference is for a rainbow government, made up of them, the Greens and Labour.

The National:

Reform due of ‘excellent’ Cypriot system

AFTER failing to do so in 2016, when its proposals were rejected by its parliament, the government of Cyprus has announced new plans to reform the country’s civil service in which almost everyone is rated “excellent”.

Constantinos Petrides, Cyprus’s interior minister (above), presented three bills to the finance committee of the house of representatives – the Cypriot parliament. The bills introduce new systems for promotion within the civil service.

Petrides said: “Following intense consultations with parties and the unions, we have submitted the bills whose implementation I believe would ensure first of all a more efficient civil service, one where the most capable members will rise to positions of responsibility and the potential of nepotism in promotions will be restricted.”

The Cyprus Mail reported that the minister said there was no ideal system anywhere in the world but “with good practices and in spite of the problems and resistance we met, we think we have delivered to parliament bills that in time … will create a new culture and a more efficient civil service”.

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One of the smallest countries in the EU, the problem of civil service reform has dogged the government for years, most notably because of the grading system in which civil servants were invariably ranked as “excellent”, a practice which the minister blamed on a lack of proper evaluation of civil servants by the public.

On the Cyprus government’s website, Petrides said: “The phenomenon that existed in the past years was not foreseen. By the previous evaluation system, everyone would be excellent.

“It was the culture, it was the practice. A levelling culture and a levelling practice, because of the lack of evaluation or the levelling evaluation by the citizens, but also the employees themselves.”

The National:

New aurora form found by Finnish amateurs

AMATEUR astronomers in Finland have discovered a new type of aurora called “the dunes” which is helping scientists understand a mysterious layer of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Known as the land of the northern lights, Finland is home to many “aurora chasers” who track the aurora borealis – displays of light in the atmosphere near Earth’s poles – which take on various shapes and forms.

They often appear as rippling curtains of green, red, or purple light, but in October last year amateur observers in Finland discovered a new auroral form they dubbed “the dunes”, due to their similarity to sand dunes.

According to the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the discovery has now led to a breakthrough in the study of the aurora.

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AGU stated: “Space physicists at the University of Helsinki worked with citizen scientists who first saw the dunes to determine their altitude and have come up with a theory to explain how they form. They report the discovery and their theory in a new study in AGU Advances.

“The researchers suspect the dunes are manifestations of undulations of air called atmospheric waves. If their theory proves correct, the dunes could provide a way to understand a part of Earth’s upper atmosphere that is notoriously difficult to study.

“This region of the atmosphere, roughly 80 to 120 kilometers (50 to 75 miles) above the Earth’s surface, is sensitive to changes in energy from the Sun and Earth’s lower atmosphere.

“Energy fluctuations in this region can indirectly affect the trajectories of orbiting satellites and spacecraft reentry.”