Author Archives: Ron Aitken

Ron Aitken

World Suicide Prevention Day, 10th September

By Ron Aitken | Fri 4th September 2026 - 9:30 am

This article discusses suicide and could cause distress to some readers.

On the 10th September The World Health Organisation will promote World Suicide Prevention Day. This is a three-year programme, supported by The Samaritans, MIND, and ithrive Edinburgh as well as other organisations, with the theme “Changing the Narrative”.

This initiative is aimed at encouraging people to speak about mental health, the complex reasons why people take their own lives, extending empathy and confronting stigma. Good early intervention can help a person in crisis so that they can be supported at crisis level then have timely access to treatment which will address the underlying issues which have caused them to go into crisis.

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Ron Aitken

Opinion: Lessons learned the hard way will have to be re-learned following the riots in Tottenham

By Ron Aitken | Wed 10th August 2011 - 10:36 am

As a young research assistant I was in Northern Ireland on the day of the June 1987 General Election, campaigning for the re-election of my boss the Rev Martin Smyth, Ulster Unionist MP for South Belfast and head of the Orange Order.

Elections in Northern Ireland were always conducted in a way mindful of possible violence or terrorist attack, and an RUC patrol intercepted a car in the vicinity of a school being used as a polling station. The IRA occupants of the car were found to be armed and an explosive device was also found. Mr Smyth was in the …

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Ron Aitken

Opinion: Tunisia – forgotten backwater of French and US power now a basket case

By Ron Aitken | Fri 21st January 2011 - 11:36 am

Almost ten years ago the School of Oriental and African Studies, (SOAS) awarded me a small research grant to go to Tunisia with the aim of charting her growing relationship with the EU. Algeria, Morrocco, ultimately Libya joined an EU free trade deal to open markets and democratise instutions. Ten years on these initiatives have grossly failed in a hail of bloodshed and crack down. The countries of the Maghreb have been given the benefit of the doubt by France, the US and the UK because the Tunisian President Ben Ali – who took power in a coup d’etat in …

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