IRELAND HAS BEEN making international headlines today.
Not for any positive reasons mind.
Sure we haven’t had any positive international coverage for a good 15 days now…
Why is the country in the news, you ask.
If you happened to spend your daylight hours under a rock and only decided to check the news on your favourite fruit-based touchable device this evening – here’s what you missed:
You can read our own main story on it here, but – just to give you a flavour of the international interest in it – here’s the first five paragraphs from global news wire AFP:
The EU ordered tech giant Apple on Tuesday to pay a record 13 billion euros in back taxes in Ireland, a move Washington warned could damage hugely important transatlantic economic ties.
Brussels said Apple, the world’s most valuable company, avoided virtually all tax on its business in the bloc by illegal arrangements with Dublin which gave the company an unfair advantage over competitors.
Apple and the Irish government immediately said they would appeal against the European Commission ruling, with the iPhone maker warning it could cost European jobs.
The White House meanwhile cautioned against “unilateral” measures by the EU.
The company’s shares lost some of their shine after the ruling, down 0.7 percent in early afternoon trading, making for a more than 3 percent loss over the past two weeks ahead of the highly anticipated ruling.
The story got plenty of traction, as you might imagine, in the United States:
In Britain, the Telegraph led with the line that Downing Street would “welcome” Apple to the UK after the European Commission’s ruling. The story was headline news across most other UK outlets too…
It’s headline-worthy stuff pretty much everywhere, in fact.
The Sydney Morning Herald’s senior writer had an interesting turn of phrase, in her take on the affair…
Closer to home, there’s been all manner of chat about it on Twitter…
Finally, everyone’s expecting Donald Trump to say something about it soon…
But he’s otherwise engaged…
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