The leader of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party, John Hume, has confirmed he is to resign from the Northern Ireland Assembly.

BBC: Hume to quit NI Assembly

In Kosovo in 1990, he helped to found a Social Democratic Party whose manifesto was less nationalist than that of Ibrahim Rugova, the veteran leader of the Kosovar cause.

ECONOMIST: Charlemagne

More important, however, nationalists seem to have gained a political self-confidence that unionists now lack, born of both war-weariness and faith in the leadership of Sinn Fein and the moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party, the largest nationalist party.

ECONOMIST: Ulster waits