ISN'T there something despicable about the EU governments taking such efforts to evacuate their citizens from Lebanon while acquiescing in the continued savagery being inflicted upon the people of that country?

The mass death in Lebanon is being treated as if it were a natural disaster, like a tsunami or earthquake. The reality is of course that it can be stopped as quickly as it began, if only the will were there. But it isn't.

Instead we see EU soldiers herding their countries' citizens to separate them from the Lebanese. The EU citizens are brought to safety, the Lebanese are left facing injury and death.

A few years ago many professed guilt for the inaction of the Dutch soldiers at Srebrenica. Now we are witnessing a new Srebrenica, and the EU is once again complicit.

George Dillon, 14 Iona Road, Dublin 9.

Setting the Barr for pathetic excuses From Keith Nolan

"GARDA representative associations noted that while Mr Justice Barr had four years to compile his report, officers at the scene had only seconds to make up their minds."

Personally, I prefer the 'dog ate my homework' excuse!

Keith Nolan Caldragh, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim.

Giving publicity to psychics is dispiriting From Jim Leahy

I HAVE been reading Ireland's best Sunday newspaper, the Sunday Tribune, since its inception. However Ann Marie Hourihane's article last Sunday falls far below the expected standard.

When one purveyer of nonsense is given unchallenged a vehicle for free publicity by attacking another purveyer of that same nonsense I do not expect that vehicle to be the Sunday Tribune. What is a "top psychic" as the "resident psychic" of WWC (ie, TV3, the World's Worst Channel) is headlined in the article?

Ever since the Fox sisters (later shown to be charlatans) started the spiritualism craze, scientists and psychologists have tested so-called psychics and found only self delusion or, more often, fraud. The aforementioned "resident psychic" claims she can tell when someone is dead, has located bodies and is correct 60 times out of 100. Well, well, well. How about some real names, places, real evidence?

All so-called psychics, whether self-deluded or fraudulent, prey on the gullible and defenceless. I expected more from someone of the stature of Ann Marie Hourihane and the Sunday Tribune.

Jim Leahy, Bansha, Co Tipperary.

Human life begins at fertilisation . . . fact From Gerry Glennon

IT SEEMS to me that the members of the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction should be obliged to undergo an elementary course in biology before they issue any further statements. The Oxford Medical Dictionary defines conception as "the start of pregnancy when a male germ cell fertilises a female germ cell in the fallopian tube".

From the health promotion unit in Hawkins House a leaflet is available which contains basic information about pregnancy and gives an outline of the various methods of contraception. I quote two sentences from the leaflet:

"Pregnancy occurs when a sperm from the male meets and enters an egg from the woman."

"Conception occurs when the egg is fertilised by the sperm."

It is therefore a biologically accepted fact that a human life begins at fertilisation irrespective of whether it occurs in the fallopian tube of a woman or the laboratory of a fertility clinic.

Human life deserves to be protected from fertilisation under the provisions of Sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against The Person Act, 1861.

Gerry Glennon, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.

Shocking attitude to Dublin GAA From Paul Kinsella

REGARDINGmany of the hysterical comments over the last few days regarding the Dubs' win against Offaly at Croke Park on Sunday, these are typical of the deep-seated pathological hatred that some people outside of Dublin have towards Dublin.

I heard the same hysterical nonsense on RTE Radio One's Sports Call programme last Monday night. It was like mass hysteria regarding anything about the Dubs on Sunday, whether it was the team or the fans. I have to say that I was really shocked and appalled by many of those comments.

Paul Kinsella, Santry, Dublin 9.

Galway hurlers given a raw deal From Diarmad O Grainne

LIAM GRIFFIN's flippant and dismissive response to Galway's request to play Kilkenny in Croke Park on Sunday as opposed to Thurles on a Saturday shows scant regard to Galway hurling and supporters. Hurling in Galway is predominantly a rural sport.

Cows have to be milked, cattle foddered and hay baled. Many more of the Galway supporters would be engaged in construction as plumbers, electricians, plasterers etc, which would mean a loss of a day's earnings to undergo a tortuous journey to Thurles.

Does Liam Griffin live in the real world? It is easy for him to ramble down the road to Thurles as it is easy for Kilkenny folk, Cork folk, and to a lesser extent, Limerick folk.

For Galway folk it is bottleneck after bottleneck of traffic jams, and a long walk to the pitch in Thurles. Consider the position of a supporter from Clifden who leaves on Saturday morning and does not reach home until the small hours of Sunday morning. When the powers that be in the GAA talk about "preserving and promoting hurling in the west, " this is just bunkum.

Croke Park is for the Dubs; Thurles for the Munsters.

Not many moons ago, I watched in disbelief a Galway team play in an All-Ireland hurling final against a team from Munster. Guess where the referee was from? . . .

Munster. Why should Galway entertain the idea of joining Leinster or Munster for the hurling championship when they are being so badly treated?

Diarmad O Grainne, Mullach na Si, Co Roscomain.

Townsend got it wrong on Spain From Daniel Kelly

NICK TOWNSEND was entirely incorrect to state in the sports section (2 July) that "Spain. . . have still failed to reach the [World Cup] quarter-finals since 1950."

Surely Townsend recalls Spain's quarter-finals exits to Italy and South Korea in the 1994 and 2002 World Cups respectively.

Daniel Kelly, Foxfield Crescent, Raheny, Dublin 5.

Hizballah deserves no sympathy or time From Tom Carew

A MILITARY expert, Tom Clonan, speaking with Tom McGurk on RTE Radio 1, declared that Israel must negotiate with the jihadi gang Hizballah and find out what it wants.

The contamination from the unprincipled and cowardly British establishment is wide and deep when an ex-captain of our democratic army can demand such craven surrender to terrorist blackmail. Appeasement is indeed indivisible.

Hizballah, like Hamas in Gaza, has always wanted one thing only, which Iran also wants and funds and arms both gangs for that very purpose, namely the destruction of Israel and its Jewish people. Would negotiation not just further encourage such ruthless fanatics? What authority has Hizballah, on behalf of either the Lebanese or Palestinian Arab populations, to negotiate anything ?

The tragic but accidental loss of civilian life in Lebanon is getting massive media and political attention, including on RTE, but not so with the deliberate massacres of civilians in Iraq by other jihadi gangs. Over 50 in just one suicide bombing yesterday.

Did we ever see the torn bodies of teenagers massacred in a Tel Aviv beach-front disco by a Palestinian suicide bomber getting such TV and press priority and time? Or the limbs left in a Jerusalem pizza parlour by another such atrocity? Disproportionate?

Tom Carew, Merton Drive, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.