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Nadia Ramzy: Welcome, everyone to this exciting opportunity to converse with Lord John Alderdice, Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, key negotiator in the Good Friday Agreement and the only psychoanalytically-trained psychiatrist in the world participating at these levels of national and international politics and diplomacy. And what I refer to here is that Lord Alderdice has participated in both - as I said nationally and internationally - in one of the two most successful peace processes of the second half of the twentieth century - the Northern Ireland Peace Process. It has been an extraordinary privilege and pleasure working with Lord Alderdice in our preparatory conversations which, up until yesterday evening, took place via the Internet - and I think our conversations started about six-plus months ago - and as we worked together - although intellectually I knew that he had not been raised to the peerage until 1996, one of the youngest-ever life peers to be named - I kept feeling throughout the process of our correspondence via cyberspace that he'd long been titled as a “Lord”. Inasmuch as when one works with John Alderdice, one is in the presence of a graciousness and an elegance of spirit that not only bathes one's own spirit but also one understands how it is that he has been so instrumental in bringing peace to 30 years of terrorism and violence in Northern Ireland. Ladies and gentlemen, we're in for a treat this morning.
Before telling you a bit more about Lord Alderdice, I'd like first to thank my friend and esteemed colleague, Dr Ira Brenner of Philadelphia, for serving as our reporter this morning. We welcome each and every one of you who have interest