This Irish-American crap grinds, although I have many US relations I wouldn`t be proud of a country responsible for the death of countless thousands.

This is part of a Guardian article in January 2004,

Not far from the red, white and blue paving stones, the Ku Klux Klan graffiti and the "Chinks out" notices scratched outside south Belfast Chinese takeaways, Hua Long Lin was at home watching television when a man burst in and smashed a brick into his face. His wife, also in the room, was eight months pregnant. The couple had moved into the terrace two weeks before.

Neighbours expressed regret but one white family told a community worker they couldn't offer a Chinese family friendship in public or they would be "bricked" too.

"It's like Nazi Germany," they explained.

Northern Ireland, which is 99% white, is fast becoming the race-hate capital of Europe. It holds the UK's record for the highest rate of racist attacks: spitting and stoning in the street, human excrement on doorsteps, swastikas on walls, pipe bombs, arson, the ransacking of houses with baseball bats and crow bars, and white supremacist leaflets nailed to front doors.

Over 200 incidents were reported to police in the past nine months, although many victims don't bother complaining any more.

But in the past weeks, fear has deepened. Protestant working-class neighbourhoods are showing a pattern of orchestrated house attacks aimed at "ethnically cleansing" minority groups.

It is happening in streets run by loyalist paramilitaries, where every Chinese takeaway owner already pays protection money and racists have plentiful access to guns. The spectre of Catholics being systematically burnt out of similar areas during the Troubles hangs in the air.

So-called peace walls between Protestant and Catholic communities are graffitied with swastikas and signs that read "keep the streets white".

Both local unionists and Sinn Féin warned this week that someone is likely to be killed or burned alive in their home if the campaign does not stop. But there are no signs of it abating.

The Village in south Belfast is a run-down network of loyalist terraces where unemployment is high, union flags sag from lampposts and almost every family has a link to loyalist paramilitaries.

In post-peace process Northern Ireland, communities like this are more segregated than ever - through choice. Last year, five student houses, home to mixed Protestants and Catholics, were attacked until they were vacated. The siege mentality against "outsiders" is rife.

In the past eight weeks, pregnant Chinese women and new mothers have been forced out of terraces and over a dozen Chinese people have been attacked. The Chinese community, the largest ethnic minority in Northern Ireland, has been in Belfast since the 1960s, but there are rumours that a "quota" on new arrivals is being enforced. Last month, Ugandan and Romanian families were burned out.

Many elderly Chinese people do not now leave their homes after 3pm. The best they can hope for is an egg or ice-cream cone thrown in their face or their shopping bags stolen.

This week, in the shadow of a paramilitary mural, a six-foot plank was hurled through the front window of the home of a Pakistani woman who was eight months pregnant. The spot where she and her brother-in-law had eaten dinner 20 minutes before was sprayed with glass. They had moved into the house 12 hours earlier.

This hatred is on-going anyone living here knows where the racialists live, a pity the police don`t respond with the same enthusiasm as they would in Nationalists areas.