As the leaders of the global diamond industry gathered in Vicenza, Italy for the annual meeting of the World Diamond Council, Palestinians remained trapped in a surreal nightmarish existence under the cosh of a diamond-funded, nuclear-armed belligerent regime: "The Israeli forces used [taser guns] and I have bruises on my arms and legs. I saw them open a protester's mouth by force and spit in it, and they spit in my face as well. While being under custody, a police officer of Ramle district addressed both me and another female activist while being cuffed with verbal sexual harassment, threatening to rape us. I have to admit I burst in tears ." ... read full story / add a comment

Republican Sinn Féin, are calling on people to vote NO in the referendum on the Fiscal Treaty on May 31. The treaty, if passed, will perpetuate austerity for decades to come.
The referendum is an opportunity to send out a clear statement of intent that people are not prepared to cede any more power to the undemocratic and un-elected bureaucratic elite that is the EU. A NO vote will be a positive step towards regaining control of our future and that of the generations to come.
Austerity has been rejected by the French and Greek people and now it is the turn of the citizens of this state to reject them also. ... read full story / add a comment

Friends at any cost: Israel is happy to welcome an Anti-Semite and nazi sympathiser to Israel.Tony Greenstein looks at whats going on here. Full text at link.

That the Lithuanian government should commemorate the memory of its quisling Prime Minister is not surprising. That the same anti-Semites who laud the Lithuanian Waffen SS survivors are also pro-Zionist is also not surprising. But that Israel's Foreign Minister, the arch-racist Avigdor Lieberman, should hosts a ministerial welcome to Lithuania's Foreign Minister, a man who tried to prevent the restoration of stolen property to its Jewish owners, should shock even a few Zionists. ... read full story / add a comment

Monthly PSG protest Sat 26th may 3pm daunt sq. ... read full story / add a comment

A political struggle in a European nation of less than three million, largely ignored by other socialists in Europe, has nevertheless come to the fore in the capitalist media repeatedly since the late 1960s. This has been largely as a result of the the Basque people’s struggle for socialism and independence from the Spanish and French states, a struggle led for decades by Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, the marxist armed organisation better known by its acronym, ETA. The organisation reawakened Basque national consciousness, has worked with others for the restoration of Euskara, the Basque language, organised Basque workers and faced the repression of the General Franco dictatorship in the Spanish state. Famously, in 1973 it assassinated the Prime Minister of the state, Admiral Carrero Blanco, Franco’s right-hand man, which hastened the fragmentation of the dictatorship and its passage to partial democracy.
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Police have arrested protesters outside a Moscow court during a custody hearing for three women accused of violating public order at a cathedral. At least 20 people were detained, both supporters and Russian Orthodox opponents of the women, said to be members of a punk band, Pussy Riot. The women were arrested last month after an obscene political song was played inside the cathedral in Moscow.

Contact President Putin To Ask For Their Release. ... read full story / add a comment

To mark Palestinian Prisoners’ Day 2012, on Tuesday 17th April from 1-2pm the IPSC will be holding a symbolic lunchtime demonstration outside EU House, Molesworth Street (Dublin 2) to highlight the European Union’s ongoing facilitation of Israel’s apartheid policies and war crimes – including the imprisonment of over 4,400 political prisoners. ... read full story / add a comment

We will be comemorating the bombing of Gernika and other Basque towns by the German Condor Legion in support of the Spanish fascist forces fighting the elected Popular Front Government.
It was the first urban civilian population bombing and all of the countries in the world,except the USSR,stood by and let it happen.
Today Franco is dead but his spirit lives on in the repression of the Basques by the Spanish state. ... read full story / add a comment

LATIN AMERICA WEEK 2012
From 10th to 21st April 2012 ... read full story / add a comment

FOAD Musick presents Benefit and awareness night for Anti Fascist Action

Oi Polloi, Droppin Bombs, Complan, SFU.

Fibber Magees, Parnell St, 16 March, 9 pm, €10. ... read full story / add a comment

Aer Lingus (http://www.aerlingus.com/aboutus/), the national flag airline of Ireland, has introduced language tests at check-in for foreigners flying to Ireland. The tests are stated to be a security measure intended to detect imposters travelling on fake or stolen passports from a number of European Union countries. The selected foreign nationals are required to pass a written comprehension test in English and in their own language before admission to the flight. The affected countries are stated to be Greece, Italy and Portugal.

Although targeting 'high-risk' EU nationals, the language tests are probably aimed at detecting Asian or African migrants travelling on passports from these countries. This may be a taste of things to come in Ireland, with language and civics tests on Alan Shatter's list of priorities for 2012 (http://www.inis.gov.ie/en/JELR/Pages/PR12000001)
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Friday 9th March at 6.30pm a group of two-dozen campaigners and Erris residents gathered outside the Broadhaven Bay Hotel in Belmullet, Co. Mayo where ex 'rape tape' Sergeant James Gill was having his retirement party. ... read full story / add a comment

This is a copy of an email sent to our supporters today, we are appealing for people to come down to the camp in Galway and show their solidarity, or to help in any way they feel they can. ... read full story / add a comment

Between the 20th and 24th of February 2012, 19 campaigners were tried at a 'special sitting' of Belmullet District Court, for alleged offences arising from protest against the Corrib gas project. Most of those tried were for Section 8 and 9 of the Public Order Act. Section 9 is obstructing 'the free passage of a person/vehicle’ in a public place and section 8 is failure to obey the directions of a Garda.

Overall the judge came down very heavily on the defendants. The hearings began only one week after public criticism from the minister for Justice Alan Shatter against what he called “protest tourism”. One campaigner received a prison sentence and three others received suspended sentences. Fines for all cases totalled €8350. ... read full story / add a comment

Israeli Apartheid Week is an annual international series of events held across the globe. The aim is to educate people about the nature of Israeli apartheid against the Palestinian people and to build the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement locally and globally. Last year, IAW took place in over 60 cities across the globe and this year the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (http://www.ipsc.ie) is proud to again host a series of events in Ireland. ... read full story / add a comment

Last weekend some members of the Irish Occupy camps came to stay at the Rossport Solidarity Camp. There was good numbers already on the camp for winter and so along with our fellow city based campers we numbered 25 – 30. We decided to try shut down Shell’s Aghoos tunnelling compound for the morning. ... read full story / add a comment

Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist was born in 1944 in North Dakota on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation. He is the 11th child of 13 children and from his early years suffered racism and brutal poverty at the hands of US government and its officials. ... read full story / add a comment

Sean Sherlock, Minister for Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation, has introduced new legislation that is being called Irelands SOPA. The legislation is being introduced as a statutory instrument which means that it will be implemented by the signature of the Minster and not a vote in the Dáil. ... read full story / add a comment

More trouble for the islamist NTC. Full text at link.

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Fighters loyal to Libya's overthrown leader Muammar Gaddafi took control of a town south-east of the capital on Monday, flying their green flags in defiance of the country's fragile new government. The fightback by Gaddafi supporters defeated in Libya's civil war, though unlikely to spread elsewhere, added to the problems besetting a government which in the past week has been reeling from one crisis to another. Gaddafi himself was captured and killed in October after weeks on the run.

Accounts from the town of Bani Walid, about 200 km (120 miles) from Tripoli, described armed Gaddafi supporters attacking the barracks of the pro-government militia in the town and then forcing them to fall back. ... read full story / add a comment

The Egyptian radical left is facing repeated attacks by an emerging alliance between the country's military rulers and the Islamists seeking power. This is a text by the Egyptian Libertarian Socialist Movement dealing with this situation.
It's about time! For weeks, several internet sites, and facebook pages that belong to the Muslims Brotherhood, either officially or administered by its members, launched an attack against Anarchists and Revolutionary Socialists in Egypt trying to single them out as inciters of violence and propagandists of State demolition. Today a member of the Brotherhood filed a lawsuit against three socialists one of them is comrade Yaser Abdel Kawy a well known anarchist and a member of the Egyptian Libertarian Socialists Movement. The general attorney forwarded the lawsuit to the State Security GA, an exceptional apparatus of the legal system that works only under the state of emergency. ... read full story / add a comment