On Sunday April 14, Bolivarian candidate Nicolas Maduro won the Venezuelan presidential election by a narrow margin. With 99.12% of the votes counted, there was a 78.71% turn out, with Maduro receiving 7,505,378 votes (50.66%), and Capriles 7,270,403 votes (49.07%). Opposition candidate Capriles declared that he does not recognise the result and demanded an audit of 100% of the vote.

On Monday April 15 Capriles made a speech, which was broadcast live by all private TV stations as well as CNN Spanish. In it he refused to recognise the election results and called for mobilisations to demand a full manual recount of the vote. These included a national pots and pans banging protest on Monday at 8 pm, marches on the regional offices of the National Electoral Council (CNE) on Tuesday 16, as well as a march on the CNE in Caracas on Wednesday 17.

At the same time both the Organisation of American States president Insulza and the United States declared that they were also in favour of a full recount. The Spanish government added its voice to the chorus and said they did not recognise the results of the elections. ... read full story / add a comment

Today, for a brief moment, America knows how awful it feels to live in one of the states they have invaded or that they have helped reduce to sectarian nightmares with imported jihadist mercenaries, CIA advisors, funds and weaponry, such as Iraq, Syria or Libya, where explosions like this occur every other day ... read full story / add a comment

This walk in the woods is to highlight the campaign to stop the government’s plan to sell off the harvesting rights to Ireland’s public forests under the EU/IMF “Troika” programme and to maintain them in public ownership.

The sell off of the harvesting rights will mean that the government will lease the land for 99 years to private companies. There will be absolute no guarantee of public access and the companies will be under no obligation to provide it. This will affect all the different people who use our national forests such as hikers, walkers, bikers, horse riding, tourists, cross-country runners, sports people and many others. It also affects access rights for your children and their children.

The event will feature music, readings and poetry with musicians Christy Moore and Paddy Casey, Actors Jeremy Irons and Sinead Cusack ... read full story / add a comment

Large areas of Leitrim and Clare are under options licenses for onshore Shale Gas extraction using destructive and invasive technology, including hydraulic fracturing.

What is less well known is that large areas of Sligo, Leitrim and Roscommon are also licensed for Lignite extraction, which in simple terms is Coal Bed Methane/Coal Seam Gasification, with an even greater environmental and human health impact than shale gas extraction. ... read full story / add a comment

The central bank is planning changes to the Code of Protection on mortgage arrears, these changes will mean it will be easier for people to be counted as non co-operating and thus make repossession easier, please send the submission below to code@centralbank.ie or make your own submission and send before April 10th to ensure your opposition to this is taken into consideration, with 95,000 people in arrears because of this banking led recession, the people who are bailing out the banks need fairness, there is nothing fair in all powers of discretion, supervision and appeals being with the banks who will not consider the good of the person or common good of the country. ... read full story / add a comment

The EU bailout in Cyprus seems, on the surface to have taken on board some good ideas such as burning bondholders, capital flight controls, and much more limited small depositors state bank guarantee scheme, but does this stand up to closer inspection or have they just used these good ideas in a rather twisted way to further the same old financial terrorist agendas? ... read full story / add a comment

A few days ago I mentioned the great challenges humanity is currently facing. Intelligent life emerged on our planet approximately 200,000 years ago, although new discoveries demonstrate something else.

This is not to confuse intelligent life with the existence of life which, from its elemental forms in our solar system, emerged millions of years ago.

A virtually infinite number of life forms exist. In the sophisticated work of the world’s most eminent scientists the idea has already been conceived of reproducing the sounds which followed the Big Bang, the great explosion which took place more than 13.7 billion years ago.

This introduction would be too extensive if it was not to explain the gravity of an event as unbelievable and absurd as the situation created in the Korean Peninsula, within a geographic area containing close to five billion of the seven billion persons currently inhabiting the planet. ... read full story / add a comment

On Sat April 13th the EU Ministers of Finance are assembled in Dublin Castle. Join the National Protest to Stop Property Tax Robbery Assemble 12:30 Garden of Remembrance / Parnell Square to march to Dublin castle #ResistTheRobbery #A13 ... read full story / add a comment

Hi All:

As of last Thursday ( March 28th 2013 ) FAS funding for the DBD Jobs Club, in Bawnogue ( Clondalkin ) has been withdrawn completely without any satisfactory explanation.

The Jobs Club Leader has been told that he is about to be made redundant and all services from our Jobs Club is to be withdrawn immediately.

Over the last 10 years, The Jobs Club has provided a very valuable service to local jobseekers over and it is unthinkable that, when its needed most, the area will be deprived of this valuable service. ... read full story / add a comment

A lot of hype in the MSM lately about North Korea. These two clips from the RT show "breaking the set" with commentators from answercoalition.org give some much needed context and background from which to interpret the current media spin. Instead of a seemingly irrational belligerent nihilism, the North Korean statements in context, become more like a rational defensive response to a systematic aggressor bent on harming and undermining their country and it's tendency to socialism. You may find some of the facts that emerge about North Korea rather surprising. ... read full story / add a comment

OSSL claim that their company was a supplier to Shell in respect of the Corrib Gas Project. They allege that acting on Shell’s instructions, OSSL has distributed bribes on Shell’s behalf to parties connected with the project, including the Irish police force (the Garda) who have been the subject of serious accusations of wrong doing by environmental activists protesting against the project. The main accusation being that the Garda has acted as an offshoot of Shell security. ... read full story / add a comment

A Complete List of Ireland's Easter Republican Commemorations 2013 ... read full story / add a comment

Revisionists given a hammering by John Borgonovo . They are searching for an ouija board to contact Peter Hart for advice. Full text at link.

UCC historian John Borgonovo casts doubt on some claims made in the TV3 series ‘In The Name Of The Republic’
TV3’s TWO-PART documentary series, In the Name of the Republic has created a stir among historians, though perhaps not in the way the filmmakers intended. The programme illustrates the danger of accepting local folklore as historical fact, especially during this much-heralded “decade of centenaries”.

In the first episode, viewers met an aged Co Laois man who related his boyhood encounter with a neighbouring farmer, who claimed he had dug up a body while ploughing his field, one of three corpses supposedly buried there by the IRA. Series host Prof Eunan O’Halpin (of Trinity College Dublin) told the audience hisresearch had uncovered two civilians abducted by the Tipperary IRA and “never seen again”. The rest of the episode attempted to prove his theory that they were interred in this Laois field. The episode concluded with O’Halpin opening the sealed files, only to learn that both had survived the conflict. They were never killed by the IRA, much less secretly buried in Laois. The obvious lesson here is: Finish your research before you rent the JCB.

... read full story / add a comment

The US House of Representatives quietly passed a last-minute addition to the Agricultural Appropriations Bill for 2013 last week - including a provision protecting genetically modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks. ... read full story / add a comment

Call to action of the Indonesian People's Movement Against Neocolonialism-Imperialism toward Bali WTO Ministerial meeting on 3-6 of December 2013
... read full story / add a comment

From 'traitor' to Hero - whistleblower Bradley Manning is nominated for Nobel Peace Prize ... read full story / add a comment

A course for movement practitioners and community educators who want to deepen their own practice ... read full story / add a comment

John and Louise are a Dublin couple who weep each evening in a cold house, their frustration ever growing. John is visibly angry but resigns to the fate that is meted by our leaders to comply with international dictate. We are being watched, pummelled and slowly destroyed. The busiest events are international job fairs. This is a synopsis of lives less than they should be. ... read full story / add a comment

CONTENTS

1. CAUSES FOR CONCERN: STOP EXTRADITION TO THE USA! GUANTANAMO HUNGER STRIKE
2. PEACE IN THE NORTH
3. 10 YEARS SINCE IRAQ AND ANOTHER MILITARY INTERVENTION ON THE OFFING
4. I AM BRADLEY MANNING
5. MAKE WAR NOT LOVE
6. RTE – NOTHING BUT THE SAME OLD STORY
7. CHINA – THE BOGEYMAN
... read full story / add a comment

The Yes Vote in last year's Children's Rights Referendum began proceedings to change Children's Rights in Ireland. However, a legal challenge to the referendum has suspended the referendum process and, for now, prevents the Irish president signing this amendment into the constitution.

Ever wanted to know more about the Children's Rights Referendum and amendment 42a? Read on to find out.
... read full story / add a comment