In her first conference call with journalists since becoming chair of the Kimberley Process (KP), US Ambassador, Gillian A. Milovanovic has moved to limit the scope of any reform of the KP definition of a “conflict diamond”. Ambassador Milovanovic said: “I do not foresee within the Kimberley Process, per se, going beyond the question of rough diamonds.”[1]

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This post is a quick response to an SWP internal members bulletin, which was presumably leaked by one of their members - available to read here: http://tomasoflatharta.com/2012/02/09/kubla-heard-from-...else/. It gives an insight to the real views of the SWP on a number of issues including the ULA and the CAHWT. I want to take up some of their points relating to the Household tax campaign, which I object to and to offer what I think is the real situation with the campaign. read full story / add a comment

An insight into prison life in Ireland, namely Castlerea Prison, Co Roscommon. On 21st April 2010 I was convicted of assaulting a number of Gardaí in relation to Shell to Sea protests and sentenced to 6 months imprisonment. Remission for good behaviour means that prisoners will have their sentences reduced by a quarter, once you keep your nose clean. I was given credit for 2 weeks time served previously in 2009, before I was bailed out pending my appeal. So I spent 4 months in jail from April to August in the summer of 2010. read full story / add a comment

“Our core concerns remain: what are the actual tank standards? What assistance will be available if we now need to upgrade our systems, despite having complied by the rules that the institutions of state set previously? Instead of answering these questions, Minister Phil Hogan has introduced draconian legislation which dictates that householders will be dragged through the courts and may be fined up to €5,000 if they cannot comply with his secret standards. The heavy-handedness, and lack of clarity surrounding this scheme stinks.” read full story / add a comment

Campaign Against Household and Water Tax read full story / add a comment

The regular bulletin from the Galway Alliance Against War read full story / add a comment

Dominic Magnone, of Greyhound and Pet World, has drugs convictions. Proof of this is clearly documented. Yet the Irish Coursing Club, which claims it abhors the use of prohibited substances to enhance the performance of greyhounds, accepted his sponsorship of the "Oaks" section of the National Coursing Meeting. read full story / add a comment

Of all the colonies in America, the most profitable to the coloniser was Saint Domingue, where the slaves produced more wealth for France than the North American colonies did for England. The French republic decreed an end to slavery, but Napoleon sought to reimpose it. The armies he sent to the island were defeated, and the victorious people renamed their country Haití, the indigenous name for the island. Haiti thus became the first free country of America in 1804, sixty years before chattel slavery was ended in the USA. For the crime of freeing themselves the people of Haiti have never been forgiven. The slave owners and colonisers feared the example they set. Haiti was later forced to pay 90 million gold francs to France to compensate the slave owners for the loss of their property, which took 150 years to pay off, thereby inhibiting any economic development.
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James Connolly wrote:

“An Irish Republic, the only purely political change in Ireland worth crossing the street for, will never be realised except by a revolutionary party that proceeds upon the premise that the capitalist and the landlord classes in town and country in Ireland are criminal accomplices with the British government, in the enslavement and subjection of the nation. Such a revolutionary party must be socialist, and from socialism alone can the salvation of Ireland come.” read full story / add a comment

Yesterday morning residents of Aghoos, Pollathomas and Glengad were woken by a convoy of heavy vehicles heading in the direction of Glengad. One person drove down to Glengad to see what was happening. At about 7.20am he was stopped by a Garda in Glengad who said the road is blocked. When asked who was blocking the road the Garda said “the Shell boys are doing a bit of work”. read full story / add a comment

Will the victims of 9/11 ever receive justice? 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

It has been over 900 years since a woman became Pope. With a woman as Pope, and President and World Army leader of a new earth army can we solve the worlds problems. read full story / add a comment

CANCER RATE INCREASE AND FLUORIDE. read full story / add a comment

Today (5/2/12), the Dublin Citizens Defence Committee (CDC) in co-operation with residents in Charlemont Street, participated in organising and carried out work on a communal garden for the area. read full story / add a comment

A sectarian bigoted debate on the re-introduction of political internment without trial in the instance of Marian Price in British occupied Ireland with video. read full story / add a comment

By the time I lived in community with Phil Berrigan, he was a wise old man. He had served many years in U.S. prisons for his nonviolent resistance to the Vietnam War and nuclear weapons - initiating the draft board raids and plowshares movements. After I moved on, he would serve many more years. He was in the very best sense disillusioned with popular American pretensions. He suffered from few illusions. 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

The people of this nation are is fed up with the corruption, lies and theft that is ongoing in this country and carried out by our so - called leaders, and rightly so. But now with all the aforementioned becoming more apparent, the people of this nation should now understand WHY this really happened in .............. read full story / add a comment

Labour TD Robert Dowds is putting down a Dail question to the Justice Minister Alan Satter based on Alan Shatter's letter to WIlliam Irwin MLA - see graphic. The question will ask:

"What consideration is being given to issues relating to the former Bethany Home and the appropriateness and practicality of such issues being addressed in a satisfactory manner and would the Minister make a statement on the subject."

This is the second time that a member of the Northern Assembly has expressed concern about the government's neglect of this group of survivors. Minister Arlene Foster wrote to Martin McAleese asking him to include Bethany Home in in his investigation of Magdalen laundries. The government refused to allow this - see letters. read full story / add a comment