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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The threat of a military provocation by Tel Aviv against Iran is very real, warns Israeli Marxist Moshé Machover

One thing is beyond any doubt: a major aim of Israel’s foreign policy is the overthrow of the Iranian regime. What is not generally understood are the motives behind this aim, and the present Israeli government’s preferred means of achieving it. In this article I would like to say something about the motives, and then explain why prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s preferred means is war - one likely to ignite a major conflagration. 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

Will the victims of 9/11 ever receive justice? 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

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

During an international meeting in December 2011 in Frankfurt am Main, several left wing organisations and grassroots unions from Greece, Spain, Poland, Austria and Germany decided to launch a joint effort against capitalist reforms under the current crisis. read full story / add a comment

Predictable lamestream media reviewers had little to say about how The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is rife with current political, sociological, technological and religious implications. The movie is about a 24-year-old, gothic-punk-looking, cyberspace hacker, with an issue with men who have histories or sexual or violent predation. She is on a mission to right the world of a few rapists and killers. This is not a standard movie review. Plenty reviews already exist on the Internet for you to get the gist of the story and its characters. This critique is strictly in regards to the movie and is more about interesting political and social commentary in relation to the movie and some of its reviews.
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We hope politicians of all parties who oppose the savagery of hare coursing will support the Private Members Bill that Dail Deputies Maureen O’ Sullivan and Clare Daly intend to move shortly. read full story / add a comment

INFORMATION likely to implicate Scottish Ministers & other figures in the Scottish Government involved in the awarding of ‘Dame’, the female equivalent of a “knighthood” to the Scotland’s former Lord Advocate Dame Elish Angiolini DBE QC (nee McPhilomy), has been angrily withheld from Freedom of Information requests by Scottish Government Civil Servants, after leaks to the media suggested Scottish Ministers were involved “via the backdoor” in ensuring recommendations were made to London that the controversial former Lord Advocate received a knighthood for ‘her services’ to Scots law.
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The following was sent to me by a Greek comrade with strong ties with the comrades in Spain, can you please read it and address it as you feel fit. thanks in advance. read full story / add a comment

Make your voice heard against war and repression, urges Hands Off the People of Iran chair, Yassamine Mather

The war drums against Iran are beating ever louder. The new embargo on Iranian oil, to come into force on July 1, is only the latest in a long list of measures imposed by US and EU imperialism. It bans all new oil contracts with Iran, and cuts off all existing deals. Also, all of the Iranian central bank’s European assets are to be frozen.

We are told that the sanctions are designed to weaken the regime and “force Iran back to the negotiating table” over its nuclear programme. This is clearly nonsense:

In reality, the ‘nuclear danger’ is used by imperialism as an excuse to deal with an increasingly unstable situation in the Middle East. Imperialism has recently lost a number of friendly regimes in the region (like Egypt) and needs to reassert control in this oil-rich area. War is also a useful distraction from economic misery and the current crisis of capitalism. read full story / add a comment

(Subjects) UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) which takes place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 2012, World Economic Forum, Davos 2012.
(which can be viewed live here http://www.weforum.org/events/world-economic-forum-annu...-2012 )
And also the World Social Forum which will also move to the Earth Summit (+20) http://www.economist.com/blogs/theworldin2012/2012/01/w...m-too

Ireland and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, invited many different stakeholders and key speakers to participate in a seminar on the future aims of sustainability within Ireland and the European Union towards the forthcoming Earth Summit (+20) in Rio, de Janeiro, Brazil in June 2012.

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Note that Simpson & Marwick took instruction from the Scottish Government via of Levy & McRae, not Angiolini privately. read full story / add a comment

Tracing the origins of the spread of a toxic and unsustainable ethos which is now global read full story / add a comment

Hi all, I am a PhD researcher with the University of London, conducting research into the psychology of conspiracy theories. I have a short survey online at the moment, for which I am seeking participants. I need as wide a range of people to take part as possible. If you could spare around 15 minutes to fill in the survey I would be hugely appreciative.

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