National Water Charge Protests - Saturday 31st Jan 2015
Community Groups will protest across Ireland

We were soldiers in a wide variety of units and positions in the Israeli military—a fact we now regret, because, in our service, we found that troops who operate in the occupied territories aren’t the only ones enforcing the mechanisms of control over Palestinian lives. In truth, the entire military is implicated. For that reason, we now refuse to participate in our reserve duties, and we support all those who resist being called to service.

The Israeli Army, a fundamental part of Israelis’ lives, is also the power that rules over the Palestinians living in the territories occupied in 1967. As long as it exists in its current structure, its language and mindset control us: We divide the world into good and evil according to the military’s categories; the military serves as the leading authority in deciding who is valued more and who less in society – who is more responsible for the occupation, who is allowed to vocalize their resistance to it and who isn’t, and how they are allowed to do it. The military plays a central role in every action plan and proposal discussed in the national conversation, which explains the absence of any real discussion of non-military solutions to the conflicts Israel has been locked in with its neighbors. read full story / add a comment

We are doctors and scientists, who spend our lives developing means to care and protect health and lives. We are also informed people; we teach the ethics of our professions, together with the knowledge and practice of it. We all have worked in and known the situation of Gaza for years.

On the basis of our ethics and practice, we are denouncing what we witness in the aggression of Gaza by Israel. read full story / add a comment

In the past week, Israeli military forces have escalated their offensive on the Gaza Strip. Israeli warplanes have increasingly targeted houses, civilian-populated areas and civilian facilities in the Gaza strip. Israeli warplanes have destroyed a number of houses while their residents were inside, without any prior warnings, killing and wounding many Palestinian civilians.
read full story / add a comment

Yesterday afternoon tragically 295 people lost their lives. What we do know is that if the Kiev fascist regime had any sort of tenuous proof that the separatists had shot it down the Western media would be screaming bloody murder. Instead they are quite coy and initially qualified it with the word accident. And accident of sorts it may well have been because it looks like this may have been more than yet another provocation by US/NATO via their neo-Nazi puppets in Kiev to widen the conflict but in fact may have been a direct attempt to assassinate president Putin because it has been reported his presidential plane flew over the same region approximately 30 minutes earlier. More on this later. But first some details on the lead up to this. read full story / add a comment

An analysis of what the IMF is really about... read full story / add a comment

On 9 July, 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an Advisory Opinion titled Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in which it concluded that “the construction of the wall being built by Israel, the occupying power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, and its associated regime, are contrary to international law”. read full story / add a comment

Responses of members of human rights organizations to post which considers religious political parties would have more influence if adopted a secular, ethical human rights base. Also my responses to sustainable development. read full story / add a comment

Talk given by Sonny Melencio, Chairperson of Partido Lakas ng Masa-Philippines (PLM), during the Socialist Alliance Conference in Sydney, Australia on June 7, 2014 read full story / add a comment

May 20, 2014 3:43 PM

Iqrit (Israel) (AFP) - On a lonely hill in northern Israel, a stone's throw from the Lebanese border, stands Iqrit church, one of the last vestiges of a village razed by Israeli troops in 1951. read full story / add a comment

Three videos testify to the tortures inflicted by the border Italian police upon refugees, on their entrance in Schengen space in order to take their fingerprints. This is the Dublin III system, and evidence of the torture and violation of refugee rights it imposes on those fleeing for their safety and their future. Italy is only one of several border countries using such methods to comply with EU Dublin III.

read full story / add a comment

In reaction to an adverse Supreme Court ruling against Argentina, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced that Argentina would offer new bonds to its creditors governed under Argentine law. The proposed debt swap would involve the 92% of the country's creditors that agreed to restructure in the wake of the country's 2001 default. While the debt swap proposes an alternative for the South American country to avoid paying hold-outs, it fails to reverse the global implications on debt markets, debt restructuring and financial stability. read full story / add a comment

Secular ethical human rights, which are universal, can be adopted by any political party as its ethical base. This includes religious parties as secular ethical human rights virtually equate with the Golden Rule espoused by the major religions. read full story / add a comment

Supreme Court Refuses Argentina Debt Case and Validates Hedge Fund Predatory Behavior. The US Supreme Court denied Argentina's appeal for a hearing today, leaving intact a lower court ruling that validates predatory behavior targeted towards countries in financial distress. The high court also denied a related appeal on behalf of the more than 92% of bond holders who had accepted Argentina's restructuring deal. In a final blow, the court also decided that hedge funds can access information on where Argentina holds financial assets around the world. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), legitimate Wall Street investors and the US government had sided with Argentina because of the case's impact on debt restructuring, poor country access to credit and global financial stability. read full story / add a comment

To celebrate the fifth year of this course, a €2k scholarship will be awarded for practitioner excellence in community education, action for equality and / or social movements. read full story / add a comment

Outnumbered by the country’s rural voters, Thailand’s once vibrantly democratic urban middle class has embraced an elitist, anti-democratic agenda
read full story / add a comment

(An article on the protest in Brazil against the World Cup, aswell as a small campaign in the southern most host city, Curitiba, about the #CheerForPeace project which is working with communities in the cities most central favela Vila Torres)

The eyes of the world focus on Brazil

Today the 2014 FIFA World Cup begins in Brazil, who knows how it will go. Will it be a success, or not? Will they have the stadiums finished in time, or not? Will it be interrupted by violent protests, or not? Will it be a positive thing for the country, or not?

We already have, what has quick become, an iconic image of where much of the feelings in Brazil rest at present. Brazilian artist Paulo Ito posted this mural on the doors of a schoolhouse in São Paulo’s Pompeia a few weeks ago.
read full story / add a comment

All Glitz, Nothing New to Solve Poverty and Inequality read full story / add a comment

The catholic church the main church of capitalism, undemocratic, anti women, has been exposed as throwing 800 young children into a septic tank in Tuam, Ireland. read full story / add a comment

Volume six, issue one of Interface, a peer-reviewed online journal produced and refereed by social movement practitioners and engaged movement researchers, is now out. Interface is open-access (free), global and multilingual. Our overall aim is to "learn from each other's struggles": to develop a dialogue between practitioners and researchers, but also between different social movements, intellectual traditions and national or regional contexts.

read full story / add a comment

Human rights group members ignore posts in which Pope urges UN to resist a 'Culture of Death' and where UN Watch reports the rise of repressive States to prominent UN positions. read full story / add a comment