We carry below an official statement from the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee, the leadership of the global BDS movement. The IPSC has called an emergency lunchtime protest against the move this Friday 8th December between 1pm and 2pm: read full story / add a comment

As the Senate and House tax plans head to conference committee to reconcile tax plan differences, major religious leaders from Puerto Rico are asking Congress to protect the island from new proposed ‎taxes. read full story / add a comment

The Fine Gael / Independents government is to propose to the Dail this coming week that Ireland join the EU's Permanent Structured Cooperation on security and defence (PESCO). This will mean a new EU Defence budget starting at over €1.5 billion a year (up from €590 million). Each participating EU state, including Ireland, will be required to reach an average of 2% of its GDP to ensure that the EU becomes a global military power. read full story / add a comment

In 1762 Jean Jacques Rousseau published his book, The Social Contract, in which he wrote,

“In Greece, all that the populace had to do, it did for itself; it was constantly assembled in the public square.”

Rousseau was well aware of the importance of public spaces when it came to political change. Indeed, the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 showed the power of the populace against armed guards defending the medieval fortress, armory, and political prison in Paris which at the time represented royal authority. Interestingly enough, the decision had also been taken to replace the Bastille with an open public space and the fortress was demolished within five months. Since then many open public spaces around the world have been the centres of political activity. read full story / add a comment

As the Senate pushes tax reform, the head of a religious development group expressed concern over parts of the House and Senate proposals that could harm low income people in the United States and people in the developing world. read full story / add a comment

Jubilee USA, a religious development group, asked the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to require greater disclosure of what payments corporations make to governments where they operate. read full story / add a comment

Contribution to the Discussion on the Centinnial of the October 1917 Bolshevik Revolution
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Filipino left coalition condemns Trump's visit, demands end of support for Duterte's human rights abuses read full story / add a comment

Despite the Oslo Accords and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, the Israeli state is never going to grant the Palestinians complete autonomy or independence. As recently as last week in London Netanyahu said there could never be an independent Palestine. So they have to actively maintain a state of conflict, and heightened security. read full story / add a comment

Given recent behaviour of google and facebook, Now more than ever, activists need to reduce their addiction and dependence on these corporate websites to disseminate their message and store their data. read full story / add a comment

Ireland’s hare coursing fraternity has taken a big hit. Coursing “trials” - big money spinning events in which hares are terrorized and subjected to agonizing injury or death- are to be downgraded to one- day sessions aimed purely at familiarizing hares with coursing venues. read full story / add a comment

More than 130 faith communities across the United States are praying and acting for hurricane victims ‎during religious services this weekend. read full story / add a comment

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank begin their annual meetings which run between October 13th and 15th. read full story / add a comment

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) releases its biannual report on global economic stability and presents new indicators it says can help predict financial crisis. read full story / add a comment

In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, President Trump called for Puerto Rico's debt to be wiped out. read full story / add a comment

As President Trump visits Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, island religious leaders are calling for aid, debt relief and measures to end child poverty. The statement is issued by San Juan's Catholic Archbishop, Roberto González Nieves, St. Thomas' Catholic Bishop Herbert A. Bevard and Evangelical Bible Society Head Reverend Heriberto Martínez. read full story / add a comment

A little over a week ago the Spanish state attempted to take control of the Mossos d'Esquadra the Catalan national police force whose men and women have sworn an oath of fealty to Catalonia and answer to the Catalan government "la Generalitat". The Mossos sidestepped all such attempts.
The Spanish ministry of the Interior ordered the Mossos to cordon off with "do not cross police" tape and guards all potential 6000+ electoral centres. A civil rights movement emerged intent on protecting those centres. Friday afternoon parents and teachers as well as children stayed on.at
At 06h23 this morning I went to the school in my area, known to some as the "Forat". A neighbourhood which has a long and sometimes difficult history of confrontation policing (lives lost or ruined), and is considered by some the anarchist heart of the city. I joined the civil rights movement there. read full story / add a comment

October 1st, tomorrow at time of writing shall see the "illegal referendum on Catalan independence and conversion to a republic". On September 20th the central Spanish state launched an extraordinary campaign of intimidation and criminalisation. Ministers of the regional government were arrested. Printers were searched and ballot papers confiscated. Websites were closed down. 3 cruise liners hired by the Spanish state provide accommodation to police and paramilitary police drafted in to prevent voting, counting and disemination of information related to the referendum.
I shall later provide more information drawing on the wealth of archived articles on this node of indymedia which I hope and always hoped would explain the route from the fringe to centre of the process of Catalan self-determination. For the moment, the final opinion poll published today shows the intent of 63% of the enfranchised wish to vote & of those 83% will vote yes. read full story / add a comment

This is a repost from Thierry Meyssan site and it discusses how the US military-intelligence industrial complex has co-opted the far Left, largely unrealized to themselves in the fight for US imperialism. The story of Kobane and Rojava got a surprising amount of coverage in the mainstream and that in itself is often a red flag because they don't give publicity for nothing unless there is a propaganda reason for it. While maybe a surprise to some, the US via it's pawns like Saudi Arabia and up to recently Turkey, were and are the main backers of ISIS in all it's forms, from support, logistics, weapons, oil-purchase, it is all part of a greater goal to destroy Syria, and use the Kurds to carve out their own state and in the process to give the US a bridgehead to attack Iran, break up Iraq, and permanently cripple Syria. The US will also ensure that if the Kurds manage to form their own state, they will setup it up to Balkanize it and leave it in a permanent state of war so they can play the old divide and conquer game. Over the previous decades the US has previously backed and then dropped the support for the Kurds many time and betrayed them. So while the Kurds may well deserve their own state, these things do not occur in a vaccum.

When the Russians were invited by Syria to support it in crushing ISIS in 2014 and so far they have gone along way and block the US's plan A for Syria, they came up with plan B to use the Kurds to achieve the goal. There is no doubt that there was and is a pre-existing left leaning movement within the Kurds and even with Anarchist tendencies or elements to it but it just seemed all too good to be true and the immense resources and budgets of US imperalism and it's NATO allies, has the means to control the show as outlined in Meyssan's article read full story / add a comment

A major “coursing trials” event due to be organized by the high profile Kilflynn Coursing Club in County Kerry, on Saturday (September 23rd) was cancelled after a tip-off anti blood sports campaign groups read full story / add a comment