Christian Aid Ireland, Grupo Raíces (Grúpa Fréamhacha), Justice for Colombia Ireland, LASC and Trócaire are calling the Irish Parliament not to ratify an EU-Colombia Free Trade Agreement which could probably be voted in June this year.

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/tds-and-senators-...ombia read full story / add a comment

Are you

- active in social movement struggles but need space to stand back, reflect, recharge?
- involved in community and voluntary activism but feel trapped by the structures?
- politically minded but don’t know how to turn that into an effective and radical practice?
- clear that social change is central to you but unsure how to build a life around it?
- interested in spending a year with your peers and experienced practitioners?
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To: Former participants/members of the Rossport Solidarity Camp, potential future volunteers, all who wish to work in solidarity for social, environmental and economic justice in the struggle against the Shell Corrib Gas Project.

We invite you to a meeting to review the current status of the solidarity movement and discuss how we can best continue our work into the future. read full story / add a comment

Along with Anto Macaba I recruited Joe Higgins to socialism and Militant/SP. He would later go on to refuse to support my right to appeal against my expulsion from that organization. He put his own position in that organization over principle.

Editors Note: The Socialist Party website has a statement reproduced in the first comment below, saying that Joe is NOT retiring from political activity but will NOT stand in the next general election read full story / add a comment

On Monday, the Supreme Court hears arguments between Argentina and holdouts who refused two debt restructuring deals after Argentina defaulted on its debts in 2001. The Supreme Court Justices will determine if predatory hedge fund, NML Capital can obtain information from US Banks that reveal Argentina's holdings in order to target those assets for debt payments. The Obama Administration is siding with Argentina in the case. In the summer, the Supreme Court will also decide if it will hear a much broader case between Argentina and the hedge funds that impacts extreme poverty, official US debt policy and country debt restructuring. read full story / add a comment

The annual International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank meetings are focusing on the role of high debt burdens in both global economic recovery and increasing inequality. At the onset of the meetings, the G24 released an IMF statement noting that the IMF's failure to implement quota reform and the outcome of the US Supreme Court Argentina/NML Capital case impacts global inequality. read full story / add a comment

Cork Airport is being left in the lurch while other Irish airports receive new services. read full story / add a comment

Jubilee USA Network, a religious anti-poverty coalition, along with 78 other religious and development groups filed with the US Supreme Court in the case between Argentina and NML Capital read full story / add a comment

Sadly, Tony Benn has died aged 88
"After the war people said, 'If you can plan for war, why can't you plan for peace?' When I was 17, I had a letter from the government saying, 'Dear Mr. Benn, will you turn up when you're 17 1/2? We'll give you free food, free clothes, free training, free accommodation, and two shillings, ten pence a day to just kill Germans.' People said, well, if you can have full employment to kill people, why in God's name couldn't you have full employment and good schools, good hospitals, good houses?"
-Tony Benn (1925-2014): read full story / add a comment

Carlow, Kildare, Wicklow, Wexford and Kilkenny are now recruiting. read full story / add a comment

Foreign backed coup in Kiev.

This year will mark the one hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. Observing the media of Europe and the U.S one could be forgiven for seeing startling similarities between 2014 and 1914. Imperialist powers and entangling alliances pitting the world into two opposing camps over the fate of a small nation. In this case the autonomous Republic of Crimea. Crimea which is an autonomous region belonging to Ukraine but with an ethnic Russian majority has held the attention of world since the Pro-Russian government of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown by rioters in the countries capital of Kiev on February 23rd, 2014.
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Argentina officially requested that the US Supreme Court hear an appeal in a debt case that will impact people living in extreme poverty around the world. The case dates back to Argentina's 2001 default, after which 92% of all Argentine bond holders restructured their defaulted debt. Predatory hedge fund, NML Capital leads a small group of holdouts who won judgments for payment in lower US Courts. NML Capital never invested in Argentina and bought the debt cheaply after Argentina's default. Because sovereign lending is contracted in the United States, the precedent the case sets impacts some of the poorest economies around the globe and allows these hedge funds to target assets that benefit poor people. The International Monetary Fund, the Paris Club, legitimate investors, the US and most governments oppose this predatory behavior because it cancels the benefits of debt relief, makes sovereign debt restructuring more difficult and limits credit to poor countries read full story / add a comment

Argentina will file its final US Supreme Court appeal in the NML Capital hedge fund debt case before this Tuesday, February 18th. Legal observers, economists, investors, the United Nations, the Obama Administration, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the religious community have closely monitored the proceedings. read full story / add a comment

Washington, DC - Heads of state, financial ministers, celebrities and representatives from many of the worlds most powerful corporations are meeting in Davos, Switzerland for the 2014 World Economic Forum. This year's theme of the forum is "The Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business." The Forum has focused on income inequality, the impacts of low economic growth and climate change. In advance of this year's forum Oxfam International released a report that noted that the world's 85 richest individuals have as much wealth as 3.5 billion people or half the world's population. read full story / add a comment

Greedy ISPs move to cash in on providing tiered Internet access
Judges at a federal appeal court in Washington have dealt what could well be a mortal blow to the freedom of the Internet. read full story / add a comment

Yesterday, Pope Francis appointed nineteen new Cardinals from around the world. Sixteen of the nineteen are eligible to vote for the next Pope. There were no new Cardinals selected from the United States. read full story / add a comment

The Supreme Court will review a lower court's order for banks to give information on Argentine assets, including those assets held outside of US jurisdiction, to a group of hedge funds seeking to collect from Argentina's 2001 default. Additionally, the High Court will review if it is legal for these predatory hedge funds to target assets for collection outside of a US jurisdiction.
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Through our endorsement of Revolutionary Republicanism, we stated without apology that the defence of Irish Sovereignty, the achievement of true Independence and the struggle for Socialism were mutually inclusive tasks and that negation of one signalled a dangerous rejection of the other. We stated clearly that the mobilisation of the masses is a task which cannot be bypassed and that key to that task is the presence of Republicanism within and alongside day to day struggles of workers, campaigning groups and communities.
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On December 13th, the Isles of Man, Jersey and Guernsey signed an intergovernmental agreement with the United States to improve international tax compliance and implement the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), a US federal law designed to combat offshore tax evasion. The Isles signed a similar agreement with the United Kingdom in October. read full story / add a comment

More than a month after Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines, the country has paid approximately $900 million in debt repayments—more than twice as much as it’s received in pledged aid from countries around the world to support the recovery effort. read full story / add a comment