Unfortunately this should have been posted earlier

The reputation of British justice now rests on the shoulders of the High Court in the life or death case of Julian Assange.

The appeal hearing at the High Court which will decide Julian Assange’s immediate fate has been set for Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th October. This is a watershed moment in the most important press freedom case of the 21st century. If the appeal court upholds the decision to refuse extradition to the US made by Westminster Magistrates Court last January it will make it very difficult for the US to continue to seek extradition…

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Less than half the number of signatures required from Ireland [1] to join in a European Citizens' Initiative on controlling pesticides have been gathered with less than one month left to meet the quota.

The Initiative seeks the goal of a 50% reduction phasing out the use pesticides by 2030. read full story / add a comment

Handbook on Marine Protection Areas published as audiobook
Listen to Marine Protection Areas ‘while doing the dishes’

An extensive Report on the status of Marine Protection Areas [MPAs] in Ireland has been made available on line both as a pdf and an audiobook from the library of the website of Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE]. A new 'MPA' tab on the organisation's Home Page gives direct access to the publication, which is being made available for no charge. read full story / add a comment

This statement was released by the Irish Nurses for Transparency and Openness, INFTO on July 21st but as their website was not ready until recently it was deferred till now. However it turns out even from the initial limited press release INFTO say they have been contacted by more than 200 nurses and healthcare workers since their inception last month.

In context, it ought to be noted that a total of 82 deaths and 13,529 suspected side effects have been reported to the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) up to August 3, according to its latest report here although it is to be noted these figures at best only capture a small fraction of the vaccine deaths and injuries.

The INFTO is a group of concerned nurses and healthcare workers from across Ireland. We would like to raise concerns about a number of issues that have taken place in our healthcare facilities since March 2020.

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Opponents to Bantry Bay Fish Farm ‘Gutted’

A spokesman for the conservation charity Friends of the Irish Environment, which is based on the Beara peninsula where a proposed 18 cage salmon farm is to be located, said this morning they were ‘gutted’ by the decision. read full story / add a comment

Call on GAA to quantify pesticides use for International Bee Day
Mayo GAA pitch cited to County Council as breaching pesticides guidelines on International Bee Day

The environmental charity Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE] have written to Liam McCarthy, the GAA President, citing the use of pesticides at a Mayo GAA pitch and asking him to quantify the use of pesticides on GAA grounds and to ensure users have been trained to the standard required by the legislation. read full story / add a comment

Ireland's position on bee mortality permitted by pesticides questioned.

Failure to give Ireland’s EU position on pesticides a ‘democratic deficit’.

Six environmental groups have written an ‘Open Letter’ to four Ministers seeking Ireland’s position on the limits of mortalities permitted through the use of pesticides.

The groups are seeking Ireland's position on pesticides in last March’s meeting of the EU’s Standing Committee on Plant, Animal, Food and Feed and what position the State plans to take at the forthcoming meeting in June.

According to the letter to Ministers Ryan, Hackett, Heydon, and McConalogue, a majority of the Member States now favour at least doubling the 5% permitted threshold of mortalities after pesticide treatments (which can be repeated through the growing season) with some member states proposing to allow as much as 25% of a colony to be destroyed under the revised ‘Bee Guidance Document’. read full story / add a comment

High Court quashes last 8 of Bord na Mona’s ‘ghost’ planning applications
Lack of public consultation leads to quashing of 10 An Bord Pleanala consents

The High Court has quashed decisions of An Bord Pleanala to grant leave to apply for substitute consent, in respect of a number of peat extraction and quarry applications. The two-step, ‘substitute consent’ system, by which developers had to make ‘threshold’ applications to regularise previous unauthorised activities before applying for planning permission, was found not to comply with the EIA Directive by the Supreme Court in July 2020 in cases brought by An Taisce, the National Trust, and Peter Sweetman in relation to a quarry in County Kildare. read full story / add a comment

Call on public to support EU ‘Citizens Initiative’ on pesticides facing ‘strong political headwinds’
5878 more signatures required on pesticides Initiative for Ireland to reach its threshold

Ireland remains almost 6,000 signatures short of the required number to reach its threshold in an EU Citizens Initiative calling for greater control of pesticides.

The Initiative comes as the goal of a 50% reduction phasing out the use pesticides by 2030 is ‘facing strong political headwinds’, according to the environmental charity Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE] read full story / add a comment

It is not often that people write important books and then make them freely available under Creative Commons Attribution + Noncommercial + NoDerivatives 4.0 license so it can be accessed and downloaded (without cost) in various forms but that is exactly the case here.

The author Dr Mike Healy has written goes by the title "Marx and Digital Machines Alienation, Technology, Capitalism" and it explores digital technology and alienation. The book is peer reviewed and has been published by University of Westminster press.
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PRESS RELEASE - Friends of the Irish Environment - 15 January 2021

For Immediate Release

Formal end to the Bord na Mona’s peat harvesting ‘major milestone’
Warning of ‘cowboy contractors’ still ignoring peat planning regulations

The decision by Bord na Mona to end all peat harvesting marked a ‘major milestone’ in Ireland’s progress towards controlling greenhouse gases and biodiversity loss, Friends of the Irish Environment said in a statement today. read full story / add a comment

Call for change in Coillte Principal Objects as illegal felling video released
Work stopped by residents due to recommence

An environmental charity has called on the Government to change Coillte Teo’ Principle Objects to add ‘social’ and ‘environmental’ to its sole current sole ‘commercial’ remit.

Friends of the Irish Environment released a video on social media over the New Years’ weekend showing residents stopping clearfelling of a Special Area of Conservation by Coillte Teo which was viewed more than 4,000 time over the weekend. The video, taken at Kilsheelan Woods in the Lower River Suir Area of Special Conservation, shows an extensive woodland area between the N22 road and the River Suir undergoing clearfelling. read full story / add a comment

State refuses release of 2020 images recording ongoing turf cutting on protected raised bogs

Machinery at work on 28 protected raised bogs confirmed to Europe by Ireland

The National Parks and Wildlife Service has refused to release images recording ongoing destruction of Ireland’s protected raised bogs during 2020.

The request came from the environmental charity Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE] who first brought the activities to the attention of the authorities in 2009. The prohibition on cutting on 56 Special Areas of Conservation {SAC] protected raised bogs was due to take effect in 1998 but was not imposed until 2009. read full story / add a comment

The environmental charity Friends of the Irish Environment has called on Taoiseach Micheal Martin to clarify the Irish government's position in relation to efforts to allow the EU to subsidize nuclear power plants. According to a document seen by Friends of the Irish environment, several countries, including France, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, want the EU to allow subsidies to nuclear plants in return for backing a higher EU 2030 climate target. However, other countries including Luxembourg and Austria, are rejecting these plans. The position of the Irish government is not clear. read full story / add a comment

Campaigners for opening of Court records claim initial victory
High Court Direction to release records welcomed

A new ‘High Court Practice Direction’ issued by the Court Service on 13 November 2020 has been claimed as an initial victory by campaigners seeking access to Court records after the judicial process is completed. [1]

The Direction issued recently by Mary Irvine, President of the High Court, allows any member of the public to seek access to the written submissions provided to the Court by parties in proceedings after 11 January 2021. read full story / add a comment

Atlantic Bays stripped of wild fish to eat lice off farmed salmon
Records show 1.6m wild fish destroyed in 4 years

More than 1.6 million wild fish were taken from Ireland’s Atlantic bays to eat the lice off farmed salmon between May 2015 and November 2019. The figures, released to environmental groups through Access to Information on the Environment requests, are the first official record of salmon farming’s practices on these wild fish. read full story / add a comment

All seven known as the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 were protesting against the presence of nuclear weapons in Kings Bay in Georgia USA. Martha was the sixth defendant to go to prison. She goes there in honour after four friends testified on her behalf. One of them told the court that in a future nuclear holocaust when stricken children would ask their dying parents 'why didn’t somebody stop this, while we still had a chance to stop it? ' the response would be be: “Some people DID try to stop this. But we prosecuted them. And we locked them away.”] read full story / add a comment

Call for Covid-19 ‘track and trace’ for rhododendron
Spread of rhododendron ‘death warrant’ for countryside

The spread of rhododendron across Ireland’s countryside has been likened to Covid-19 by an environmental charity, Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE]. FIE have called for a ‘track and trace’ programme to be put in place to control the increasing spread of this ‘beautiful and picturesque death warrant’.

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Twelve years after losing their original case against the planning permission for a LNG terminal on the Shannon River, Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE] today received a High Court order quashing An Bord Pleanala’s grant of permission and awarding costs in their favour. The proposed terminal was due to process Liquid Natural Gas [LNG] from the USA for consumption in Ireland and to be distributed throughout the EU.

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Press Release from Dept of Foreign Affairs

"I am deeply dismayed to learn of the demolition by Israeli authorities on 3 November of more than 70 structures, belonging to 11 Palestinian families in the community of Humsa Al Bqai’a* in the northern Jordan Valley. These demolitions include residential, livelihood and sanitation facilities." read full story / add a comment