The recent bonds-for-notes overnight legislation read full story / add a comment

Catholic torture of a political activist now before U.S. high court. Huminski v. Mercy Gilbert Mecical Center. Court papers reveal an unholy alliance between Sheriff Joseph Arpaio, Federal Judge Frederick Martone (both life-long Catholics) and a Catholic Church hospital network, Dignity Health, and their efforts to silence a critic of the racist sheriff with an attempted murder and torture at a Catholic hospital, Mercy Gilbert Medical Center, Gilbert, Arizona.
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This is an opportunity for LASC members, volunteers, friends and community groups to exhibit photos of Ireland and Latin America during Latin America Week 2013. The title of the exhibition is:

“Digging at the Heart of Mother Earth”
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Russia has also issued warnings about the Israeli attack on Syria. Full texts at links.

Iran has threatened Israel, warning there would be “serious consequences” for a reported attack on a research center in Damascus.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said Tel Aviv would face repercussions for the Israeli airstrike against a scientific research center in Jamraya, rural Damascus, the semi-official Fars news quotes him as saying.

Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul-Karim Ali says Damascus has "the option and the surprise to retaliate." He gave no details on when the retaliation would be, only saying that the relevant authorities would be tasked with preparing for it. ...
http://rt.com/news/iran-israel-syria-consequences-171/ read full story / add a comment

The Independent, the UK daily, in an exclusive report by Steve Connor said a section of the super-rich linked to fossil fuel industry back climate crisis deniers. The report headlined “Billionaires secretly fund attacks on climate science” said: A secretive funding organization in the US that guarantees anonymity for its billionaire donors has emerged as a major operator in the climate "counter movement" to undermine the science of global warming. read full story / add a comment

Blacklisting of workers is a `National scandal' and the scandal is that it has gone on for so long and not enough was done by those shouting the loudest now. Millions of people would be forgiven for thinking that the illegal blacklisting of over 3,000 construction workers has suddenly been discovered. Yet it has been the worst kept secret for over two decades that those who spoke up with concerns for Health and Safety on construction sites or defended wages and conditions were punished and denied employment. Brave people paid a heavy price as each year, each month, each day brought more discrimination - more lives were being wrecked, houses lost to repossession, stress induced ill health, heart attacks and even worse. read full story / add a comment

Every moment is valuable. We can make more money, we can never make more time. That we waste this vital resource in so many ways is a shame. We waste it when it is free, we waste it when it costs. We waste it in futile debate about solutions to problems, some of which never were. We waste it through broken promises. We waste it by trying to buy it, by trying to give it away or sell it. Sometimes, the most valuable thing we can do is to sit still for a moment. Take stock, life is not a race. There is no urgency, and most certainly money is not the real priority that we have today. It is also certain that money is not the solution. read full story / add a comment

It's their party, and they'll cry if they want to:
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Read about the late Aaron Swartzs association with WikiLeaks. Full text at link.

In a series of tweets, WikiLeaks disclosed that deceased Internet activist and Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz may have contributed to the organization and had even been in contact with Julian Assange. WikiLeaks said it was divulging this information “due to the investigation into the Secret Service involvement with #AaronSwartz.”

Swartz, who committed a suicide on Jan. 11, was arrested two years ago for breaking and entering into an MIT storage closet and accessing an Acer laptop that he programmed to download millions of scholarly articles from the JSTOR database. The Secret Service took charge of the Swartz investigation two days before his arrest and provided the prosecution with information that led to its harsh pursuit of the 26-year-old. read full story / add a comment

This past Saturday marked 7 months since Julian Assange entered the Ecuadoran embassy in London http://tinyurl.com/b5wv2s6 seeking asylum from U.S. persecution. The embassy remains surrounded 24/7 by British police. Anti-war & human rights activists maintain a daily vigil 2pm-5pm. Yesterday photo http://tinyurl.com/ad4jgj2 read full story / add a comment

Larry Everest shows that Sanctions are War by other means. Sanctions are Weapons of Mass Destruction. Full text at link.

The U.S. claims that its sanctions are only aimed at Iran 's government—the Islamic Republic—and its top leaders. But because the U.S. and its big power allies (Germany, France, Britain and other European countries) are sanctioning and embargoing Iranian banks, they have crippled Iran's ability to pay for urgently needed imports—including medicines—and halted many shipments. In addition, many drugs and needed chemicals aren't getting into Iran thanks to the banning under the sanctions of "dual-use" chemicals with possible military applications.

"Hundreds of thousands of Iranians with serious illnesses have been put at imminent risk by the unintended consequences of international sanctions, which have led to dire shortages of life-saving medicines such as chemotherapy drugs for cancer and bloodclotting agents for haemophiliacs," Guardian UK . read full story / add a comment

CPIR Statement: We Must Support the Syrian State read full story / add a comment

Occupation camp website:

https://zad.nadir.org/

You can show some solidarity by mailing, or coming!

Please sign:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/268/029/343/save-french-...port/ read full story / add a comment

Dublin 1913 to Dublin 2013

What have we learned? What changes can be made?

Dublin 1913: It was before World War I, Ireland had negotiated a form of Home Rule/self government but there was inequality with extremes in wealth and poverty, nationalism and British Rule created the environment for dissent and rebellion. James Larkin "Big Jim" represented the low skilled workers and William Martin Murphy, a Catholic businessman represented the newly forming middle class. William Martin Murphy owned the Irish Independent newspaper, and the Dublin United Tramway Company and was making inroads against the power of the former elites.
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Iran is rapidly running out of vital medical supplies due to sanctions and an unavailability of foreign currency to buy supplies. The sanctions levied against Iranian banks, which are effectively cut off from the global financial system, have made it nigh impossible for Iranian companies to finance imports of whole drugs or raw ingredients, analysts say.

"There is not a proper channel through which they can pay, unless they send somebody to Pfizer with a suitcase full of cash," says Muhammad Sahimi, an Iranian political analyst and engineering professor at the University of Southern California.

Sanctions against Iran's oil industry have left the country short on foreign currency reserves. This week a prominent Iranian parliamentarian said oil revenues had declined 45% in the last nine months. Iran's currency, the Rial, is also believed to have lost 80% of its value against the dollar since the beginning of 2012, making imports prohibitively expensive. read full story / add a comment

Lobster Issue 64 Winter 2012 now available online.

Nobody told us we could do this (PDF)
by Simon Matthews

Chemtrails: the proof and the purpose (PDF)
by T. J. Coles

The view from the bridge (PDF)
by Robin Ramsay read full story / add a comment

US involvement in destabilising progressive regimes in Latin America has continued under Obama with coups in Paraguay and Honduras. Full text at link.

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa has said the CIA may try to kill him prior to upcoming elections. Citing reports of a plot to “destabilize the region,” Correa said the threats were “credible,” given the history of US involvement in Latin America. Correa alluded to reports by Chilean journalist Patricio Mery Bell, who allegedly passed on information to the Ecuadorian government that President Correa’s life was “under threat” by a CIA plot.

“There are many cases of [the CIA] interfering” in Latin American affairs, Correa said during a campaign tour in the coastal province of Guayas. “These are credible [reports] because this has happened before in Latin America.” read full story / add a comment

Civilian deaths have risen by 28% in Afghanistan, In Yemen and Pakistan Drone attacks increase, not just Al Qaeda and Taliban die, many civilians perish in these far from surgical strikes. Ironically the miltants killed by the US in Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan hold the exact same beliefs as the Jihadists backed by the US in Syria, Egypt and across North Africa. Even more bizarrely the US arm Jihadists in Iranian Baluchistan while they fight another branch of the same organisation in Pakistani Baluchistan! Did it ever cross the minds of the CIA that weapons supplied in Iran work just as well in Pakistan?

In the US, Obama has signed into law the bill which continues the operation of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and allows for indefinite Military internment without charge for US citizens.

Time for the good news: The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has awarded damages to a CIA torture victim who was subject to extraordinary rendition.

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Yassamine Mather writes on the resolutions which have emerged from the Imperialist backed Tribunal on Iran, on how sections of the Iranian Left have damaged themselves through association with it. Some let themselves be fooled but some were scoundrels. Genuine Democracy will not come to Iran through Neo-Cons or CIA Fronts. Full text at link.

In the good old days of the Moscow trials it was customary for fallen members of the Soviet leadership to disappear from group photographs, their image wiped out of history, as they fell out of favour with Stalin. How ironic that the 21st century unholy alliance between Iran’s soft left and neo-conservatives in what is known as the Iran Tribunal seems to have adopted the same method in dealing with the embarrassing outcome of its second phase.

The Farsi version of the long-awaited final resolution never made it to the IT website and the English version1 has been either removed or hidden away somewhere where it is difficult to find.2 As the embarrassing clauses were translated into Farsi, the organisers were confronted with a barrage of criticism. The soft left has attempted to justify the disappearance of the final statement with the claim that the ‘findings’ were temporary resolutions - although the ‘prosecutor’, Payam Akhavan, and his allies consider the job done and deny the ‘temporary’ nature of the findings. read full story / add a comment

World War Two was an imperialist war. It had nothing to do with democracy. Britain, France and even the USA has colonised and repressed peoples around the world. There was no democracy at work here. Parts of the world were direct undemocratic colonies of Britain and France. A war for democracy against fascism could not be fought by Empires that maintained such colonies. The principled position of revolutionary communism concerning World War Two is that it was an inter-imperialist conflict involving the unavoidable military engagement of Stalinist Russia in the interests of protecting from destruction by imperialism. Consequently communists were left with no option but to call for the mounting of a popular principled campaign against the war as a means of defeating capitalism thereby replacing it with communism. read full story / add a comment