Speaking following the government announcement today that it intends to bring forward legislation and regulations on abortion, a broad range of pro-choice groups welcomed the call but said that the government must give commitments on the dates by which this will happen. The groups, which include Irish Choice Network, Choice Ireland, Action on X, Galway Pro-Choice, Cork Women’s Right to Choose and Doctors for Choice said that furthermore this legislation should only be considered a first step towards liberalising abortion laws in Ireland which must include holding a referendum to repeal the 8th Amendment to the Constitution. read full story / add a comment

For the past 6 months we have maintained a daily vigil outside the Ecuadoran embassy in solidarity with Julian Assange, WikiLeaks and the people of Ecuador
VID http://tinyurl.com/8jwoa9v
Ecuador has granted political asylum to Julian Assange. The embassy is located next to Harrod's
in Knighstbridge. London. It is surrounded by British police. read full story / add a comment

This pipeline from the Alberta Tar Sands would be shipping millions of tons of unprocessed Bitumen, of the dirtiest sort, and it will cause pollution eventually along the pristine Canadian West Coast. This enbridge pipeline deal is owned by the Oil Monopolies of Canada, United States, and China. It is a threat to the very oxygen that is in the atmosphere which is already gone by 38% to carbon-dioxide. You can see that no coal, gas, oil or atomic energy is safe and in fact the globe is in the fail-safe mode now because more carbon-dioxide is cascading into the atmosphere than oxygen which cannot be replaced fast enough to plus the air for the air breathing oxygen needed to live on. You cannot live on the carbon-dioxide replacement. read full story / add a comment

We are an autonomous group of activists who have been meeting over the past 6 months to organise a resistance to the G8 summit. We have already put out a call out for a week of action against the G8. We have decided to adopt the PGA hallmarks, and we try to organise non-hierarchically using consensus, respecting the autonomy of groups and individuals involved.

When we heard that the summit would be held near Enniskillen in County Fermanagh we decided to release this statement. read full story / add a comment

Sanctions kill, Sanctions are the the waging of War by other means. There are real life victims: All of the surgeries for thousands of haemophilic patients have been cancelled because a shortage of coagulant drugs. A 15-year-old child died at the end of October due to the absence of coagulant medication. Full text at link.

No one amongst the leaders or the grassroots of Iran’s legitimate domestic opposition has called for sanctions on Iran. In fact, they have warned that sanctions and war will be the biggest blow to the civil society and democratic aspirations in Iran.

These sanctions, which went into effect at the end of July 2012, target, amongst other things, Iran’s banking and export of oil. Export of oil comprises 80 percent of Iran’s foreign revenue which finances infrastructural work, social and welfare services, hospitals, schools, universities, state employees' salaries and pensions. The value of Iranian currency has declined by 80 percent in the past year. The prices of imported machinery, medicine, and many types of foodstuff have risen beyond the reach of ordinary people. Many factories and businesses have folded, and unemployment is mounting. read full story / add a comment

I really am shocked at this, not because they are harassing him, not because they want to imprison him. I'm shocked because Barrett Brown is facing decades in prison for copying a hyper-link. “Link Barrett accused of sharing was also posted on Cryptome + several blogs. Will these websites be indicted for ‘transferring link’ too?” UK journalist Ryan Gallagher asked on Twitter over the weekend Full text at link.

A federal grand jury has indicted Barrett Brown, an activist from Texas with links to the Anonymous hacktivist movement, on a dozen federal charges for sharing a hyperlink inside of an Internet chat room.

Brown, 31, had been in federal custody for nearly three months awaiting trial for unrelated crimes when the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, unsealed a new grand jury indictment against him on Friday, December 6 [pdf].

Brown was arrested in September and charged with making online threats against a federal officer after posting a series of YouTube videos and tweets sharply criticizing an FBI agent. Now he has been charged with 12 unrelated counts stemming from his alleged involvement in the high-profile hack of Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, late last year. read full story / add a comment

Once again showing their contempt for human rights the US Military have illegally detained hundreds of Afghan juveniles. Most of these were snatched from their homes. Full text at link.

The US military said it has captured more than 200 Afghan juveniles, whose average age is 16, and held them prisoner for about one year without charging them for any crimes. A report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said that more than 200 detainees under the age of 18 were held at a military prison at the Detention Facility in Parwan for being characterized as “enemy combatants”.

The teens had not been charged with any crimes, but were each held for an average of one year for the sole purpose of preventing “a combatant from returning to the battlefield”, the report said. Since they were not charged for any crimes, the detainees were not provided any legal assistance and could only defend themselves at open hearings. read full story / add a comment

Aurora is a 32-year old Costa Rican woman. She has a job that she likes, a good relationship, after months of trying, she is finally pregnant. However, at 8 weeks, the doctors informed her that the fetus has multiple severe malformations that would not allow it to survive outside the uterus, including severe scoliosis, decreased level of amniotic fluid, and a complete absence of abdominal wall which leaves the internal organs such as the liver and intestines outside of the body. She has had many more exams since, which have all confirmed the original diagnosis of a nonviable pregnancy. A little after her first appointment, Aurora started experiencing strong abdominal and back pain that prevent her from working. The circumstances of the pregnancy are seriously affecting her physical and emotional health. Aurora has indicated that “in addition to the physical pain, the stress and suffering resulting from the news have provoked constant sadness, depression, severe stress, insomnia, nightmares, constant tears” read full story / add a comment

The dark forces of Islamist reaction have been unleashed in Egypt. Looks like an Islamic State means one man, one vote - one time. Full text at link.

Muslim Brotherhood (MB) forces supporting Egypt’s Islamist President Mohamed Mursi are carrying out a bloody crackdown in Cairo. Amid intensifying mass protests in the past two weeks against Mursi, the Islamists are mobilizing their forces to try to crush strikes and protests.

In scenes recalling the “Battle of the Camels”—when then-President Hosni Mubarak’s thugs attacked protesting workers and youth on Tahrir Square in the initial days of the Egyptian Revolution last year—MB cadres together with forces of the Salafist Call and al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya assaulted a sit-in of several hundred peaceful protesters in front of the presidential palace in Heliopolis in Cairo. read full story / add a comment

How women are treated in Iraqi prisons. Full text at link.

When women in Iraq are arrested, they routinely go through three gruesome phases, starting with humiliation, followed by torture, and often ending with rape. I have received disturbing information from two different, well informed sources: one from qualified social workers in Al-Kadimiyah Women Prison, the other from three national guards officers who worked in the prison. read full story / add a comment

Once again the Imperialists are using chemical weapons as a pretext to plan an attack on Syria. Patriot missiles are being moved to Turkeys border with Syria and these weapons require US personnel. Full text at link.

The Obama administration and the corporate media have cited unspecified “intelligence” about the movement of chemical weapons to issue new threats of direct intervention in Syria, where Washington and its allies have been backing so-called “rebels” in a bid to topple the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both made public statements Monday alleging a danger of Syria using chemical weapons and threatening US retaliation. read full story / add a comment

The New Zealand Labour Party wants the rebuild of Christchurch following massive and tragic earthquakes to be from the 'Grassroots up, not the Beehive down'. So far the rebuild has, in my view, involved a fanatical top-down bureaucratic/Corporate control. From the 'grassroots' reflects the global ethical human rights approach of our council which emphasizes a bottom-up development and a bottom-up democracy. PS. the Beehive is where parliament meets. read full story / add a comment

Monday marked 5 months since Julian Assange entered the Ecuadorian embassy!
*Daily solidarity vigil Ecuadoran embassy, Knightsbridge London (now 2-5pm)
http://tinyurl.com/cl8xphq
*Hi tech placard
http://tinyurl.com/ce29age
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Address to militant CNT activists and sympathizers.

The CNT came into being in 1946 to fight against the Stalinien stronghold over the worker's movement. Upholding anarchy and revolutionary syndicalism, the CNT engaged to fight for the abolition of capitalism and the installation of libertarian communism. It's objective, past and present, remains the cohesion and organization of a proletarian majority which is considered being the only efficient way to exert pressure in the course of the struggle between classes and enables the CNT to attain the goal it had set at its foundation. read full story / add a comment

Savita would be alive now if it was not for the all male dictatorship of the Catholic hierarchy and their cowardly politicians. read full story / add a comment

More info:
http://www.afri.ie/news-and-events/international-peace-...isia/

Organised by the International Peace Bureau and hosted by Afri - Action from Ireland.

President Higgins was the first recipient of the Sean MacBride International Peace Prize.
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Irish laws and Catholic church and political cowardice kill women in Ireland read full story / add a comment

When is a political tribunal ‘non-political’? Hands Off the People of Iran national secretary Mark Fischer responds to the latest salvo of pro-imperialist apologetics

Hands Off the People of Iran and the Weekly Worker have been sent a document authored by Dariosh Afshar, associate member of the Iran Tribunal’s International Communications Work Group. The Iran Tribunal, set up by exiled anti-regime Iranians, was convened to investigate Tehran’s massacre of some 15,000 political prisoners in the 1980s, but has been shown by Hopi and this paper to be a body that objectively aids the US-led drive to impose - by military or other means - regime change from above on Iran. read full story / add a comment

Just a look at all the hype involving the 2012 date to see is there anything behind it. This article also describes the general prophecies of the various Churches with regard to the 'End Times' or a time of Divine 'Chastisement' which comes into this question. read full story / add a comment

A call to join in the international days of solidarity against political repression in Russia Monday 12 November 2012

Today we, the representatives of Russian leftist organizations, turn to our comrades all over the world with an appeal for solidarity. This call and your response to it are very important to us. Right now we are facing not just another instance of dubious sentencing by the Russian “justice” system or another case of a human life broken by the encounter with the state’s repressive apparatus. Today the authorities have launched against us a repressive campaign without precedent in the recent history of Russia, a campaign whose goal it is to extinguish the left as an organized political force. The recent arrests, threats, beatings, aggressive media attacks and moves towards declaring leftist groups illegal all point to the new general strategy on the part of the authorities, much more cruel and much less predictable than that of recent years. read full story / add a comment