Press Conference / Public welcome - Friday 24th - Dublin in Buswells Hotel - 4pm on Molesworth Street opposite Dail Entrance

How and Why the Irish EPA must ensure Human Health and our Environment are Protected Against the "Fracking" Industry
Internationally renowned researcher and campaigner Dr.Mariann Lloyd Smith and Juliet Duff, Chairperson of Irish Doctors Environmental Association on the impacts of 'fracking' (unconventional gas extraction)

read full story / add a comment

Regardless of what the actual total of livestock contribution to global warming, it is part of the problem and we ignore it at our collective peril.
read full story / add a comment

Our new zine Return Fire is now available. It's a diverse mix with liberatory aims, which we hope to be informative and inspiring for anyone who decides to make their life a weapon against the dominant order.
read full story / add a comment

Last week, we made our way to the book launch of Dirty Wars - the world is a battlefield" by former New York Catholic Worker now celebrated investigatory journalist Jeremy Scahill http://dirtywars.org/jeremy-scahill

Jeremy gave an excellent speech naming Guantanamo as the most visible point of a massive iceberg of a U.S. policy of torture and assassination. So if Obama closes Guantanamo and escalates his assassination program while maintaining other black site torture chambers http://tinyurl.com/ap9ayy7 we will know our work is far from over. read full story / add a comment

Sun newspaper, Wed May 22 2013:
There is still [a British] appetite to influence world affairs.
UK troops are supporting operations in Mali and Somalia and are on stand-by to aid the government in Libya.
During his two-day trip, Mr Hammond congratulated Brits at Koulikoro base, who are deployed with Irish troops for the first time since 1922. He said the Queen’s 2011 trip to Ireland brought a change in Anglo-Irish relations.
Sgt Gerry Setright, 49, of the Irish Defence Forces, said of working with the Brits: “It’s been a pleasure. We are closer than people think.”

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/campaigns/our...aRMDs read full story / add a comment

In this week's issue:

SECTARIAN LEFT: SVENGALIS OF LEFT UNITY BLOCK UNITY
Peter Manson examines two contrasting views of the new attempt to revive Labourism

ZIONIST MYTHS: HEBREW VERSUS JEWISH IDENTITY
This is an expanded version of the talk given by Moshé Machover at the March 3 London conference, ‘Reclaiming an Alternative Jewish Culture and Identity’

The latest edition of the Weekly Worker is now available online at http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/962 read full story / add a comment

An analysis of the Colombian peace process that takes on the myths about "peace" and the rush to support yet another defeat for workers and peasant movements in Colombia. read full story / add a comment

Interesting report on the State attacks on British Muslims and the role played by private think tanks.

This report attempts to understand the current climate of fear being whipped-up against Muslims in Britain by examining two right-wing think-tanks: the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC) and Policy Exchange. The report maintains that the arguments advanced by these thinktanks represent a reversion to the failed counter-subversion strategies of the past.

The report also argues that right-wing think-tanks have understated the rise of Islamophobia on the far-right and in some cases condoned the rise of groups such as the English Defence League (EDL) because of their own links to the counter-jihad movement. read full story / add a comment

Yassamine Mather looks at the candidates for the presidency, who have to be approved by a council of clerics, and reckons they have anything to offer to the ordinary people.

On the last available day, ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani registered as a presidential candidate. Rafsanjani was the Islamic republic’s fourth president and is standing as a ‘reformist’. In reality he is the candidate of capitalism and probably one of the richest men in Iran. The newst that Rafsanjani had entered the race ‘to save the country’ generated hysteria. The principlists (conservative, hard-line supporters of ayatollah Ali Khamenei) accuse Rafsanjani of holding back before making his last-minute move in order to surprise his opponents. There is some truth to this claim: principlists entered the presidential elections with at least 7 serious candidates and another 14 less serious contenders. Had they known they would be facing such a figure, they would have tried to rally round a single candidate. read full story / add a comment

Press statement: Joe Higgins TD

Joe Higgins TD seeks topical issue debate tomorrow in Dáil on Bus Eireann strike

Challenge Minister Varadkar on his desire to engineer privatisation of company

Despite possibility of talks there is no basis to call of strike until cuts in pay and conditions are rescinded

Following on from his previous statement of support for the striking Bus Eireann workers and his subsequent visits to the picket lines in Broadstone and Busaras Joe Higgins TD has today submitted a request to the Ceann Comhairle for a topical issue debate to be held in the Dáil tomorrow on the dispute:

"I want an opportunity tomorrow to put directly to Minister Varadkar the points that the workers on the picket line made to me about this dispute. It is undeniable that Minister Varadkar supports the wholesale privatisation of Bus Eireann and is willing to use his position in government to help engineer that end. I want to put to him directly points that were made to me about the levels of six figure executive pay in the firm, recent pay hikes these top brass have obtained and the €70 million that has been banked by CIE. It has been raised with me and party colleagues by some of the workers that the government want the company to financially sink as a prelude to selling it off. read full story / add a comment

Yes, the attempt to blame Stria for the use of Chemical Weapons just won't stick. It looks as if the "rebels" were responsible. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson – the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell under President George W. Bush – said yesterday that the Syrian chemical weapons could be a “Israeli false flag operation”.

Vid and full story at link.

read full story / add a comment

In his Ceasefire review, Dan Glazebrook examines Maximilian Forte's withering indictment of liberal humanitarianism and its collusion in imperialist designs on Africa, as seen in NATO's Libya campaign of 2011. read full story / add a comment

Includes a brief description of neoliberal absolutism and a plan for youth to fight for their individual rights in a globalized world requiring a global ethical human rights approach. read full story / add a comment

The Pro-Choice Alliance Cork condemns Fianna Fail's decision to oppose women's access to their existing constitutional right. It calls on all parties to face up to their responsibility not just to pass legislation on X but to repeal the 8th Amendment.

Spokeswoman Sandra McAvoy said

"It looks as if church gate collections matter more to Fianna Fail than their responsibilities to the women of Ireland. They took the same position that women had no right to control their fertility during the long fight to legalise contraception. Their Ard Feis vote could hardly have shown more clearly that they are the party of the past. Fianna Fail’s stance is further proof that the major parties lack common sense, compassion, empathy.”

“They have learned nothing about women’s rights to life, health and to make their own decisions, from the scandals of symphysiotomy and Magdalen homes. But then, they have never shown an interest in the needs and interests of our women citizens.” read full story / add a comment

Fracking is so very safe. Full text at url.

A truck carrying drill cuttings from a fracking site set off a radiation alarm at a landfill in Pennsylvania. Emitting gamma radiation ten times higher than the permitted level, the waste was rejected by the landfill.

After the alarm went off, the MAX Environmental Technologies truck was immediately quarantined and sent back to the Marcellus Shale fracking site it had come from in Greene County, Va. The 159-acre Pennsylvania landfill site accepts residual and hazardous waste, but the cuttings were too radioactive for the site to safely dispose.
read full story / add a comment

The time to do something is always now! read full story / add a comment

The Latin America Solidarity Centre invites you to the
Launch of 'Digging at the Heart of Mother Earth' Photo Exhibition read full story / add a comment

LASC, in partnership with the Colombian lawyers collective Equipo Juridico de los Pueblos, are launching a solidarity campaign with the internally displaced campesino community of Pitalito in Cesar, Colombia. read full story / add a comment

On Sunday April 14, Bolivarian candidate Nicolas Maduro won the Venezuelan presidential election by a narrow margin. With 99.12% of the votes counted, there was a 78.71% turn out, with Maduro receiving 7,505,378 votes (50.66%), and Capriles 7,270,403 votes (49.07%). Opposition candidate Capriles declared that he does not recognise the result and demanded an audit of 100% of the vote.

On Monday April 15 Capriles made a speech, which was broadcast live by all private TV stations as well as CNN Spanish. In it he refused to recognise the election results and called for mobilisations to demand a full manual recount of the vote. These included a national pots and pans banging protest on Monday at 8 pm, marches on the regional offices of the National Electoral Council (CNE) on Tuesday 16, as well as a march on the CNE in Caracas on Wednesday 17.

At the same time both the Organisation of American States president Insulza and the United States declared that they were also in favour of a full recount. The Spanish government added its voice to the chorus and said they did not recognise the results of the elections. read full story / add a comment

19th, 20th, 21st April
Venue: 27 Pearse Street, Dublin 2 - The Pearse Centre read full story / add a comment