Anti G8 Activities

I answered an advertisement in the Evening Herald and went for lessons in the Airport School of Motoring. I paid approximately £6,000 in fees and was told that I would have a job when I passed my tests. I complied with all details asked of me and five years on ...... I AM STILL WAITING read full story / add a comment

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”

Iraq had WMD’s, Gaddafi was killing his own people, Iran has been six months from having nuclear weapons since 2004 and now Syria has used chemical weapons in its civil war. These are lies purported as truth by the vast majority of the mainstream media. These are four examples from the last decade, but of course lies of this kind have been used throughout history to justify wars of aggression. All of these government sponsored fallacies are inextricably linked in an on-going geo-political chess game. This game is all too real for those living in the “theatres” of conflict, and it shall be so for us few, lucky enough to reside in the still relatively peaceful albeit now austere “western” world.
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Wed June 19th will mark a year since WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange entered the Ecuadorian embassy in London seeking sanctuary. The Ecuadorian government was immediately threatened in private correspondence from British Foreign Minister Hague with the loss of diplomatic status and a consequent raid. The Ecuadorian government made the private threat public, held their ground and conducted an inquiry into the Assange case. This was the same government that had previously responded to a U.S. request for a U.S. military base in Ecuador with, "if you let us have an Ecuadoran base in Florida?"

Photos & Short vids (thanx to Bradleylibero)
http://tinyurl.com/mrclbpa read full story / add a comment

A scholarship covering full course fees for the Maynooth MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism, awarded on the basis of practitioner excellence in community education, action for equality and / or social movements. read full story / add a comment

As protests continue in Turkey and the G8 meet in Northern Ireland, the right to peaceful assembly and free expression has never been more important, says Ruairí McKiernan (The Irish Examiner June 17th 2013)

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Imagine if you will, being taken from your home, without a reason or charge, by paramilitary police, who regularly collude in the murder of lawyers and journalists. You are then imprisoned for three years, without being told, how long you will remain kidnapped, by these scum state thugs.
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Interesting and thought provoking post from the excellent zero hedge site making some interesting points about what being poor in the US entails and how the poor are hit disproportionately hard by the way our capitalist blood sucking institutions operate in today's society. Although the article is US centric, much of it also applies here in our society which has been largely colonised and diseased by american society and its "values" or lack therof read full story / add a comment

Some emails have come to light apparently hacked from the server of Britam Defence, the British private military company that operates mainly in the Middle East. These make for VERY interesting reading!! read full story / add a comment

Between 17th and 18th of June it’s starting again: The representatives of the eight strongest economic imperialist states meet for their yearly G8 summit. Since 1975, this meeting is organized every year, where head of states of Germany, the USA, Great Britain, Canada, Italy, France, Japan and Russia come together. read full story / add a comment

The latest edition of the Weekly Worker is now available online at http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/966

In this week's issue:

FROM FINANCE CAPITAL TO AUSTERITY MUDDLE
While economic growth is proving elusive, there are clear signs of stagnation and disintegration, argues Critique editor Hillel Ticktin

IRELAND: NO IFS, NO BUTS … A WOMAN’S RIGHT TO CHOOSE
Controversy over abortion continues to reverberate throughout Irish society, writes Anne McShane read full story / add a comment

It has been almost twelve years since the Genoa G8 2001 summit demonstrations descended into a Dantes hell for both sides. Amnesty itself has said of Genoa that there was ‘the biggest suspension of democratic rights in a western country since WW2’. My Name is Mark Covell and I was almost killed during the Diaz school raid. read full story / add a comment

The recent ongoing breaking news from the Guardian reporting on the NSA files leaked by whistle blower Edward Snowden documenting the surveillance state has become a major news story. This article tries to give some background and context to these events. It has been known for some time that the US National Security Agency (NSA) has dramatically increased it's spying on Americans. Traditionally their remit was to spy on foreigners and in that respect every other country was fair game and still is. Back in the mid 1990s Nicky Hagar (from New Zealand) exposed their Global Surveillance network -known as Echelon - giving the first hints came through of the vast network of the NSA listening stations worldwide and the technology at its disposal and the scale of intercepts. Then in 2000 Interception Capabilities 2000 report to the EU extended this further explaining how phone calls and data transmitted by satellite were sucked up spy satellites and ground based listening stations and submarine taps on cables. The report hinted how the capability existed to tap into the high capacity fiber optic transmission cables which by that time were carrying far more traffic than satellite based systems. This was followed by author James Bamford who wrote Body of Secrets which documented the history of the NSA up to that point and he described how the rapidly evolving global communication system and computer power was having a parallel effect within the intelligence intercept community. Since those early days the Internet exploded on the scene and data in the form of emails, webpages and other forms of data came to the fore and has transformed communications and media. read full story / add a comment

In the past few days, animal protection campaigners have become aware of a disturbing YouTube video that shows a leading dog trainer and breeder using LIVE, tied-up birds to train gundogs. read full story / add a comment

The government of Greece has condemned "inefficiency, opacity and scandal", suspending its (profitable but critical) state broadcaster. ERT (Hellenic Radio-Television) is the state-funded national broadcaster in Greece. The Greek government summarily suspended ERT with immediate effect last night, suspending all 2,500 employees (and an additional 250 freelancers) without pay.

ERT buildings have been occupied by the former state employees who are continuing to produce programmes for broadcast, which are being released through internet feeds and some Spanish television stations.

A petition has been started by AVAAZ at http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Stop_the_shutdown_of_P...reece read full story / add a comment

Forough (not her real name), an Iranian woman, speaks of her experiences during 2009's crackdown on peaceful post-election protests.
As the 2013 presidential elections take place, what is happening in Iran today? read full story / add a comment

While British Parliament Buildings at Stormont in British Occupied Ireland have round the clock guards and thousands of British paramilitary operatives, backed up by 3,600 specially secretly trained police from England, patrolling the streets of Ireland, ahead of the G8 Summit at Lough Erne Resort in Co Fermanagh, British Occupied Ireland on June 17 and 18, it has come as a shock to many Irish citizens to see British drones regularly flying in Irish airspace recently. read full story / add a comment

We are very excited to announce the Ireland premiere of Occupy Love on Thursday, June 13th. A feature documentary from award-winning director Velcrow Ripper (Scared Sacred, Fierce Light), Occupy Love explores the cultural uprisings of our time from the Occupy Movement and Arab Spring to the European Summer and environmental protests and asks the question, “How could the crisis we are facing become a love story?”. read full story / add a comment

INTERNATIONAL CALL-OUT FROM GREECE for all people in Turkey and everybody in the world fighting against contemporary Totalitarianism: read full story / add a comment

"The fallow years when my father left for England to fight a war with cardboard in his shoes!

A look around the room took me back to Bodenstown commerations of many years agto, men still staunch but grown bent by the years and hard times in and out of prisons. Still true to the Faith as Ruairi would define it. " - Dolours Price
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On our way home we needed to cross a street on which there were some police. We approached them very carefully making it clear that we were not protesters. As soon as they saw us they grabbed us very forcefully and pushed us against a wall. We explained who we were and what we were trying to do but they proceeded to treat us very badly. My student - a Turkish citizen - was pushed on the ground and beaten around his stomach and buttocks with batons. They then told him they were not interested in him and kicked him to the other side of the street where he was able to escape. However, they held my friend, a Canadian national with Chinese origins, and myself. I was initially pushed to the ground and beaten very severely around the legs for ' what I was doing'. We were then marched around the centre of Izmir for a further 2 hours as the police decided what to do with us - constantly pushing us and harassing us - along with a number of Turkish people that they had taken into custody. Eventually we got away by being friendly to one police officer who suddenly said ' just disappear up this street'. At that stage the police (including very ferocious riot police who had orıginaly detained and beaten us) were escorting probably over a hundred Turkish citizens to some unknown destination.
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