9 May 2013

Press statement: Joe Higgins TD

Supreme Court ruling on Registered Employment Agreements poses need for organising drive by union movement as first step in protection of conditions

Commenting on today's Supreme Court ruling that Registered Employment Agreements are unconstitutional Joe Higgins TD said:

"The striking down by the Supreme Court of the REAs will be seen by employers and sub contractors as a signal for a savage attack on the wages and conditions of workers. The trade union movement should immediately declare that any such attacks will be met by all out action and must now go on the offensive to ensure that wages and conditions provided for by the REAs remain intact.

"Today's ruling is further proof that the judiciary in the final analysis contains an inherent bias against the interests of working people. Employers have allies in the top echelons of the state who are prepared to strike down the legal underpining of conditions in the private sector that exceed the statutory minimum wage. read full story / add a comment

What was the the reasoning behind the Israeli attacks on Syria?Was this agreed with Obama or did Netanyahu exceed his remit. Full text at link.

Over the weekend of May 4-5 Israel launched air raids against targets in Syria. Yassamine Mather and Moshé Machover, two members of the Hands Off the People of Iran steering committee, discuss the issues raised by this latest development

YM: The two Israeli air raids into Syrian territory have to be looked at in the context of the current Syrian civil war and realignment of regional powers. However, there is an Iranian dimension to all this. According to some Iranian military strategists, “Syria is the 35th province [of Iran] and a strategic province for us. If the enemy attacks us and wants to appropriate either Syria or Khuzestan [in southern Iran], the priority is that we keep Syria.”1

According to ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s most senior foreign policy adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, “Syria has a very basic and key role in the region of promoting firm policies of resistance … for this reason an attack on Syria would be considered an attack on Iran and Iran’s allies.”2

Until May 4-5, there could have been no doubt that, in the event of a military attack by US or Israeli forces, Iran’s first line of defence would be a retaliation against Israel using Hezbollah, who in turn would rely on Syrian military support. The Israeli bombings have clearly changed the situation and weakened Iran’s position considerably. What do you think? Am I right or is this a very Iran-centric analysis? read full story / add a comment

Pro Choice Protest - Legislate PROPERLY for X: Central Bank Plaza, Dame Street, 4pm on Sat. May 18th 2013

Action on X want to see the following included in the X legislation:
• The risk of suicide as grounds for abortion
• The opinion of no more than two medical practitioners to approve an abortion
• State-wide access
• Provision for abortion if a foetus has a fatal abnormality and cannot survive
• Decriminalisation of abortion read full story / add a comment

At 12 midday on the 16th of May, Occupy Galway will return to Eyre Square to mark the first anniversary of the destruction of the Eyre Square camp. read full story / add a comment

83 year old Nun faces 20 years in prison for trespassing on National Security Complex. Full story at link.

An 83-year-old Roman Catholic nun and two other activists are on trial in Tennessee this week for what the New York Times called the biggest security breach in the history of the nation’s atomic complex.

Court proceedings began Tuesday in Knoxville, TN for Sister Megan Rice and two other members of the Transform Now Plowshares, an anti-nuke protest group that is charged with crimes related to the July 28, 2012 break-in of the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

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Formation of Dublin's first 1916 society read full story / add a comment

2013 James Connolly Commemoration,

Sunday 12th May.

Assemble at Arbour Hill cemetery, Dublin, at 12.30pm.

Followed by James Connolly Commemorative Lecture

3pm, 12th May, The Cobblestone.

Public Lecture on the revolutionary politics of 1913-1916. Speakers to include Aindrias O' Cathasaigh(Historian and author of a number of books including '1916 Seachtar na Casca', 'Daol na Réabhlóide' and 'James Connolly- The Lost Writings') and Dick Carroll (Lifelong socialist republican activist and member of the Independent Worker's Union; grandson of councillor Richard Carroll).

Organised by éirígí.

All Welcome.
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Survivors of Irelands Industrial School's are been robbed by the minister for education (Minister Ruairi Quinn TD). Who against Survivors wiishes set up a Statutory Fund, using Survivors Reparation Money! read full story / add a comment

Join us on a worldwide march against MONSANTO on May 25th in Dublin and Cork at 2pm and Clare at 2:30pm

Events are taking place worldwide on May 25th against MONSANTO who are taking over our food and spreading GM crops everywhere. The genes are designed to make crops resistant to heavy doses of their herbicide RoundUp but this ends up in our food and kills the soil and destroys biodiversity. read full story / add a comment

The above title does not mean I understand her reasons for supporting DynCorp. In fact, it could just as easily be reworded to reflect a question I myself have regarding the strange reluctance of the State Department to act regarding a corporation that has participated in some of the most deplorable acts a corporation could – and we are talking big wealthy corporations here. Except, they do obviously favor the company in question, and support them. As one of the top three US defense contractors receiving money from the US government, DynCorp, has sunk to depths lower than drug dealers, slave traders, rapists or child abusers as they have done them all and more. read full story / add a comment

The capitalist system has exploited and abused nature, pushing the planet to its limits, so much so that the system has accelerated dangerous and fundamental changes in the climate.

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Republican Sinn Féin will be marking the 90th anniversary of the death of Commandant Neil ‘Plunkett’ O’Boyle at the hands of Free State forces with a commemoration in Knocknadruce, Co Wicklow on Sunday May 12 at 3.00pm. read full story / add a comment

On March 14th, 2013 Provisional Sinn Féin MLAs Jennifer McCann and Sean Lynch, met with Vice royal Theresa Villiers, regarding the continued internment of Marian Price and called for the immediate release of Marian Price according to MLA Jennifer McCann. Since that time there has been a complete media print blackout on the political internment of Marian Price. read full story / add a comment

"What is to be done between moments of excess?" read full story / add a comment

This year's G8 promises to be different for a number of reasons. 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.

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Ireland's only ethnic Bazaar in Dublin's City Centre read full story / add a comment

Hello All - Here is my review of the controversial TV3 Irish War of Independence documentary "In the Name of the Republic" which was presented by Prof. Eunan O'Halpin of Trinity College which has just been published in the May/June issue of History Ireland Magazine. Enjoy:

IRA leader, Tom Barry, once likened the more unsavory aspects of the War of Independence to being dragged “down into the mire”. The two-part documentary, 'In The Name of The Republic', presented by Professor Eunan O'Halpin, explored that mire by examining the uglier aspects of the period. These included the assassination of RIC men, the killings of unarmed British soldiers and the execution and secret burial of alleged British spies.

The first episode focused on Ashbrook Farm, Laois. The owner of the farm related how a predecessor, Jack Walpole, told him that three bodies were dumped there in the 1920's. Walpole, who was described as “a bit eccentric”, claimed to have buried one of the bodies himself. The supernatural was a strong feature of Walpole's tale and he stated his horse could sense the location of the graves, refusing to draw a plough over them.

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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

Chiding President Aquino’s pronouncement that Labor Day should be celebratory with both labor and capitalists greeting each other for “doing a good job” for the past year, workers renewed the call for government to create “not just jobs” but “more regular jobs with living wage.”

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