Magaretta D'Arcy, a 79 year old peace activist who is also undergoing cancer treatment was arrested at home in Galway but NOT for bankrupting the country and saddling it with billions of debt, NOT for corruption and other white collar crime, but for the crime of having a conscience and actually caring about her fellow human beings. That's correct. In this country you can destroy it in all sorts of ways and you will be fine as no banker, politician, developer, bond holder or other types of people who have been involved in economically destroying this country, and causing widespread austerity, hardship and misery which in itself has led to many suicides and so forth. None of these people have come before the courts or been jailed. However for the really serious crimes of still having your humanity at 79 and doing something about it instead of shutting up and doing nothing, for these crimes, the state will bring the full force of the law against you and will always find some narrow argument to shut out the wider context of your action, to convict you and get you quickly behind bar. In that way the state quickly ensures that this dangerous contagion doesn't spread and it serves as a lesson to all as to what might happen to them.

Magaretta D'Arcy, a 79 year old peace activist who is also undergoing cancer treatment was arrested at home in Galway.

Events: Demo in Support of Margaretta D'Arcy outside Limerick Prison on Fri 24th Jan at 5pm.

Related Links: Guantanamo Granny tries to arrest Judge | Court case against two GAAW members, Margaretta D’Arcy and Niall Farrell. | www.ShannonWatch.org
From the Archives: DDoS Attack: Website Monitoring Military and CIA Planes through Shannon Shannon, Torture, Troops, and Timebombs | Extraordinary Rendition Through Shannon: Protesters Point Finger At A Government In Denial | Airport Police move swiftly to suppress evidence. Is there a "torture jet" behind that warplane? | Letter from Prison: Shannon airport, civil disobedience and the anti-war movement in Ireland | The Real Nature of the Security around Shannon | Shannon WARport Blockade PICTURES | Three Thousand Protest War in Dublin - Two Protest at Shannon Warport Shannon Blockade Reports | Not Guilty. The Pitstop Ploughshares All Acquitted on All Charges | Another 5 go airside in Ploughshares action at Shannon Airport | Mary Kelly Trial | MASS ANTI-WAR TRESPASS AT SHANNON WARPORT A chronology of arrests etc at Shannon warport |

Licensed fracking areas in Leitrim, Cavan & Fermanagh

The Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is sponsoring an invite only fracking workshop in London this Friday 15th Nov 2013 as part of its long term plan to introduce fracking in Ireland. It has already commissioned research to help 'determine best practice guidelines to regulate the shale gas industry in Ireland' (all their own words). There is no hint here fracking will NOT be allowed whatever the findings. This same body though is immune from prosecution under Irish law (See Box 1 below) making a mockery of it's regulatory role.

Related Links: Indymedia Fracking page | We are Awake, Informed and We are Saying No to Fracking | Global Frackdown2 Day - Sat Oct 19th 2013 -Events in Carrick-on-Shannon, Drumshambo, Cahir and Clonmel | Farmers tell G8 leaders: We support Farming not Fracking | Fracking In Fermanagh. What could it mean? | Fracking debris considered too radioactive even for waste site | Statement from some of No Fracking Ireland on EPA 'consultation' process which ended today. | Twelve Canadians – Fracking: Experiments in Sacrifice Zones - Fear & Loathing in Canadian Frackland | ShaleBubble.org -Explains the Ponzi dynamics of the Fracking industry
Anti-Fracking Groups: ttp://nofrackingireland.wordpress.com/ -Campaign against Fracking (Shale Gas) in Lough Allen Basin | http:://www.what-the-frack.org | http://www.FrackingFreeIreland.org -Fracking Free Ireland | https://sites.google.com/site/frackingireland/ -Fracking Ireland | http://www.frackaware.com/wordpress/ -Fermanagh Fracking Awareness Network (FFAN) | http://GoodEnergiesAlliance.com http://www.LoveLeitrim.org | http://NotForShale.com/ -Fracking covering Northern Ireland | http://NoToFracking.com/ -No To Fracking

The future is not good for pensions and the further away you are from retirement the bleaker is the prospect that you will get anything like you have paid in. A number of factors have come into play to cause major trouble and nearly all of these affect the underlying basic fundamentals required for a pension system to work and along with the continual counter coup to remove the social gains of the past century by the financial elite, the prospects remain grim.

Related External Links: The Global Demise of Pension Plans | Dutch Defined Benefit Pension Plans, Second Largest in Europe, Face Forced Cuts | Feb 2011 Pensions, Treasuries, Fannie and Freddie: Ponzi's one and all | Why And How The Young Are Screwed | What Ben Bernanke Is Really Saying | Your Pension Is Under Attack From All Sides. Here's 10 | Promises, Promises ... Detroit, Pensions, Bondholders And Super-Priority Derivatives | Derivatives, The Gift That Keeps On Taking | Irish pension age to increase to 75 | "It’s a pensions time bomb" - 1 in 5 people stop contributing to their pension | Pension crisis - Inaction is inexplicable | The Pension Time Bomb | Pensions crisis looms as funds lose €18bn in value (Irish Independent) -Nov 2011 | Crises in the banking sector and attempts to refinance
Definitions: Annuity | Gilts

A worrying undermining of our democracy??

The coming referendum on the abolishment of Seanad Éireann would, if passed, remove the existing constitutional right of the President to refer proposed Bills to the people for a referendum. It would pass the initial responsibility of passing Bills into law onto the Dáil alone - a dangerous development, particularly where any ruling party might hold an overall majority.

A vote to abolish the Seanad would in fact pass most law making decisions that impact upon the people to the Dáil alone, passing such responsibility to a single parliamentary body, thus removing existing safeguards meant to protect against the introduction of unconstitutional or politically or otherwise motivationally biased law.

Abolition of the Seanad would mean that a single body, the Dáil, will be responsible for passing any new laws through parliament, which must then be signed into law by the President.

However, the existing constitutional right of the President to refer any Bill to the people for referendum will be removed from the Constitution.

Related Links:
How much would we save by abolishing the Seanad?
Very cynical misleading FG posters?
A History of Iniquity, II: How Irish Governments behaved unconstitutionally, serving the EU agenda | Memo On The Unconstitutional Use Of Public Money By Irish Governments In Constitutional Referendums | Article 136 TFEU amendment, the ESM and the Fiscal Compact Treaty | The Irish Veto: Why a referendum on one treaty, and not on the other? | Referenda: A Strategy for Success? | NUI Seanad Candidates' Include Secret FFers, FGers, et al | Ronan Mullen: Independent Senator. Liberal? | Ireland in Crisis: Challenging the Consensus |

Today the mainstream media are claiming that there has been a chemical attack by the Syrian government near Damascus even whilst an UN inspection team arrives. The reports have been conflicting with the initial reports claiming 280 victims and then later up-ing it to over 1,300 killed.

However, the claims are predominantly coming from the so called Free Syrian Army who are backed and funded by some of the despotic Gulf States, as well as Saudi Arabia and by the Western powers principally France, USA and UK. This same group is made up mercenaries of all kinds including members of Al Qaeda who want to turn the country backwards and bring in Sharia Law and just back in May 2013 the UN accused the Syrian rebels of using chemical weapons.

What is most telling though is that it makes absolutely no sense for the Syrian government to do this. In recent months they have retaken areas held by rebels and seem to have repelled several attack campaigns in the past two year. And France in particular as well as the other powers have been consistently in the last year being trying to throw the mud of chemical weapons and then chemical weapon attacks in a clear effort to force public opinion to back no-fly zones and from there total demolition of the country and invasion followed later by a pliant regime. The end game is to clear the way for an attack on Iran which the crazies have been pushing hard for many years.

Update:: Mint Press News: EXCLUSIVE: Syrians In Ghouta Claim Saudi-Supplied Rebels Behind Chemical Attack
Indymedia Links:
Saudi Rulers Pour Money Into Arming Militants In Region | Syria: One "humanitarian" intervention too far | Hacker unearths plot against Syria / Iran | Interview with Syrian Communist on conflict in Syria | Syrian TV reporter killed by rebel sniper near Qusair |
Other Links:
Syria: Chemical weapons used by rebels came from Turkey -Times of Israel -Apr 2013 | Putin claims proof Syrian rebels used chemical weapons -June 2013 -Refers to earlier chemical attack. | UN: Syrian Rebels Used Chemical Weapons - The nerve agent sarin was used by 'the rebels, not by the government authorities' -refers to earlier rebel chemical weapon attack |
John Kerry’s “Colin Powell moment” | Australian government backs US-led campaign against Syria | Lying About Syria | US Uses Past Crimes to Legalize Future Ones | Hypocrisy! - CIA helped Saddam gas Iran in ’88 | Syrian army finds chemicals in militants tunnels -Press TV | Syria: Another Western War Crime In The Making -