Corruption and incompetence rule in certain corridors of Dublin City Council. Coventa the company which somehow won the tender (despite not being a party to the bidding) and Dublin City Council have pushed the cost up to nearly €100 million for the land. Council Manager Owen Keegan said not one cent of the €96 million that has already been spent will be clawed back if the plan doesn't go ahead. Despite also as extra €36 million in extra costs many Councillors state that this whole thing has nothing to do with mad ideas from Bertie Ahern. Even if it does not go ahead it will still cost €600 million, and obviously this is the best interests of every else abroad who likes to sabotage Irish planning and make a few million doing so. Renewable energy is the future but not for the old school chums of yesteryear.

Related Links: update 02/10/2014: Stop The Poolbeg Incinerator - Protest March To Dail - Weds 22nd Oct |
Poolbeg Incineration the Fallacy of Need | Local Residents Will Continue Campaign Against Poolbeg Incinerator Despite EPA Ruling (2008) | Anti-Dublin Incinerator campaign appeal to attend Oral Hearing | City Council appear sure of incinerator despite challenge by campaigners | Government in Cahoots with incinerator industry | Over three thousand objections to proposed Poolbeg incinerator in Dublin | http://www.CovantaWatch.org/ -Tracks pollution and regulatory violations etc by Covanta
Update: Briefing note to council by Owen Keegan to Council pushing the incinerator

SUMMARY: I arrived in Ennis without pen or notebook to support the action of Margaretta D'Arcy and Niall Farrell who protested on the runway of Shannon against the US military use of the airport. The following is a colour story of happenings on the day relying on memory only. I hope that someone else may provide a fuller report and my apologies for any errors in this report which are entirely my responsibility.

Related Links: Magaretta D'Arcy jailed | Statement from Margaretta D'Arcy on her Release from Mountjoy Prison | FREE Margaretta D'Arcy, US Out Of Shannon / National Demonstration |
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

In 2012 public opposition forced the ditching of a plan for a "retirement village" on the side of the Dublin mountains, isolated from services and public transport and cut off by the M50, in an area normally zoned for agriculture and public amenity and widely used by the public. A previous plan for a private school on the site had been rejected for similar reasons in 2005. After the local elections the plan is back in a lightly tweaked form, with the developer's sister among a number of newly elected councillors supporting the project.

Related Links: Selling off the Dublin Mountains | Evening Herald Retirement village plans get shot down -shot down in 2012

The Euro and local council elections take place on Fri May 23rd and nationwide there are 11 MEPs to be elected to represent Ireland Euro elections will also be taking place across Europe for a grand total of 751 seats in the European Parliament. Regrettably the European Commission which is composed of 28 non-elected and appointed commissioners and is besieged by thousands of lobbying firms working for the private sector, is probably reckoned to have more power. Yet despite this Europe matters because at least 70% of our legislation comes from there and practically most of the regulation in a diverse range of areas originates from Europe and some of the more background regulation has its origins with corporate lobbyists with the aim of using heavy regulation to put smaller competitors out of businesses by greatly increasing the relative costs for smaller businesses. The main political parties of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael constantly tell us they are pro business and for jobs and the economy. In fact they are for big business, privatisation, outsourcing of jobs, lower wages, less social safety net and their support of big business and corporations constantly results in the suffocating of small business which are the very areas that lead to most employment.

Candidate Website Links: http://nessachilders.ie/ | http://www.bridsmith.net/ | http://www.paulmurphymep.eu/ | http://www.eamonryan.ie/ | http://www.sinnfein.ie/lynnboylan
Related Links: European Election candidates: An overview | Independents’ Network: an online hub for independent politicians in ireland | PoliticalReform.ie | Parliament or Democracy | Wikipedia: European Parliament | Lobbying the European Commission: Open or Secret? | Irish Political Maps | ElectionsIreland.org | Irish Election Leaflets: Euro Election 2014 Leaflets

It was three years on March 11th since the triple nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima plant in Japan in 2011. This article attempts to try and give an picture of the situation today and to show that the accident is still an active event that will take many decades to cleanup and it is anything but over.

Remembering What Happened

It is three years since the accident on March 11th 2011 at the Fukushima power station complex. There has been surprisingly little coverage of it in the mainstream media compared to the Chernobyl accident in 1986 at the time. As most people know, the accident was a result of an earthquake which caused the tsunami which flooded the Fukushima site and knocked out the backup diesel generators used for cooling the plants and that is how the story goes. The first report many people heard was that they were using sea-water to cool the reactors. This in itself was frightening because sea-water and cooling of nuclear reactors should not be in the same sentence, ever and it can only mean one thing -the situation is desperate, everything has failed and since sea-water would destroy the reactor vessel and fuel rods it means its the very last resort at trying to stop a meltdown.

Related Links: The explosive truth behind Fukushima's meltdown | Fukushima Investigation: “Within one day complete meltdown and melt through occurred” — “There is no way that gov’t did not know this” (VIDEO) | Worse than Chernobyl: The inner threat of Fukushima crisis | Fukushima Diary | FukushimaOnTheGlobe.com | SafeCast.org -radiation maps | Hatrick Penry - Plume Gate | Fukushima Emergency what can we do? | Fukushima meltdown appears to have sickened American infants | Unexpected Mortality Increase in United States Follows Arrival of the Radioactive Plume From Fukushima. Is There A Correlation? | Canada and U.S. cut back radiation reporting | The Truth About Radiation and the Fukushima Meltdowns | Cryptome Photos Series of Fukushima | There is no way to stop Fukushima radioactive water leaking into the Pacific | ENE News on Japan Nuclear Accident | Toxic Tokyo Cesium Air Danger - Japan Burn Radioactive Debris - Arnie Gundersen Interview. Oct 2011 | Plume models from ASR Ltd of radiactive cloud from Fukushima | Global Atmospheric dispersion of radionuclides from the Fukushima-Daichii nuclear power plant | National Diet of Japan Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission |
Health and Related | Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Catastrophe in Japan following 11 March 2011 Magnitude 9.0 Earthquake - the Largest in Japan's History | Chernobyl: Understanding Some of the True Costs of Nuclear Technology | Fukushima Residents Seek Answers Amid Mixed Signals From Media, TEPCO and Government. Report from the Radiation Exclusion Zone | The US Navy knew: Fukushima's 'hard rain' on USS Ronald Reagan | 90Sr and 89Sr in seawater off Japan as a consequence of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear accident | Fukushima kids have skyrocketing number of thyroid abnormalities - report | The Implications of The Massive Contamination of Japan With Radioactive Cesium | NRC FOI Documents | Fish with radiation over 2,500 times safe levels found near Fukushima plant | Jan 2013 Hot Particles and Measurement of Radioactivity -Arnie Gundersen | Radiation risks from Fukushima 'no longer negligible' | Plume models from CEREA, France | Beyond Fukishima: A World in Denial About Nuclear Risks by Danny Schechter