This ‘better late than never’ photo report comes after the recent instructions from the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) to Shannon Gardaí directing the withdrawal of all charges against Conor Cregan, Niall Harnett, Mags Liddy and St John Ó’Donnabháin. See http://www.indymedia.ie/article/74769 . Ok, so this report is 6 months late, but it was felt at the time, wisely or unwisely, that early statements or photos of the episode might have jeopardised our cases.

This is just a brief summary of events, for more detailed versions see ‘comments’ for individual accounts of what happened. Some information and photos here taken from Airport CCTV footage and Airport Police and Garda statements requested by defendants under ‘Gary Doyle’ order of disclosure of evidence.

Special thanks to Owen Rice for his legal advice and support.

Cosantóirí Síochána, Peace Network meeting this Sat 1st April, 2pm, the Teachers Club, Parnell Sq, Dublin. Phone 086 3454322. read full story / add a comment

The Labour Party like other organisations operates a pension scheme for its employees, in Labour’s case it’s a defined benefit scheme which offers employees a pension based on a fixed percentage of their salary upon retirement. The staff pay in 5% of their salary each year and in return the party is supposed to cover the balance.
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What is the justification for private property?
What is the justification for collective property?

I believe that the answer to two both questions is the same: There is none. read full story / add a comment

Irish prisioner Aiden Hulme has been subject to shocking medical neglect since his inprisonment in England and will loose his leg if immidiate action is not taken.

Sign the online petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/87bb92a/petition.html read full story / add a comment

Phil Pritchard & Toby Olditch had their appeal turned down in the House of Lords. Appeal matters arose out of their initial pre-trial hearing. Phil & Toby, who attended the trial of the Pit Stop Ploughshares last March in Dublin, acted to stop U.S. B-52 bombardment of Iraq from RAF Fairford. B52's dropped napalm, cluster bombs & fuel air explosives over Iraq. read full story / add a comment

Implications for how historians, journalists and others confront media manipulation, historical and contemporary spin
Reading Brian Murphy on how the British manipulated the truth in 1920 "made the hairs stand up on the back of your neck" said Danny Morrison. The parallels between events in that one year and British activities many years later in Ireland are striking, he said.

The one time An Phoblacht editor and Sinn Fein Publicity Director, now author and playwright, launched Brian Murphy's 'The Origins and Organisation of British Propaganda in Ireland 1920’ on March 24th in the Teachers’ Club in Dublin.

The 100-page work was also launched by Professor David Miller of Strathclyde University and by the author, Brian Murphy. read full story / add a comment

“Every minute from now on is never your own, girl” . With these words the midwife plonked my friend’s new born son on her stomach. My friend was 18. She had arrived at the delivery room alone, laboured for hours and she was exhausted. Though she was an independent type or at least tried to be, it was all too much for her. She had wanted the nurse to say “Congratulations you have a beautiful son, you did a great job”. Instead, all romance dispelled, she lifted her head, stared down her nose, past her chin at the splotchy purple being , sighed deeply and kind of squared her shoulders to the future.
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As an American, I am completely fed up with the "war on terror" going on in Iraq and the constant screw-ups along made along the way. Yesterday, I read that Ayad Allawi, Iraq's former interim learder has consented that Iraq is involved in a Civil War, yet the US Idiot cannot seem to figure that out. Now today, I brouse through The Guardian, and discover a story relating tales of terror detainees barred from trials in the US courts, and awaiting judgement on their right to a trial. read full story / add a comment

What are the causes?
This is not scientific but I believe that a scientific study would probably identify these factors in order of significane.

1. Public ignorance and stupidity.
2. Speeding
3. Alcohol and drugs.
4. Poor driving tests and skills and lack of knowledge of the rules of the road.
5. Poor secondary roads.
6. Poor enforcement of road laws by police and lenient punishments for offenders.
7. Increased road usuge and congestion in urban areas.

Most importantly - "What is the solution?"

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I don’t know the last time the Irish Examiner bothered to write about the subject of disability but it is a certainty that the issue is not a priority for the paper’s editors in the normal run of events and it has negligible coverage in its pages. For instance, if you compare its coverage of the subject of horseracing or business issues, disability trails well behind either despite its significance to huge numbers of people.
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1pm Saturday 1st April outside Belfast City Hall read full story / add a comment

This week the NCCRI (National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism) launched a handbook on Seeking Advice and Redress Against Racism in Ireland. However there are wild discrepancies in recording of racism in Ireland as compared to Britain. Show Racism the Red Card has a report form on its website and is hoping to gather research to illustrate the true extent of racism in Ireland. read full story / add a comment

As the Setanta Cup completes the group stages, some managers speak their mind about this cross border competition.

Northern Ireland manager Lawrie Sanchez said: "Football has the power to build bridges, promote respect and bring communities together. We believe supporters are the lifeblood of the game and that sectarianism and racism should have no place in football or society. The Setanta cup is going some way to building bridges" read full story / add a comment

Can anyone tell me as to why it is so difficult to have a basic need catered to regarding accessibility in
Ireland? In this day and age you would think firstly that pure and utter logic would prevail, but with my expieriences, and with the so called "Celtic Tiger" we are years away from being a society that open doors. read full story / add a comment

600 litters of dogs on average are advertised weekly in newspapers,
periodicals and free adds papers here in Ireland.
400 DOGS FOR SALE adds appear on average in one free adds paper
alone, many of these for up to nine different breeds, the majority
of which are being raised on PUPPY FARMS here in Ireland. Other
adds appear on notice boards everywhere with photos of cute pups,
obviously a little money spinner for people who breed their animals
at home.Many people who buy a pup do not realise they are causing
untold misery for the pups mother who lives her life virtually 'in
pup' and many report buying the saddest, sickest pup just to save
it.In reality this easy money prompts the breeder to continue.
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The Liberal-Conservative Danish government refuses to give the Socialist People’s Party access to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ registers of correspondence concerning the controversial cartoons of the Prophet, which provoked demonstrations and attacks on Danish embassies in the Middle East in January.

The chairman of the Socialist People’s Party, Villy Søvndal, accuses the government of "deliberately trying to keep secret things they don’t want people to know about” - particularly further documentation for the fact that Muslim organisations and ambassadors warned the government in advance that things could turn nasty if it did not engage in diplomatic initiatives to distance itself from the cartoons.

The government will now have to explain its stance in the Foreign Policy Committee.

Please read my translation of a recent article from the website of the Danish daily paper, Politiken. read full story / add a comment

It is being organised by the people who did the work to put on the 1st and 2nd Irish Social Forums in 2003 and 2004 and it’s called the Dublin Social Forum (DSF). If you’re into saving the environment, establishing gender equality, getting the debt dropped, facing down racism, dismantling/smashing capitalism, rebuilding our communities, ending war ... then I think you should come. In other words for those who oppose the violent racist sexist war-waging community-destroying public-service-selling ecocide of a neoliberalist capitalist system and its processes of globalisation, there must be some way that we can meet each other publicly, and this forum is one way to meet.

[Scroll to the end for this months DSF title, venue, details, egroup, etc.]

WHY SHOULD ONE GO?

I firmly believe that politically and environmentally there is too much at stake for us not to engage each other, I firmly believe that one way to do this is through active participation in an open political forum and that in this forum we can create an atmosphere where we can learn what opposing neoliberalism means to others like us but not necessarily the same as us, in this forum we can learn from each other so as to better understand the world around us, and to build trust and action to co-ordinate and strengthen our various struggles for the betterment of all.

Part of the demand for such a monthly antineoliberalist forum springs from the observation that sectors of the antineoliberalist movements, be they trade union, development, hard-left, environmentalist, libertarian, gender, human rights, community, etc, tend to meet just themselves at their own meetings, protests and conferences, and that one of the things we need collectively, is a challenging open space, a forum to learn from each other, to try to convince each other to support each others perspectives and campaigns, to build alliances for specific campaigns and issues, and to perhaps learn to work together better for the collective benefit of all our struggles ... or indeed to clarify the issues on which we disagree. read full story / add a comment

Gay Byrne, it was announced today, has been appointed as the new chairman of the Road Safety Authority. Let’s see how a cynical and ‘benefit of the doubt’ approach could work to this “news”. read full story / add a comment

Red Tuesday in France and Britain read full story / add a comment

A chairde/ Lagunok

You can keep updated to news of the Basque struggle, discussions and
debates
and events organised by the Irish Basque Committees by checking our
brand
new blog at:

www.irishbasquecommittees.blogspot.com

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