From the Newswire: 'One of the central, but not well known, direct goals of the Irish EU Presidency is to reach agreement with the European Parliament about the CO2 Emissions Trading Market. This market is to be launched in 2005. Ministers of the EU member states are demanding a market full of loopholes, so that companies can escape reducing CO2 and other greenhouse gases on EU territory. Instead companies will be able to produce and trade the commodity “the right to pollute” by financing cheap efficiency projects in Eastern Europe and in the South.

An agreement between the EU Member States and the European Parliament should finally be reached at the end of June, but ideally should come about before the last legislative session of the European Parliament in April, before the elections. Ireland already held a conference in Dublin on February 3 to discuss the various National Allocations Plans among the Member States. These allocation plans are the foundation of privatising the right to pollute among companies in the EU, concerning high-polluting industries such as the steel and paper industries. Before the end of March, all Member States should have finished their allocation plans.

The most crucial topic will be on the loopholes that will be provided to companies. Last year, the European Commission proposed to link the European Market with other “flexible mechanisms” for reaching reduction targets, such as the CDM and JI mechanisms, that make it possible for Member States and companies to create the right to pollute with CO₂ in the EU, by developing or financing “climate projects” in other countries. The Commission however proposed to put a cap of 8 per cent on this. The EU Parliament agreed on this. In December, a majority of the EU-member states expressed the opinion that they want to get rid of this cap. Now, Member States and the EU Parliament have to come to an agreement so that the trading scheme can be implemented in January 2005.

This so-called “linking directive” will boost the European Market with cheap credits, so reaching the Kyoto-targets will be much cheaper for companies. States such as Spain (which is very energy inefficient), as well as most industries, are heavily engaged in lobbying the EU Parliament and other Member States to link the European market with these other flexible mechanisms. The consequences are that no reductions will have to be met in Europe itself, enabling industry and Member States to continue polluting anyway and further postponing solutions to climate change. Another consequence is that a very lucrative market will be created, by creating a new commodity and very flexible market rules.'

The Effects of this Wrangling in Ireland are Already Apparent: Government is Giving Industry what it Wants: Industry Plays while the Consumer Pays (Waste Charges)
Irish Taxpayer Funds Free Ride for CO2 Industries: Friends of the Irish Environment
Cullen Decision on Emissions Cowardly -SF
Cullen Ignoring Kyoto Targets -Labour
Greens say Government is allowing Industry ignore Kyoto Obligations

Statement by Vincent Salafia, Carrickminder, PRO Save Tara/Skryne Valley Campaign on the proposed motorway through Tara.

'All interference with national monuments of Ireland is now presumed illegal and must cease immediately, until the Government has passed valid regulations governing such action. No Ministerial order, or grant of planning permission, authorising interference with a national monument, can be justfiably relied upon.Any attempt to disfigure any national monument, particularly the Hill of Tara, will have to answer to the citizens of Ireland, in their Courts.

The High Court has declared the system regulating destruction of national monuments unconstitutional, since it did not comply with the National Monuments Act, 1930 (as amended). The ‘technical glitch’ mentioned by Judge Kearns referred to the Government’s attempt to dilute the protections contained in Section 14 of the Act, governing Ministerial Consent, not the Act itself.

The 1994 Amendment to the Act, drafted in response to Wood Quay, was designed to avoid the exact scenario we face today at Carrickmines. It required three state agencies to make the important decision to interfere with a national monument. By reducing the requirement to two actors by statutory instrument in 2002 the Government ignored the central democratic principle of checks and balances within the Act. When these two actors failed to perform their duties properly, there was no third actor to check it.

One cannot help but wonder if the drafting of the 2002 statutory instrument was linked to the ‘sudden’ closure of Duchas, The Heritage Service, in 2002? If so, it would appear that our own Government unconstitutionally conspired to dismantle, by stealth, all legal protections for heritage, long before Carrickmines Castle blew up.'

Related Stories and Links
Court Decision Welcomed by Greens
High Priest Cu Cullen Wants to Dig Up Hill of Tara
Carrickmines: They Haven't Gone Away You Know
History of Carrickmines from 'ANON'

In order to clarify the editorial guidelines used by the Indymedia Ireland collective, we are publishing them as we currently understand them to operate. This is a work in progress, which is the result of many arguments over the past few months on the Indymedia Ireland lists. Input, commentary and criticism from users of the site are welcome on this thread, and this will be taken into account before the guidelines are formalised.

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Excerpt from Address to Court: "Shannon is the `welcome mat' for US troops en route to Iraq, and the entry point to the Middle East. This `welcome mat' was NOT put there by the Irish citizens, but by a Government that continues to ignore the will of its people. . . . . Faced with the mounting evidence of US and British determination to attack Iraq in spite of worldwide opposition I felt obliged to take direct action.

One immediate result of my action and a similar action a few days later by 5 Catholic Workers, was the pull out of 2 military carriers from using the airport. This temporary withdrawal, although a success, was not a triumph. Numerous US air carriers continued to use Shannon for refuelling facilities, and hence the Irish Government continued to fuel the war. This refuelling continues today, and I am here to call for an International campaign to support those of us in Ireland who are engaged in this fight.

Our actions achieved three things: 1) The use of Shannon airport by the US military inescapably captured the media headlines and alerted Irish people to the realities and seriousness of Ireland’s incorporation into the build up to an illegal war 2) It struck a serious blow to the confidence of the US military security at the airport 3) It inspired Irish anti-war activists. The biggest demonstration ever against US military aggression happened two weeks later in Dublin, our capital city, where over 150,000 people marched, while other marches happened throughout the country.

By the time of my trial in June, however, the anti-war feeling of Feb 15th was shown to be mere sentiment in the face of persistent scare-mongering about US disinvestment from Ireland and consequent economic collapse. In spite of this huge opposition on Feb 15, only a small number of people stood in my support outside the courthouse in June. Yet my trial featured such international figures as Ramsey Clarke, Scott Ritter, Dennis Halliday and Michael Birmingham. I faced a virtual media blackout and practical desertion by the popular movement, including the Left. Fortunately, the Arabic TV station Al Jazeera were there to document the whole trial.

My experience has taught me that one of the biggest weapons of Imperialism facing us in Ireland is its ability to anaesthetise the public’s conscience and there is no doubt that the last 10 years of Ireland’s economic boom – popularly known as the Celtic Tiger – has done just that. The Celtic Tiger, almost entirely a US dollar creation, has coincided closely with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the creation of the Project for the New American Century. Shannon airport, the closest European international airport to the USA, is being privatised. It is now clear that Shannon airport is to become a major US military airbase as part of the US conquest of the Middle East, Eastern Europe and ultimately Western Europe. The Celtic Tiger was the price of the conscience of Ireland."

WSF Mumbai Related Stories and Links
World Court Invitation
Audio reports from WSF on US Bases Issue
Audio from 'Defeating Bush' at the WSF
A Global Resistance to Empire: Arundhati Roy
New Standard WSFBlog
Schnews on the Mumbai WSF

On Saturday 19th January the Irish Anti War Movement supported an international mobilisation against the banning of the Hijab in French Schools by taking part in a protest at the French Embassy in Dublin. This has lead to a heated debate on Indymedia Ireland which reflects the complexity of the issue. Below is one contribution to the debate: A defense of the stance of the IAWM contributed by Aoife Ní Fhearghail of the IAWM and SWP:

"When the Irish Anti-War Movement was set up - as well as opposing the looming war on Afghanistan, the use of Shannon Airport by belligerent powers and the on-going occupation of Palestine - two of our defining principles were opposition to the racism (or more particularly Islamophobia) which is inherent in Bush's 'War on Terror' and opposition to attacks on civil liberties.

Bush's 'War on Terror' has been a useful tool to governments the world over which want to enact racist, anti-immigrant legislation and crack down heavily on civil liberties.

Clearly, the decision by the french government to ban a woman's right to choose to wear the Hijab in school is not just an infringement on her civil rights, but a continuation of France's generations-long attacks on members of the Islamic community. This latest decision is not designed to further the cause of women's liberation, but to demonise young French Muslim women. If you cannot understand this then you are either guilty of the most infantile ultraleftism or you possibly subscribe yourself to the Robert Kilroy-Silk school of thought.

The SWP as a socialist organisation is opposed to women's oppression and women being forced to dress/behave in a way they do not choose. However unlike other 'socialist' groups and individuals notably absent from Saturday's demonstration the SWP supports an individuals' right to practice their religion.

Young Muslim women living in Ireland have been at the forefront of all the anti-war demonstrations. Many organised walk-outs of their schools on March 20 last year when the invasion of Iraq began. Along with members of Catholic, Quaker, Jewish, Church of Ireland and Gandhian-individualistic brands of religion, they have played just as significant a role in the anti-war movement as those of us who are atheists, and just as they march in defence of freedom in Iraq, so we in Ireland must defend their civil rights in France."

Debate Ongoing Here
Debate Began Here
Arguments For and Against from 'About Islam'
Opinion Piece on Ban from UK SWP
Muslim Women Debate Feminism and Fundamentalism at time of Afghan War: Audio from Democracy Now