The left and the right are the same. They merely perform different political and ideological functions. read full story / add a comment

A demonstration was held outside Castlerea Prison on Saturday July 17th to celebrate the release of jailed Shell to Sea campaigner and Human Rights activist Pat 'the chief' O'Donnell read full story / add a comment

Today the Venezuelan state continued its riveting bicentinial celebrations of its war for independence from the Spanish empire led by the "liberator" Simon Bolivar by exhuming his remains in what has been officially termed a respectful and patriotic operation supervised by Venezuelan flags, Venezuelan military and no less than 50 Venezuelan scientific experts in forensic anthropology, archaeological preservation & such like if not so.

Even though dental records did not exist a little less than 200 years ago, there has been little doubt that the reliquary opened, so that it may be "preserved for posterity" in the words of state minister for Justice, Tarek El Aissami, did indeed hold the remains of Bolivar. read full story / add a comment

A documentary covering practically a decade of turmoil faced by the community in Rossport, Co Mayo. read full story / add a comment

NIPSA (Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance), the largest public service trade union in the North has responded to the Draft Bill on Public Assemblies saying that, rather than give the impression that the Bill is redeemable through detailing all their objections to it, they would rather see it scrapped:
The draft proposal is "fundamentally flawed and not capable of amendment."

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The Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) has deemed the Northern Ireland Assembly's draft Bill on Public Assemblies, Parades and Protests inadequate, inconsistent, unclear, and likely to 'create an unjustified restriction on the freedom of assembly and expression'. read full story / add a comment

Garvaghy and Ormeau Rd. communities’ joint response to the First and Deputy First Ministers’ Consultation Paper on Public Assemblies, Parades and Protests in N. Ireland; July 2010.
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Four decades after seeing the French movie "The white Maine" ... read full story / add a comment

A new problem is affecting our Chestnut Trees and felling these green giants with speed everywhere across Ireland. read full story / add a comment

Last Wednesday, July 7th, Elijah Smith was released from Lewes Prison. He had been held since the Israeli bombing of Gaza in January '09. Along with his co-defendants he had been acquitted unanimously of all charges by the jury. This concluded 18 months the EDO 9 spent before the courts for their nonviolent resistance to the bombing of Gaza. read full story / add a comment

Thomas Kinsella's Butcher's Dozen was written after the publication of the British Government's Widgery Tribunal Report in 1972. Here he is reading the poem and talking about it. The text of the poem is available here:

BUTCHER'S DOZEN:
A LESSON FOR THE OCTAVE OF WIDGERY
by Thomas Kinsella
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/bsunday/kinsella.htm

Also, here is Seamus Deane's poem [click poem to read it or download], taken from his collection, Gradual Wars (IUP, 1972).
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The notion is as absurd as it is reflective on how cravenly this Junior coalition partners will act do to stay in power.
The Greens are not the tail that wags the dog; they are the illegitimate pup which it might have been wiser - in political terms - to have put down the moment he was seen to have been overly frisky
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A World to Win News Service. Following are excerpts from a statement by the Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan dated 17 May 2010. Translation by A World to Win News Service.

In recent weeks, 45 Afghanistanis in Iran accused of drug trafficking have been executed. The Iranian authorities handed over the bodies to their families at a price of 1.5 million Iranian Touman (around $1,500). It is said that some of their internal organs were removed. It is also said that many more – as many as 3,000 – have been sentenced to die.

There have protests against the mass murder of Afghanistani citizens in Iran, motivated by various considerations. However the puppet regime [in Afghanistan] and its occupier masters have chosen to remain silent. They are in fact cooperating with this crime and have an interest in it. The Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the backers of the traitor conference in Bonn (December 2001) that took place under imperialist supervision. It has also been one of the regional backers of the puppet regime and so far has spent around a billion dollars on the so-called reconstruction programme in Afghanistan. Because of its own contradictions with the U.S., the Islamic Republic of Iran sometimes voices opposition to the foreign forces in Afghanistan and backs some circles of the fundamentalist opposition to varying degrees, but it is mainly one of the regional backers of the puppet regime, and the two have good relations. read full story / add a comment

Translations provided by A World to Win News Service.

Central Tehran was crowded on the anniversary of the presidential elections. People walked around on the sidewalks and in the parks around the universities looking for opportunities to step onto the main stage. But government security was also out in full force. Since early morning club-wielding uniformed and plainclothes security forces were stationed on foot, on motorcycles and in cars throughout Tehran, especially the city centre and the areas surrounding the universities. As crowds appeared, they began harassing passers-by and arresting those deemed "suspicious".

Protestors were able to rally in groups of dozens or hundreds in several locations in Tehran and chant slogans such as "Down with the dictator". They clashed with the security forces at Azadi Square and on Azadi Street at the junction with Behboodi and Vali Asr. There were also reports of arrests in Enghelab Street in front of Tehran University. Witnesses said that the street was full of Basiji (religious militiamen) and special task forces. Huge numbers of forces were stationed around Vali Asr, Motahari and Vanak squares and Keshavarz Boulevard. There were several arrests at each of these locations. A video on the Web shows a crowd successfully freeing a woman the security forces were trying to arrest.

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On Monday 14th June the Revolutionary Anarcha Feminist Group hosted a discussion in Seomra Spraoi on the many uses and dangers of 'new media', the possibilities for positive change and 'radical democracy' via the internet, the dilemma of 'internet neurosis' where feelings of vulnerability and fears of exploitation need to be negotiated in order to utilize the internet as activists, artists and self-publishers and the potential of the internet as a force for oppression and control. read full story / add a comment

Why didn't the weekly protests build up to a "Mass Protest" as one organisation called for? The Right to Work Campaign, the Anti-Capitalist Bloc -- what were they about? This analysis from a political activist and witness not aligned to any of the political groups looks at the context and the way in which the protests were organised, how the organisations interracted with each other and what, in his opinion, is needed to resist the attacks of capital here in Ireland. read full story / add a comment

In mid-June the Irish Congress of Trade Unions Public Services Committee voted to accept the ‘Croke Park deal’. ‘Social partnership’, presumed dead and buried when the government unilaterally imposed pay cuts on public sector workers in the December ’09 budget, was revived and given a new lease of life.

But this is ‘social partnership’ with a difference. Instead of the union leadership believing that ‘partnership’ gives them some input into government policy (as they have wrongly thought for the past 20 years), all they can now offer in its defence is that this is the “least worst deal” and that “it’s better to be inside the tent than outside.” read full story / add a comment

The audio is from the Dublin anarchist bookfair and has two speakers talking about the reform movement and feminism in Iran in general and the million signatures campaign in particular read full story / add a comment

Recorded at the Dublin anarchist bookfair three speakers look at the economy, what the real situation of the resistance is and what needs to be built and examples of what has been achieved in the unions to date. This is followed by contributions from the floor from a wide range of perspectives. read full story / add a comment

Progressive taxation is a taxation system which seeks a higher tax rate for higher incomes. It is a relatively common feature in the western democracies. In Ireland however, its implementation is almost entirely nominal. read full story / add a comment