The new free monthly newsletter featuring the latest updates from the No Borders Network and beyond: read full story / add a comment

END POLITICAL INTERNMENT IN IRELAND NOW!
FREE COLIN DUFFY!
POLITICAL STATUS FOR REPUBLICAN PRISONERS! read full story / add a comment

As conventional sources of oil become rarer the energy corporations have started the mass extraction of oil from the tar sands of Alberta. This is a filthy process that involves vast open cast mines, tailing ponds that can be seen from space and the use of huge quantities of water and energy making it a major cause of climate change. On Saturday Heather Milton Lightening of the Indigenous Environmental Network spoke to a national Shell to Sea meeting in Dublin about this struggle (last night she spoke in Inver, Erris). This is a 50 minute recording of that talk and the discussions that followed it. read full story / add a comment

“Earlier today a Republican Network for Unity Ard Comhairle delegation, returning from a series of meetings in Glasgow, was detained at Belfast International Airport arrivals by a group of approximately twenty (20) uniformed and plain clothed RUC/PSNI members. As one an Ard Comhairle member from Derry was being questioned, the plain clothed RUC/PSNI man menacingly told him that he was well aware of the make up of the individual’s family and of the details and names of his children. The same plain clothed RUC/PSNI man then inquired if he had any information on those he was travelling with and/or of the RNU in general.
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Yassamine Mather writes on how workers confidence has increased in the ongoing demonstrations in Iran. While the militias beat many protesters, they were also opposed and in some cases forced to retreat. Full text at link.

No-one in Iran will ever forget November 4 2009. It was the day when illegal demonstrations in at least six separate locations in Tehran and 20 cities and university campuses throughout the country overshadowed the state-organised event. As the national broadcasting service was showing live pictures of the gathering outside the former US embassy, shouts of “Death to the dictator” from protesters on neighbouring streets and squares were so loud that it was difficult to hear the minister’s speech. In Tehran the six locations were Enghelab Square, Ferdowsi, Haft Tir, Enghelab Square, Vali Asr and Vanak Square.
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Des Dalton has become leader of Republican Sinn Fein
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Hollman Morris is a familiar name in Colombia, both for his TV programme Contravía (Counter-current), which he has been directing for many years and represents a unique window to glimpse into the realities of the Colombian conflict, and also for the accusations and harassment which he has suffered from the State intelligence agency (DAS) and by the very president Uribe.
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Symbol of the resistance and intifada and leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades the formidable but affable and thoughtful Zakaria Zubeidi readily agreed to be interviewed on the 12th November at Jenin's Freedom Theatre. Not for him the hypocrisy of paying lip service to the PA Quisling regime in Ramallah but forthright condemnation and contempt: In June 2004, he kidnapped the corrupt Israeli collaborator, then PA governor of Jenin, Haidar Irshard to "beat the shit out of him." . He also burnt down the local office of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Alleged by the Israelis to be the chief strategist of suicide bombing he was ruthlessly hunted for extermination - in one botched attempt, in 2004, an Israeli death squad killed five other brigade members, including a 14-year old boy, in a jeep carrying him, in another, nine Palestinians were killed in Jenin including four civililians on a IOF murder expedition. read full story / add a comment

As workers fight Fianna fail and the Green partyy's neoliberal attacks, now is a good time to learn from the fightback against Thatcherism in the 1980s with this video of Arthur Scargill discussing the Miners Strike.
http://www.vimeo.com/7589961 read full story / add a comment

Today Saturday 14th November 2009 hundreds of Palestinians and solidarity activists rallied in Dublin to protest against Israel’s apartheid practices in Palestine. The rally - part of an international week of global mobilisation against the walls of apartheid in Palestine from November 9th to 16th 2009, called by the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign – was compèred by Freda Hughes (IPSC PRO), Caoimhe Butterly (renowned Irish human rights activist), Ger Cassidy (Viva Palestina), Sameh Habeeb (Gazan Journalist and human rights activist), John Hurson (Where Do the Children Play?), Pete St. John-Jones (International Solidarity Activist in Bil’in). read full story / add a comment

Scéalaíocht le Máirín Mhic Lochlainn cois tine
Club Áras na nGael, 45 Sráid Dominic, An Gaillimh
21 Samhain óna 2-4 iarnóin
Saorchead isteach (ach glacfar le deontais).
Fáilte roimh chách. read full story / add a comment

Lost Souls Variations - tales of the dead and the undead.
Featuring Adam Wilson and The Oh-Aissieux
Library Bar Extension, Central Hotel, Exchequer Street, Dublin 2.
Tuesday 17 November. From 8 to 10.30 pm. Doors 7.30.
Admission EUR 6 / Concessions EUR 2 / Celtic Tiger victims sneak in the back door. read full story / add a comment

A landfill, a waste transfer site, a World Heritage site, two masts and turf-cutting read full story / add a comment

Task Force Urgently Required To Advance and Safeguard LGBT Equality

Report Reveals Harassment, Exploitation and Violence are Top Concerns of Irish LGBT People read full story / add a comment

Heather Milton Lightning from the Indigenous Environmental Network Canada will be discussing the campaign against enviromental desctruction in Canada by Shell and BP. read full story / add a comment

From boom to bust.
Public Forum. read full story / add a comment

Public Service Strike 24th November

Friday, 13 November 2009

Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland, Irish Federation of University Teachers, Irish National Teachers’ Organisation and Teachers Union of Ireland

Up to 65,000 teachers, lecturers to take industrial action

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The IBCC has organised a Spanish Civil war - lecture and wreath laying, Dec. 5th All welcome read full story / add a comment

Yassamine Mather interviews Ali Pichgah a leader of the Iranian oilworkers strikers during the revolutionary period.Ali emphasises the importance of opposing all Imperialist sanctions. Full text of interview at link

How do you evaluate the recent political protests and the role of the working class in them?

The protest against the regime’s rigged elections took such dimensions because the majority of the population are opposed to the absence of political freedoms in Iran. In particular the youth, who constitute a high percentage of the population, feel contempt for the way the religious state interferes in their private lives. People are losing patience and in general opposition to the regime has reached unprecedented levels. I think what is different this time is the terrible economic situation. Inflation above 25%, mass unemployment, the growing gap between rich and the poor ... and from this point of view one can say that the relentless workers’ struggles of the last two years against job losses and poverty, against non-payment of wages, as well as the demonstrations by teachers, nurses and so on against the economic policies of the government, were precursors to the huge demonstrations we saw this summer.

Of course, many of these protests were defensive (wage-earners trying to maintain what little they had), yet the working class has remained the most persistent opposition to the entire regime over the last few years, in the run-up to June 2009. Coincidently we see the continuation of the mass protests of early summer in the unprecedented level of workers’ struggles in recent weeks, the victory of the Iran Khodro workers (where the regime clearly retreated), the revolutionary tactics of Pars Wagon workers (from ransacking the refectory to mounting hunger strikes), workers bringing their families along to demonstrations .
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The Whittemore Peterson Institute, Reno, USA recently discovered a strong link between retrovirus XMRV and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or ME as it is also known. Their findings are some of the most significant in recent medical history, especially for the millions of ME/CFS patients worldwide, who have struggled with the controversy and skepticism that has surrounded the illness for many years. read full story / add a comment