The International Monetary Fund announces that World Bank CEO and Bulgarian environmental economist, Kristalina Georgieva, will become the Fund's new Managing Director. read full story / add a comment

Today’s initial half day strike action by teacher members of UNITE at the Delfin English Language school on Parnell Square for union recognition and improvements in conditions is the culmination of a long organising campaign. Michael O’Brien speaks to one of the strikers to find out what it is all about. read full story / add a comment

This blog entry from 16th Sept on the ShannonWatch.org website is reproduced here because while it might seem old news one week late, it will in fact be news to a lot of people since the mainstream just don't cover this, certainly not from the side of peace perspective.

The following was written by Veteran for Peace activist Tarak Kauff who is currently being refused permission to leave Ireland. He is accused of minor offenses linked to the attempt he and Ken MAyers made to inspect a US contracted military plane at Shannon Airport. read full story / add a comment

In the High Court today, Justice Garrett Simons granted Friends of the Irish Environment's application for a judicial review striking down regulations made by Ministers Eoghan Murphy and Richard Bruton in January which exempted industrial peat extraction from the planning system and granted them a period of unlicensed operation in the EPA licensing system. The Court found that the regulations were in breach of EU environmental law and were outside the powers of the Ministers who made them. read full story / add a comment

Next year marks the 20th anniversary of the first winter workshop organised by Cooley Environmental and Health Group. Next year's winter workshop is the 20th in a series dating back to the beginning of the Millennium. The workshop is slated for 25 January 2020 at 14:00 in The Strand Hotel, Omeath, Co. Louth. The title of the workshop provisionally is, "The Environment and Health 20 Years On." read full story / add a comment

The case is made for the provision of free public transport in every major town and city worldwide for a multitude of reasons. It has always been a good idea and should have been done a long time ago, but now with three major issues of our time; resource depletion, including oil, pollution and the climate crisis; they make it imperative that we move to such a system, both to conserve dwindling supplies of cheap energy, to reduce the use of vast mineral resources to make hundreds of millions of cars and to dramatically reduce our carbon emissions because climate change is happening faster than expected. The Earth's climate has turned out to be more sensitive and complex than anticipated as evidenced by the recent dramatic record breaking summer ice melts in the Arctic1 in 2007, 2008, 2012 and basically every year since then. With such a large change in the albedo or reflectivity over a huge area of the Arctic, this signifies the jump into positive feedback of the climate system, although it is not the only positive feedback. Combined with preliminary reports that frozen methane is beginning to be released from the Arctic sea floor and tundra and given that methane is 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas, it is clear we are probably at the point of things running out of control. Emissions need to be cut drastically, starting about 20 years ago. read full story / add a comment

Housing prices are skyrocketing in cities around the world. Incomes are not. Private equity firms have become the biggest landlords in the world, and the extent of the high-end land grab goes well beyond gentrification. Fredrik Gertten’s probing documentary follows Leilani Farha, the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing as she travels the world in an effort to understand why we are being pushed out of our cities, and why affordable housing isn’t defined as a fundamental human right.

This screening will be followed by a panel discussion. read full story / add a comment

On Friday the 15th of March 2019 1.6 million people took part in a global climate strike in more than 125 countries in more than 2,000 locations. In Ireland more than 15,000 students took part in protests for urgent climate action.

This September 20th, we're going to smash that number. But we need you to make that happen! read full story / add a comment

Dublin Renters Union to host ‘Tent City’ protest outside offices of Vulture Fund Val Issuer Dac on Molesworth Street tomorrow 11am

Protest to highlight a number of evictions in South Dublin, Dún Laoghaire and Inchicore

Richard Boyd Barrett TD to question Housing Minister at 10.30am about these mass evictions with tenants in Dáil gallery

Tomorrow (18/09/2019) beginning at 11am Dublin Renters Union will host a ‘Tent City’ protest outside the offices of Vulture Fund Val Issuer Dac on Molesworth Street. read full story / add a comment

Saudi Arabia has just now begged Iran for gasoline after the sudden cut of Saudi domestic supplies due to the new Yemeni drone attacks on Saudi major oil facilities on Tuesday.Saudi was once the world's largest crude oil exporter read full story / add a comment

The radical movements of the “long 1968” shook the postwar order from Prague to Paris, Derry to Mexico City, Rome to San Francisco. “Voices of 1968” (Pluto) lets those movements speak in their own words – posters, flyers, graffiti, manifestos, songs, underground texts and more. read full story / add a comment

Reject your "idolatrous economic model," were the words Pope Francis addressed Mauritius' political leaders with on Monday. read full story / add a comment

High Court refers case to Court of Justice of the EU over Irish Courts Service’s refusal to provide public access to litigation documents

Crucial point of transparency law will be determined by Court of Justice

A challenge regarding the Courts Service’s refusal to provide public access to litigation documents relating to a High Court environmental case that concluded in 2016 has been referred to the Court of Justice of the EU in Luxembourg. read full story / add a comment

On Thursday 12th September 2019 you are invited to a special screening of ‘Imprisoning A Generation’, an important documentary about Palestinian child prisoners in Israel’s jails. There will also be a screening of the short film ‘Breaking The Generations’. The films will be shown from 6:15pm in The Pearse Centre, 27 Pearse Street, Dublin 2 read full story / add a comment

Focus Ireland has launched a new hard-hitting campaign to highlight the trauma that the deepening homelessness crisis is causing to nearly 4,000 children in Ireland.

The emotive campaign projects images of children who are homeless on to a number of landmark buildings in Dublin* to highlight homelessness and Focus Ireland’s 4 point plan to end the crisis.

The charity is running an innovative outdoor projection campaign to shine the spotlight on the growing crisis as the number of children homeless has shot up by a shocking 356% in five years (From 828 children homeless in Sept 2014 to 3778 in July 2019* ) read full story / add a comment

The pattern of history points to another global, catastrophic conflict*. For a third time in a hundred years imperial government are about to plunge us into total war: this time nuclear war, for the old reason – power. read full story / add a comment

World BEYOND War’s fourth annual global conference on the abolition of war will be held on Saturday and Sunday, October 5th and 6th, in Limerick, Ireland, and include a rally on the 6th at Shannon Airport, where U.S. military forces routinely pass through in violation of Irish neutrality and of laws against war.

We’ll be marking the completion of the 18th year of the endless war on Afghanistan, as well as the 150th birthday of Mohandas Gandhi.

See list of 2019 speakers at https://worldbeyondwar.org/nowar2019speakers read full story / add a comment

DemocraciaAbierta has seen a PowerPoint presentation that shows that Bolsonaro’s government intends to use hate speech to isolate minorities of the Amazon.

Leaked documents show that Jair Bolsonaro's government intends to use the Brazilian president's hate speech to isolate minorities living in the Amazon region. The PowerPoint slides, which democraciaAbierta has seen, also reveal plans to implement predatory projects that could have a devastating environmental impact. read full story / add a comment

Kenmare River mussel expansion will damage biodiversity
New Government Report ( https://www.npws.ie/publications/article-17-reports/article-17-reports-2019 ) to EU records damage from mussel longline cultivation in West cork.

A report released this week from Ireland to the EU detailing damage done to valuable protected habitats in Ireland through mussel line cultivation has been cited in an objection to new 3 km long mussel longlines proposed for the Kenmare River, a Special Area of Conservation Natura 2000 Site. read full story / add a comment

Shannonwatch are calling for an immediate review of the safety standards applied to US military and military contracted planes at Shannon Airport. A fire on an Omni Air International troop carrier brought the airport to a standstill on Thursday August 15th. This once again highlights the dangers posed by daily military traffic at a civilian airport like Shannon.

The troop carrier, which is reported to be carrying approximately 150 troops, was on its way to the Middle East. It had arrived earlier from Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma USA. read full story / add a comment