Short report on gathering at Dolphin's Barn community garden ... read full story / add a comment

a&e protest easter week end. ... read full story / add a comment

This aircraft was seen by Edward Horgan at Shannon airport on Sunday afternoon at 2.30 pm.
It took off about two hours later.
Connor Cregan got some photos of the take off which will be published later.
It has been seen regularly at Frankfurt in Germany. It is not yet clear whether it is controlled by the US Airforce or by the CIA. It is unusual for US Airforce to operate such unmaked planes. The Irish green white and gold colour scheme is a new innovation. It makes a change from World Airways flying in Aer Lingus colours. ... read full story / add a comment

For the second week in a row, Students’ Initiative organized protests across the country against the radical right. More protests planned.
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The editor-in-chief of the conservative daily newspaper, Berlingske Tidende, is satisfied that he has now been charged with leaking classified intelligence documents in his newspaper in February 2004. The two journalists who wrote the articles about the leaked documents had already been charged at the end of April. Their editor expects all three to be acquitted if the case against them proceeds.

In a series of articles in the newspaper from 22 February 2004, Michael Bjerre and Jesper Larsen published excerpts of reports which they had obtained from Major Frank Grevil of the Danish Defence Intelligence Service (Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste, FE).

Grevil, a secret agent who helped to write FE’s intelligence assessments of Iraq’s weapons capabilities for the Danish government, felt that Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen had exaggerated existing information about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction in order to persuade the Danish parliament to participate in the ill-fated invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Grevil himself has been sentenced to four months’ imprisonment, but is appealing his sentence in the European Court of Human Rights, on the basis that evidence that might play a decisive part in his defence has been withheld.

More detail about the most recent development, plus link to background article, below. ... read full story / add a comment

"Steal what you will from the blueness of the sea and the sand of memory
Take what pictures you will, so that you understand That which you never will:
How a stone from our land builds the ceiling of our sky."
-Mahomood Darwish
'Those who pass between fleeting words (Abiroon Abir)
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Joe Higgins demands for social housing
Government aids “speculator landlords” and “profiteering developers” ... read full story / add a comment

The following is a personal report of the third open anti-war meeting, which was held in the Teachers' Club, Parnell Square, Dublin, on Saturday, 13 May, between 2.30 and 5.30pm. This isn't a comprehensive report - and I'm sure I'll miss a few things - so I hope other participants will add to it in their comments. ... read full story / add a comment

In a letter to the Ombudsman of the Danish Parliament, staff at the Danish Prime Minister's Office have invoked "very wide powers of discretion" under the legislation, to defend Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen's persistent refusal to be interviewed by prize-winning journalist Bo Elkjær.

In response, Elkjær points out that Fogh promised to give him an interview when they met at the offices of the Danish Union of Journalists in Copenhagen in January 2004. On that occasion, Elkjær had just been awarded the prestigious Cavling Prize for his work in exposing the lies by which Fogh and his cabinet persuaded the parliament to support Denmark's invasion of Iraq.

By Elkjær's account, staff at the Prime Minister's Office have made the excuse that Mr Fogh "did not have space in his calendar," even though Elkjær has given the Prime Minister's Office complete freedom to set the time and place for an interview. Fogh's staff have repeatedly failed to keep promises that they "would call back".

One of Elkjær's intentions for an interview is to ask why, at a press conference on 21 March 2003, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen "emphasised a nuclear threat [from Iraq] that the government several days before, in an internal paper, had clearly and unequivocally rejected."

"It is clear from the records of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the government had several days previously arrived at the definitive conclusion that Iraq did not have a nuclear weapons programme, or indeed any nuclear programme at all," says Elkjær.

Please read Billy O'Shea's translation of the latest exchange below. ... read full story / add a comment

A snapshot at the fortunes of Ireland's top capitalist. Tony O'Reilly isn't going to be running out of money anytime soon. ... read full story / add a comment

Friday 5th May seen Omagh PSNI base as the scene of the latest leg of Sinn Féin's ‘End Political Policing’ campaign. Ógra Shinn Fein had organised the protest to call for an End to the political nature of policing in the north of Ireland. ... read full story / add a comment

Charlie McGlade Cumman in Drimnagh held a black flag vigil at the junction between Walkinstown Road and the Long Mile Road this evening between 5.30 and 6.30. ... read full story / add a comment

My article is about the worldwide spread (including to Ireland) of a new form of potentially dangerous type of psychotherapy. It has reached Ireland from Germany via the UK where it is already a huge business. The new development is that followers of this semi-cult want to apply it to politics and other social areas. ... read full story / add a comment

Ógra Shinn Féin held a white line vigil in Omagh town centre on Friday 12th May. Ógra activists were there to remember the 25th Anniversary of Francis Hughes.
Francis was the second hunger striker to die in Long Kesh on the 59th Day of his hunger strike, on May 12th 1981. ... read full story / add a comment

An Irish Times editorial on May 1st laid out the various options open to the UN Security council for dealing with Iran’s nuclear threat. These options ranged "from a solemn statement warning Iran to comply to consideration of sanctions or military force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter." The paper of record nailed its colours to the mast by favouring negotiations and UN action while declaring that "military action by the US outside UN auspices would be a dangerous folly." ... read full story / add a comment

On midnight on the 7th of May a small fishing boat from the village of Porturlin, 5 miles from Rossport, was involved in an incident with the Sedco 711, a rig platform hired by Shell to carry out work on the Corrib gas wellhead. ... read full story / add a comment

Around thirty people attended an Anarchist meeting, in Cork, on war and the ongoing use of Shannon Airport for US military purposes. ... read full story / add a comment

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No to Pascua Lama Open-cast mine in the Andean Cordillera on the Chilean-Argentine frontier. We ask the Chilean Government not to authorize the Pascua Lama project to protect the whole of 3 glaciers, the purity of the water of the San Felix Valley and El Transito, the quality of the agricultural land of the region of Atacama, the quality of life of the Diaguita people and of the whole population of the region.

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This was a recent interview with Education Minister Mary Hanafin, and is being published to meet a college requirement. The interview was originally recorded for Griff FM in English, and native Irish speakers should ignore any errors in my translation. ... read full story / add a comment