“Every minute from now on is never your own, girl” . With these words the midwife plonked my friend’s new born son on her stomach. My friend was 18. She had arrived at the delivery room alone, laboured for hours and she was exhausted. Though she was an independent type or at least tried to be, it was all too much for her. She had wanted the nurse to say “Congratulations you have a beautiful son, you did a great job”. Instead, all romance dispelled, she lifted her head, stared down her nose, past her chin at the splotchy purple being , sighed deeply and kind of squared her shoulders to the future.
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1pm Saturday 1st April outside Belfast City Hall ... read full story / add a comment

This week the NCCRI (National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism) launched a handbook on Seeking Advice and Redress Against Racism in Ireland. However there are wild discrepancies in recording of racism in Ireland as compared to Britain. Show Racism the Red Card has a report form on its website and is hoping to gather research to illustrate the true extent of racism in Ireland. ... read full story / add a comment

As the Setanta Cup completes the group stages, some managers speak their mind about this cross border competition.

Northern Ireland manager Lawrie Sanchez said: "Football has the power to build bridges, promote respect and bring communities together. We believe supporters are the lifeblood of the game and that sectarianism and racism should have no place in football or society. The Setanta cup is going some way to building bridges" ... read full story / add a comment

The Liberal-Conservative Danish government refuses to give the Socialist People’s Party access to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ registers of correspondence concerning the controversial cartoons of the Prophet, which provoked demonstrations and attacks on Danish embassies in the Middle East in January.

The chairman of the Socialist People’s Party, Villy Søvndal, accuses the government of "deliberately trying to keep secret things they don’t want people to know about” - particularly further documentation for the fact that Muslim organisations and ambassadors warned the government in advance that things could turn nasty if it did not engage in diplomatic initiatives to distance itself from the cartoons.

The government will now have to explain its stance in the Foreign Policy Committee.

Please read my translation of a recent article from the website of the Danish daily paper, Politiken. ... read full story / add a comment

It is being organised by the people who did the work to put on the 1st and 2nd Irish Social Forums in 2003 and 2004 and it’s called the Dublin Social Forum (DSF). If you’re into saving the environment, establishing gender equality, getting the debt dropped, facing down racism, dismantling/smashing capitalism, rebuilding our communities, ending war ... then I think you should come. In other words for those who oppose the violent racist sexist war-waging community-destroying public-service-selling ecocide of a neoliberalist capitalist system and its processes of globalisation, there must be some way that we can meet each other publicly, and this forum is one way to meet.

[Scroll to the end for this months DSF title, venue, details, egroup, etc.]

WHY SHOULD ONE GO?

I firmly believe that politically and environmentally there is too much at stake for us not to engage each other, I firmly believe that one way to do this is through active participation in an open political forum and that in this forum we can create an atmosphere where we can learn what opposing neoliberalism means to others like us but not necessarily the same as us, in this forum we can learn from each other so as to better understand the world around us, and to build trust and action to co-ordinate and strengthen our various struggles for the betterment of all.

Part of the demand for such a monthly antineoliberalist forum springs from the observation that sectors of the antineoliberalist movements, be they trade union, development, hard-left, environmentalist, libertarian, gender, human rights, community, etc, tend to meet just themselves at their own meetings, protests and conferences, and that one of the things we need collectively, is a challenging open space, a forum to learn from each other, to try to convince each other to support each others perspectives and campaigns, to build alliances for specific campaigns and issues, and to perhaps learn to work together better for the collective benefit of all our struggles ... or indeed to clarify the issues on which we disagree. ... read full story / add a comment

Gay Byrne, it was announced today, has been appointed as the new chairman of the Road Safety Authority. Let’s see how a cynical and ‘benefit of the doubt’ approach could work to this “news”. ... read full story / add a comment

Red Tuesday in France and Britain ... read full story / add a comment

The fifth annual Peter Tatchell Human Rights Fund meeting was held in London on 20 March despite the pulling out of the guest speaker, liberal Islamic theologian, Sheikh Dr Muhammad Yusuf due to death threats from Islamists.

Instead the main speaker was the Iranian born secularist and feminist Maryam Namazie. She called for an end to “political Islam” and what she described as its inhuman treatment of women, children and members of the LGBT community. She criticised her home country Iran for policy of public executions, citing the law which states the size of the stones used to kill women who have committed adultery. “The stone can not be so small that it does not cause pain, but not to large that it hastens their death. It must be just the right size to cause a slow, painful death.”
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A suspect package was delivered to McDowells office in the Post this morning. ... read full story / add a comment

A member of Ógra Shinn Féin from west Tyrone had been jailed for 3 days in the past week.

Danny Turnbull from Omagh was held in Maghaberry jail in Co. Antrim from Monday 20th until Thursday 23rd. He was jailed after he refused to pay a fine relating to the greening of a number of post-boxes in the Tyrone area.

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The myth of the five roads to Tara comes alive and is found to be the truth and a treasure is returned to the Celtic World. The centre of Tara is found in the triangle where these five roads meet. The attached image shows the five ancient roads to Tara in red. The line of red dots on the photograph shows where there used to be a road to the east coast. This road to the east coast is clearly shown on the 1830's map inset in the circle - the map has been turned to align with the photo - see http://www.druidschool.com/site/1030100/page/809109 ... read full story / add a comment

The Revenue Office off O'Connell Street is a glaring example of how the State treats its workers.
We toil long and hard for undervalued wages and all we ask in return is that we be paid on time and in full for the services rendered.
Often,tax is unnecessarily deducted form ones pay packet,for varying reasons,including emergency tax,incorrect bracketing etc.
One would imagine that such mistakes would be easy to report and a quick resolution to the matter be had.
That isnt,for many people the case.
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A large group of Shell to Sea activists gathered at the Four Courts at 10AM this morning to show support for the Rossport 5, whose case was set for a hearing.

Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan, President of the High Court, was set to deliver his final judgement on the matter of the men refusing to "purge their contempt", when they did not agree to abide by an injunction brought by Shell Exploitation Ireland Ltd, which would have prevented protests against the company's scheme to install a dangerous experimental pipeline through the small village of Rossport in North Mayo.

Since the injunction was dropped by Shell on September 30th last year, the men applied to be released from prison where they had been held for 94 days in high security conditions. They were granted temporary release, but Mr Justice Finnegan has said that he will give a final judgement on whether the men should have some sanction applied to them for refusing to obey a high court injunction.

Lawyers for the five have already argued that it would be inhumane to impose a punitive sanction as the men have already served such a long time in prison.

The matter was again adjourned, this time set for April Seventh, the last day of the legal term.

A large contingent of corporate media were present this morning at the court. Supporters of Sinn Féin, the Green Party and the Socialist Workers Party were also in attendance.

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Members of Rossport Solidarity Camp and Shell to Sea campaigners picketed the Fianna Fail selection conference in Castlebar today at which Minister for Marine and Natural Resources Noel Dempsey was in attendance. ... read full story / add a comment

At least 500,000 people marched in downtown LA to protest the Sensenbrenner (senate) bill that would recreate the bracero class of indentured semi-illegal immigrants in the USA. ... read full story / add a comment

The March For Free Expression took place on Saturday 25 March in Trafalgar Square, London. This is the Statement of Principle of the organidsation:

"The strength and survival of free society and the advance of human knowledge depend on the free exchange of ideas. All ideas are capable of giving offence, and some of the most powerful ideas in human history, such as those of Galileo and Darwin, have given profound religious offence in their time. The free exchange of ideas depends on freedom of expression and this includes the right to criticise and mock. We assert and uphold the right of freedom of expression and call on our elected representatives to do the same. We abhor the fact that people throughout the world live under mortal threat simply for expressing ideas and we call on our elected representatives to protect them from attack and not to give comfort to the forces of intolerance that besiege them. "

The rally was a success with 600 people attending. These included Muslims, Christians and atheists, Britons, Americans, Danes, Iraqis and Iranians, socialists, liberals conservatives and libertarians. The one thing which united them was support for the principle of Free Speech. The extremists kept away: No BNP and just a few Islamofascists.

As the group put it: "It was a victory for tolerance, reason and freedom. If you want to know how badly this hurts the extremists, read some of the comments on this blog. This was just the beginning, but it was a very good beginning. "

Theres another extract from the report below and the full story is at the link.
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Anarchists and Indymedia activists have made calls for solidarity with the anti-Lukashenko protesters in Minsk. Demonstrators were cleared form October Square on Friday March 24th but are back on the streets today ... read full story / add a comment

Pictures from today's anti racism protest organised by Residents Against Racism ... read full story / add a comment

Last week in the European Parliament we voted strongly to eliminate Mercury from our food, air, water and soil in as far as we can. Of course deciding to do it and doing it are different things but it is a start and I am hopeful that even if the elimination is not complete, people will at least benefit from a reduction. In California, thermerisol which contains mercury has been removed from pediatric vaccines. As the children who got thermerisol free vaccines are reaching preschool age, the state is reporting the first slowing down of the rate of increase in the numbers of children becoming autistic.
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