It's a cliché that the media was the first casualty of the Iraqi occupation, but few reacted like Dahr Jamail. Made brazen by his travels off the beaten path between monotonous jobs, he packed a cheap digital camera along with a laptop and entered Iraq to go beyond the Green Zone and embedded reporting.

The dispatches he circulated online, first through emails and then through his site, quickly grew into an essential resource for those in the west desperate for an alternative take on the war on terror. They remain today a vital channel for struggling voices inside occupied Iraq.

A collection of Dahr's work called Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq is coming out this month on Haymarket Books, prior to its release he sat down with Indymedia Ireland to talk about his journalism and the situation in Iraq.

Workers at the Eye Cinema, Galway, members of SIPTU’s Galway No 1 branch, are in dispute with their employer. Although the dispute concerns bread-and-butter issues relating to pay and working conditions, the owner of the cinema, local property tycoon Gerry Barrett, has turned it into a dispute about the right to belong to a union.

Earlier this week: Over a thousand, primarily women, NIPSA members met at Writers Square in Belfast today for a March and Rally to mark the first day of industrial action demanding far pay and conditions for classroom assistants across the North of Ireland. Classroom assistants had voted...see photo report.

Related Links: Sinn Fein Minister to cut pay of classroom assistants | SIPTU Press Release On Eye Cinema | Wildcat strike in Musgrave Warehouse In Dublin | Independent Workers' Union Exposes Abuse Of Migrant Workers | Postman Pat says ‘stuff your pay cut” | Nurses Call For Health System Based On Solidarity | Joanne Delaney Gets Reinstated | Polish Workers Wildcat at Tescos | Indymedia Workers Archive

Under a storm of controversy Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was invited to speak at Columbia University in New York City. Ahmadinejad is in New York for the UN General Assembly meeting. The Iranian President had already caused controversy by seeking to visit the site of the Twin Towers disaster. The request was swiftly denied by the US authorities. The invitation to speak at Columbia was attacked by many across the political spectrum of the US despite many US citizens priding themselves on the right to free speech. The Iranian Presidents speech to the University has come at a time when the US establishment has increased its propaganda war against Iran in what appears to many as a precursor to war.

Related Links: Iranian President goes to UN General assembly | Irish Times continues to Misrepresent Iranian "Threat" | Iran Holocaust conference opens | Irans Nuclear Threat | "Israel must be wiped off the map"! But did Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually say this?

Over 1500 people from across Ireland and beyond, gathered at the Hill of Tara to take part in a living human sculpture to call for the rerouting of the M3 away from the Tara Valley.

It was magical, yes, driving up to Tara and getting stuck in an unforgiving traffic jam, to photograph a very special moment where over 1500 gathered to tell John Gormley and Bertie Ahern, to reroute the M3. The event was to start at 3pm, but hundreds were there 2 hours in advance. French, English, Irish and other unknown tongues wafted in the flurry of excitement as people examined their tickets discussing which letter in the living protest they would be. One child's birthday present was participating in the living sculpture.

When the helicopter arrived, all bets were off as hundreds rushed to see it land. One woman with a child on her back ran in vain after another two shouting "don't go near the blades!" There were plenty of stewards holding back the tide of incredibly keen onlookers.

On the ground there was a great leap of faith as to what would emerge from their choreographed contortions. From the air ,the voice of Ireland spoke out: moving, twitching, questioning and resisting the policy of Fianna Fail/Possessive Democrats/Green Party and big business interests. The issue of the M3 is not dead. It is very much alive. The battle is not over!

(Images © Paula Geraghty)

Related Links: Averting our eyes from Crime at Tara | Photo Essay: Tara Under Full Moon | Government Creating 'Facts On The Ground' At Tara Hill Complex Despite Huge Opposition | Stop Wasting Public Money on Wanton Destruction of the Tara-Skryne Valley | Heed the People - Respect the Law - Stop the Dig - Save Tara! | On The Road to Hell - The Battle to Save the Tara-Skryne Valley Begins | Tara - N3 - Widen The Road Instead. Traffic, Cars and Peak Oil | Save Tara Website | More on Tara from the Indymedia Vaults

As Seomra Spraoi prepares for the official launch of its big new social centre off Capel St in Dublin this weekend, we look at how far the project has come since the collective formed three years ago.

"So, in a year or two will someone be able to come to Dublin and make a documentary about an autonomous social centre here? Or will fundraiser gigs, political meetings and workshops always have to take place in Teachers Clubs or the upstairs rooms of pubs? ... Will there be somewhere indoors to go after street parties?"

These were the opening lines of the first Indymedia article published by or about the Seomra Spraoi collective, on December 1st, 2004. The collective had been formed just a few weeks before, with the aim of creating a space in Dublin to emulate the autonomous social centres of other European cities. The article was written to publicise Seomra Spraoi's first event, a screening of films about European social centres, followed by a social at the Nicholas of Myra parish hall off Francis Street. The headline was "Give us some space!" and the article included such chin-stroking lines as: "Many questions have to be answered on the long road to establishing a social centre in Dublin."

Related Links: Grassroots Gathering Follow Up Meeting | Three Minutes of Infamy: An Intro to the Groups Using The Space | Give Us Some Space: An Intro To The Initiative | The Seomra Spraoi Blog | Seomra Spraoi's Carfree Day Scavenger Hunt/Launch Weekend | Trad Music Night to Launch Seomra Spraoi | 3rd time lucky for community garden in Dublin 8 | Photos of Seomra Spraoi's final weekend at Ormond Quay | Seomra On Myspace | Totally Dublin Article About Seomra Sproai | Sunday Tribune Article About Seomra Sproai