Willie Corduff with his wife Mary on his release from prison in September 2005

Mayo farmer Willie Corduff, who was jailed for three months in 2005 over his opposition to Shell's inland gas refinery at Bellanaboy and high-pressure pipeline through his farm, has been awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize. Awarded annually to six grassroots environmental heroes, the $125,000 no-strings-attached prize is the largest of its kind in the world and is often referred to as the Nobel Prize for the environment.

Related Links: Goldman Environmental Prize | Shell to Sea | Report on last Wednesday's High Court ruling

Whitehall - where Captain Jack White died in 1946

“The Burning” – PDF here– is a full length play written about the circumstances surrounding the destruction Captain Jack White’s papers following his death in Broughshane, Co. Antrim in 1946. White, as many people will know, was one of the more well known figures in Irish history that identified with anarchism. The only son of British Boer War hero, Sir George Stuart White (“The Hero Of Ladysmith”), he was assured a bright future in the upper echelons of the British military until his conscience intervened and he resigned his commission.

Breaking with family, he gravitated to political activism and the revolutionary left. His baptism of fire was the Great Lockout in Dublin in 1913, where he worked alongside Larkin and Connolly and proposed the idea of the Irish Citizen Army. Of Protestant “stock”, he was active in the fight against imperialism, reserving particular vitriol for the “Orange” state formed in the north of Ireland after partition in 1922.

Related Links: Launch Of 'Misfit': Autobiography of Captain Jack White | 1916 - Connolly, blood sacrifice and defeating British imperialism

Dramatic Scenes At Fridays Blockade

Six people were arrested this afternoon on the site of Shell’s controversial refinery in Ballinaboy, Co Mayo. The six were part of a group of more then thirty who entered the site at 11am this morning as part of a ‘people's site inspection’. A five hour game of ‘cat and mouse’ ensued as Gardai and Shell’s private security personnel attempted to remove the protesters from the site. The six arrested were taken to Belmullet Garda station before being released.

Today’s site incursion was the latest in a series of similar actions and follows closely on yesterday’s site incursion by a group of female activists from both the local area and Cork Shell to Sea. Those involved in today’s action were from both the local area and the Dublin Shell to Sea group.

Related Links: Women's trespass at Bellanaboy on Friday 13th | Work halted at Bellanaboy as protesters gain entry to Shell's site, six arrested. | Corrib Gas pipeline route selection begins. | We can stop them | Shell to Sea activists blockade lorries at Bellanaboy | 04.04.07 Sees Yet More Aggression by Shell Cops |

Get out your blue crayons

Climate change is everywhere. Ramor Ryan gatecrashes the ineffectual UN Conference on Climate Change in Nairobi and comes back blaming Capitalism.

A momentous report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms that climate change is 'man-made and unstoppable'. The 21-page report, described as conservative by the IPCC itself, says human-made emissions of greenhouse gases are to blame for heat waves, floods and heavy rains, droughts and stronger storms, melting ice-caps and rising sea-levels.

The IPCC is comprised of over 2000 climate experts and scientists. It was set up in 1988 by the UN and the World Meteorological organisation to guide policy makers on the impact of climate change. Despite strenuous attempts by oil companies and big business to undermine the final report, it remains quietly apocalyptic in its assessment.

Its mind-boggling conclusion predicts serious water shortage for between 1.1 and 3.2 billion people, food shortages for 200 to 600 million people. Coastal flooding will hit seven million people within 70 years. The list of potential catastrophe goes on and on.

Related Links: SP on climate change | The Politics and Reality of Peak Oil | Book Review: Ramor Ryan's 'Clandestines: the pirate journals of an Irish Exile' | Climate Change Action Now: Demonstration This Friday 13th ,Dublin City | International Day of Direct Action against Climate Change and the G8. | Climate Change: Answering the Sceptics (and Channel 4) | Ireland and Climate Chaos

Student Politics: where careerism meets "deeply uncool"

In advance of the annual USI Congress, Red Wedge previewed proceedings with an article "What is to be done with the Union of Students in Ireland?" In this article, he offers an eyewitness an account of the event and some thoughts on the future of the student movement.

It’s the first night of the congress. There is a hustings debate taking place between the two candidates for the presidency of the organisation. UCCs Richard Maurice Roe and the Eastern Area Officer of the organisation John McGuirk are going head to head.

Related Links: SIPTU taking unfair dismissal case against USI | Thread On Conference on UCDSU.net | FUCC Thread On USI Elections | FUCC Congress "Blog" | Transparency and Accountability in UCDSU and The Failure of USI | USI Accuses Education Minister of Political Cowardice over Grants | Union of Students in Ireland back Coke Boycott At 2005 Congress |