London 31.1.07

A man climbed outside of Irish embassy in London in protest over the Irish government's collusion with Shell's hellish activities in North West Ireland At midday today, while a samba band played below, a man who wished to be known as "G" climbed the Irish embassy. This was in protest over the Irish government’s collusion with Shell's activities in North West Ireland where they are constructing a pipeline and refinery. Many campaigners claim this pipeline and refinery pose as serious environmental risk. While there have been widespread protests in Ireland itself, many claim that the government of Ireland has given Shell suspiciously favourable business terms on the deal.

The event was good natured on both sides and "G", who was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage, was released within 2 hours with a caution.

2006 Marching Season: Adams and the PSNI...

On Sunday Sinn Fein voted to support the Police Service of Northern Ireland at their extraordinary ard fheis which was attended by approximately 1,000 delegates.

The vote, which was recorded by a show of hands, came after 6 hours of debate and a series of amendments which Sinn Fein claim will “enhance the proposal”. The build-up to the ard fheis saw an unprecedented amount of positive press for Sinn Fein with the media calling today’s event a “historical moment” and suggesting that the party has finally matured beyond it’s revolutionary past. A Sunday Business post poll stated that 56% of people questioned would be more likely to vote for the party if they support the PSNI.

Related Links: Sinn Féin | Wikipedia: PIRA | Police Service Northern Ireland | Fourthwrite Magazine | The Blanket Magazine | Republican Sinn Féin | 32 CSM | IRSP | Eirigi | Patten Report | British Police: Republican Policemen?

The Handsome Jord

Canadian political-punk band Propagandhi played Dublin for the first time in five years on the 12th of December to a youthful and energetic crowd at the Temple Bar Music Centre. The band, known for the heavy political content of their albums and live shows, are touring to promote their latest album “Potemkin City Limits” their first release in over five years. After their show I talked with drummer Jord Samoleski about his life in politics and music.

Propagandhi have been quite busy in Winnipeg during their down time between albums with some band members helping to run their “G7 welcoming committee” record label and others involved in social justice work. Propagandhi are somewhat unique as punk-rockstars as they practice what they preach. All band members are vegans, in line with the band's strong stance on animal rights, and many are involved in radical social movements which they promote through their music.

Particpartory Economics | Propagandhi Wikipedia | Propagandhi’s Website | No-one is illegal | Canada-Haiti Action Network | Video distributed on their "Todays Empires..." album |

Alien Attack Repelled

Indy-Celebrations

After our hosting provider suddenly cut our database, on January 8th, we were plunged into crisis. We only ever raise enough money to pay our hosting bills and this was completely unexpected. We moved to a new server the following day, but soon realised that we needed a much more powerful system to keep up with the traffic volumes - the new server fell over immediately.

Happily, the indymedia community rallied round in no time at all. Thousands of euros came in through our online donation form, and more came through individual donations, cheques through the post and even from collections at protests. Altogether, within a week of launching our appeal, some €4000 came in - as large numbers of people put their hands in their pockets to keep indymedia online and to secure it's future.

Our techies got busy, and have built us an impressive new network of servers, whirring and buzzing away, scattered across the world, to ensure that the free media will keep on publishing. Due to this new infrastructure, and the huge show of solidarity that we received, we can now offer more features for contributors and readers. You can now publish audio files (up to 20MB) directly on to indymedia and publish PDF files too. In the near future we will be introducing extra features: a new encrypted server, giving users greater privacy in browsing and publishing.

Water Tax: Beaten in the South

A non-payment campaign has been launched by the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions through ‘Trade Unions Against Water Charges’. They advocate non-payment of the charges, which are due to be introduced in April 2007, as the "best way to overturn the Government’s proposals".

Their campaign also opposes any plans to privatise the Water Service. A leaflet urging the public to join the non-payment campaign will be circulated to every household in Northern Ireland. There will be those who wonder if everyone on the ICTU executive is happy about this initiative, who if wonder whether they will cave in to pressure to call it off if the British government makes the tiniest concession.

Union Non-payment site | NIPSA’s anti-water charges page | Congress: Don’t pay twice, it’s all right | SP: Politicians and Water Charges | SP: December 2006 article | We won’t pay website | WSM: Lessons from beating the water charges |