From 1st June 2006 any town, village or city suburb that has not formally claimed its right to hold markets may find that they are permanently prevented from ever doing so. There is a revival in the popularity of such markets which will likely be snuffed out if we don't act now. Katy Sinnott explains how you can preserve these rights for your locality - and it's easier than you might think.

EXTRACT: "So how do you know if your town has market rights? Almost every village does. To be sure, look at village place names. Is there a Fish Market Street or Market Square? Try to remember if you went to a market or fair in your town, or of being told of one by your parents or grandparents. If you don’t remember maybe someone else will. Ask. Look in town records. Check with the local history buff. If there ever was a market or ‘fayre’ they your village may have market rights. You don’t have to locate where the market was held or hold future markets where they were held in the past. It doesn’t matter. If the right is there it is there for the whole town as in Skibbereen. And don’t think if you live in the city market rights don’t apply to your area. It might be hard when trying to cross a road in busy Douglas to remember that it was once a small village district from Cork, but it was and most probably has market rights.

Don’t delay or you will find that the old rights have expired. The deadline is looming to find out if you can do this. To lay claim to the rights, the village must hold a market before June 1st 2006. It is a short time and it might sound daunting but doesn’t have to be. A table with a basket of turnips and carrots will do. There must be a public announcement of the event. A hand written notice in a shop window or a couple of lines in the parish newsletter will do. If the market is held at least once a year for ten years your market rights are secure."

The prime suspect in the disappearance of Castlederg teenager Arlene Arkinson, as well as a number of young women in the Republic, may have been working as a Special Branch agent throughout the time of those disappearances. Robert Howard, the man who gave Arlene Arkinson a lift home from Bundoran on the night she disappeared without trace was recently cleared of her murder at a trial in Belfast. It emerged after he was cleared that he had a previous conviction for the kidnap, rape and murder of another young girl in England during the 1970s. Legal experts have now said that this would have been admissable in the court but still the PSNI never made it part of their case. Nuala O'Loan is now investigating why the PSNI witheld this information. Local MP Pat Doherty , the Arkinson family and many local people in Castlederg are convinced that at the time of the murder Howard was a spy for RUC Special Branch in the Castlederg area.

* Audio Report From GNIB Burgh Quay *

Ireland has been pursuing a policy of expedited deportations of immigrant families for the last couple of years. Amid a rising tide of racism fueled by the rhetoric of prominent politicians (who refer to Turkish workers as "kebabs") there are deep concerns that the human rights of vulnerable asylum seekers are being ignored.

Among the families reported to have been snatched for deportation this morning is one which includes a child with an autistic spectrum disorder. An appeal by Denis O Donovan TD from Bantry has secured the assurance of McDowell that this family will not be deported until McDowell has personally reviewed their file. However approximately 35 other asylum seekers with unknown personal situations seized in this sweep have received no such assurances of due diligence. Rosanna Flynn of Residents Against Racism commenting on the current broken system said:

The asylum system continues to be in disarray. McDowell will deport women and young girls who have fled here fleeing Female Genital Mutilation. His response has been to send them back to a country where the World Health Organisation estimates that over 50% of the female population has had the operation performed on them. We need an asylum system that is effective and fair. We need the asylum system taken out of McDowell’s hands completely and handed over to a body such as the Human Rights Commission that will view the asylum system from a human rights angle and not as a system that deports as many people as possible in order to facilitate electoral gain.

All these families have been signing on at Garda stations as required by law. It would appear that the Gardai, through the direction of the Minister for Justice (Michael McDowell) are creating the conditions that will encourage the creation of a completely underground illegal immigrant population. This is an arbitrary, arrogant and ineffective set of policies which reflect a lack of thought about the realities of immigration in the 21st century.

Irish activists are currently undertaking an attempted blockade of GNIB at Burgh Quay to prevent the mass deportation scheduled for approximately 11:30pm tonight. Two people have been reported arrested on our newswire already. If you can get down to the blockade then your presence will be welcomed.

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The news that the USA has sought the extradition of a central figure in the Workers Party (Seán Garland) due to his alleged involvement in currency fraud in connivance with the government of North Korea has focused attention on a by now little-known faction within Irish politics. Debate on Indymedia.ie has focused on what the 'proper response' to this news should be.

It has emerged that the USA has formally requested extradition of Seán Garland and six others of various nationalities from the UK for the alleged crime of the distribution of forged US $100 bills. It is alleged that these bills (of high quality) were forged by elements of the North Korean administration.

Press coverage indicates that Garland is being accused of involvement in laundering less than one million dollars worth of these bills.

Seán Garland was remanded on bail last week in the North. He is also an Irish citizen with his principal residence formerly in Navan, now in Kentstown in Meath. He has at various times in the past been closely associated with the Official IRA and Official Sinn Fein and in recent times became President of the Workers Party.

News of his threatened extradition to the USA elicited a variety of responses from Indymedia.ie contributors. The first story published on the newswire included a post that summarised the genesis and development of the Official IRA (known colloquially as the 'Stickies') and their long-running differences and conflicts with the Provisional IRA and the INLA amongst others. Other posts point out that the 'stickies' had been markedly unsympathetic in the past to republican political activists facing extradition and the kangaroo 'special criminal courts'.

This issue looks set to test Inter-Irish, Irish-English, Irish-American and English-American relationships in unique ways. It may also make a Europe-wide impact as Garland's ideological colleagues have a strong base across the EU as evidenced by one contributor's post from Greece.

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