"But, hark! a voice like thunder spake, The West's awake! the West's awake!" This is a first hand account of what is probably the first anti-war demonstration on the campus of Glenville State College since the Vietnam era protests. Students are fed up with President Bush and his illegal war in Iraq that is costing the lives of West Virginia's youth which are being exploited by the military in promise for scholarships. We have arisen from our slumber and shall no long stand idly by as Bush and his cronies are destroying not only our country but the world of which all of us live!

I have sat in pubs all over Ireland and I think I heard John Denver's hit song "Country Roads" being sang in nearly all of them maybe even sometimes hummed during sunday mass. Well, this is a story about the land so endeared to Denver and revered with utmost consideration by you guys.

As the lies about European restrictions on investment begin to unravel you don't have to be a socialist, to be concerned about the employees or even worried about transport links to feel that Aer Lingus should stay in state hands.

This is not a sentimental or political debate.

This is just a rip off.

Polluted water is currently running off what was the construction site for Shell’s refinery in North-West Mayo, a site which is currently disused due to its closure by pickets; pickets that have continued from July 2005 right up till today.

In order to build the refinery on such boggy land Shell have had to transfer tons of peat from Ballinaboy (aka Bellanaboy – there are a variety of spellings) to a facility owned and operated by the state company Bord na Móna at Srahmore.
They were carrying out this work early last summer and it is the only work to date they have managed to undertake. Underneath the top layer of peat is a substance called dobe, which has high aluminium content.

The site is waterlogged, being a bog, and this being North Mayo it rains a lot, and the pools of aluminium contaminated water on the site run off into nearby Carrowmore Lake. Carrowmore Lake is the source of County Council water supply for the Erris area.

Read on for an interview with Terence Conway, Erris Shell to Sea activist, about this issue, plus lots of photos.

Related Links: Shell Contaminate the Water in Mayo
Carrowmore Lake by George Russell
Conservation Information on Carrowmore Lake

The metro on the way to the demo was packed, with barely breathing space; it emptied entirely at St Jacques qnd we started marching to Place Renfort for the demo. Right away it was clear that this was as big a demo as I'd ever seen, maybe Make Poverty History would be bigger, but that doesn't count. Generally people were having a good time, each party/union had their own sound system, and while some groups tried to lead their members in chants, many were content just to blare out crap french punk. Everyone was having a laugh, and les jeunes were passing around tins of cheap lager, rose and joints. So kind of like a massive Reclaim the Streets for some people.

After no end of milling around, the march got going, but it took several hours for all the groups to start moving. The CGT seemed to have an endless supply of vans filled with soundsystems and speakers leading the union branch in the slogan, "retrait! retrait! retrait cpe!". As the march passed the prison, the demonstrators cheered the prisoners who were at their cell windows. As the Anarchist groups moved past, the sound systems started playing as loudly as possible, and everyone raised their fists. This wasnt enough for some, and a symbolic attack was launched upon the prison walls, bottles and other debris bouncing off the brickwork. No prisoners were liberated. The march moved on eventually, and a few took the chance to graffiti a bank and others put their tag APH everywhere.

Background and Resources: French Universities Occupied | Three Generations March Hand In Hand. | French Youth Up In Arms Over New Employment Law

The Libcom site provides a blog with up to date archiving of events in France including exclusive translations, analysis, discussion and eye-witness accounts. Paris Indymedia also carries reports.

Other IMC Coverage on France: The Suburbs Are Ticking... Why The Nihilism Of The Paris Riots Is Not A Political "Insurrection | La Haine Est Dans La Rue| Paris Housing Hell | Paris Housing Hell 2 | Paris Housing Hell 3 | Discussion On earlier Riots On Indymedia.ie

Most of the population would have been getting out of bed this morning with a raging hangover. Mid afternoon people would be wiping the crust from their eyes, and making their way into town for a fry up, trying to recollect all the hazy memories of the night before, when the crowds were out and everyone was fired up with enthusiasm.

Thus I couldnt help but think that this day was very fitting for the anti-war march in Dublin. Approximately eight hundred people marched from the Garden of Remembrance to the end of Grafton Street, stopping briefly on O'Connell Bridge for a barely-registered two minute silence, then looped around back to the GPO. At the start of the rally where people assembled for speeches, there were numerous references made to three years ago where 100,000 people marched in town. This march today just seemed like a bad hangover for the Irish anti-war movement (no capitals). Hazy memories of when the crowds were out and everyone was fired up with enthusiasm, now long lost to the mists of time.