Don't ignore the Homeless

For us it is important to discuss homelessness because it is not just something that we pass by on the streets guiltily ignoring people or handing out a few pence depending on our humour.

It is definitely not something we just read about in reports or newspapers - it is a problem that we have or could experience in the future. Everyone in the media talks about the Celtic Tiger but we don’t see it in our areas and we see more people on the streets rather than less and we want to know why.

Related Links: Indy Housing Coverage | Focus Ireland | Simon Community

Gordon McNeill taken to Belfast City Hospital

Hunger Strike Update- Gordon McNeill Taken to City Hospital

Hunger striker Gordon McNeill has been rushed to City Hospital for treatment. An ambulance was called to the scene at Transport House due to a deterioration in his condition. Gordon is on his fourth day without food and his second day without water. Also on hunger strike are Madan Gupta and Chris Bowyer. The former airport shop stewards have taken the action to demand talks with the leadership of Unite/TGWU, who have refused to meet with the workers.

For more information, contact Chris Bowyer on 07764850945, Madan Gupta on 07810290938 or Gary Mulcahy on 07743282321.

Related Links: Union official accused Previous Indy coverage UNITE's Belfast Office DearUNITE.com

Not exactly…
But there might be more than you’d think.

On the 11th -13th April Seomra Spraoi host Ireland's first Social Centre Gathering. What better excuse to have as look back at radical spaces in Ireland over the last 30 years.

Details on Social Centre Gathering

Web Resources on Social Centres In Ireland: Direct Action Against Apathy — Housing Resource on Struggle

Fishermen on the beach at Triunfo

Enclosing the commons – the historical process of fencing off land which had previously been in the public domain, for private use – is perhaps one of the most blatant expressions of the fundamental criminal nature of the capitalist state. Today it's the voracious neo-liberal model which stalks the last pockets of community-held global territory for privatization - from Chiapas, Mexico, to the deep Amazon, to the Garifuna coast of Honduras, leaving no stone unturned.

"We have hundreds of kilometers of beaches that aren't developed, and it's a waste,'' said the then Honduran Tourism Secretary, Ana Abarca in 2001. "We want strong tourism. We are going after the sun and the beach."

While the neo-liberal government sees unproductive beaches and waste, other people see living communities existing in harmony with their surroundings. These hundreds of kilometers of "waste" are home to 76 Garifuna villages, where people live as they have for a couple of hundred years, reliant on the sea for fishing, on the beach for coconut and fruit, on the wetlands for rice cultivation and the surrounding hillsides for growing manioc, yucca, firewood, and hunting. Their simple wooden homes are built along the beaches, or on stilts above the waves. Men fish from dugout canoes or dive with spears along the reefs.

Related Links: Recent articles by the same author.

Shell recently announced the names of local groups in Erris who they are going to fund, as part of the deal they arrived with government appointed mediator Peter Cassels in 2006.

Cassells, who admitted that there was no basis for mediation while Shell insisted on an onshore production pipeline and refinery, recommended that the company should pay money into the local community in an effort to turn public opinion in favour of the scheme.

Related Links: More on Corrib gas project