Cutting Child Benefit
Like Taking Candy from a Baby

Children face a 'Black Christmas' as Minister Lenihan slashes child benefit by 10% in the 2010 Budget. Family incomes are being attacked from every side in this Budget, but the Government has chosen to target children for the biggest cut of all. Parents' group PACUB is horrified by the Budget, and predicts that more and more families will fall into poverty as the new decade begins.

Related Links:

Protest Against Child Unfriendly Budget - PACUB's Website | PACUB's Facebook Group | Demo Against Cuts to Child Benefit on Budget Day

Obama - Hope, No!

A critique of the Obama Presidency from taking office in January of this year to now.

Criticism of the Obama Administration in the United States (and around the world) is more noticeable as is the slide in the opinion polls for the young president. This may seem predictable given the unrealistic levels of global expectation that accompanied him as he swept into the Oval office with the words ‘hope and change’ ringing around America. However, just over nine months on, commentators and supporters alike are disappointed at Obama’s apparent inability to deliver on his campaign promises. The polemicist, Gore Vidal, in several recent interviews went as far as to say that Obama will be a ‘one term President’ who is ‘completely overwhelmed’ by the challenges that confront him.

This unease and anger seem to galvanise after the Administration’s decision to bailout the major US banks and financial institutions in the form of a ‘stimulus’ package, which is pushing close to $1 trillion dollars. The Nobel Prize winning economist, Professor Joseph Stiglitz, commented on RTE’s Primetime programme that this amounted to a massive “theft of the American taxpayer”. The ill feeling surrounding this package intensified when it was revealed that part of this enormous sum of money was used to pay the annual bonuses of senior banking executives who had largely caused the crisis. This was against a backdrop of economic decline with millions of Americans losing their jobs, millions more facing home foreclosure while the dispossessed are filling the growing number of tent cities which are becoming an increasing feature on the outskirts of major American cities.

Newspaper headline from the examiner

The Raybestos Manhattan Corporation moved to Ireland in the mid-70s. A campaign opposing their operations here began almost immediatly. It was a long and protracted struggle but eventually ended in victory. This article examines the campaign against the mulitnational and the lessons that can be learned from it today.

Related Links:
More about RM | Wikipedia on asbestos | asbestosis | Asbestos: a matter of time (clip) | Full video | Asbestos disease awareness organisation | Book: the environmental movement in Ireland | US EPA info on raymark industries plant | Asbestos.com site | Dail question related to the issue | WSM site