March for Tara-Skryne Valley - Saturday, 27 November 2004 - beginning at 1.30pm at The Garden of Remembrance, Parnell Square, Dublin then march to Wood Quay read full story / add a comment

The tolled Motorway through the Tara and Skryne Valley should not be built for two main reasons. 1) It will destroy our heritage and 2) it will soon become a White Elephant.

Instead, Dunshaughlin, Navan and Kells should be bypassed and the existing N3 road should be widened.

This would be more than sufficient to deal with the traffic.

The National Roads Authority (NRA) forecasts for the traffic levels and the total number of cars in Ireland are flawed because they do not take into account the looming issue of Peak Oil. The growth for the number of cars is based on the rising population, GNP and a rising car per capita rate. This was a reasonable assumption up to now, but Peak Oil changes everything and this continued growth is very unlikely to come to pass.

In the image with this comment is a graph of the historic number of registered cars in Ireland for 1976 - 2001 in green and the NRA forecasted number for 2006 - 2041 in bl read full story / add a comment

When former Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) administrator L. Paul Bremer III left Baghdad after the so-called "transfer of sovereignty" in June 2004, he left behind the 100 orders he enacted as chief of the occupation authority in Iraq. Among them is Order 81 on "Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety." read full story / add a comment

.Fifteen years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and the subsequent speedy collapse of the Soviet Union, the unfolding turmoil in Ukraine is a sobering reminder that democracy is a fragile work-in-progress read full story / add a comment

This Friday evening, 3 December, a series of short documentaries will be screened, at a venue off Francis St in Dublin (details below), on the subject of autonomous social centres in Europe. This will be the first step in an ambitious attempt to establish an independent social centre in Dublin.

Many readers will be aware of the success of autonomous social centres in other European cities, independent of local authority, church, business, trade union or other controlling body. These spaces have provided a focal point for many of the social movements in the West, where public spaces have been eaten away by consumerism, property speculation and the culture of the car.

They celebrate collective cooperation and diversity and have numerous day-to-day uses: community drop-in centre, inexpensive cafe, political meeting space, library, gig venue, arts centre, internet cafe, to name a few.

Usually these social centres begin as squats in derelict buildings and eventually come to be accepted by the local authorities. Unfortunately, Ireland is unique in Europe in that the authorities are utterly intolerant of the tradition of squatting.

Several attempts were made in Dublin in the past couple of years to set up an autonomous centres in buildings that had been derelict for years, but these have been evicted by the City Council or by "heavies" employed by the owners. Clearly the Council would prefer to see buildings remain derelict rather than put to any use.

Today in Ireland there is virtually nowhere indoors for people to congregate that isn't a pub or overpriced cafe.

Seomra Spraoi is the provisional name of a collective which has come together to create such a space in Dublin. The aim of this Friday's screening is to bring together people who are interested in such a project and hopefully to inspire people through the examples in the documentaries.

Starting at 8pm, there will be a screening, photo exhibition and brief discussion, followed by live music, a dj and a raffle. The venue is the St Nicholas of Myra Parish Hall, Carman's Hall (a street running between Francis St and Meath St). Admission free or donation. For more information contact 087-2861238. Please come along! read full story / add a comment

Sale of the Century... read full story / add a comment

'The Circular,' (first edition) is made by the journalism students of Griffith College. It will be distributed to various places around the city centre including colleges, pubs, cafes and shops alike.
Includes mainly feature articles on politics, health, Iraq, film & music and various others.
Its unconvential front page will surely grab some attention! Be sure to check it out.
Thanks for your time! read full story / add a comment

Over 16,000 people from across the Americas — including actors Martin Sheen and Susan Sarandon — gathered this weekend outside the gates of Ft. Benning, Georgia in the most diverse demonstration yet of opposition to the School of the Americas/ WHINSEC! read full story / add a comment

Hosted by Rathmines Anti War Group
Featuring Niall James Holohan, Gravel Poets & Spool
Madison's Pub, Rathmines, doors open 8.30pm, euro5 on the door read full story / add a comment

BLACK POPE/EOIN RICE. read full story / add a comment

Incremental progress with the business of the group was reported at the November meeting of Cooley Environmental and Health Group. read full story / add a comment

Today the University of California's Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team released a statistical study - the sole method available to monitor the accuracy of e- voting - reporting irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000-260,000 or more excess votes to President George W. Bush in Florida in the 2004 presidential election. read full story / add a comment

Hot on the heels of his diplomatically worded critique of the Socialist Workers Party’s intervention in Respect (see Weekly Worker November 11), veteran SWP leader John Molyneux has now turned his attention to the organisation’s own regime and culture. In this contribution to the Pre-conference Bulletin No2, headed ‘Democracy in the SWP’, comrade Molyneux exposes the intolerance and monolithism of the leadership and, as “a strongly committed member of the SWP”, calls for far-reaching cultural change... read full story / add a comment

At first I didn't notice, the spots of pinky red on the photo were enough to say "blood" and that these kids were shot or killed by conventional weapons. I was more revulsed by the casualness of the "trophy-kill" snap.

It suddenly hit me, what I was looking at was the result of a Chemical Attack of some sort. There are no wounds on any of the bodies. No pools of blood. No shattered frames hit by high calibre guns. I'm not a forensic toxicologist but the demeanour of the bodies suggests death by asphyxiation. They all choked to death. Remember the images from Halabja?

No they didn't die somewhere else and were moved, they died right there. How do I know? Third in we see a little girl who kicked off her pink slippers as she writhed in agony on the ground gasping for a breath. The boy furthest away in close up reveals him in a convulsed state, a death-throe similar to the gas victims from ww2. read full story / add a comment

The overarching idea is to discuss and collectively develop new systems of governance which might be suitable for the quantifiable but as-yet undeclared state of Cascadia without limiting the discussion only to Cascadians. read full story / add a comment

Ten students were evicted from their house last night, with four hours notice, following a request for their washing machine to be fixed. read full story / add a comment

Sincere thanks to all the artists, sprayers, and writers. Thanks to Indymedia Ireland for providing the exhibition platform and all the viewers comments (both positive and negative). Perhaps one thing we can all agree on is that it brought some much needed colour to the pages of Indymedia. read full story / add a comment

Robocop Garda Donal Corcoran has become a gay icon. read full story / add a comment

Just heard - jury is back in the 2nd RTS case and has found Donal Corcoran not guilty of all three charges of assault despite being shown the video evidence.

This is the second case of Guards charged with assault out of the May 2002 incident. 2 guards were also found not guilty last month. read full story / add a comment

There was a small demonstration demanding an end to the US assault on Falluja on Friday at the US embassy in Dublin. read full story / add a comment