Sea Shepherd Conservation Society – Ireland, will be showing the award winning film Sharkwater, at The European Year of the Volunteer, The Venue is, EC House, 18 Dawson Street, Dublin on Friday 26th August.

Precise time of event still to be decided, but will start sometime between 11am and 4pm

The Connolly Soviet will be running the second of its Last Friday Comedy Club on 26th August at 9.00pm at Seomra Spraoi, Belvidere Court, off Mountjoy Square in Dublin. 

YOUTUBE Speaking Outside Colchester Military Prison - Ciaron O'Reilly from Giuseppe Conlon House/ Catholic Worker, Naomi from "UK Friends of Bradley Manning", Katrina recites a poem, Ben Griffin Afghanistan/Iraq combt veteran "Veterans for Peace", Jill Harris Michael Lyon's mother, Fr. Martin Newell Giuseppe Conlon House , Giorgio Riva Payday

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxazNPBw8oo

The Hedge School hub of West of Ireland Portal Hubs has a number of workshops & courses planned for the next few months.

Thousands of Kazakh oil workers are now in their third month of strike action. In their struggle for trade union rights and negotiations over the implementation of a wage agreement, they have faced massive repression and intimidation. Hundreds of workers have now been fired. Their lawyer has been imprisoned for six years for “stirring up social conflict”. The police and riot police have been used against the strikers as well as the company’s security. One of the key trade union activists has now been murdered.

This is an article about a new book on climate change. Written by Orrin Pilkey and illustrated by Mary Fraser.

"IT TURNS out that there is a hoax involved in climate change. Only the hoax is being perpetrated by public relations efforts by the fossil fuels industry." Thus begins the most memorable chapter of Global Climate Change.

Better known for his exposés on the flaws of coastal engineering, geologist Orrin Pilkey has turned his attention to this century's hot environmental topic: climate change. There are no surprises for those familiar with the subject, but the book does a good job of explaining the foundations of climate science to an interested novice.

Yassamine Mather is interviewed by  Mark Fischer on developing divisions in the Iranian Regime and the failure of the leading reformists to challenge the existing institutions. Full text at link.

Given its potential importance, it seems odd that there has been so little said in the western media about the ongoing conflict between Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the supreme religious leader, Ali Khamenei. Why is this?

It can perhaps be explained by the attitude of the US administration, which seems to be playing a waiting game. Obviously, they will have followed these disputes, but they expect the system to disintegrate without much intervention from the US and at the moment they have other countries to worry about in the region.
 
However, this is a serious, ongoing struggle which shows no signs of abating and has actually started a process of political differentiation within the green movement between leaders looking for ‘reconciliation’ with the regime and the more militant, intransigent sections of its base. A number of developments indicate the scale of the crisis.

Throwing more debt, in the short or long run, at the problem will not solve the problem. At most it merely alleviates or postpones the problem. This is precisely because the source of the problem does not lie within the process of circulation (i.e. money and credit spheres). It is contained within the production process­­­.

Yet more startling  news from the Wikileaks US Cables. This time its about US attempts to overthrow Bolivian President Evo Morales. Full text at link.

Recently released United States embassy cables from Bolivia have provided additional insight to the events leading up to the September 2008 coup attempt against the Andean country’s first indigenous president.

On September 9, 2008, President Evo Morales expelled then-US ambassador Philip Goldberg as evidence emerged that Goldberg and embassy officials had been meeting with several key civilian and military figures involved in an unfolding coup plot.

“The member states whose currency is the euro may establish a stability mechanism to be activated if indispensable to safeguard the stability of the euro area as a whole. The granting of any required financial assistance under the mechanism will be made subject to strict conditionality.”

- Amendment to Article 136 of the EU Treaties (TFEU) which was decided on by the 27 EU Member States at the March European Council summit and which licensed the 17 Eurozone States to sign the European Stability Mechanism Treaty on yesterday week, 11 July.

This ESM Treaty would establish a permanent EU bailout fund from 2013. The ESM Treaty and the Art.136 EU Treaty amendment which authorises it now go around for ratification by the Member States. The Government has decided not to put it to referendum here even though it means more power to the EU. The ESM Treaty can be downloaded from the internet.

Two previous articles, 'Of Cups, Rings and Cultural Heritage' & 'Cultural Heritage and the Economy'  (Indymedia, August 1, 2011) dealt with recent research on the Hill of Tara and Bend in the Boyne that could open a new chapter in their history, as well as that of hundreds of additional archaeological sites throughout Ireland, the UK and other Atlantic/Mediterranean European countries.  More importantly, they discussed the apathy on the part of the politicians, government agencies and archaeologists in Ireland towards that research, and its potential cultural and economic benefits.  In all fairness though to the aforementioned, what of the European Union and UNESCO World Heritage Centre, who are just as responsible for protecting the cultural heritage and economies of countries within the Euro Zone.

Considering the dismal economic state of a growing number of EU nations, it is more important than ever for them to protect their cultural heritage, as it is firmly linked to their economies in the form of tourism.  Though one tends to think of cultural heritage as something taught in schools and preserved in museums, it goes well beyond that, as evidenced by the attraction of archaeological and cultural World Heritage Sites to millions around the world. Though sites such as the Bend in the Boyne and Stonehenge play a significant role in our understanding of who we are and where we came from, every site, however small, is just as important, and they deserve to be indentified, excavated, restored and preserved for future generations.

The following is the first of three articles regarding cultural heritage and its potential benefits to the economies of Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and other Atlantic/Mediterranean European countries, which given the ever growing number of EU nations seeking bailouts, canʼt be ignored any longer. There are those whoʼve questioned why the cultural heritage of Ireland for example, is of such importance to someone who is a 4th generation Irish-American. The bigger question is why those whoʼve been ʻchargedʼ with protecting the cultural heritage of a nation; the archaeologists, politicians, government agencies, EU and UNESCO, have turned a blind eye to the issue.

Hi, 

We're launching a new campaign to ensure that a ban on fur farming is included in the upcoming Animal Health & Welfare Bill.  

Part of this campaign will include touring the counties that have fur farms - to host awareness days, do leaflet drops, organise meetings with local councillors and TD's, as well as having protests at the actual farms too. 

To start things off, we'll be having a simple 'Awareness Day' in Laois, home of Ireland's largest fur farm, Vasa Ltd.

With the Fine Gael / Labour government now annoucing that Carbon Tax will probably be increased in December 2011 budget is it not now time to revisted the whole "Humans are heating planet" nonsense in greater detail?

Your article in the summer 2011 edition of ‘Emma’ entitled ‘A Black Spring’ expresses concern about the possibility of a Muslim Brotherhood dominated government in Egypt in the future after the transition period. You conclude that the easiest aspect of the fight is with the violent jihadists; and whilst Bin laden is dead, the doctrine of jihad lives on. In another article*   you say: “...the gradualist approach is far more likely to win the prize of state power. All that Khomeini did before he came to power in Iran was to preach the merits of a society based on Islamic law. He did not engage in terrorism. Yet he and his followers took over Iran – a feat far greater than bin Laden ever achieved. In Iran the violence came later.” 

In reality, however, ‘doctrine’ alone was not the reason behind the brutal Islamic movement’s rise to political power. In Iran, for example, the rise of Islamism was aided by the US-led foreign policy of creating a green or Islamic belt around the then Soviet Union during the Cold War. At a conference in Guadeloupe, Western powers decided to back Islamism at the expense of a left-leaning revolution that was crushed in order for the Islamic Republic of Iran to establish itself. In fact, to secure power, the regime slaughtered an entire generation. As a result, we have witnessed the rise of the political Islamic movement for several decades.

Somehow as the sounds around us get stronger our voices get weaker and no-one wants to listen.  If we speak out people around us feel uncomfortable and threatened.

Following the surrender of the Labour Party in Cabinet on JLCs, SIPTU has described the proposals as “relatively positive” on RTE Television News, July 28 and has given the government plan “a cautious welcome” (Martin Wall, Irish Times July 29).

This is a dark day for Irelands biggest union which was built by Larkin and Connolly

The Shell to Sea national day of action is now in progress in Erris with a WSM member at the scene reporting that all work has been stopped, several fences have been pulled down and up to 30 people are now occupying Shell's compound. This despite the deployment of large number of private security who along with Garda have assaulted campaigners in a failed attempt to stop them gaining access to the site.

Labour's Shame on Low Pay-Labour Party has capitulated to Fine Gael by agreeing to cut low pay