Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton, in a press release published in the Irish Independent on the 29th of July 2011, hinted that she was going to review the system of Child Benefit along the lines of the CCT method of payments in Mexico and Brazil.

The publication follows on from a two-day Conference held in the University of Limerick last October with the same title as the book. There will be an official launch of the book in Limerick and Dublin in early September.

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.