How many have noticed that in the quiet hours of night/early morning their Eircom email accounts become unavailable?
And that is on a regular daily, or nightly as it is, occurrence. ... read full story / add a comment

Asheville Fm radio, based in western North Carolina, aired a fascinating interview with an anarcho-syndicalist named Denys, from the Autonomous Worker’s Union in Ukraine. In the interview, Denys debunks many of the myths surrounding the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine, and explains motives behind the stories and propaganda being circulated around the protests.

Why is the Free Association Agreement with the EU (which would mostly benefit the ultra-rich oligarchs of Ukraine) deliberately being
construed as actual integration? Ukrainian leaders backed off from signing it at the last minute. Meanwhile, Russia is trying to pull
Ukraine into her Customs Union by offering Kyiv a deal for promised purchases of billions of euro of Ukrainian products, and a 30 percent
discount on Russian Natural Gas.

Denys explains that when the protests broke, the political class of Ukraine was taken by surprise. However, the opposition, a coalition
leaning towards far-right (with fascist Svoboda being the most visible of them all) quickly regrouped and turned the street into their PR
machine. The opposition had massive demonstrations in their plans, as fascist Svobodas leader declared in an interview in March 2013. Evidence emerged of the opposition leaders plans to overthrow the current government with the financial and political support of Germany’s
conservative Angela Merkel, the EU leaders from Brussels, and with visible support of the United States, whose envoy, conservative John
McCain was the guest star of the Euromaidan.

... read full story / add a comment

This interview with Yassamine Mather from Hands Off the People of Iran appears on the BBC Persian Service . The broadcast coincides with the third year of the Arab Spring . ... read full story / add a comment

This report is republished from the WSM site and covers the recent local uprising in the city of Burgos -north of Madrid, in Spain. There has been no press coverage about it but it concerns the case very similar to Turkey last year, where people were so fed up with local politicians and developers that they finally snapped on the latest effort to rip them off. The protest has now spread to over 45 cities in Spain. We should be learning lessons from these people and doing likewise given the recent scandals here and the ongoing austerity and other burdens placed on people in Ireland and which has brought many people to almost breaking point.

Just over a week ago, if you were thinking of cities in Spain most likely to host the start of a proletarian uprising, Burgos would have come pretty much at the bottom of the list. A sleepy, socially conservative, traditionally ultra-Catholic city in the Northern Castille plain, Burgos was up until now mostly known for its Cathedral and other mediaeval real estate and a local sausage uncannily reminiscent of Clonakilty black pudding. But since the initial clashes between police and protestors in the working class district of Gamonal on the night of Friday 10th January, Burgos has seen nights of continual rioting, a veritable military occupation by riot police, and solidarity demonstrations this week around 46 cities in Spain, including two successive nights of demos in the capital Madrid, resulting in clashes with the police, arrests and injuries. All this supposedly over a plan to redevelop the main road through Gamonal into a tree-lined Boulevard. ... read full story / add a comment

THE PEOPLE’S NEWS contains comment on developments in the EU from an Irish and democratic perspective ... read full story / add a comment

Brain Drain ... read full story / add a comment

…. the welfare of the people as a whole?”; Brussels Summit takes another step towards forming a Euro Army; Merkel supports EU treaty change; EADS Chief calls for EU Drone budget; Troika consultancies: another fiddle?; Partnership for Profits. ... read full story / add a comment

Luke Ming Flanagan had done his research. He knew that the word ‘piss’ was not a banned word within the rarified and sensitive environs of Dail Eireann. He had checked out the Consumer Act in order to bolster his political point.

He then planned and carried out a very clever and effective political stunt to guarantee maximum publicity.

Flanagan wanted to highlight the fact that the Government was planning to charge people for the ‘privilege’ of drinking contaminated water. ... read full story / add a comment

• Number of people employed: Down by 13 per cent since January 2008.

• Number of people unemployed: Up from 107,000 in January 2008 to 296,300 today.

• Annualised domestic growth rate: –1.2 per cent.

• Net emigration: The number of people leaving the country is higher than the number coming in by 35,000. Gross emigration was more than 80,000 last year alone. In six years it went from the highest net immigration level in Europe to the highest emigration, overtaking the Baltic states and Kosovo. Meanwhile a group of students and other young people in Dublin has launched a campaign called “We’re not leaving” after the Government sent out letters encouraging young people to seek jobs abroad.

• Government deficit as a proportion of GDP: 7.3 per cent.

• Public debt: 121 per cent of GDP in 2013, up from 91 per cent in 2010 and 105 per cent in 2011.

• Household debt: 200 per cent of GDP. There are people living on €50 per week or less after paying their bills. We have had eight austerity budgets since 2008; in the community sector there have been cuts of 35 to 40 per cent.

• Value of assets underpinning household debt: –56 per cent since the crisis began.

•Mortgages in arrears for more than six months: 17 per cent of all mortgages. ... read full story / add a comment

Issue 54 of Red Banner is out now,
available from bookshops or from the address above
€2 / £1.50 ... read full story / add a comment

Serbia’s Srdja Popovic is known by many as a leading architect of regime changes in Eastern Europe and elsewhere since the late-1990s, and as one of the co-founders of Otpor!, the U.S.-funded Serbian activist group which overthrew Slobodan Milošević in 2000.

Lesser known, an exclusive Occupy.com investigation reveals that Popovic and the Otpor! offshoot CANVAS (Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies) have also maintained close ties with a Goldman Sachs executive and the private intelligence firmStratfor (Strategic Forecasting, Inc.), as well as the U.S. government. Popovic’s wife also worked at Stratfor for a year.

These revelations come in the aftermath of thousands of new emails released by Wikileaks’ “Global Intelligence Files.” The emails reveal Popovic worked closely with Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based private firm that gathers intelligence on geopolitical events and activists forclients ranging from the American Petroleum Institute and Archer Daniels Midland to Dow Chemical, Duke Energy, Northrop Grumman, Intel and Coca-Cola. ... read full story / add a comment

This report comes from the Galway Advertiser and is posted on Ireland Against Salmon Website. It concerns the case of the proposal to build a massive salmon farm of 1,126 acres in Galway Bay and it seems the commercial pressures to build it had undue interest. The so called scientific basis for granting permission was based on two 'scientific' papers which were completely flawed in their conclusions and one can only come to the conclusion that it was to suit what they were designed to do, to give a fig leaf of respectability to the proposal. Once again it shows how the intersection of money and anything corrupts. And in this case both the environment and the reputation of science in this particular area, loses out. For those not in the known, the giant infestations of sea-lice that these fish farms cause with 10s of thousands of fish in close proximity to each other, cause devastation to the stocks of wild salmon threatening to wipe them out.

A public enquiry could result from allegations of flawed and suppressed information regarding controversial proposal to construct a massive salmon farm in Galway Bay. The allegations have already led the EU Commission to re-open an investigation on the farm and demand explanations from Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney.

EU Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik re-opened Pilot Investigation 764/09/ENV1 following claims of “fundamental errors” in the analysis of key papers by the Marine Institute in Oranmore regarding the sea lice threat to wild salmon posed by intensive salmon farming; allegations that information from Inland Fisheries Ireland on the scale of damage caused to wild fish from lice was withheld by the Department of Agriculture; and perceived refusals by the Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney to answer questions in the Dáil on the fish farm. ... read full story / add a comment

Tom Gilmartin, the Sligo born developer who made his fortune in England and returned to Ireland in the 1980s to do something here ran into the wall of corruption and greed and refused to bow to the FF and FG gobeens, died this week and was buried on Tuesday Nov 26th.

Gilmartin ended up being one of the key witness in the planning tribunals which looked into planning corruption in the Dublin councils. They did not look at the corruption in the other councils all around the country and we can be 100% sure, it was just as rampant there as well. He was one of the few people with any sense of integrity from that class and despite being vilified and no doubt many legal threats made, he stood his ground. Without his persistence, it may never have reached the public record the depth of cronyism and corruption that was present throughout the ranks of Fianna Fail -the party that led this country to ruin, and also to a slightly lesser extent the same with FG. ... read full story / add a comment

The headlines have recently reported that the Royal Bank of Scotland owners of Ulster Bank in Ireland carried out widespread fraud and engaged in forcing customers who were repaying their debt and otherwise healthy, into going out of business and this allowed the bank to pick up their assets namely their properties at a fraction of the true costs. They carried out this financial terrorism mostly against small firms who were too small to defend themselves.

... read full story / add a comment

The Dublin Cumann are collecting for the P.O.W's throughout the Christmas period. A little goes a long way to help out our P.O.Ws and there families at this difficult time of year.

Go raibh mile maith agaibh,

Beir Bua. ... read full story / add a comment

Here is one article about true public enemies, not state enemies than enemies of society. Companies and people and their products that are created to build totalitarianism in the time of global capitalism. ... read full story / add a comment

Another trade unionist murdered in Colombia.
Striking Nestle worker and trade union organiser, Oscar lopez, was shot four times by multiple gunmen in a local bar. ‘Sinaltrainal’, his trade union had been locked in a bitter dispute with Nestle over union recognition and report receiving several death threats via text message from a right-wing paramilitary group, ‘Urabenos’- the day before Lopez was murdered. The messages read, “We are going to chop you up” and “Death to all Communists” ... read full story / add a comment

On Remembrance Sunday 2013, Veterans For Peace UK walked to The Cenotaph under the banner ‘Never Again’. The message on the back of our tops read “War is Organised Murder” which is a quote from Harry Patch, the last survivor of The Western Front who he died in 2009. Among the 18 veterans who attended were men who had served in World War 2, SE Asia, Northern Ireland, Dhofar, Macedonia, Afghanistan and Iraq. We were followed by around 80 supporters. ... read full story / add a comment

The plan for a huge number of wind turbines is not just running into trouble. It seems it could turn out to be a bit of a white elephant. The drive is coming from the UK because the population density is so high they are running into continual problems with objections and as a result they are unable to meet their own promised obligations for the percentage of renewable energy. But they have done a deal with the Irish government to use the 'empty' midlands of Ireland to build thousands of wind turbines and transfer the power by cable to the UK.

To many these seems like corporate colonialism and the though of all the billions in investment with the chance to then quickly sell complete wind farms on has all the worst kinds of people involved and the Irish government and their friends have been so eager to get hands on this that the Irish government has incredibly not even carried out a Cost Benefit Analysis of the whole thing.

With wind farms if the site is not windy enough and too many turbines are put on the site, it can result in a situation where they do not meet the targets for power output and hence revenue and it can result in the venture not covering its costs properly -i.e. making a loss. This has happened quite a bit in the interior locations of various countries as the strongest and most consistent wind generally occurs on coastal sites. And Colm McCarthy, the ‘Bord Snip’ economist, has already described the drive to build wind farms all over Ireland as another potential ‘Nama’. ... read full story / add a comment

There is a new squat in Dublin up in Grangegorman where all the DITs will be moving in the next few years. It has been setup by a group of political squatters. They now face eviction from the row of empty, unused, rotting houses in Lower Grangegorman and they are asking people to come and help resist.

- 300,000 empty houses in Ireland, 5,000 people homeless --

The WSM caught up with them for an interview last week to find out more.... ... read full story / add a comment