Saturday 12th & Sunday 13th May 2018 – Liberty Hall, Eden Quay, Dublin 1

To mark the 70th anniversary of the Palestinian #Nakba, the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Trade Union Friends of Palestine and BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights are honoured to host an inspiring and action-focused weekend of talks from important voices in the Palestinian struggle for Freedom, Justice and Equality. ... read full story / add a comment

The Peace and Neutrality Alliance along with World Beyond War condemns unreservedly the overnight attacks carried out by Western powers on the Syrian Arab Republic.

The pretext for this offensive is that a chemical weapons attack has allegedly been carried out by the Syrian Government and that international law banning prohibiting chemical weapons must be upheld. Given that the bombing of a sovereign state is itself a violation of international law, we are being asked to believe that international law must be broken in order that it be upheld -- a manifest absurdity. ... read full story / add a comment

(On 28 March the new Ecuadorian government and its President cut off all use of the internet from Julian and forbade him all future visitors. His friends have rallied and are asking all who care to protest and work on his behalf. The letter below explains itself) ... read full story / add a comment

Lets be clear the chemical attack last week was not done by Syria. It would make absolutely no sense. They have already more or less beaten the US/Uk/France (via Saudi proxies) backed ISIS terrorist group with the great help of Russia. Besides Syria destroyed all their chemical weapons a few years back under the watchful eyes of international agencies. So why on Earth would they bring the wrath of the world upon themselves. They are not that stupid. No this chemical attack like the other ones, is done via the terrorist cells (-trained, financed and armed by Western powers through local proxies) - against the "moderate terrorists" and ultimately arranged by their sponsors which is as US, UK & France, the very same states crying crocodile tears about human rights when they regularly bomb countries and people for "human rights". Even now as they screech in unison about this staged attack by them blaming it on the Syrians they have absolutely zero interests in the lives of the people in question. Even the most unobservable person can see it is used merely as a pretext to their agenda. That agenda however is not just to take action and drop bombs as always but something bigger and it is brilliantly outlined in the article written back before this latest fiasco where intelligence had already revealed that the US/UK were planning this latest attack. In short the agenda is to link the clumsy chemical poisoning of Skripal with the Syria chemical attack. The plan was simple. Russia is a monster for using chemical poisoning (except they didn't) and so is Syria too (except they didn't) and they are friends. Therefore Russia should be expelled from the 5 member UN security council and if that could be pulled off then the US/UK & France could safely ignore China and the "Western Free World" would have a free hand to bomb and intimidate who they like. You see the problem is the USA is in debt and technically should be insolvent but because the dollar is the global reserve currency backed by threat of US military, special forces and colour revolutions no-one dares challenge it except of course the Russia-China axis. Nevertheless USA had it's day in the sun and their power is declining. The UK think they can re-establish their colonial relationship and presumably they would be the dominant partner and need to hang on the coat tails of the USA to achieve their aims. Even though the USA is clearly the bigger of the two, the UK are much better at this game than the US could ever hope to be, hence the confidence they can successfully use them. ... read full story / add a comment

Please join us at Dail Eireann, Kildare St on Thurs April 19th at 1pm to highlight the rapid development of an EU army without any public debate.

Placards will be provided
... read full story / add a comment

Yaser Murtaja, a Palestinian journalist has died after succumbing to wounds he sustained during clashes with Israeli forces near the border between the besieged Gaza Strip and the occupied Palestinian territories. ... read full story / add a comment

The Western Corporate and State media has been saturated for the past month or so over the Skripal poisoning case of an ex Russia intelligence officer and his daughter. The level of hysterical reaction is enough to make you sit up and realize there is a lot more going on here and there is some kind of agenda being sent and it is clearly part of the relentless ongoing Russia phobia and hating campaign that we have all had to bear with over the last few years and particularly so since the US sponsored Neo Nazi coup in the Ukraine in Feb 2014 and then the nerve of the Russia army to be invited into Syria by the Syria government and their near total elimination of the US-UK-France backed ISIS terrorists injected into Syria (via Saudi Arabia and Turkey before the latter's turn away from US) to push their own agenda to destroy regimes not compliant to the West.

In this analysis below from "The Saker" he uses simple logic to completely show the absurdity of the claims of the UK government regarding the Skripal case although in a more wider context. It is quite clear to anyone with a few brain cells that this is part of a deep state operation. ... read full story / add a comment

As the government is set to spend BILLIONS on signing us up to PESCO the Irish Ant-War Movement has decided to support the Housing Is A Human Right Day of Action on Sat 7th April 2018. If we can spend money on weapons we can provide affordable housing. ... read full story / add a comment

This is a repost from the World Socialists Website now regularly censored by google and the headline catches the essence of how things are panning out today.

On Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a notice outlining extraordinary plans by the social media company to monitor all the postings and messages of its users, censor independent journalism, and use artificial intelligence (AI) to report users to the police and intelligence agencies. ... read full story / add a comment

This interesting piece from Thierry Meyssan outlines the real plan behind the recent positive news about Rojava. It seems the empire has been selling the story of a wonderful democratic paradise about to be setup in Rojava when in fact the whole thing is a cover for the empire and once again shows how the Left have been used and subverted to promote their plans.

The discussion in France on where the French jihadists captured in Syria would be judged, is a clear example of a false debate. It is animated by a television presenter and journalist that hide their links to their listeners. The issue of where jihadists of French nationality will be tried is in fact intended to lay the groundwork for getting rid of those that can testify to France’s military role against Syria. Hoping that its allies accept it, France is preparing to recognize a pseudo State, under the name “Rojava”, following the model used in “Kosovo”. ... read full story / add a comment

We are publishing this piece by PANA explaining what PESCO is about and how it means the loss of our neutrality. Unfortunately since then on Dec 7th the Dail voted by 75 to 42 to join PESCO.
Some key points are:
1) PESCO is a binding agreement because it says so. The government claims it is not. It is.
2) PESCO commits us to spending 2% of GDP on military spending by 2022. This is a figure of € 5.5 billion. We currently spend 1/10th of that on defense. This makes a mockery of "fiscal space"
3) PESCO in the event of crisis places under NATO's command. Therefore we are no longer neutral.
4) PESCO is the side door to Ireland joining a EU Army / NATO and would have us involved in "humanitarian" bombing and "peace making" -in other words imposing the demands of the corporate interests that rule above all else.
The Irish Government is considering joining PESCO. This will be one of the most important decisions this FG/Independeny Alliance will ever make. There needs at the very least a serious debate on the issue, and in any genuine debate form all sides in the corporate media. On the evidence so far this is highly improbable, as is their total lack of coverage of the use of Shannon Airport by US troops ... read full story / add a comment

The Dail recently voted to join PESCO. This is the first stage of Ireland joining an EU Army. With PESCO we will be under the command of NATO. This would be the end of our neutrality.

It also commits Ireland to spending € 2+ billion on military spending. Currently we spend around a €500 million or about a quarter of that figure.

... read full story / add a comment

The Luas Cross City is a boon for Dublin city but what does it mean for people who cycle along or across this route? Cycling and on-street tram tracks is a safety issue all over the world. In general cyclists learn fast, and realise that they must take greater care around the tracks, and ideally cross them at a large angle, while at the same time be aware of other surrounding traffic. ... read full story / add a comment

We carry below an official statement from the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee, the leadership of the global BDS movement. The IPSC has called an emergency lunchtime protest against the move this Friday 8th December between 1pm and 2pm: ... read full story / add a comment

Richard Boyd Barrett TD, has condemned the government with the support of Fianna Fail for tabling a Dail motion this Thursday for Ireland to join the EU PESCO agreement on advanced military and defence cooperation. ... read full story / add a comment

The Fine Gael / Independents government is to propose to the Dail this coming week that Ireland join the EU's Permanent Structured Cooperation on security and defence (PESCO). This will mean a new EU Defence budget starting at over €1.5 billion a year (up from €590 million). Each participating EU state, including Ireland, will be required to reach an average of 2% of its GDP to ensure that the EU becomes a global military power. ... read full story / add a comment

This is a repost of an recent article (Dec 1st) by economic analyst and trade unionist Michael Taft on www.tasc.ie covering the good news trend where there is now a trend in Europe of reversing privatisations. And that is certainly something positive.

There is a spectre haunting Europe – the spectre of de-privatisation, re-municipalisation, and re-nationalisation. Local, regional and national Governments throughout Europe and in other countries - fed up with high costs, low investment, deteriorating quality and poor working conditions – are taking services back into public control and ownership. For many, privatisation has produced poor results; now they are starting to reverse that process. Public ownership is back on the agenda. ... read full story / add a comment

Ladxido’be Fundraiser, a group of Mexicans in Ireland, have joined with the Latin America Solidarity Centre to organise a very special cross-cultural event. As part of its worldwide tour to promote solidarity with the earthquake-stricken state, the Oaxaca FilmFest will come to Temple Bar’s Filmbase on Thursday, December 7th. ... read full story / add a comment

We are reposting this story due to its importance and the way it highlights the workings of the empire work

On July 14 this year a British man from the Manchester area named Benjamin Stimson, aged 41, a man the London Times called a “socialist” to add to his crimes, was convicted under the British Terrorism Act for “facilitating” acts of “terrorism” by serving with one of the Donbass Republic militias for four months in 2015, as an ambulance driver. ... read full story / add a comment

The ReBirth of Marxism: Haunting the Future

National University of Ireland Maynooth, 4 – 5 May 2018
Call for papers

In his play Marx in Soho, Howard Zinn has Marx ask “Don’t you wonder why it is necessary to proclaim me dead, again and again?”

May 5, 2018 will be Marx’s 200th anniversary – one among many anniversaries which remind us of Marx and Engels’ long-lasting impact on the modern world. As we send this out, we are sandwiched between the 150th anniversary of Capital and the 100th of what Gramsci called a “Revolution against Capital” in Russia. Our conference includes the May Day bank holiday, celebrated by the traditional labour movement – but it also marks the 50th anniversary of the start of “May 1968” in Paris, while “Ireland’s 1968” is sometimes dated to the violent suppression of a civil rights demonstration in Derry, five months later.
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