It's a cliché that the media was the first casualty of the Iraqi occupation, but few reacted like Dahr Jamail. Made brazen by his travels off the beaten path between monotonous jobs, he packed a cheap digital camera along with a laptop and entered Iraq to go beyond the Green Zone and embedded reporting.

The dispatches he circulated online, first through emails and then through his site, quickly grew into an essential resource for those in the west desperate for an alternative take on the war on terror. They remain today a vital channel for struggling voices inside occupied Iraq.

A collection of Dahr's work called Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq is coming out this month on Haymarket Books, prior to its release he sat down with Indymedia Ireland to talk about his journalism and the situation in Iraq.

The following is not intended to be an attempt at a comprehensive analysis of the current situation in the Occupied Territories of Palestine. Instead, it is a reflection on the past few weeks I have spent with the International Solidarity Movement in the city of Hebron and its environs and what brought me here in the first place. It is completely subjective and deliberately intended to be so. It is merely a personal reflection, and therefore should not be taken as representative of the views of the ISM.

I am a firm believer that the shortest distance between a person and the truth is a story. Many stories I have heard and read about regarding resistance to occupation, capitalism, imperialism have formed my sense of what is right and wrong - and on which side of the fence I am on. So if you manage to read through this lengthy piece of writing, I hope the stories of resistance I have encountered over the past few weeks will inspire you also to keep on fighting the powers that be, wherever and whenever you encounter them.

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Derry Anti-War Coalition visit to Lebanon
Over the past week I accompanied 12 members of the Derry Anti-War Coalition (DAWC), including the Raytheon 9, to visit communities in southern Lebanon which were devastated by the Israeli war last summer. We visited Bint Jbail and A'ita al-Chaab near the Israeli border, both of which received heavy bombardment from Israeli airstrikes and incursions from armoured bulldozers, tanks and troops, reducing civilian infrastructure to dust and pebble, their hearts to shock and fear, their eyes to tears for their lost loved ones. In addition to this, the DAWC protested outside the obliterated Palestinian refugee camp Nahr-al-Bared near Tripoli in Northern Lebanon.

The current Iranian regime, in power in the so-called "Islamic Republic of Iran" since the 1979 revolution against the Shah, continues to confuse many observers as to its true nature. The intrinsic confusion lies precisely in the fact that it is considered as a post-revolutionary regime.

You constantly hear the argument that whatever it is, and however bad and vicious it may be, it nevertheless is a regime which came out of a revolution against the Shah's dictatorship. Somehow, this mechanistic logic is then used to bestow a certain air of progressiveness upon a regime which for any observer with a little political sense is nothing but a semi-fascistic theocracy defending capitalism.

Torab Saleth is a member of Workers Left Unity Iran and is also a member of the Advisory Editorial Board of the journal Critique. Here, Torab provides an analysis of the class nature of the Iranian Regime.

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The case of two éirígí members who face charges related to the recent visit of British war-criminal Tony Blair to Ireland was adjourned in a Belfast court yesterday .

Cormac Ryan and Scott Masterson were arrested along with éirígí member Dominic McGlinchey during the RUC/PSNI attack on peaceful protesters at Stormont Castle on the May 8th, 2007.

Demonstrators had gathered at the Belfast venue to ensure that Blair was not lauded as a peace-maker in Ireland while his troops continue to kill with impunity in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The three activists face a string of public order and assault charges, despite the fact that no evidence has been produced to back up the RUC/PSNI claims.

The next court date for the three has been set for June 29th.

Members of the Belfast Anti-War Movement, joined by activists from other parts of the country, gathered outside the court in a show of support that was warmly received by members of the public. éirígí spokesperson Daithí Mac An Mháisitír thanked those who turned out to show support for the accused activists.

“The solidarity that the lads have received since their totally unjustified arrests has been great to see. It’s a credit to people for seeing through the RUC/PSNI spin. Cases like this one are important to win. Not least because we need to ensure the right to peaceful protest, free from the fear of assault and arrest. June 29 has been set as the next court date and we hope people will turn out in sufficient numbers to make it clear that the casual brutalisation and judicial fit-up of political activists is not acceptable.”