Our creeping loss of privacy is the subject of an interesting article in todays Irish Examiner. Activists, now more than ever need to get up to speed on how to protect their digital privacy if engaging in activities deemed "troublesome" by state actors. (i.e. actively exercising your democratic rights to free speech etc. Y'know, stuff like that! ;-) ... read full story / add a comment

Friends at any cost: Israel is happy to welcome an Anti-Semite and nazi sympathiser to Israel.Tony Greenstein looks at whats going on here. Full text at link.

That the Lithuanian government should commemorate the memory of its quisling Prime Minister is not surprising. That the same anti-Semites who laud the Lithuanian Waffen SS survivors are also pro-Zionist is also not surprising. But that Israel's Foreign Minister, the arch-racist Avigdor Lieberman, should hosts a ministerial welcome to Lithuania's Foreign Minister, a man who tried to prevent the restoration of stolen property to its Jewish owners, should shock even a few Zionists. ... read full story / add a comment

Its not just a rogue attack from the Israeli Terrorist State thats on the agenda: Obama and his minions are deliberately psyching up the US people with their bellicose statements. Preconditions which cannot be met are being set for negotiations. Israel is being supplied with enhanced missile capability. Yassamine Mather deals with these points in the article below. Full text at link.

On Saturday April 14 Iran will attend talks with six world powers. The US has indicated this is Iran’s “last chance” to avoid military intervention and the Obama administration is taking very specific demands to the talks as preconditions for further negotiations: for example, Iran “must immediately close” a large nuclear facility allegedly built underneath a mountain if it wants to avoid a devastating strike. ... read full story / add a comment

There is an eerie sense of deja vu as the rhetoric used by the Imperialist leaders echoes that used in 2003 prior to the invasion of Iraq. Ben Lewis reports on debates in Westminster , international developments and the ever present danger of an Israeli attack on Iran. Full text at link.

The debate was initiated by Conservative MP John Baron, perhaps the only Tory MP who opposes an attack on Iran. His motion was simple and straightforward: “This house believes that the use of force against Iran would be wholly counterproductive and would serve only to encourage any development of nuclear weapons; and calls upon the government to rule out the use of force against Iran and reduce tensions by redoubling diplomatic efforts.” Malcolm Rifkind, Tory chairman of the intelligence and security committee, moved an amendment that completely changed its content. The amendment deleted everything except “This house” and replaced the rest of Baron’s motion with: “… supports the government’s efforts to reach a peaceful, negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear issue through a combination of pressure in the form of robust sanctions, and engagement led by the E3+3 comprising the UK, US, France, Germany, China and Russia; and recognises the value of making clear to Iran that all options for addressing the issue remain on the table”.

The Rifkind amendment, which was passed by an overwhelming majority of 285 to 6. Those who voted against the amendment were Labour MPs John McDonnell, Paul Flynn and Dennis Skinner; Jonathan Edwards of Plaid Cymru; Mark Durkan of the Social Democratic and Labour Party; and Baron himself. ... read full story / add a comment

Since approximately the early 1980s Capitalism has been on the offensive to attack working conditions and take away the hard won labour rights of the previous century or so.

In those years we have seen manufacturing jobs move offshore and increasing amounts of temporary and part-time jobs which have less rights than full time jobs.

We have seen multi-national and chain stores declare bankruptcy to allow these firms to walk away from their healthcare and pension obligations, only to re-open the following week.

But yet this is not good enough and the capitalists and because of the logic of capitalism itself, as usual never give up and have their sights firmly set on things like decent wages, holiday pay, sick pay, pensions and health-cover.

And leading the latest innovation in exploition is IBM Germany with their new programme called, "liquid" and reported in an article titled 'IBM launches new form of day-wage labour' on the www.wsws.org website. ... read full story / add a comment

President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law on New Year’s Eve. The bill provides a massive $662 billion for the US war machine and makes unprecedented inroads into democratic rights, authorizing the US military to seize individuals anywhere in the world and hold them in a military detention facility indefinitely, without a trial or any other legal recourse. ... read full story / add a comment

The shrinkage continues, the sea level rises. We are all ion peril.

The recent loss of sea ice in the Arctic is greater than any natural variation in the past 1½ millennia, a Canadian study shows. "The recent sea ice decline … appears to be unprecedented," said Christian Zdanowicz, a glaciologist at Natural Resources Canada, who co-led the study and is a co-author of the paper published Wednesday online in Nature. "We kind of have to conclude that there's a strong chance that there's a human influence embedded in that signal." ... read full story / add a comment

Johannes Stern writes on how the US client Military Junta in Egypt has carried out a murderous attack on protesters. Interestingly: State TV cited US police actions against Occupy Wall Street protests to justify the repression of protests on Tahrir Square. Tellingly, many of the tear gas canisters used against Egyptian protesters were made in the US. Full text at link.

The US views the military as the backbone of the Egyptian bourgeois state, defending capitalist rule and the interests of Western imperialism in the Middle East. Ever since the mass uprising that led to the ouster of Mubarak on February 11, the Obama administration has worked closely with SCAF to try to end strikes and protests by Egyptian workers demanding social equality and democratic rights. It has sought at all costs to prevent a second revolution. ... read full story / add a comment

James Turley writes about the criminalisation of those who have burned poppies and elaborates on the imperialist agenda behind the whole remembrance charade. Those who fell should be remembered but not to glorify imperialism.

It is that time of year, again, when the world is colonised by plastic poppies. No establishment luminary will be seen in a public forum without one of these slightly naff trinkets pinned to his or her lapel; and thousands more people around the country will likewise sport the designated symbol of remembrance for the war dead.... .

More troubling is the fate of three Northern Ireland teenagers, about whom little is known except their ages - two are 17 and one 16 - and that they were pulled up before Coleraine magistrates court, charged with ‘incitement to hatred’. The 16-year-old also faces charges relating to ‘improper use’ of a social networking site, thanks to his publication of damning visual evidence of the ‘crime’ on Facebook.... ... read full story / add a comment

HRW reveal that Gaddafi supporters were subject to mas execution after surrendering. Ful story at link.

We found 53 decomposing bodies, apparently Gaddafi supporters, at an abandoned hotel in Sirte, and some had their hands bound behind their backs when they were shot. This requires the immediate attention of the Libyan authorities to investigate what happened and hold accountable those responsible.
Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch ... read full story / add a comment

How can the Irish people vote for a former Fianna Fáil luminary after all that has happened under the watch of the Soldiers of Density? ... read full story / add a comment

The discussion continues as to why climate modelling may underestimate Arctic sea ice loss.

In recent decades, Arctic sea ice has suffered a dramatic decline that exceeds climate model predictions. The unexpected rate of ice shrinkage has now been explained by researchers at CNRS, Université Joseph Fourier and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They argue that climate models underestimate the rate of ice thinning, which is actually about four times faster than calculations. This model bias is due to the poor representation of the sea ice southward drift out of the Arctic basin through the Fram Strait. When this mechanism was taken into account to correct the discrepancy between simulations and observations, results from the new model suggested that there will be no Arctic sea ice in summer by the end of the century. This work was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research on 29 September 2011.
... read full story / add a comment

Proof that the Garda Ombudsman is a paint job. ... read full story / add a comment

This report from the WSM highlights the deepending crisis in the Irish prison system. Over the years the number of people per capita going to prison has been steadily rising and there are huge dangers with disease and infection from the practice of slopping out. And now an outbreak of TB is reported in three of the prisons. As elsewhere an dangerous drug resistant and largely incurable form of TB is on the rise.

This might not seem of relevance to most people but it is not well known that in 2010 there were 520 people were imprisoned for non payment of fines like TV licences, parking fines etc. ... read full story / add a comment

Climate scientists lives are at risk. Why? Because they have produced evidence which shows the erxtent of Global Warming and the damage done to the environment. The deniers don't like this and neither do the big mining and oil companies. They go crazy at the idea of paying a carbon tax. These companies have deep pockets and it wouldn't be surprising if they slipped a few dollars to the nuttier deniers to threaten scientists and perhaps go further.

Most deniers are harmless folk, they rarely leave their computers and wouldn't have the nerve to counter protest at an environmental demo. But there is always the mad few, looks as if they may be at work in Autralia.

A number of Australia's leading climate scientists have been moved into safer accommodation after receiving death threats, in a further escalation of the country's increasingly febrile carbon price debate. The revelation of the death threats follows a week of bitter exchanges between the government and the opposition in the wake of a pro-carbon price TV advert featuring actor Cate Blanchet. Being a denier of GLOBAL warming and supporting the destruction of the Environment is easy. ... read full story / add a comment

With the government leasing frequencies to companies world-wide to test their electromagnetic equipment in a live environment, word is finally spreading of the dangers associated with new technology. The DOnegal Democrat and the Liffey Champion have both noted community resistance to placement of towers near homes, schools and businesses. ... read full story / add a comment

More evidence of a rapid increase in ice melt: Studies showed glaciers have lost volume on average "10 to 100 times faster" in the last 30 years. Full text at url below.

Melting mountain glaciers are making sea levels rise faster now than at any time in the last 350 years, according to new research. Universities at Aberystwyth, Exeter and Stockholm looked at longer timescales than usual for their study. They mapped changes in 270 of the largest glaciers between Chile and Argentina since the "Little Ice Age". Studies showed glaciers have lost volume on average "10 to 100 times faster" in the last 30 years.

The rapid melt rate is linked to their contribution to global sea level. ... read full story / add a comment

Moshé Machover is an Israeli Socialist and Anti Zionist. He addressed addressed last weekend's CPGB aggregate on the defeat of the Libyan revolution, Al-Jazeera, and the goal of Arab unity. Full text at the link.

Why did they go for Libya and not other places? For me there are three main reasons. Firstly, there is the question of oil. Do not underestimate this factor. Of course, the quantity of oil Libya offers is next to nothing in comparison to Saudi Arabia, but it is its quality which makes them interested in it. It is just about the best oil you can find, particularly for aircraft fuel...
... read full story / add a comment

Today, in an even more meaningless exercise then normal, a minority of the population of Ireland will choose between two almost identical options as to who will implement the ECB / IMF austerity plans for southern Ireland. Outside of this plan the wealthiest 1% will continue to set economic policy tomorrow as they did yesterday and have throughout the last decades. The electoral circus we are now going through provides the rest of us with the illusion of control even though deep down almost everyone acknowledges the ritual as having no real impact on what policies are actually implemented. ... read full story / add a comment

The National offices of the Irish Freedom Committee, and the Charlie Kerins Cumann in Chicago, regrets to inform our friends and supporters of the death of veteran Irish republican Frank O'Neill last night in Chicago. Frank was 88 years old. ... read full story / add a comment