In today's Evening Herald, columnist Dan White plumbs new depths of idiocy. In a bizarre link, he tries to make out that the conflict in Georgia and South Ossetia should encourage the Irish government to help Shell bring the gas from the Corrib field onshore.

What does he think they have been doing? Does the 11 million euro spent on Garda overtime not indicate (even to the slow witted Dan White) that maybe the government is already on Shell's side?

read the full column here: http://www.herald.ie/opinion/columnists/dan-white/the-r....html read full story / add a comment

Yesterday at 1pm, 3 kayakers paddled out from close by to Killybegs Harbour to deliver a letter from Shell to Sea to Captain Van Der Plicht on the Solitaire, the biggest pipe laying ship in the world. read full story / add a comment

Rogue crisis pregnancy agency the "Women's Resource Centre" has been forced to change its name following a sustained campaign by Choice Ireland. read full story / add a comment

You have to hand it to those tireless activists over at British National Party HQ in the land of the brave and the home of the free (England, for the unitiated in imperialist propaganda).

The intrepid campaigners for racial purity have been so busy churning out their ‘information’ on “immigration invasion” that they simply haven’t had the time to verify the appropriateness of some of the images they’ve been using on their website.

In an August 4 article entitled Spot the Difference: Zimbabwe or the EU?, far-right readers are confronted with a prominent image of a No to Lisbon leaflet (carried here for those who don't wish to boost the ratings of Britain's super xenophobes) recently published by none other than an Irish socialist-republican party, éirígí. read full story / add a comment

As Tibet solidarity and other human rights activists are rounded up i Beijing, a designated protest pen is transformed into a trap from where people disappear (77 applications were made to enter this "protest pen" - all have been withdrawn, suspended or rejected!), a Chinese girl is ditched from the Olympic Opening Ceremony for not having "the look" to go with the voice, the Party promotes, the corporates profit and prima don athletes are expected to keep a housebroken silence - one's mind is cast back to an iconic image from Mexico '68.
read full story / add a comment

Wicklow County Council has no flood plan and it's Fire Service is not allowed respond to flooding. read full story / add a comment

Sinn Féin have condemned Ian Óg Paisley's calls for Republicans to be murdered on sight following an IRA attack in Fermanagh. read full story / add a comment

At present there are 50 plus mobile phone masts on top of the Northside Swimming Pool in Coolock.
I find it's sad that we have got to the stage without anybody lifting a finger. I am not living in the area at the moment, but appeal to anybody from Coolock who reads this, and thinks it is an outrage, to make a commitment to do something about it. Phone, write, make a leaflet, tell friends and family and let's try and get a public meeting on the go.

read full story / add a comment

This is our third statement. read full story / add a comment

The Western Writers' Centre are already liaising with a prominent Irish-based poetry group to organise a possible Scotland exchange . . . .but there's a missing link read full story / add a comment

RSF have urged people not to collaborate with the RUC. read full story / add a comment

More the decks of a Noah's ark than a cobblestoned trading emporium, Free Palestine Campaign activists took to rain deluged Shop Street last Saturday in solidarity with the brave women and men who presently will be sailing from Cyprus in two boats to break the medieval siege of Gaza and on what Nobel Peace Laureate, Mairead Maguire, calls a "pilgrimage of justice and peace."

read full story / add a comment

This week's reports on environmental campaigns and controversies from the local papers read full story / add a comment

The discussion on reintroducing third level fees has certainly begun. But has the debate gone wide enough? Are we unduly focusing in on third level education funding without orientating the debate amongst wider budgetary issues?
read full story / add a comment

Today (Saturday) at noon a flotilla of sea kayaks reclaimed Glengad beach, Pollathomas, Co Mayo; the landfall site for Shell’s offshore pipeline.

Members of the ‘Great Rebel Raft Regatta’ recently deployed at the E.ON coal fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent, England, have made their way from Climate Camp UK to Erris, in order to assist Shell to Sea campaigners in their opposition to this pipeline construction at Glengad.

The first wave of the Rebel Regatta arrived today following Marine & Public Information Notices which announced the arrival of the world’s largest pipe-laying vessel, the Solitaire, in Broadhaven Bay, anytime from today onwards.

Captain Ahab of the Rebel Crew states, “It’s unacceptable what Shell are being allowed to get away with here in Mayo. We intend to plunder Shell’s compound at Glengad and board the Solitaire when she arrives in the bay. We take no prisoners. It’s the gang-plank for these boys. This environment needs protection from these marauders of Shell’s.”

read full story / add a comment

Over the past week English-language press, newspapers and TV, have been blaming Russia for the recent events in the Caucasus. Here are some pictures for comparison.
read full story / add a comment

Ogra Shinn Fein have produced a youth election broadcast for the upcoming by election in Enniskillen on Wednesday 17 September.

The youth electon broadcast urges young people from the relevant electoral ward to come out and vote for Sinn Fein’s candidate Debbie Coyle and visualises the advances that Sinn Fein have made in recent times.

It also includeds a number of short interviews with Mary Lou McDonald MEP and Fermanagh/South Tyrone MP Michelle Gildernew.

And it traces the strong legacy of republican candidates being elected in Fermanagh, most notably, the election of Bobby Sands MP, whilst on Hungerstrike in 1981.
read full story / add a comment

My wife was pregnant with twins this time last year and it got me thinking about Avril Monaghan, the woman who died, pregnant with twins, in the Omagh bombing. This is a short piece that I wrote at the time, remembering that tragic day in general, and those hugely unfortunate twins in particular. I'm sharing it here to commerorate these people on the tenth anniversary of their deaths. read full story / add a comment

Can corporations censor the Internet? read full story / add a comment

Brian Guckian, a researcher into sustainable development and transport in Ireland, lays out the case against the proposed Cork to Limerick (M20) Motorway. Mr Guckian claims that the scheme is not supported by traffic counts, that it breaches EU Law and government environmental policies, and that councils could face fines and funding penalties if it goes ahead. read full story / add a comment