People Before Profit Councillor Tina MacVeigh and Shay L’Estrange have recently visited Israel/Palestine. Here is their eye-witness report.
On arrival in Ben Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv, one is greeted with a palpable sense of tension and hostility, in equal measure. This is in no small part due to warnings over the intercom system, advising that it is not permissible to carry guns in the airport. This warning is not directed towards any potential terrorist treat but […]
The results of the Citizens Assembly and consistent opinion polls show that the large majority of the Irish people support abortion rights for women in a form that is incompatible with the 8th Amendment.
By Mary Smith For example a poll earlier this year showed that more than 80% of the population would favour the right to abortion in circumstances where there is a threat to woman’s health. This completely contradicts the 8th Amendment which equates the life of the foetus with that of the mother. The same opinion […]
Bob Dylan wrote his legendary song ‘It’s a Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall!’ in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war.
pic: Hurricane Irma By John Molyneux It was a prophetic song in which Dylan evoked in the most powerful poetic metaphors a world during or after a nuclear holocaust. By the skin of our teeth we avoided that fate in 1962 but now 55 years on we have another missile crisis over Korea and Dylan’s […]
The truth about the housing and homelessness crisis is bitter and hard to face. It is that, for all Eoghan Murphy’s fine words and initiatives, it is getting steadily worse and its going to get worse still.
The reason is very simple. It is that the Fine Gael Government is ideologically committed to a market based, capitalist solution to the crisis and there is no market based capitalist solution. There are lots of possible solutions but the Government rejects them all because they are based on state intervention which infringes the sacred […]
Much was made of Leo Varadkar’s youth and commitment to innovation and modernity during the blueshirt leadership elections.
Leo Varadkar with Canadian PM, Justin Trudeau on Toronto Pride By Sean Egan Leo’s campaign team made a whistle stop tour of Dublin’s hipster coffee shop circuit. The type of places where an avocado based breakfast and a cup of coffee will set you back at least twenty quid. Leo spoke about the marathons he […]
Memet Uludag writes: As Isis face defeat in Raqqa the civilian population continue to pay the price in the fighting between the US led coalition and Isis.
More than 25,000 civilians are trapped in the city facing daily intensive US airstrikes plus land mines and bombs set by ISIS. Furthermore, according to local observers Isis is using civilians as a shield against the airstrikes. As the fighting intensifies between Isis and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – a US supported a group […]
The Maduro Government in Venezuela is facing a developing right wing coup. Socialists are completely opposed to these reactionaries, but the bitter truth is that they have gifted the opportunity by the failure of the Maduro government to maintain or deepen the Bolivarian Revolution launched by Hugo Chavez. MIKE GONZALEZ, leading writer on Latin America and author of a biography of Hugo Chavez, reports on the crisis in Venezuela.
The Maduro Government in Venezuela is facing a developing right wing coup. Socialists are completely opposed to these reactionaries, but the bitter truth is that they have gifted the opportunity by the failure of the Maduro government to maintain or deepen the Bolivarian Revolution launched by Hugo Chavez. MIKE GONZALEZ, leading writer on Latin […]
Crowds of young people at Glastonbury this year have been spontaneously erupting into chants of ‘Oh, Jeremy Corbyn!’
Nothing so symbolises the political earthquake brought about by Jeremy Corbyn’s dramatic campaign in the recent British general election. Crowds of young people at a music festival chanting the name of a sixty eight year old white male Labour politician! This is unprecedented – more normal would be to be booed or ignored. Indeed there […]
Hardly a month goes by that we are not reminded of the barbaric obstacles put in the way of women in Ireland exercising choice over their lives.
At the end of June, the UN ruled that failing to provide an abortion for 40-year-old Siobhán Whelan, who was carrying a foetus with a fatal abnormality, amounted to a violation of human rights. In the same month figures showed that among the thousands of women travelling to Britain for an abortion, 15 were under […]
In Ireland up to 12 women a day either leave the country for an abortion or access illegal abortion pills. The only legal abortion in Ireland can be procured under The Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 (PLDPA).
This Act allows abortion if a woman’s life is in danger, including risk of suicide. Once it is determined that a woman’s life is at risk due to suicide, a doctor and two psychiatrists have to unanimously agree that termination of a pregnancy is the solution. And this system is failing. It is barbaric, perpetuates […]