The Department of Education withdraws funding from Integrate Ireland Language and Training.

In in protest 500* staff and students at the Integrate Ireland Language and Training Centre (IILT) in Dublin marched from Liberty Hall to the Department of Education offices in Marlboro Street at 1.00 pm on Friday, June 20, 2008. It was also World Refugee Day and the proposed closure truly demonstrates Government policy towards integration, education and workers rights.

Related Links: Siptu

End of the road in Cork

A Traveller couple in their late 50s, and their family, are being consistently and mercilessly hounded around the northside of Cork by gardai at the request of Cork City Council.

Both Agens and Martin Faulkner are on medication for depression and anxiety, while also suffering from heart and respiratory problems. Their 15-year old daughter is attending school locally and began her Junior Certificate exams last week.

In the last seven months, the family of Agens and Martin Faulkner have lived at more than 8 different locations on the side of the road in the north of Cork city. Apart from the carpark on the Glen Rd., where they were for 3 months, and the Kilmore Rd in Knocknaheeny, where they spent 5 or 6 weeks, they have never been allowed to stay anywhere for more than a few days.

On The Streets!

Over 1,500 people marched last Saturday demanding that cannabis be legalised in Ireland immediately and that the hypocrisy of cannabis prohibition end in all countries where it is still in place.

On Saturday last, the second annual Legalise Cannabis march was held in Dublin city centre.

The march was one of over 220 held worldwide in protest against the continuing prohibition of cannabis use in these countries.Hundreds of thousands turned out globally to highlight the hypocrisy, a legacy of twentieth centruy ignorance that has sadly persisted into the twenty first.

Related Links:Legalise Canabis LC Myspace LC Bebo 2007 march

From Derry to Palestine

Last weekend, Belfast was graced with the presence of two strong Palestinian activists; George Rishmawi and Iyad Bornat (also spelled Eyad Burnat), the screening of Iyad's powerful documentary: Bil'in Against the Wall http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy8-oxnZQJU in the Falls Road Cultural Center last Friday night and George's public address at the Belfast May Day Rally on Saturday.

The documentary is a powerful indictment of Israel and its use of murderous violence by its Occupation Army in beleaguered Bil'in against peaceful protestors to snuff out dissent against the expropriation of Palestinian land for the building of "settlements" for Jews only colonists.

Au fait with the action of the Raytheon 9 in Derry, George Rishmawi and Iyad Bornat, through the good offices of Kathleen O'Connell (IPSC) sought and found Eamonn McCann at the rally to express solidarity with the 9 and Pitstop Ploughshare success at their forthcoming trial.

Related Links: Raytheon 9 pamphlet reviewed www.raytheon9.org Indy.ie coverage

Solidarity with Gaza!

It was a typical April Saturday; it was raining. But despite the rain over 300 people marched through Dublin to remember Deir Yassin and to remember the Palestinians in Gaza today.

Related Links: Sixty years after Deir Yassin Alternativenews.org Deir Yassin remembered in Belfast