Despite all odds, with scrambled radio and jammed phones courtesy of dirty tricks, a seasick passenger, in rough waves with a storm brewing, the small boats, the SS Free Gaza and the SS Liberty, successfully landed in Gaza early yesterday evening, breaking the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.They left Cyprus on Thursday morning, sailing over 350 kilometers through choppy seas. They made the journey despite threats that the Israeli government would use force to stop them. They continued sailing although they lost almost all communications and navigation systems due to outside jamming by some unknown party. They arrived in Gaza to the cheers and joyful tears of hundreds of Palestinians who came out to the beaches to welcome them. 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."

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Stephen Lendman in a Znet article http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18348 succinctly puts the moral imperatives behind the Free Gaza Movement's brave sailings to the Israeli besieged Gaza Strip: "After Hamas' January 25, 2006 electoral victory, Israel targeted Gaza oppressively. All outside aid was cut off. Sanctions and an economic embargo were imposed, and the democratically elected government was falsely called a terrorist organization and isolated. Stepped up repression followed along with repeated IDF incursions, attacks, killings, targeted assassinations, arrests, destruction of property and more in a pattern all too familiar to Palestinians for over six decades. Gazans are imprisoned in their own land and have been traumatized for months. In June 2007, things got worse after Israel placed the Territory under siege - described by some as medieval because of its extreme harshness". read full story / add a comment

The Green Party leadership appeared to be speaking with “forked tongues”, a spokesperson for the Galway Alliance Against War claimed last night, after both Minister Gormley and Senator Dan Boyle gave conflicting answers as to whether suspect CIA planes had been searched by the Irish authorities at Shannon. read full story / add a comment

On Friday (June 20th) broadcaster Ray D’Arcy and over 80 staff from Google’s European headquarters in Dublin joined forces with the Galway based charity, the SpunOut.ie National Youth Website, in what is thought to be Ireland’s biggest ever ‘free hugs’ event.

The ‘Hugs for Health’ event was designed to raise awareness of SpunOut.ie and its role in supporting and empowering young people via the internet. The event saw popular broadcaster Ray D’Arcy join teams of huggers roaming around Grafton St. and St. Stephen’s Green with ‘Free Hugs’ banners, offering hugs to those who might feel like a Friday morning cuddle. The event was featured live on the Ray D’Arcy show on Today FM.
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Commendably, Minister of State for Overseas Development, Peter Power on 19th June announced a funding package of €241,000 for the NGO, Medical Aid for Palestinians, the funds to be used for a maternal and child health outreach programme in the Nahr El Bared Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon with Mr Power promising to further support the Palestinian refugee population.

Commendably, to encourage "democratic" reforms in beleaguered Cuba, on the same date, the EU agreed to scrap sanctions with EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner opining to reporters that: "Of course there is clear language on human rights, on the detention of prisoners." Reprehensibly ...
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Amid a festive atmosphere of face-painting, musicians, loadsa tourists and even some warm sunshine, free poems . . . . read full story / add a comment

Last weekend’s downpours failed to dampen the spirits of the hundreds of people who gathered for the inaugural Galway summer solstice festival ‘Saoire na Sraide’. The festival, organised by Galway Community Arts, was designed to celebrate the longest day of the year and featured a street carnival, live music and street theatre and a range of children’s activities. read full story / add a comment

Over The Edge in association with Amnesty International
presents the Galway launch of
'Poems from Guantánamo–The Detainees Speak' read full story / add a comment

Lunchtime reading by three poets to support The Spirit Centre read full story / add a comment

Over The Edge in association with Amnesty International
presents the Galway launch of
'Poems from Guantánamo–The Detainees Speak' read full story / add a comment

Following the theft and damage of Lisbon Campaign for Middle East Justice and Peace signs in Dublin, Cork and Limerick, Galway on Friday night had a visitation of similiar malovolence when two large signs were torn from their anchorages, sliced into pieces and, bizarrely, after the top sections containing the text; "Israel Killed 52 Palestinian Children" were razored off, whatever, and stolen, the remaining pieces were neatly arranged on the grass - the signs highlighted the fact that Israel killed 52 Palestinian children in the first 18 weeks of 2008 and yet the EU, true to its hypocritical colours, refuses to impose sanctions. read full story / add a comment

Written after reading comments by Michael D. in the Local Press urging people to vote Yes. read full story / add a comment

2006 Nobel Prize nominee and conscience of Israel; the sweet and affable Jeff Halper delivered a damning indictment on Israel to a packed Nun's Island Theatre in Galway yesterday evening and, to boot, graced the Free Palestine Campaign information stall in Shop Street this morning for an hour before heading down to Clonakilty, Co.Cork, where in O'Donovans Hotel at 8.00PM, hopefully, he'll be delivering a similar broadside?. read full story / add a comment

For the past two weeks the focus of the Free Palestine Campaign group in Galway has been harvesting signatures for our petition calling on the EU (and the Irish government to work towards effecting it) to suspend or terminate the Euro-Med Agreement, which economically privileges Israel with access to the EU market, due to that country's gross and willful trampling of Palestinian human rights, International Law, Geneva Conventions and Part 2 of the Agreement .

When it comes to Palestine, the moral rot of the EU in refusing to suspend the Agreement does'nt stop there, it's deep and pernicious and with the passing of the Lisbon Treaty will deleteriously effect and infect Palestine further?. read full story / add a comment

At a presentation at Galway City Hall recently, the Western Writers' Centre were pleased to unveil a variety of development plans - bolstered by enormous national and even international support read full story / add a comment

Yesterday, activists from the Irish Centre for Human Rights, NUI Galway, Permanent Revolution, Free Palestine Campaign, ably aided, abetted and filmed by students from the Huston School of Film & Digital Media did a nine hour slog in Shop street for the Raytheon 9 and Palestine. After their info stall outside Lynch's castle two SWP activists joined us for a while in solidarity with their SWP colleagues in the Raytheon 9 whose trial commences in Belfast this coming Tuesday or Wednesday, see http://www.indymedia.ie/article/87594 read full story / add a comment

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.
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Three prominent US women poets willl read from their work, courtesy of the Western Writers Centre, at Galway City Museum tomorrow, Wednesday, May 1st. read full story / add a comment

Fuel and medical shortages, unbridled Israeli military attacks, trade embargoes, travel restrictions and now the food crisis has brought Gaza to the edge of an all out humanitarian crisis: out of a population of 1.4 million, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), last Thursday, due to the Israeli fuel blockade has halted food aid to 700,000 refugees and the World Food Programme to another 127,000. Michael Jansen in last Friday's Irish Times http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/0306/bre....html states that: "Due to the grounding of its vehicles, UNRWA also reduced operations at 214 schools serving 200,000 children and 19 health centres as well as refuse collection in eight refugee camps housing 500,000" read full story / add a comment