Month: August 2012
Sowing the seeds of inequality
Men are from Mars, women from Venus. We are simply hardwired differently. Women are naturally caring and emotional, best suited to bearing and raising children or to looking after the sick and elderly. Men are dominant and logical, and should concentrate on breadwinning. Men have a natural affinity for leadership, so they dominate in politics and business. Gender roles are unshakeable and unchanging. So it has been and so it ever shall be.
Wikileaks: Assange seeks asylum in Ecuador
The persecution of Wikileaks has taken another dramatic turn with its leading figure, Julian Assange, seeking political asylum in Ecuador in late June. Assange has been in Britain fighting extradition to Sweden. Extradition was expected to begin on 28 June after all legal appeals had been exhausted.
Injustice in Greece: The frame up of Mark & Andreas Marku
The Justice for Mark and Andreas Campaign is fighting for the release from prison of Mark and Andreas Marku, two young Albanian men who have been sentenced to 18 years in a Greek prison for a string of armed robberies which they did not commit.
Venture capitalists profiteer at expense of vulnerable in hospital scandal
Castlebeck Ltd and Winterbourne View Hospital are names that will not be familiar in this country. Nor will they be, given the very scant coverage in the Irish media of a shocking report published last week, into grotesque abuse by staff at that hospital of adult residents with intellectual disabilities including autism and severe learning difficulties.
Anglo write off €110 million in Denis O’Brien deal!
In April, billionaire tax exile Denis O’Brien did a deal with the former Anglo Irish Bank to purchase a company called Siteserv for €45 million. This sale saw €110 million of taxpayers’ money being simply written off by the bank in a manner which raises further serious questions about the links between this controversial businessman and politicians.
Interview with pro-choice campaigners
In April of this year, the government parties, including the Labour Party that claims to have a pro-choice position, shamefully rejected a bill to legislate for the X Case, introduced by Socialist Party TD, Clare Daly. The persistent conservatism of the political establishment was exposed and women in Ireland (like the estimated 150,000 women who have travelled abroad to access a termination since 1980 before them), continue to suffer the consequences.
UN: Arms Trade Treaty negotiations expose hypocrisy of industry
After a month of negotiations on an Arms Trade Treaty at the United Nations in New York, the discussions came to an ignominious end last Friday when, first the United States and then Russia and China, pulled the plug on any agreement.
Why I joined
I joined the Socialist Party because listening to the party’s ideas I realised there was an organisation planning to act in a radical way to shift economic power away from the few born with it and towards the working people who create it.
FAI: Record seven clubs gone bust in six years
John Delaney, the chief executive of the Football Association of Ireland, has announced that he is to take a pay cut of 10% which brings his salary down from €400,000 to €360,000. Even with his pay cut Delaney will be payed more than the prize money for the entire League. It cost €19,000 euro to enter the league yet if a club finishes fourth in the league they will receive a measly €15,000 euro. Delany could pay for €4,500 worth of Irish fans’ drinks in Poland, while at the same time Monaghan are allowed to fold because of debts of €6,000.
Syria: Is there an alternative to the developing civil war?
Syria’s agony continues unabated. Across the country there are indiscriminate attacks by the Assad regime forces and their militias, bloody sectarian reprisals by the armed opposition, refugee floods and humanitarian disasters.
