DUP Junior Minister Jeffrey Donaldson has rejected claims that the increase in the number of bombs found is evidence that dissidents have access to Provisional stockpiles.
It has emerged that the projectile device fired at a PSNI car in Fermanagh on August 15 was of Provisional IRA manufacture.
Meanwhile, in June three other PSNI officers had a narrow escape when a landmine containing 300lbs of home-made explosives failed to detonate near the border in Co Fermanagh.
A timer recovered at the scene is thought to also have been manufactured by the Provisionals.
South of the border, a pipe-bomb exploded on the window sill of a derelict house in Emerald Place, off Cork Street in south Dublin, two weeks ago.
So far this year the Irish army said it has dealt with 70 improvised bombs so far.
In Northern Ireland, Army technical officers were tasked by the PSNI a total of 234 times between July 2007 and July 2008 to deal with suspect devices. IRA decommissioning took place in 2005. At the time, head of the arms decommissioning body General John de Chastelain said he was “satisfied that the arms decommissioned represent the totality of the IRA’s arsenal”.
“From our discussions with the Chief Constable, [we have learned that] he does not have evidence that the IRA has handed anything over to the dissident republicans.” Mr Donaldson said
Immigrants will face tougher requirements, greater scrutiny after government strikes deal with anti-immigration ally
The Liberal-Conservative government moved to shore up Denmark’s immigration regulations on Monday by entering into an agreement with the anti-immigrant Danish People’s Party (DF) that will make it tougher to become a citizen and make it easier to deport criminals.
The changes come after a series of EU court rulings stated that non-EU residents could easily make use of the union’s freedom of movement regulations to avoid the strict immigration laws passed by the government in 2001.
The agreement to uphold the EU ruling until future changes are made to it came at the expense of tightening immigration regulations to suit the needs of DF.
DF is a key ally of the government and had threatened to stay away from budget negotiations if immigration laws were not secured.
The new agreement means that Danes to bring their foreign born spouses to Denmark must prove they lived in another EU country legally.
However, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned that this did not mean an easy by-pass of current immigration regulations.
‘You can’t just go to Malmö (Sweden) for a couple of days, get married and then move back,’ he said.
The Immigration Service also plans to tighten its controls and will carry out spot checks on every fourth couple applying for residence. They will come down hard on marriages of convenience and will continue to require proof of the authenticity of the relationship.
Those wanting to become Danish citizens also face a stricter Danish test, with more correct answers required to pass. The time allowed for the test will also be reduced.
The government still plans to pursue its case to change the EU residence directive and Hornbech will present the Danish proposal at a meeting in Brussels on Thursday.
Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe and Integration Minister Conor Lenihan jointly issued agreement recommendations which were drawn up following consultations and a review of the legal position in Ireland.
They agreed that the current system, whereby schools decide their uniform policy at a local level, is reasonable, works and should be maintained.
"In this context, no school uniform policy should act in such a way that it, in effect, excludes students of a particular religious background from seeking enrolment or continuing their enrolment in a school. However, this statement does not recommend the wearing of clothing in the classroom which obscures a facial view and creates an artificial barrier between pupil and teacher. Such clothing hinders proper communication."
Minister O’Keeffe said this meant the burqa could not be used as teachers could not see the full range of facial expressions of the students. The burqa covers the entire body and has a grille over the face. He was not aware of any cases where students sought to wear the burqa in Irish schools.
It is believed that the niqab is also unacceptable for the same reasons — the niqab is a veil that covers the face but has a space cut out for the eyes.
The agreed ministerial statement said that schools, when drawing up uniform policy, should consult widely in the school community. They should take note of the obligations placed on them by the Equal Status Acts before setting down a school uniform policy.
Teachers’ unions welcomed the guidelines but the Irish Council for Civil Liberties said it was disappointed.
"This would appear to be a policy not to have a policy" said council director Mark Kelly.
Fine Gael and Labour have previously called for a ban on the hijab in schools
With Islam on the rise here and all over Europe they know that in the future this could be a potentially devisive issue. With that in mind instead of coming up with a policy they wash their hands of the problem and leave it to the headtechers to make the decision and take whatever aggro comes with it. Is this what we pay our government for, to run away from controversial issues and leave it to teachers to solve the problem?
Who has ever heard of the private company Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation? Shouldn’t all of us be some what familiar with a company that holds $40 trillion in assets and last year handled “more than $1.86 quadrillion” in stock transactions?
- Source: Wikipedia “DTCC retains custody of 3.5 million securities issues, worth about $40 trillion, including securities issued in the US and more than 110 other countries.”
“The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), based primarily at 55 Water Street in New York City, is the world’s largest post-trade financial services company.
DTCC has been sued with regard to its alleged participation in naked short selling. Further allegations about DTCC’s possible involvement have been made by Senator Robert Bennett and discussed by the NASAA and in articles in the Wall Street Journal and Euromoney Magazine.”
“In 2007, DTCC settled the vast majority of securities transactions in the United States, more than $1.86 quadrillion in value.”
On the current financial meltdown; last week Jim Cramer, former Hedge fund manager, said on his CNBC’s financial TV program, “Obviously the financial terrorism thing for me has to be put on the table because the regular short sellers are not doing this, they’re not doing this.” Watch it here. Short selling is basically making money by placing bets/investing on stocks to go down in value. (Read more…)
An Post has launched two new commemorative stamps to mark the centenary of the opening of Scoil Éanna, or St Enda’s school, which was established by Pádraig Pearse in Ranelagh in 1908.
The 55c stamps, which have been designed by Irish artist Thomas Ryan, were unveiled by Minister for Education Batt O’Keefe this morning.
The stamps commemorate the establishment of the boy’s school at Cullenswood House by the executed leader of the Rising in Ranelagh in September 1908. The school moved to larger premises at The Hermitage in Rathfarnham two years later.
Scoil Éanna was seen as a huge educational experiment at the time with Pearse intent on providing a ‘child centred’ education to its pupils
Boys attending the school enjoyed a huge range of subjects, from tending the large gardens to Egyptology. The school attracted artists such as Jack B Yeats, Beatrice Elvery and Sarah Purser who donated work and producing original plays in a theatre in the garden.
Following the execution of the Pearse Brothers in 1916, Scoil Éanna struggled to survive and finally closed its doors in 1935. The Hermitage is now the Pearse Museum while Cullenswood House is currently being refurbished to house Gaelscoil Lios na nÓg , an Irish-language primary school which was founded in 1996.
Earlier this year, Údarás NA Gaeltachta announced plans to develop a cultural and visitor facility adjacent to the Pearse Cottage at Ros Muc, Co Galway, which was used as a summer school for pupils of St Enda’s.
* A major concert to commemorate Pearse’s time in Ranelagh will take place tomorrow at Scoil Bhride, Oakley Road, at 8 p.m., as part of the Ranelagh Arts Festival. It will feature Liam O’Maonlai, Aine Ni Dhubhghaill, Ciaran Tourish and others. Information on www.ranelagharts.org
Euro MPs are preparing to vote on proposals for European Union regulation of blogs with the aim of countering a “dangerous” and unregulated blogosphere.
Marianne Mikko, an Estonian centre-left MEP, is concerned that growing numbers of blogs are being used by individuals with “malicious intentions or hidden agendas”.
“The blogosphere has so far been a haven of good intentions and relatively honest dealing. However, with blogs becoming commonplace, less principled people will want to use them,” she said.
Mrs Mikko has proposed that bloggers should be required to identify themselves and that some popular blogs should come with a declaration of interests.
“We do not need to know the exact identity of bloggers. We need some credentials, a quality mark, a certain disclosure of who is writing and why. We need this to be able to trust and rely on the source,” she said.
Chris Heaton Harris, a British Conservative Euro MP, has rejected any moves to “regulate and restrict independent media sources”.
“Mrs Mikko obviously does not understand that blogs have become the life blood of a vibrant democracy,” he said.
Spanish authorities have asked Interpol to help find one of the most notorious members of the Basque separatist group ETA, who may now be in Dublin after his recent release from jail.
Madrid Judge Eloy Velasco wants to question Jose Ignacio de Juana Chaos in connection with a complaint accusing him of ‘glorifying terrorism.’
De Juana Chaos was freed from a Spanish prison on 2 August after 21 years served for the murders of 25 people in a string of 11 attacks
Hours after his release, a letter attributed to him was read out at a gathering of his supporters in Spain’s northern Basque Country.
The letter paid homage to ‘Txomin’, the head of ETA in the 1980s, when De Juana Chaos himself was an active member.
The Association for the Victims of Terrorism filed a complaint in which it said the gathering and the letter constitute ‘an apology for terrorism.’
Since his release, de Juana Chaos has filed a request with Spain’s consulate in Dublin to renew his identity documents, in which he listed an address in Dublin, judicial sources said.
THE scale of unemployment is far worse than official figures show because another 38,000 people are stuck in a backlog waiting for their dole claims to be processed.
Social welfare offices across the country may have to take on extra staff to cope with the dramatic increase in dole applicants in recent months, the Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed (INOU) said.
The number of people claiming unemployment benefits is measured by the Live Register, compiled by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) from figures supplied by social welfare offices nationwide.
There were 247,384 people on the register in August, according to the most recent CSO figures.
But 37,923 people spent much of August waiting for their dole applications to be processed, according to data from the Department of Social and Family Affairs.
If their claims are genuine, and had they been processed more quickly, the register would now stand at more than 285,000.
It also said that persons awaiting decisions could, in the meantime, claim temporary payments under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which is administered by the Health Service Executive.
Not everyone on the live register is without a job, as it includes part-time workers who claim reduced unemployment benefits.
For this reason, the register is regarded as an indicator rather than a strict measure of the numbers out of work.
But the INOU said the queues forming outside social welfare offices — a phenomenon not seen since the 1980s — were indicative of the scale of the problem.
INOU head of policy Brid O’Brien said the queues were “quite a shock” to younger social welfare staff, in particular, as they were not used to the phenomenon.
“It’s an area where, given the quite dramatic change, it probably requires additional staff to support it,” she said.
The INOU is calling for the basic unemployment payment — which is the same under both jobseeker’s benefit and allowance — to be increased by €15 a week to €212.80 in the budget.
There has been an important development in terms of Celtic language television broadcasting with the launch of the new Gaelic TV station BBC Alba.
The new channel is initially available on Sky satellite TV channel 168 and also on Freesat. The station will also become available on the digital terrestrial service Freeview. However the Freeview launch will not take place until 2010 at the earliest which is disappointing.
The Head of BBC Alba, Margaret Mary Murray, has said the channel was not just for Gaelic speakers. She told BBC Scotland which covered the stations launch night on BBC2:
"The Gaelic audience will benefit first and foremost, but we also hope that the channel will appeal to an audience across Scotland."
"Our programmes will be subtitled in English and we hope we will deliver programmes on subjects that will appeal to mainstream Scotland."
There will also be news and documentaries and an evening news programme - An La - will launch on Monday at 2000 BST. .
The launch of BBC Alba means that there are now three dedicated Celtic language broadcasters. TG4 (TnaG) in Ireland, S4C in Wales and BBC Alba in Scotland. There is also a station in Brittany called TV Breizh but both it and the regional version of France 3 carry only a paucity of Breton language programming.
So far in the United Kingdom only S4C is carried on all TV delivery platforms i.e satellite and terrestrial.
TG4 (TnaG) is available on both terrestrial and satellite in the 26 counties but despite commitments in the ‘Good Friday agreement’ so far only limited analogue coverage via terrestrial transmitters in the north has been achieved. It is important that TG4 (TnaG) is provided with space on a digital freeview mux (Multiplex frequency) as soon as possible.
UP TO 900 failed asylum seekers have vanished in Ireland in the past two years, the first official figures from the gardaí have revealed.
Despite a fall in the numbers of would-be refugees coming to Ireland, the numbers vanishing from the asylum process is rising.
In 2006, 376 failed asylum seekers were sought by gardaí for deportation, the Department of Justice said.
By 2007, that figure had risen to 506. Most were considered unlikely to be traced and the deportation rates for that year were low.
The 882 would-be refugees have been issued with 15-day letters obliging them to make contact with gardaí or leave the state.
A garda statement said records were not maintained by An Garda Síochána for the years 2003, 2004 and 2005.
The total number of illegal asylum seekers in the country who have been declined refugee status remains a mystery. Senior garda sources have estimated it could be anywhere between 6,000 to 7,000 people who have fallen through the cracks over the past decade.
Gardaí said the security implications of 882 failed asylum seekers who have vanished are enormous.
"These are people who we have lost track of. They have opted out of the asylum system and are not claiming any state benefits," a senior garda said. "The potential for them to be taken advantage of or vice versa is a real issue."
The number of actual deportations being carried out has shown a marked decline, with 43 people returned to their home county in the first five months of this year – asix-fold decline on the 2004 figures, when 599 people were deported.
Macalla na hÉireann, the 2008 Comhaltas Concert Tour of Ireland will cover 14 venues from the 12th to the 25th of October. The annual Tour features the best of traditional talent drawn from all four Provinces of Ireland.
Each year the Tour assembles a fine mix of established artistes together with up-and-coming young stars. These are blended together into a fast-moving and colourful show which appeals to both the connoisseurs and peripheral fans of Irish traditional entertainment.
NINE out of 10 young people attending the country’s only residential drug treatment centre for adolescents have a cocaine problem.
The teenagers are spending €3,500 a month on cocaine and a further €500 a month on alcohol.
The Aislinn Adolescent Addiction Centre director, Declan Jones, said most come from a middle-class background.
He said some turned to drink and drugs because “dad and mum were high-fliers, working all the time” and were simply not around. “In the last year, and particularly since the beginning of this year, nine out of 10 kids presenting to us have a cocaine issue. That is extraordinary. Three years ago it would have been rare,” said Mr Jones.
He said about 85% of those with a cocaine problem were current users, while 15% would have been in the past.
He said they treated young people aged between 15 and 21, but the average age was between 16 and 19.
They run a six-week residential programme at their centre in Kilkenny, the only one in the country for that age group. (Read more…)
Internet censorship is once again in the news after legendary YouTube user Nuffrespect posted a new video detailing the latest online attack on 9/11 Truth: a user who is creating clones of respected user accounts and truth movement leaders in order to smear 9/11 Truth by posting racist comments. These have already led to the deletion of several well-known accounts in what has been revealed as a coordinated effort to eliminate 9/11 Truth from YouTube.
This is in addition to the news that YouTube deleted a number of videos and accounts last week at the behest of Senator Joe Lieberman.
That CNET admits these videos were removed as a direct result of Lieberman’s staff’s request is significant, as it was Lieberman who has been urging YouTube to take down “radicalizing” terrorist propaganda since May of this year to bring it into compliance with H.R. 1955, a bill that is currently awaiting approval by the Senate and which would criminalize all dissent of the government. That H.R. 1955 will specifically target the 9/11 Truth community is made obvious by a presentation made to the House Homeland Security Subcommittee in 2007 on “Terrorism and the Internet” which actually listed 9/11 Truth sites alongside terrorist jihad sites as examples of terrorist propaganda on the internet.
At first, YouTube executives made a show of standing up to Lieberman and his tyrannical dictates. “While we respect and understand his views, YouTube encourages free speech and defends everyone’s right to express unpopular points of view,” a message posted on YouTube said at the time.
Evidently that was mere PR and GooTube—bought out by Google last year—is now showing its roots as a spook-infested CIA front that functions as a virtual branch of government. Now with no warning and little fanfare, they have silently started implementing the government’s agenda of taking 9/11 Truth and other forms of dissent off of the premiere video-sharing site.
All of this comes on the heels of numerous blows to free speech on the internet over the preceeding weeks. At the beginning of September, Comcast—America’s second-largest internet provider—announced it would set a hard bandwidth limit on its customers in a move that will limit the ability of users to exchange large amounts of data. This of course sets the precedent for other providers to follow suit and it may not be long before the major internet providers are able to squeeze customers’ ability to exchange information on the internet in the name of cutting down on bandwidth usage.
Also this month, reports emerged of a shadowy United Nations group known as “Q6/17″ which is working with China and the NSA to develop a system to trace the source of all internet communications. Of course, as the linked article points out, such a feature would be useless as all serious hacking attempts these days rely on spoofed addresses in the first place and such traceback features are likely to be used by the very people they are designed to detect. But perhaps creating chaos on an internet that is increasingly becoming an overglorified wiretap is itself part of a much larger plan.
Indeed, the myriad ways in which the internet is under attack is too large to list in one article, but some more ideas of just how 9/11 Truth and free speech on the internet in general is being suppressed may be gleaned from the video below:
The Government is to set up a programme to regularise the status of undocumented migrant workers in Ireland who previously held work permits.
Senior officials told unions and employers at social partnership talks last week that the scheme will be aimed at foreign national workers who have become undocumented through "no fault of their own".
The move appears to be a significant U-turn by the Government, which previously signalled that any such move could provide an incentive for illegal immigration.
At present, work visas and permits are tied to employers and workers can face deportation if they are made redundant, dismissed, or if their permits are not renewed after they expire.
A spokesman for the Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern confirmed that the plan was at an advanced stage and would be introduced as soon as possible.
It is likely the new scheme will be operated by the Department of Justice, with input from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
Pro immigration groups such as the Migrant Rights Centre of Ireland, which have lobbied for such a scheme for a number of years, have welcomed the move.
Last year the Department of Justice indicated that any attempt to regularise the status of undocumented workers here would be very problematic.
"Mass regularisation is extremely problematic in that it fails to take account of the merits of the individual case and also acts as a pull factor for future illegal migration," the department said in a statement last year.
A department source said the new programme was merely formalising what is already done on an ad hoc basis. The source said a benign view is taken of undocumented workers who have previously held work permits and made social insurance contributions.
Social partners at talks in Government Buildings last week welcomed the planned move.
Ultimately this plan will only serve capitalist economy’s interests; lower salary standards for Irish workers.
An interview with Roberto Fiore General Secretary: Forza Nuova and MEP (Member of European Parliament) European Union 
DUP Junior Minister Jeffrey Donaldson has rejected claims that the increase in the number of bombs found is evidence that dissidents have access to Provisional stockpiles.
Immigrants will face tougher requirements, greater scrutiny after government strikes deal with anti-immigration ally 
Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe and Integration Minister Conor Lenihan jointly issued agreement recommendations which were drawn up following consultations and a review of the legal position in Ireland.
An Post has launched two new commemorative stamps to mark the centenary of the opening of Scoil Éanna, or St Enda’s school, which was established by Pádraig Pearse in Ranelagh in 1908.
Euro MPs are preparing to vote on proposals for European Union regulation of blogs with the aim of countering a “dangerous” and unregulated blogosphere.
Spanish authorities have asked Interpol to help find one of the most notorious members of the Basque separatist group ETA, who may now be in Dublin after his recent release from jail.
There has been an important development in terms of Celtic language television broadcasting with the launch of the new Gaelic TV station BBC Alba.
UP TO 900 failed asylum seekers have vanished in Ireland in the past two years, the first official figures from the gardaí have revealed.
NINE out of 10 young people attending the country’s only residential drug treatment centre for adolescents have a cocaine problem. 
Internet censorship is once again in the news after legendary YouTube user Nuffrespect posted a new video detailing the latest online attack on 9/11 Truth: a user who is creating clones of respected user accounts and truth movement leaders in order to smear 9/11 Truth by posting racist comments. These have already led to the deletion of several well-known accounts in what has been revealed as a coordinated effort to eliminate 9/11 Truth from YouTube.
The Government is to set up a programme to regularise the status of undocumented migrant workers in Ireland who previously held work permits.