Issue 54 of Red Banner is out now,
available from bookshops or from the address above
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Serbia’s Srdja Popovic is known by many as a leading architect of regime changes in Eastern Europe and elsewhere since the late-1990s, and as one of the co-founders of Otpor!, the U.S.-funded Serbian activist group which overthrew Slobodan Milošević in 2000.

Lesser known, an exclusive Occupy.com investigation reveals that Popovic and the Otpor! offshoot CANVAS (Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies) have also maintained close ties with a Goldman Sachs executive and the private intelligence firmStratfor (Strategic Forecasting, Inc.), as well as the U.S. government. Popovic’s wife also worked at Stratfor for a year.

These revelations come in the aftermath of thousands of new emails released by Wikileaks’ “Global Intelligence Files.” The emails reveal Popovic worked closely with Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based private firm that gathers intelligence on geopolitical events and activists forclients ranging from the American Petroleum Institute and Archer Daniels Midland to Dow Chemical, Duke Energy, Northrop Grumman, Intel and Coca-Cola. read full story / add a comment

This report comes from the Galway Advertiser and is posted on Ireland Against Salmon Website. It concerns the case of the proposal to build a massive salmon farm of 1,126 acres in Galway Bay and it seems the commercial pressures to build it had undue interest. The so called scientific basis for granting permission was based on two 'scientific' papers which were completely flawed in their conclusions and one can only come to the conclusion that it was to suit what they were designed to do, to give a fig leaf of respectability to the proposal. Once again it shows how the intersection of money and anything corrupts. And in this case both the environment and the reputation of science in this particular area, loses out. For those not in the known, the giant infestations of sea-lice that these fish farms cause with 10s of thousands of fish in close proximity to each other, cause devastation to the stocks of wild salmon threatening to wipe them out.

A public enquiry could result from allegations of flawed and suppressed information regarding controversial proposal to construct a massive salmon farm in Galway Bay. The allegations have already led the EU Commission to re-open an investigation on the farm and demand explanations from Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney.

EU Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik re-opened Pilot Investigation 764/09/ENV1 following claims of “fundamental errors” in the analysis of key papers by the Marine Institute in Oranmore regarding the sea lice threat to wild salmon posed by intensive salmon farming; allegations that information from Inland Fisheries Ireland on the scale of damage caused to wild fish from lice was withheld by the Department of Agriculture; and perceived refusals by the Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney to answer questions in the Dáil on the fish farm. read full story / add a comment

Tom Gilmartin, the Sligo born developer who made his fortune in England and returned to Ireland in the 1980s to do something here ran into the wall of corruption and greed and refused to bow to the FF and FG gobeens, died this week and was buried on Tuesday Nov 26th.

Gilmartin ended up being one of the key witness in the planning tribunals which looked into planning corruption in the Dublin councils. They did not look at the corruption in the other councils all around the country and we can be 100% sure, it was just as rampant there as well. He was one of the few people with any sense of integrity from that class and despite being vilified and no doubt many legal threats made, he stood his ground. Without his persistence, it may never have reached the public record the depth of cronyism and corruption that was present throughout the ranks of Fianna Fail -the party that led this country to ruin, and also to a slightly lesser extent the same with FG. read full story / add a comment

The headlines have recently reported that the Royal Bank of Scotland owners of Ulster Bank in Ireland carried out widespread fraud and engaged in forcing customers who were repaying their debt and otherwise healthy, into going out of business and this allowed the bank to pick up their assets namely their properties at a fraction of the true costs. They carried out this financial terrorism mostly against small firms who were too small to defend themselves.

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The Dublin Cumann are collecting for the P.O.W's throughout the Christmas period. A little goes a long way to help out our P.O.Ws and there families at this difficult time of year.

Go raibh mile maith agaibh,

Beir Bua. read full story / add a comment

Here is one article about true public enemies, not state enemies than enemies of society. Companies and people and their products that are created to build totalitarianism in the time of global capitalism. read full story / add a comment

Another trade unionist murdered in Colombia.
Striking Nestle worker and trade union organiser, Oscar lopez, was shot four times by multiple gunmen in a local bar. ‘Sinaltrainal’, his trade union had been locked in a bitter dispute with Nestle over union recognition and report receiving several death threats via text message from a right-wing paramilitary group, ‘Urabenos’- the day before Lopez was murdered. The messages read, “We are going to chop you up” and “Death to all Communists” read full story / add a comment

On Remembrance Sunday 2013, Veterans For Peace UK walked to The Cenotaph under the banner ‘Never Again’. The message on the back of our tops read “War is Organised Murder” which is a quote from Harry Patch, the last survivor of The Western Front who he died in 2009. Among the 18 veterans who attended were men who had served in World War 2, SE Asia, Northern Ireland, Dhofar, Macedonia, Afghanistan and Iraq. We were followed by around 80 supporters. read full story / add a comment

The plan for a huge number of wind turbines is not just running into trouble. It seems it could turn out to be a bit of a white elephant. The drive is coming from the UK because the population density is so high they are running into continual problems with objections and as a result they are unable to meet their own promised obligations for the percentage of renewable energy. But they have done a deal with the Irish government to use the 'empty' midlands of Ireland to build thousands of wind turbines and transfer the power by cable to the UK.

To many these seems like corporate colonialism and the though of all the billions in investment with the chance to then quickly sell complete wind farms on has all the worst kinds of people involved and the Irish government and their friends have been so eager to get hands on this that the Irish government has incredibly not even carried out a Cost Benefit Analysis of the whole thing.

With wind farms if the site is not windy enough and too many turbines are put on the site, it can result in a situation where they do not meet the targets for power output and hence revenue and it can result in the venture not covering its costs properly -i.e. making a loss. This has happened quite a bit in the interior locations of various countries as the strongest and most consistent wind generally occurs on coastal sites. And Colm McCarthy, the ‘Bord Snip’ economist, has already described the drive to build wind farms all over Ireland as another potential ‘Nama’. read full story / add a comment

There is a new squat in Dublin up in Grangegorman where all the DITs will be moving in the next few years. It has been setup by a group of political squatters. They now face eviction from the row of empty, unused, rotting houses in Lower Grangegorman and they are asking people to come and help resist.

- 300,000 empty houses in Ireland, 5,000 people homeless --

The WSM caught up with them for an interview last week to find out more.... read full story / add a comment

"I write to you to ask your help for the people of Syria. All the people of Syria deserve your attention. Like you, they want the opportunity to live, love and labour in support of their children’s dreams" read full story / add a comment

Some in the U.S. are fearful of speaking out against the wars and social injustice because of the surveillance state.

Since the beginning of the new millennium some people have been guarding their words as if they were in a Communist country. When George W. Bush came into power in 2001 and after the tragedy of September 11th, we became engaged in another war. Mainstream media was almost completely silent on the negatives of a War on Terror.

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Asking the Commission, to encourage cooperation between the Member States (according to Art 156 TFEU) aiming to explore the Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) as a tool to improve their respective social security systems. read full story / add a comment

A glossy Shell PR roadshow was disrupted and shut down in Oxford, UK recently in solidarity with the struggles in Rossport and elsewhere. read full story / add a comment

A new report by Human Rights Watch once again confirms that Hellfire rockets lack selectivity and exterminate women and children more often than they hit Al-Qaeda associates. Last month the UN urged the US to reveal data on civilian drone casualties.

The prominent human rights organization has released a detailed 102-page report on the US drone attacks and airstrikes in Yemen against militants of the Al-Qaeda wing in the country simultaneously with another human rights organization Amnesty International issuing a report on US drone strikes in Pakistan.

Basically, the HRW report has maintained an already widely-known fact that civilians die too often in reported ‘surgical’ strikes which is unacceptable even by the ‘law of war. ... read full story / add a comment

The latest news from Dublin City Council is that they plan to cut down 300 mature trees in order to improve Merrion Square park. Apparently it is all in the name of giving it a facelift!

The council don't seem to realize that one of the most attractive features of the park is the 300 or so mature trees. Do they not realize it is a tourist attraction as it is? Who knows what their logic is but some lucky Tree Surgeon company is going to get a big windfall here which begs the question. Were the advisers behind this outlandish decision people who were going to gain by it in some way ?

The story has been reported widely in the last week or so in the press. read full story / add a comment

Yes, the level of the slaughter is being covered up. Full story at link.

A UN report accuses the United States of downplaying the number of civilians killed in anti-terrorist drone operations, while failing to assist in the investigation by releasing its own figures.

With the increased use of remotely piloted aircraft in military operations in a number of countries, the nagging question of civilian “collateral damage” as a consequence of these deadly technologies is a growing concern for the United Nations and human right groups.

In Afghanistan, for example, the number of aerial drone strikes surged from 294 in 2011 to 447 during the first 11 months of 2012, according to data released by the US Air Force in November 2012, UN Special Rapporteur Ben Emmerson noted in his interim report.

Pakistan officials confirmed that out of 2,200 deaths “at least 400 civilians had been killed as a result of remotely piloted aircraft strikes and a further 200 individuals were regarded as probable non-combatants.” read full story / add a comment

Free at last. Full story at link.

Nine Shiite Lebanese pilgrims in Syria have finally been freed after being held hostage for nearly a year and a half. The release was reportedly part of a negotiated deal which is likely to lead to the release of two Turkish pilots being held in Lebanon.

A group of Syrian rebels were holding the Lebanese civilians hostage since May 2012. The kidnappers kept issuing new demands, claiming they had captured “subversives from the Lebanese Hezbollah party.”

The pilgrims were on a bus returning to Lebanon from Iran. In Aleppo province, their bus was stopped by a group of Syrian rebels who then abducted the passengers. Two of the hostages were later released, but the other nine remained in custody.

The kidnapping exacerbated regional tensions, leading to the kidnapping of two Turkish Airlines pilots in Beirut, Lebanon. read full story / add a comment

Delegations will find in annex the Operational Action Plan regarding the EU crime priority C: "Weaken the capacity of organised crime groups to facilitate illegal immigration to the EU, particularly via southern, south-eastern and eastern Europe and notably at the Greek-Turkish border and in crisis areas of the Mediterranean close to North Africa", developed under the overall responsibility of IT as the driver for this OAP and agreed by COSI on 8 December 2011. read full story / add a comment