PyCon 2018, the 9th annual conference for the Python programming language in Ireland, will be held Saturday 10th – Sunday 11th November in the Radisson Blu hotel, Golden Lane, Dublin 8 and is set to attract over 400 software developers this year. read full story / add a comment

The two shameful actions have been decisive for securing him the first place in the polls and are also enough to pay him the cassation of his candidacy and his replacement by Ciro Gomes, third place in the first Brazilian round. read full story / add a comment

LASC, as an organisation with a mission to expose injustice in Ireland and Latin America and to stand in solidarity with the people of Latin America who are resisting oppression and are struggling to create a fair and inclusive society, shares the concerns of many of our members in relation to the current situation in Nicaragua. read full story / add a comment

Over half a million households in rural Ireland are missing out on broadband because of a disastrous privatisation policy.

Up to 1999, the telephone network was run by a state company, Telecom Eireann. But the Fianna Fail government decided to copy Margaret Thatcher and sell it off. Ever since then, disaster has piled on disaster.

Instead of providing long term investment to install broad band, a series of private owners simply asset stripped the company, which had been re-named Eircom. read full story / add a comment

What, in God’s name, can any President of Ireland achieve in a second term that could have been achieved in a single seven years term?

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New IPCC report on 1.5°C shows the urgency of transformational policy change if we are to avoid dangerous climate change. But Ireland is still lagging behind.

The IPCC special report on global warming of 1.5°C is the most important climate science report of the decade. It offers the most exhaustive and authoritative assessment of the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and the action needed to stay below this threshold. The report will hugely influence international, EU and domestic climate policy making over the next few years. read full story / add a comment

Climate denial group the Irish Climate Science Forum (ICSF) has significantly escalated its lobbying campaign to prevent climate action.

The group’s main function until now has been to hold behind-closed-doors meetings with infamous climate science deniers as guest speakers. But it has now submitted a document to the Irish Parliament insisting climate change simply isn’t as bad as scientists make out, DeSmog UK has learned.

The group, which has no publicly accessible membership or officer list, has run a series of ‘invitation-only’ events in Dublin over the last 18 months allowing familiar faces from the world of climate denial, such as Richard Lindzen, William Happer, Henrik Svensmark and Nicola Scafetta to showcase their debunked arguments against taking action on climate change. read full story / add a comment

Peat permitted as animal bedding due to ‘exceptional circumstances. Ban on use on organic farms also lifted

The Department of Agriculture has responded to objections about Teagasc’s recommended use of peat for animal bedding by stating that the authorisation has only been made in the ‘exceptional circumstances of the current fodder and bedding shortage’.

riends of the Irish Environment [FIE] had written to the Minister objecting to a recent Teagasc Factsheet entitled ‘Alternatives to straw bedding’ which recommended peat as an alternative to straw for animal bedding. The environmental charity’s submission provided evidence that Bord na Mona and independent operators are aggressively marketing peat for animal bedding this autumn. read full story / add a comment

The new scheme to improve the Dublin Bus network called Bus Connects on close inspection is nothing of the sort. It is more akin to Bus Disconnects. The reports and PR from Bus Connects maintains it will be better and while the theoretical basis for it may be correct, it doesn't deliver because they plan to do it with the same number of buses. For some routes there will be a reduction in capacity by 25%. For example they claim a bus every 4 minutes on the main backbone A-Route but this figure is misleading because it is for the 4 A-routes. Since you are only likely to be on one of these, then that means the real peak frequency is every 15 or so minutes which is no different to the present. read full story / add a comment

Leaked memo shows business tactics to undermine climate change targets

BusinessEurope, the largest group of business interests in Europe – which includes Google and Facebook as well as IBEC– has advised its members to oppose the ‘new increases of ambition’ as the European Commission is considering whether to set more ambitious climate goals. The issue will be determined in December at the COP24 conference in Poland.

The memo, obtained by Greenpeace Europe, comes as a UN draft report due for publication in October is known to be calling for ‘rapid and far reaching’ changes. read full story / add a comment

Only the second Papal visit in 2,000 years by the first non European Pope. Pope Francisco is from Argentina where the United States client state ruled with terror, kidnappings and politically motivated assassination. His papacy appears to have many proactive enemies from wiithin reactionary Catholicism globally and (neo) liberal elites in Irish media & NGO sector. The recent visit was in visual and audio contrast to the only other visit of the papacy to Ireland. Pope John Paul 2nd in 1979 (the year of the Mountbatten assassination, Warrenpoint, punk). What does this tell us about Papa Francisco and contemporary Irish society? read full story / add a comment

Indirect support to burning peat through a Public Service Obligation (PSO) levy to support electricity generation from three peat powered plants when co-fired with biomass has been challenged as it is leading to significant increases in greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the price of biomass to home users, forcing them to use more fossil fuels. read full story / add a comment

There have been numerous attempts to frame the Assad regime with launching and carrying out chemical attacks in Syria. All of them so far have either been fake or carried out by the so called 'Rebels' and terrorists largely backed by Washington, London and Paris through their proxies in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey before it turned away from the US after it organised an attempted coup against Erdogan.

In all cases the chemical attacks and talk of them has been used by the US and it's allies as an excuse to bomb Syria. There is absolute no reason and motive for Assad to use chemical weapons either now or in the past. At this stage he has won the war in Syria and expelled most of the terrorists or done deals with them and arranged for them to be bused out. From a logical and motive point of view it would be insane for him to do this. He would gain zero. On the other hand it makes perfect sense not so much for the terrorists who are just pawns in a bigger game, but perfect sense for the US because Syria has been on their target since at least 2001 and they have wanted regime change from the start. They have also been humiliated that their terrorists have been defeated and their regional plans thwarted. This turn-around happened largely happened after Syria invited Russia into Syria to help in the war effort and it represents the fist time since the breakup of the Soviet Union that Russia has been able to get up of it's knee and challenge the destructive insanity of the US. And so this gives some background to the report below that appeared on RT.

“Foreign specialists” have arrived in Syria and may stage a chemical attack using chlorine in “the next two days,” the Russian Defense Ministry said. This will be filmed for international media to frame Damascus forces.

Defense Ministry Spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said the operation is planned to unfold in the village of Kafr Zita in Syria’s northwestern Hama Province in “the next two days.”

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European Commission issues Court proceedings against Ireland over water quality
More than 1 million Irish drinking water consumers affected by chemical exceedences

The European Commission has opened an infringement case against Ireland in the EU Court of Justice about the exceedances of the permitted level of the chemical trihalomethanes [THMs] in Irish drinking water. The proceedings, resulting from a complaint by Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE), cover not only the failure to meet the WHO and EU standards in water supplied to over 1 million consumers , but also the failure to comply with the obligation to ‘inform consumers promptly and give the necessary advice’. [1] read full story / add a comment

Imposing a President read full story / add a comment

Justin and Anne Morahan have started a petition to Pope Francis asking him to intervene in the case of Julian Assange. There have been recent reports of Julian's health deteriorating due to lack of light, fresh air, isolation (no visitors allowed). There are also rumours afloat that he may be removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London and extradited to Mr Trump's United States where capital punishment is still in vogue. read full story / add a comment

This week the US Department of Education proposed new student "borrower defense" rules. read full story / add a comment

New Senate legislation offers additional options for Puerto Rico to cut its debt. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Ed Markey (D-MA) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) introduced the US Territorial Relief Act. If Congress passes the act, US Territories that experience natural disasters could qualify for debt relief. read full story / add a comment

Council planner ‘unable to do any enforcement files’
Blames 40% reduction in staff

A west Cork County Council’s planner was ‘unable’ to investigate an enforcement complaint ‘due to workload commitments’ as his ‘planning applications have to take priority’. [1]

Publication of internal mails detailing a ‘significant matter’ comes a week after Dr Áine Ryall of UCC called the lack of enforcement of environmental laws ‘a national scandal’ at a recent EU Law Conference. [2] read full story / add a comment

As some of our Politicians try to get scramblers under new Irish Legislation and other TDs shout about cycle rickshaws being dangerous, the elephant in the room i.e SULKY RACING is treated with silence. When we enquire about Sulkies, we are shuffled from the Dept of Agriculture to Department of Transport to the Gardai , no one wants to know.
Sulky racing causes extreme suffering, distress and death to horses nationwide and also poses an unacceptably high risk to public safety.

A young horse was seriously injured when they broke free from a sulky they were forced to pull on the Kilkenny to Waterford Road then smashed into an oncoming vehicle. The driver of the vehicle was uninjured but was left badly shaken by the incident. Due to the severity of the horses’s injuries, a vet had to be called to the scene to euthanize the horse to prevent further suffering.

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