Workers Solidarity Movement

Following the refusal of Mubarak to resign a mob of his supporters attempted to fight their way into Tahir square in Cairo where anti-Mubarak protests demanding democracy have rallied over the last week. Some of the mob who have been captured were carrying police ID's. The intention appears to be to either drive the democracy protesters off the streets and/or create an excuse for army intervention to 'restore stability,'  something the official opposition is now calling for. The UN has issued a statement fearing that 300 have been killed and 500 injured, its unclear if this refers just to today's events.

Live broadcasts from Al Jazeera indicate that there have been serious injuries including a journalist who has been stabbed. Footage showed the attack opening with men mounted on camels and horses charging into the square and into the line of anti-government protesters that had linked arms with some people being trampled and some attackers pulled off their horses.  

A member of NEFAC our East coast USA Anarkismo.net  sister organisation recorded this interview with a revolutionary in Tahir square late in the evening

As part of the budget protests at the Dáil Dec 7th 2011 Andrew Flood gave the following speech for the 1% Network at the left bloc rally. "If we wish to build a new society based on equality and real democracy, we need to find a way to take political power as well as economic wealth away from that 1%"

A spokesperson for the Rossport Solidarity Camp described how an occupation of a Shell drilling platform was brought to an end when the last campaigner was removed when "a Garda climbed out to him with a commando knife and no harness or support gear to hold himself up. He slashed through the ropes, pulled at the person and elbowed him in the head."  This followed a a successful 12 hour occupation of a Shell's platform earlier this week (see photo).

Just before 7am this morning, Shell to Sea campaigners swam out to one of Shell's drilling platforms in the Srwaddacon Bay Special Area of Conservation (SAC) in Erris. Two people climbed up one of the drills and have occupied it since as part of the ongoing resistance to the imposition of an experimental gas pipeline on the community around Rossport.

Yesterday saw the first day of the new An Bord Pleanala oral hearing into Shell’s attempts to impose an experimental gas pipeline on the people of Kilcommon in Co. Mayo. Shell stand to make billions out of the Corrib gas field with the Irish state seeing almost no revenue from these profits or the profits that are likely to arise from other oil & gas discoveries now being made. Claims for a field much bigger than Corrib off the west coast have been made in the last few days.

A still defiant Shell to Sea campaigner, Niall Harnett, has been released after spending 118 days in Castlerea prison. On his release Niall announced that "I am going straight back to the Rossport Solidarity Camp to be with my fellow activists and Shell to Sea friends in the local community. We seem to bring out the best in each other, unlike Shell and the Irish government, who bring out the worst in each other."  Niall's release today means that for the first time in many months no Shell to Sea campaigners are in prison, however resistance to Shell still continues in Erris.

On Tuesday morning forty people from around Sruwaddacon Estuary in Erris brought Shell’s survey work in the area to a complete standstill when they walked out onto the mudflats at low tide to assert their cockle-picking rights and disrupt Shell’s borehole drilling survey.  Shell has two barges drilling over 80 test holes in this Special Areas of Conservation, work that is opposed by the local community as part of their ongoing resistance to Shell's plan to run an experimental high pressure raw gas pipeline near their houses.

The anti-woman, anti-choice group Youth Defence have launched a new advertising campaign which includes targetted Facebook ads ahead of the anticipated ABC decision in the European courts.  In this case three women, known as A, B and C, are challenging Ireland’s ban on abortion in the European Court of Human Rights on the grounds that the law jeopardised their health and their well being and that travelling abroad for an abortion placed "enormous physical, emotional and financial burdens" upon them. Because the law created delays and hardships for each woman, it resulted in each of them having a later abortion, creating a greater risk to their health. 

This is the audio recording of the second 'Rethinking Revolution' meeting on the topic of 'Will there be a revolution in our lifetime.' "Are we spending our precious time outside of work at protests and meetings because we want to improve our lives or are we just fighting for future generations. In either case what is it that we are trying to do as we move from topic to topic and struggle to struggle?"

Shell's latest plan to impose its experimental gas pipeline in Kilcommon, Erris is to tunnel a 5km tunnel five metros under the seabed of Scruwaddacon Bay. This would however still leave many houses inside the blast radius in the event of a pipeline explosion that either ruptured this tunnel or along the 4km that would still be near the surface at landfall or between the bay and the refinery at Bellanaboy.