There is a strong argument that the Government should not introduce a house-property tax next year: the economy and hundreds of thousands of households simply cannot absorb it. By Michael Taft.

UN, international, Palestinian, and Israeli human rights organisations do important work in Palestine. But the magic 'national security' argument is always available as a tool for the government of Israel. By Michael Croydon.

Syrian activists who fear for their safety at home have left Syria for Paris in recent months. Malachy Browne met five of them in Paris. (Video below)

Reading the Observer recently (14/10/2012) brought my thinking back to the nature of political struggle and the party structures that we have in the nation state.

Lester Brown, an environmental analyst and president of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington had an article in the paper. He has a new book out - Full Planet, Empty Plates – in which he predicts “…ever increasing food prices, leading to political instability, spreading hunger and, unless governments act, a catastrophic breakdown in food.”

That the family featured in an Irish Times article by Kathy Sheridan last week is going through seriously difficult times is, unfortunately, becoming ever more ordinary for hundreds of thousands of households. So why is Eilis O’Hanlon having such a go at them in the Sunday Independent? By Michael Taft.

The story of St Patrick's Institution is one which we, as a nation, should be horrified to hear in in 2012. By Yvonne Daly.

Worker co-operative Mondragon has demonstrated impressive resilience in helping keep jobless levels in the Basque region to under half the Spanish national average. By Race Mathews.

Back in the early 1980s, the former Secretary of State for Education in Harold Wilson’s Labour government, Shirley Williams, alerted me to a remarkable instance of regional economic development through employee empowerment, centred on Mondragon in the Basque region of Spain.

The claim that Enda Kenny and his governemnt have inspired some kind of recovery is just plain wrong. By Vincent Browne.

The cover story in the European edition of Time magazine on Ireland's "Celtic comeback" pioneered by Enda Kenny was a public relations triumph, for which Kenny himself deserves credit.

Professor Georges Enderle from the University of Notre Dame has been giving a series of lectures this week at the Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick. One of his most interesting ideas is around the purpose of business, which he sees as the creation of wealth. So far, so Friedman. The cool bit is how he defines wealth. By Sheila Killian. 

Next week, the European Parliament in Strasbourg will vote on a Protocol to the EU-Israel Association Agreement (officially known as the “Euro-Mediterranean Agreement establishing an association between the European Community and its Member States and the State of Israel”).