Claiming Our Future is holding its third national event in Cork City Hall on Saturday, 5 November. The issue under discussion is developing an economy for society (agenda below). Politico put some questions to Niall Crowley, one of the organisers of Claiming Our Future. [You can register for your free place at the event here.]
On Tuesday (20 September) Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty tabled a motion in the Dáil which called for TDs to reject the Government’s decision to sell off a minority stake in the ESB.
Last Thursday (15 September), Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis addressed a capacity audience in Dublin's Shelbourne Hotel on the roots of the crisis in the Eurozone, and offered his own proposals for solving it. The meeting was also addressed by Fintan O'Toole of the Irish Times and Sinn Féin's Pearse Doherty. Introducing Varoufakis, Doherty said: 'There is an urgent need to come up with new responses to a crisis that is both European in origin and systemic in effect.
Book Review: Terry Eagleton, Why Marx Was Right. (Yale, 2011). By Joseph Mahon.
Terry Eagleton is currently Distinguished Professor of English Literature at the Universities of Lancaster and Notre Dame. In his latest book, this prolific author sets out to demonstrate that it is reasonable to hold that Marx was correct - if not always, then at least mostly so. To accomplish this task, he takes ten of the most standard criticisms of Marx, in no particular order of importance, and tries to refute them one by one.
The continued economic crisis gripping the eurozone has raised questions of the role of democracy in the European Union, writes Paul Murphy, MEP.
Euro crisis – democracy diminished to facilitate austerity
In scrambling to avoid a break-up of the eurozone, the approach of the elites in Europe has been characterised by two common themes – austerity programmes to make the working class pay, and a further diminishing of democracy to facilitate the implementation of that austerity.
The European Commission recently launched the 2011 EU Journalist Award – Together against discrimination! and Politico is seeking submissions to feature on the site and be put forward for competition. Full details of the competition are below. Please send pitiches and submissions to news@politico.ie for consideration. Submitted stories will feature on Politico between 18 September and 10 November 2011.
Giving the closing lecture of the Cummann Merriman School on Changing Irish Childhoods, presidential hopeful Michael D. Higgins said on Sunday (21 August) that achieving “a fulfilling Irish childhood will require more than legal and constitutional change, it will require a change of consciousness at every level.”
A report released yesterday (15 August) by the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights says that, if substantiated, violations of international criminal law and international humanitarian law which are alleged to have taken place in Sudan’s Southern Kordofan State in June “could amount to crimes against humanity or war crimes.”
Below is the statement made by David Norris outside his home marking the end of his campaign for the presidency. His decision follows the revelation that David Norris sought clemency from an Israeli court for his former partner Ezra Nawi who was convicted by an Israeli court of the statutory rape of a 15 year old boy. David Norris advocated on Ezra Nawi's behalf in 1997 in his official capacity as an Irish Senator.
While the effects of the downgrade of Ireland’s credit rating to junk status by Moody’s are still being felt, Paul Walsh examines the motivation behind the decision, and asks how the credit ratings agencies have so much influence on the global financial markets.