Why ACTA needs to be defeated

Ahead of tomorrow's vote on the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in the European Parliament, Paul Murphy MEP explains why the agreement needs to be defeated. 

Tonight with #vinb: Breakthrough in Europe?

On Tonight with Vincent Browne (which Sam Smyth will present), Brian Hayes, John O'Callaghan, Eamon Ryan and Sheila Killian will discuss the outcome of the European summit in Brussels. Is the news as 'seismic' as Enda Kenny would have Ireland believe? Where do we go from here? {jathumbnailoff}

The hollowness at the heart of human rights 'concern'

This business of human rights seems, in part, to be a device for privileged people to escape the discomfort of being the beneficiaries of a hugely unequal society. By Vincent Browne.

It was heartening to witness some 2,000 people packed into the Grand Canal Theatre on 18 June to honour one of the world's iconic campaigners for human rights, Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma.

History is the enemy as 'brilliant' psy-ops become the news

Political systems promising security and social justice have been replaced by piracy, 'austerity' and 'perpetual war'; an extremism dedicated to the overthrow of democracy. By John Pilger.

Arriving in a village in southern Vietnam, I caught sight of two children who bore witness to the longest war of the 20thcentury. Their terrible deformities were familiar. All along the Mekong river, where the forests were petrified and silent, small human mutations lived as best they could.

Splashing the water

There is considerable evidence to show that NERI’s expansionary fiscal programme would work, and that Claiming our Future’s proposals to promote growth and equity in the economy are achievable. By Michael Taft.

Rousseau's distrust of representative democracy was well-founded

The idea of democracy was to make the people sovereign but its modern trajectory has been to make people subjects again. By Vincent Browne.

A former “best friend” described him as “false, vain as Satan, ungrateful, cruel, hypocritical and wicked”. He arranged for his five children to be given over to a foundling hospital immediately after their birth. He was vain, truculent, obsessive and solitary.

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