British #SpyCops in Ireland: What is @FitzgeraldFrncs covering up? An interview with Jason Kirkpatrick

by soundmigration Jan8 2017

Jason Kirkpatrick wants Irish Dept of Justice to explain role of British undercover police spying on him in Ireland

I spoke to Jason Kirkpatrick targeted by British undercover police across several countries including Germany, N Ireland, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland. The officer was Mark Kennedy attached to the UK’s National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU.) Kennedy operated in many European countries including several deployments to Ireland.

The NPOIU is a political policing unit set up to illicitly disrupt political networks social movements and family campaigns challenging abuses by the police.

The unit was preceded by the Special Demonstrations Squad (SDS) set up in 1968 to infiltrate protest movements opposed to the US war in Vietnam.   Both units not only spied on political organisations and social movements, but on campaigns against police abuses and murder in the UK.

Mark Kennedy, using the name Mark Stone, from the UK’s National Public Order Intelligence Unit, was deployed multiple times in Ireland. The Department of Justice and An Garda Siochana refuse to cooperate so far with Jason Kirkpatrick.

Jason is currently bringing legal cases in several jurisdictions with an aim of expanding the Pitchford Inquiry into the scope and nature of undercover policing set up by the current UK prime minister Teresa May. Currently this inquiry is limited to undercover policing in England and Wales. Jason and others are pushing to see this expanded to cover all areas that British undercover police targeted them.

It is understood that the NPOIU operated using contractual terms of agreements with several nation states/police units around the deployment of British officers from the unit in those states. It’s likely that some of the information held by the Irish police force includes such an agreement. It is also common practice for information fed back by British undercover police to their units is shared with the police force of the country they are operating in.

Full interview below

Currently the Irish state refuses to publish an existing report into Mark Kennedys deployments across Ireland, or who he was spying on and what information he has supplied to both the British and Irish states. Minister for Justice Francis Fitzgerald has called for another report from Commissioner O Sullivan, a move that should be understood as a stalling tactic to resist any transparency around some really dodgy policing

 

 

Source: Soundmigration Jan 8 2017

Truckload of Aran knitwear leaves Ireland for Belarus

Fruits of of Inis Oírr’s year-long charity ‘knitathon’ are bound for Minsk orphanage

Aran knitwear has graced the catwalks of Milan, Paris and New York but a very special truckload is making its way this week to an orphanage just outside Minsk, the capital of Belarus.

For almost a year, residents of the smallest of the Aran Islands, from aged 90 right down to the four-year-old girls and boys of Inis Oírr’s naíonra, or kindergarten, have taken out their bioráin cniotála (knitting needles) to knit scarves, gloves, sweaters, hats and socks for the charity initiative.

Last week the final stitch was made and the needles were put down. Some 400 items were laid out like a large multicoloured tapestry for people to admire at Scoil Náisiúnta Chaomháin .

They were delivered to the Monastery, Ennistymon last Sunday where Brother Liam O’Meara, a stalwart of the “Burren for Belarus” project which helps young victims of the Chernobyl disaster, had arranged to transport them across Europe to the orphanage.

The aim is to have the children wearing a little piece of Inis Oírr on Christmas Day. The clothing serves a real need in a city where temperatures can drop to minus 20 degrees.

Clicking needles

The “Inis Oírr for Belarus” project was the idea of the island’s public health nurse, Bairbre Uí­ Chualáin. “My sister in law, Elizabeth Feeney, is involved in charity work for Brother Liam. I had seen and admired the work,” she says.

“My own work puts me in touch with most of the people on Inis Oírr so I suggested to them on each call: why not knit garments for the orphans?”

There was a 90 per cent take-up, according to Bairbre. Instead of relaxing in front of the sitting room TV after tea, balls of wool were thrown on the floor and the clatter of clicking needles began filling the island’s homesteads.

Among those taking part were knitters of serious pedigree: the women of Comhar na nAosach (the association of seniors). All the schools on the island joined the effort too as did the pre-school. The children got to know how to do the plain stitch while their tutors or parents looked after the purl and the crossover.

Source: Irish Times Dec 22 2016

Chernobyl children arrive: ‘Christmas wouldn’t be the same without them’

A group of 39 children from Chernobyl have arrived at Dublin Airport with Adi Roche’s Chernobyl Children International group to spend the Christmas holidays in Ireland, thirty years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. Video: Bryan O'Brien

Heralded by cries of delight, cheers and tears, and serenaded with seasonal songs , the latest group of children from Belarus and Ukraine were welcomed to Ireland on Wednesday by their host families and Chernobyl Children International.

Thirty-nine children with special needs from the area affected by the fallout of the 1986 nuclear disaster, together with six carers, were led by Santa Claus, and charity founder Adi Roche, into the Dublin Airport arrivals hall to a raucous reception.

To those waiting on loved ones arriving for Christmas, there is a sign on the sliding door that separates the baggage collection area from the arrivals hall. “The best Christmas present ever is about to walk through these doors,” it says.

And when the children arrived, it was not at all clear who was more excited, them or their host families.

“Christmas wouldn’t be the same without Igor,” said Marie Cox from Mayo, shortly before rushing forward to embrace the 16-year-old in a wheelchair, smothering him with the motherly love she has given him for the past eight years during his twice yearly visits to Ireland.

“He is part of our family now,” said Marie. “We just love him so much at this stage. He’s our fifth son.”

Abandoned as a baby

Igor Shadkov, who is from Belarus and has multiple physical and mental disabilities, was abandoned as a baby and left to the Vesnova Children’s Mental Asylum, a Soviet-era institution at Gomel near the Belarus-Ukraine border long since modernised.

The limitations of his life beyond his various birth conditions were painfully obvious when he first came to the Coxes.

“He had never been out of the orphanage,” recalls Marie. “He’d never experienced wind, he’d never felt rain on his face. He hadn’t seen the stars and he’d never slept in his own room.”

Since then, he has had his own space in their Castlebar home, including his own box filled with toys and familiar gadgets that are there for him, every Christmas and summer.

His face lit up in the airport when he saw his Irish mother.

For Eileen Morrisey from Kilkenny, Vassili Lyskovets, aged 25, is her “superstar”, always smiling and “another brother to Orla”, her daughter.

Eileen’s friend Carmel Everard, also from Kilkenny, plays host to 12-year-old Ivan who comes from Khoniki on the Ukraine-Belarus border. It was one of the areas worst affected by the fallout. Ivan has just one kidney and struggles on a poor diet back home.

Greeting and hugging

“He’s eating and drinking everything that’s bad out there,” said Carmel, “and so we try to feed him well. Within two days, there’s an improvement in his skin pallor.”

The families surged forward, greeting and hugging the delighted arrivals as the eight-strong choir of students from Bimm, the British and Irish Modern Music institute, Dublin, gave it their all.

Source: Irish Times Dec 22 2016

Peter B Collins Interview: Prof. Cedric de Leon Details History of “Right to Work” Laws, and Offers Smart Criticism of Labor-Democrat Dysfunction

Peter B Collins alternative news podcast from the West Coast of America Dec 16 2016

 

I know, I know, the subject of trade unions ain't the most riveting news item but this podcast where Peter B interviews Cedric de Leon, a professor of sociology and former labor organizer about his book 'The Origins of Right to Work', introduces some fundamental issues about Trade Unionism, where it's at in the present day and can it get back to it's grassroots.  Note, the 'Right to Work' legislation is not what you might think it is.

Trade Unionism is universal and so too is it's decent into a reactionary, introverted, sort of corporate, undemocratic entity controlled by highly paid executives, hitched to political parties and uninterested in any social or ecological issues other than their narrow introverted, selfish members financial interest.  It is like joining forces with corporations to keep members in check and 'I'm alright Jack' attitude.

Here are a couple of Irish newspaper links to articles, incidentally relating to water charges issue,  touching onTrade Unionism here andit's disharmony, in a way reactionary and it's aimless, selfish, egocentric, narrow focus.  The first is the infamous water charges advocate andIrish Water SIPTU rep, Adrian Kane,  reacting to Fianna Fáil wanting to scrap Irish Water -  Unions in warning to Fianna Fáil over Irish Water jobs .  The second, ironically we get Trade Unions complaining about the water movement moving too 'Left' - Trade union stance threatens to split anti-water charges campaign .  Now ain't that a bit of a conundrum- trade unions moving left, not since the days of Connolly and Larkin.

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