Tuesday, December 18, 2007



The sham “democracy” of the EU so-called “Reform Treaty” was fully exposed on Wednesday, 12 Nollaig/December 2007, in the European Parliament, when a large group of MEP’s from across the political spectrum protested vociferously against the official signing of the Treaty. They were joined by independent Irish MEP, Kathy Sinnot, who pointed out the fact that 26 of the 27 members of the EU are denying their peoples the basic democratic right of a vote on whether they want this rotten Treaty or not. This shows the deep fear of the political elites and the Eurocrats in Brussels of the people’s free expression which is the essence of democracy and which this rotten Treaty attempts to circumscribe by unwarranted transfer of power to unelected bureaucratic cabals headed by the EU Commission.

There is rising anger all over the EU that the elites are trying to bulldoze through this Treaty which, is even admitted by several of its leading supporters to be the rejected EU Constitution by another name:
"As for the changes now proposed to be made to the constitutional treaty,
most are presentational changes that have no practical effect. They have
simply been designed to enable certain heads of government to sell to their people the idea of ratification by parliamentary action rather than by referendum".
Dr Garret FitzGerald, former Taoiseach, “Irish Times”, 30 June 2007


Both Blank Cheque Bertie and his Minister for European Affairs, The CockRoche, have admitted in public that this document contains 90% of what was in the EU Constitution. The Treaty supporters apparently see no irony in claiming that this treaty “extends” democracy in the EU yet none of them want to give the people the right to vote on it for themselves.

In the Seanad/Senate yesterday, The CockRoche announced the government would be challenging Treaty opponents “to spell out why the balance of the Treaty was against Ireland’s interests”. He didn’t have to wait long for his challenge to be taken up as in an immediate riposte, Senator Pearse Doherty (Sinn Féin) said the Treaty was not in Ireland’s interests because “…it involves a massive transfer of power to the EU. It significantly increases the militarisation of the EU and it advances an economic agenda based on a race to the bottom for wages and workers rights”.
(12/12/07)

VOTE NO TO “SHAMOCRACY”
VOTE NO TO “4TH REICH” MODERN FASCISM!



CASH FOR BERTIE: PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY, CHRISTMAS IS COMING!

More Tribunal revelations this week showed further cash “dig-outs” for Blank Cheque Bertie amounted to an additional £IP16,500 following a whip-around in a Dublin pub. At the same time as he allegedly received this cash, Blank-Cheque had £IP70,000 in bank accounts at AIB and Irish Permanent. This and the other “dig-outs” were supposedly to help “Poor Bertie” who was going through a marital seperation and had no permanent residence to call his own. Awwwr…. Don’t ya feel sad at that. The Tribunal continues its inquiries.

Blank Cheque Bertie also did a u-turn this week on the totally unjustified pay increases for himself and his ministers which has caused widespread public outrage. The increases are to be deferred until 2009 and then only phased in after that. This brass-necked government has been calling for “wage restraint” in 2008.
(12/12/07)


SCHOOLS WATER FIASCO:

If evidence were needed that one hand of this shambolic government doesn’t know what the other is doing it was clearly shown when schools in the public system received a flock of bills this week, from local and city councils, for water charges going back 3 years and more. These bills of thousands of Euro cannot be met without cuts in the schools budget for education since no-one in this outrageously incompetent government made any arrangements for the exclusion of schools from the implementation of the 1999 EU Water Directive which was designed to curb wastage of water by industrial complexes only.

Within hours of public statements in the Dáil both by Blank-Cheque Bertie and Grumpanella Hanafin, Minister for Education, saying nothing could be done, a senior Environment Commission spokesperson, Jorge Rodriguez Romero, said that governments could exempt schools from the Directive if they wished as there was an enabling clause in the Directive, Article 9(4) to provide for this.

This lazy Government couldn’t be bothered to properly look up their powers under this Directive and save everyone in the schools and county councils from going through the farce of sending out bills which need not be paid and, in a further example of gross incompetence, water meters are being installed in schools throughout the State which are unnecessary in the light of events and a scandalous waste of taxpayers money. The ludicrous Grumpanella was still defending her do-nothing stance and quoting the Directive on radio this morning having obviously not read the morning papers’ headlines contradicting her and Bertie’s previous statements to the Dáil. And these are the nincompoops who are proposing to give themselves substantial wage increases!
(12/12/07)

As the majority of countries represented at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia worked out the details of a historic agreement on firm action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions the despicable Buckfush regime in Washington tried to sabotage the conference by pressuring governments of countries with trading relations dependent on the USA not to support the World Agreement proposed at the conference to be finalised in 2009. Former Vice-President of the USA and Nobel prize-winner, Albert Gore, publicly declared to the delegates that his country’s delegation was engaged in destructive activities intended to sabotage the conference. This provoked a furious reaction from the despicable Buckfush regime in Washington.

In a blatant attempt to intimidate delegates and disrupt the conference, Paula Dobriansky, head of the USA delegation demanded that the media briefing centre at the conference be cleared so that it could be “swept” by armed police and sniffer dogs in advance of her delegations arrival. Thus, the theatrics of Washington’s paranoia on “security” were needlessly imported into the conference which had already been heavily secured by Indonesian forces, one of the largest armies in the world. Ms Doberman refused point blank to agree to any specific targets on emissions reduction being part of any agreement.

Ms Doberman then tried to undermine the Bali Conference by trying to intimidate other delegations into following her line of no specific targets and suggesting all decisions be deferred to an alternative do-nothing conference being organised by Washington to take place in Hawaii next January. Canada, led by right-wing Buckfush lick-a$$, Stephen Harper, and Japan were willing stalking horses in this charade by the USA delegation. When these machinations were revealed to the public, Ms Doberman was forced to retreat and agree, grudgingly ,to a joint communique but, intransigent as ever, the Buckfush White House issued a venomous statement pulling the rug from under its own delegation and refuting any committments to effective action.
The USA now stands opposed to the majority of the world’s nations in this vital effort on behalf of the whole of humanity to prevent the catastrophic results of unchecked climate change.

(18/12/07)


FearFeasa Mac Léinn Áth Cliath/Dublin,

18 NOLLAIG/DECEMBER 2007.











Tuesday, December 04, 2007

PHOTO: FFML


MYSTERY TIME DISCREPANCY
DURING FORMER TAOISEACH'S
STOPOVER IN
BERMUDA TRIANGLE !!

Well, the Bahamas, actually, but, they are one of the boundary points of the infamous, time-warping, legendary “Triangle”. The mystery arises from evidence this week at the Mahon Tribunal, investigating corruption in the planning process in Dublin County, concerning a foreign trip by former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds in 1994. Mr Reynolds left Dublin on March 12th that year on a fund-raising trip for FF in the USA and on the return flight landed at Nassau, Commonwealth of the Bahamas, for an “official” visit, unreported by the Irish media at the time.

Brigadier General Ralph James, Commander of the Air Corps, told the Tribunal, Wednesday, Samhain/November 27th, that he flew Taoiseach Reynolds and party to Nassau from the USA and on March 21st , the day the aircraft was due to return to Dublin, a change of flight was requested by the Taoiseach’s Office to include an additional visit to Freeport on another island in the Bahamas. The Brigadier’s evidence follows allegations to the tribunal by businessman Tom Gilmartin that suggested Mr Reynolds had collected up to a $1M in the USA for Fianna Fáil but that only $70,000 had been remitted to FF funds. “Someone said they (the money) must have fallen off the plane and drifted to the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands” Mr Gilmartin had declared. Mr Gilmartin also told the Tribunal, previously, that Cork property developer, Owen O’Callaghan had said that, allegedly, Mr Reynolds had received £150,000 after attending a dinner in Cork on Márta/March 11th, the night before he had left for the USA. Brigadier General James also confirmed that Mr Reynolds had been flown to Cork by helicopter at 5pm that day, returning to Dublin at 1.30am.


On RTÉ, Irish national radio,Thursday, Samhain/November 29th, Dr Martin Mansergh, TD for Tipperary South, and a member of the group which accompanied Mr Reynolds to the USA and the Bahamas, made a rambling, amnesiac statement about the diversion to Freeport implying that the flight had been a scheduled one, directly contradicting the evidence of Brigadier General James that the diversion was requested only on March 21st 1994 and had not been included in the schedule when the party originally left Dublin. Dr Mansergh has not added anything to the erudition of the Nation by his rambling statement but, only extended the confusion and evasion which has characterised the explanations for the bizarre financial arrangements of Blank-Cheque Bertie and his cronies in 1994.

“White Chief speaks with forked tongue….”

Further evidence contradicting Blank-Cheque Bertie’s explanations emerged also with statements by the former managing director of NCB Stockbrokers, Mr Pádraic O’Connor, that a £5000 donation from that company to Fianna Fáil ended up in Blank-Cheque Bertie’s personal account. Mr O’Connor also emphatically denied Blank-Cheque Bertie’s statement on RTÉ Television SixOneNews in September 2006 that he was a personal friend of Taoiseach Ahern or that the Taoiseach had thanked him personally for the £5000 donation. Again, on Thursday’s RTÉ Television’s news bulletins, Blank Cheque Bertie when quizzed by reporters on this matter offered the completely lame response that he “thought Mr O’Connor was a friend”. It beggars belief that this man, holding the highest government office in the State, expects the people to believe anything he says. A further revelation that a false invoice was issued by NCB to cover up the political donation has put Blank-Cheque Bertie again on the back-foot.

Only days after this evidence it has now emerged that, in 1994, the Chairman of the National Lottery, Mr John Hynes, was instructed by Department of Finance officials to co-operate with a consortium of businessmen who were promoting the establishment of the first gambling casino in Ireland at the site of the old Phoenix Park Racecourse. One of the partners in this project was Mr Norman Turner who contributed $10,000 to the Fianna Fáil party via Mr Des Richardson, then Fianna Fáil chief fundraiser, also in 1994, and the other partner in the consortium was Mr Robert White, a schooldays friend of Blank-Cheque Bertie. Who was Minister for Finance in charge of the National Lottery at the time? Yes, you guessed it; Mr Bertie Ahern T.D. And who was also known to Mr Turner and Mr White? You guessed right again: Mr Bertie Ahern T.D. These Casino negotiations were kept secret from the public at the time by a so-called “non-disclosure agreement”.

Mr Hynes, a shrewd and careful executive, also chief executive of An Post at the time, and previously Managing Director of Dublin Bus, soon realised that the Casino promoters were only interested in having the National Lottery on board in order to “rent a reputation”. In interviews with the “Irish Independent”, repeated in other newspapers in the past few days and yesterday, 03 Nollaig/December 2007 on RTÉ Irish National Radio news, Mr Hynes stated “I was fully satisfied from my contacts with senior civil servants that the Minister (Mr Bertie Ahern) did not demur from my contact with Sonas-Ogden (the Casino promoting company)”. Blank-Cheque Bertie subsequently publicly opposed the Casino project when local opposition became widespread and very active prior to the 1997 general election when he was first elected Taoiseach. This is now being spun as a virtue by Government spokespeople.

A Guru by any other name….

RTÉ Radio listeners to the midday news bulletin yesterday 03 Nollaig/December were treated to an apoplectic rant by Senator Eoghan Guru Harris, appointed to the Senate by Blank-Cheque Bertie after the May General election this year. In a ludicrous attempt to divert attention from the serious and damaging evidence now emerging on a daily basis at the Tribunal concerning Blank-Cheque Bertie’s bizarre financial arrangements in 1994, Guru Harris, whose equally bizarre political career has stretched from Worker’s Party Revolutionary Socialist to Friend of Ulster Unionism , mentor of right-wing Fine Gael under John Bruton, and currently, Knight-Defender of the Bertie Empire, made a desperate attempt to imply that the Tribunal and media reporting of it was a conspiracy by the Irish Daily Mail (an Irish edition of a British tabloid newspaper) to bring down the head of the Irish Government.

….. would stink as much.

The Daily Mail may have an agenda, most British tabloids do, and so does the “Irish Independent” group for which Guru Harris has written extensively for years with his own peculiar political views. The Independent Group, owned by billionaire businessman “Sir” Tony O’Reilly is the most notorious right-wing propaganda machine in the Irish media, regularly slandering left-wing politics in Ireland and abroad; supporting the imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; praising everything done by the usurper, vote-rigging Buckfush regime; slandering the Irish Anti-War Movement and anyone who protests against the misuse of Shannon Airport by the US Military and CIA “rendition” torture plane flights through the same airport; slandering the decent people of Erris, Co Mayo in their brave attempt to oppose international Oil-Monopoly, Shell Oil’s plan to put a high-pressure gas pipeline across their lands close to their residences.

Guru Harris, now shamelessly playing the Green Nationalist Card in defence of the indefensible, was quite comfortable spouting his propaganda from the columns of the London “ Sunday Times”, imperialist war-mongering rag, long-time enemy of the Irish people and their right to self-determination, now owned by “Not-Sir” Rupert Morlock, billionaire meeja mogul and propagandist for the “New World Order” of Buckfush and Blairschmuck.

Guru Harris’ stock-in-trade for years past has been condemnation of Sinn Féin – IRA Provo nationalism in Northern Ireland and has milked every penny he can get from this stance in any media outlet which would allow him in. It is sheer brass-faced hypocrisy for him now to use this card to prop up a floundering leader of a shameless, incompetent government which uses any means to try to cling to power.

The question for the Irish people now is not what a British tabloid newspaper thinks or might be up to, but, is the Head of the Irish Government a trustworthy person to hold such office and can his public utterances be believed as truth. It is not the duty of the elected representatives in Dáil Éireann to support any Taoiseach who is attacked by a British newspaper without qualification, as Guru Harris is urging them to do but only to support a Taoiseach who puts the interests of the people before himself and tells the truth on all occasions. The people’s representatives in the Dáil, under Bunreacht na hÉireann, are not there as cannon fodder for any Taoiseach but to ensure that the people’s interests come first before any individual politician or party.

As regards British tabloids, the question is why the Irish media is not pursuing the investigation into Blank-Cheque Bertie’s sleazy closed-door “fund-raising” or “dig-outs” to the extent the public interest requires. The Irish media, including Guru Harris, but with one honourable exception, Vincent Browne, of “Village” magazine, raised no serious questions about the financial shenanigans of former FF Taoiseach, Charles J. Haughey, whom we now know was as corrupt as a Mafioso Godfather. Is it any surprise, then, that we need to rely on British tabloids for some of the information?

Today, 04 Nollaig/December, Blank-Cheque Bertie is reported as condemning the issuing of the false invoice for the money which he has been forced to admit he benefited from, and has stabbed in the back his collaborator, Fianna Fáil fund-raiser Des Richardson, and Pádraic O’Connor, formerly of NCB, whom last week he was calling “a friend” in a petulant and cynical manoeuvre to try and save himself from an increasingly slippery slope to perdition. Blank Cheque failed to comdemn the promotion of tax-evasion schemes by Mayo deputy, Beverly Stupor-Flynntstone, whom he has been assiduously courting and wooing back into his parliamentary party and ratbag coalition, even hinting that the discredited former bank official could be given ministerial office in the current government. This shows the depths of cynicism and tolerance of corrupt practice at the highest level of the Government Guru Harris wants all T.D’s to support.
As the Tribunal proceeds towards Blank-Cheque Bertie’s next fateful appearance there, in two weeks time, a Mt Everest of questions has arisen on these matters which demand answers to the public on the conduct of persons holding the highest offices of the state, with most of them being members or associates of the Fianna Fáil Party.


FearFeasa Mac Léinn
Áth Cliath/Dublin, 04 NOLLAIG/DECEMBER 2007.




PHOTO: FFML

CHANGE IN THE WEATHER?

The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, recently presented to the Security Council the 4th Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which was launched in Valencia, Spain, in early November. The Secretary General, in one of the strongest warnings given to world leaders in decades of dithering do-nothing and procrastination declared that the whole world was facing potentially catastrophic consequences before the end of this century with “abrupt and irreversible” climate changes unless urgent action was taken to curb greenhouse gases saturating the Earth’s atmosphere as a direct result of human activities on the planet. Secretary General Ban insisted that world leaders must make a serious effort to agree counter-acting measures at the Bali, Indonesia, conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change which opened yesterday, 03 Nollaig/December 2007.

The Convention is supposed to agree a successor to the Kyoto Treaty but, intransigent reactionary politicians like Buckfush and his Australian conservative licka$$, John Howard, have been blocking international efforts at the UN and elsewhere to enforce tougher environmental laws in deference to the wishes of their big- business cronies. Fortunately, Howard was ousted from the Prime Minister’s office in Canberra at the November 24th Australian general election by Labour Party leader Kevin Rudd. Rudd is leading the Australian delegation to the Bali Conference and signed-up yesterday, as promised, to the Kyoto Treaty in a public snub to Washington and Buckfush. The despicable Buckfush regime is now isolated internationally as never before on this issue.The tide is turning against the reactionaries as the world-wide public awareness and alarm at the consequences of irreversible climate change grows.


This year alone we had Tornados in Clonakilty and the Irish Sea, Beauty Queens of Leenane running for their lives as their river bridge was swept away by a raging torrent. Monsoon in Britain with major flooding disaster areas for weeks during the summer months and a new sweep of mini-tornados in September. 40,000 homes, mostly in England were damaged by floods and the estimated costs arising are declared to be £41 Billion by the British Government. Is there a pattern to this and is it connected to the phenomenon of “Global Warming”? As the vast majority of the world’s physical scientists say yes, an intransigent group of political leaders are trying to downplay what is now being declared a serious crisis by the United Nations.

The IPCC’s report evidences that 11 of the past 12 years were the warmest recorded since accurate recording began over 150 years ago. The tropical rain-belt has extended North and South in a much shorter time than previously predicted.

The Arctic ice-cap (which floats on the sea), continues to melt at an accelerating rate causing increased sea levels everywhere. Ice reflects sunlight, reducing the surface temperatures in the vicinity. More ice-free ocean absorbs sunlight speeding up the melting process. Warmer water, being less dense, floats on top of colder water. Extending this southward from the Arctic could possibly block or even eliminate the Gulf Stream which gives Ireland its milder winters compared to Labrador, in Canada, which is at the same latitude as us.

Warming the Northern hemisphere results in melting in the vast perma-frost areas of Russia and Canada leading to the release of vast quantities of methane gas from rotting vegetation. Methane is a so-called “greenhouse” gas and a major contributor to global warming. The vicious circle is perilously near to closing and, sooner rather than later, if we, as a species, don’t take immediate remedial action, we will be unable to stop it with disastrous consequences for human life on this planet.

The Irish Government’s piddling efforts on this issue are a disgrace. Buying “carbon credits” instead of tackling the waste problem at its most acute; industrial landfill; not household bin collections. Spending 80% more on private vehicle facilitation than on public transport. Spending vast sums on road-building contacts and begrudging, procrastinating efforts on railways. Penalising householders for the existence of unwanted packaging produced by commercial enterprises instead of taxing the actual producers of this waste. Fearing to tackle the motoring lobby on fuel-guzzling 4-wheel drive SUVs.

Even with Green Party Ministers in Cabinet, they have been so compromised that little effort can be expected from them. The Government will be pre-occupied with Bertie's troubles for months to come further distracting ministers from doing their jobs.



FearFeasa Mac Léinn

Áth Cliath/Dublin, 04 NOLLAIG /DECEMBER 2007.