All but one of the 'Raytheon 9' war resisters were acquitted by a Belfast jury yesterday of all charges. In August 2006 Colm Bryce, Gary Donnelly, Kieran Gallagher, Michael Gallagher, Sean Heaton, Jimmy Kelly, Eamonn McCann, Paddy McDaid and Eamonn O'Donnell broke into the Derry offices of US arms manufacturer Raytheon (pictured right) and defenestrated […]
The trail of the 'Raytheon 9' enters its likely final week. These nine men occupied the Derry offices of an arms manufacturer for 8 hours back in August 2006 with the purpose of preventing war crimes. Claims Eamonn McCann, due to take the stand this week: "Israel had dropped so many bombs over southern Lebanon, […]
It's a bumper year for 40th anniversaries, especially for the United States: assassinations, moonwalks, war, protest. Elsewhere there were coups, decolonisation, nuclear tests. 1968 was also the year of the Prague Spring and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, student riots in Paris, violence and starvation on a mass scale in Biafra (Nigeria). Last week was the […]
Writes Nobel Peace Prize nominee, John Dear, SJ: "On May 1, the Catholic Worker [movement] celebrates its 75th birthday, and to mark the occasion, Marquette University Press will publish Dorothy Day’s diaries, The Duty of Delight. Meanwhile, a beautiful new DVD documentary, Don’t Call Me a Saint, has been released, offering rare interviews and footage […]
Amnesty International called it "shocking and preventable." On 27 January 2008, Australian indigenous leader and land rights activist Ian Ward — "one of the last nomads born in the Gibson Desert" — died in custody. The Warburton man was being driven 915km from Laverton in the Western Desert to Kalgoorlie for a mention in relation […]
Forty-five years ago, this is how Martin Luther King spent Easter (an excerpt from his autobiography): [O]n April 10 . . . the city government obtained a court injunction directing us to cease our activities . . . [W]e did an audacious thing, something we had never done in any other crusade. We disobeyed a […]
Australia has had a change of government since Donna Mulhearn (39), Jim Dowling (52), Bryan Law (52) and Adele Goldie (31) were convicted under the never-before used 1952 Defence (Special Undertaking) Act for breaking into the US military facility on Australian soil called Pine Gap in December 2005. And it would appear the courts have […]
The deadline for nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize is this month. Only certain eminent persons may forward names to the selection Committee. Exactly who is nominated is kept secret for 50 years. As 1984 winner of the Prize, Archbishop Desmond Tutu is qualified to nominate others. Along with Drs Leo Rebello and Charles Mercieca, […]
In November 2003, animal rights activist Ralph Hahnheuser stole onto private property on Australia’s south coast and poured shredded ham into the feed troughs of sheep awaiting live export to the Middle East the next day. His stated intention was to "taint the product or the animals in such a way that they are simply […]
The United Nations has sharpened its focus on combating violence against children with the creation last month of a new Special Procedure. This independent world expert will be called Special Representative to the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children. The job of this Special Representative, for an initial term of 3 years, will include maintaining international […]
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