Women and Radio in Afghanistan
Monday, December 29th, 2003Canoe.ca has an interesting story about work by a Canadian group to teach Afghani women to be journalists, and to start a number of radio stations operated by women.
Archive for December, 2003
Canoe.ca has an interesting story about work by a Canadian group to teach Afghani women to be journalists, and to start a number of radio stations operated by women.
Electronic voting in Ireland
Saturday, December 20th, 2003I've just completed the first version of an essay on electronic voting (using Ireland as a case study) for a class on the philosophy of technology. The aim is to assist a broadening of the debate beyond technical issues, to consider cultural and social factors. I hope it may be ...
Polygamy in Ireland
Wednesday, December 17th, 2003Now this is an interesting story: a man gains refugee status in Ireland. In accordance with custom and law, his family is allowed to join him. Only problem is that he has two wives (he is a Muslim from the Lebanon, where this is legal). Irish officials only allow one ...
Poverty in Ireland – new data
Wednesday, December 10th, 2003There's an interesting ESRI report on poverty in Ireland that shows mixed results over the last decade. 'Consistent poverty' has dropped to 5%, but certain sub-groups have fared poorly, and the poor / non-poor gap has generally increased.
RSF pirate radio for WSIS
Tuesday, December 9th, 2003Reporters sans Frontiers will be running a pirate radio station for the duration of WSIS - the World Summit on the Information Society - from which it is banned (you can generate your own conspiracy theories here):"To ban an organisation defending press freedom from a summit focusing on the circulation ...
Neutrality and the EU
Tuesday, December 9th, 2003Despite some of the positive contributions of the EU I'm generally suspicious of its structures and processes. Partly for this reason the proposed EU constitution is becoming less and less attractive, and now another reason to oppose it:At a meeting in Naples (29 November) the three big countries agreed to ...
British defied King to let Irish mayor die
Sunday, December 7th, 2003It seems King George V appealed for clemency for Terence MacSwiney - the Lord Mayor of Cork who was on hunger strike in 1920 - but was turned down by the British government. [This is a summary of my original piece, after that was deleted due to a flaw in ...
Protest at Shannon
Saturday, December 6th, 2003RTE is reporting that 300 people took part in the protest at Shannon airport this afternoon. It was a largely peaceful event, with no arrests. The report mentions the call by PANA for neutrality to be inserted into the constitution of Ireland (Ireland's neturality is based on custom and practice, ...
Irish Times spikes anti-war article
Saturday, December 6th, 2003There's a weird item on Counterpunch - and also going around by email. Seemingly the Irish Times spiked a (commissioned) opinion piece by Harry Browne in which he defended civil disobedience as part of the campaign against militarisation at Shannon airport. The article, published below with the permission of Harry, ...
Irish activist jailed
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2003Irish anti-war activist Dr. Fintan Lane is serving a 60-day jail term after refusing to pay a EUR750 fine imposed after he took part in a mass trespass at Shannon airport.