Ireland: British collusion exposed in hundreds of paramilitary murders

The BBC’s Panorama program on May 28 made explosive revelations about British state collusion with paramilitaries in the North of Ireland, implicating it in the murder of hundreds of people, and in subsequent cover-ups.

The documentary, titled "Britain’s Secret Terror Deals", detailed British security forces collusion with illegal paramilitary groups in the North on a vast scale, running thousands of informants and agents, many of them known criminals and murderers.

Former Police Ombudsman Baroness Nuala O’Loan told the program that some paramilitary informants recruited by the security forces during “the Troubles” were serial killers, and that their crimes – including murder, intimidation, drug smuggling and terrorism – were covered up.

“They were running informants and they were using them,” O’Loan told the program.

“Their argument was that by so doing they were saving lives, but hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people died because those people were not brought to justice and weren’t stopped in their tracks,” she said.

"There was impunity really for these people to go on committing their crimes. Many of them were killers, some were serial killers."

Germany: G7 meets amid mass protests

Schloß Elmau, venue of the G7 summit

Tens of thousands of anti-capitalist, environmental and social justice activists have taken to the streets and the country roads of Bavaria to protest the Group of Seven (G7) nations summit, which took place on June 7 and 8 in a secluded castle in the German Alps.

On June 4, over 35,000 demonstrators marched peacefully in the Bavarian capital Munich, protesting the destructive policies of the G7 industrialised nations – climate change, militarisation and NATO expansion in Europe, economic austerity and poverty, democracy-destroying free trade deals and more. 

Some protesters dressed as clowns, while others wore black or even traditional Bavarian lederhosen, and carried rainbow flags and banners bearing slogans such as “Stop the G7 now!”, "G7 go to hell" and “Revolution is the solution”.  

On June 8, another 8,000 protesters marched through the alpine resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a few hours south of Munich, in the shadow of Germany’s highest mountain, Zugspitze. 

The meeting between the leaders of the G7 nations – the United States, Britain, Canada, Italy, France, Japan and Germany – was held nearby at Schloss Elmau, a picturesque castle converted into a luxury hotel, at a cost of approximately US$350 million.

Over 22,000 police were deployed to protect the summit – the largest police operation in Bavarian history – and 17 kilometres of temporary fenceline was erected to keep protesters out.