Irish water protesters bring Dublin to a standstill

Up to 100,000 protesters shut down Dublin city on December 10 in the latest mass demonstration against the introduction of water charges.

Protesters from across the country braved media hysteria, riot police and police barricades, and the threat of a fierce storm to descend on the centre of Dublin, placing Leinster House – home of the Dáil (Irish parliament) – and other government buildings in “lockdown”.

The protest – organised by the Right2Water campaign – was the third major protest against the charges in two months, following on from a 100,000 strong march in Dublin on 11 October and protests across Ireland on 1 November that attracted around 200,000 in dozens of towns and cities.

The introduction of new charges on water use, levied via new state-owned company Irish Water, has brought years of anger with austerity cuts and government arrogance to a head.

Not only is the cost of water already covered by general taxation, however, but it is also widely believed that water charges are only the first step towards the privatisation of Irish Water and water charges.

Ireland: Government drowning between water revolt and a rising Sinn Féin

Faced with a growing public revolt against the introduction of water charges and a faltering support, the Irish government is in a deepening crisis.

The government — a coalition between the right-wing Fine Gael party and the Irish Labour Party — came to power in 2011 on the back of public outrage over austerity and social spending cuts.

The impact from the global financial crisis hit Ireland particularly hard. According to Eurostat, Ireland has paid 42 percent of the total cost of the European banking crisis, or 41 billion euros — about 9000 euros per person. The average across the European Union is 192 euros per person.

The government of Fine Gael Taoiseach (prime minister) Enda Kenny is presiding over further austerity cuts at the behest of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB). The unemployment rate, however, remains well into double figures, and wages are low.

Despite the scale of Ireland’s economic collapse, social unrest has remained minimal. Instead, Ireland — with a population of only 4.5 million — has witnessed a more literal decimation. More than 400,000 people, mostly young people, skilled workers and families, have emigrated in search of work and a better lifestyle.

25 years after the Berlin Wall, socialists set to form government in Thuringia

Nearly twenty-five years to the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall, socialist party Die Linke (“The Left”) looks set to form government in the eastern German state of Thuringia for the first time.

After two months of uncertainty following state elections held on September 14, the way has been cleared for Die Linke to enter government as senior coalition partner in December, alongside the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens, after nearly 70 percent of SPD members in Thuringia voted to enter a coalition government on 4 November.

While Die Linke has governed at a regional level before, as a junior partner to the SPD in Berlin and Brandenburg, this marks the first time they will lead a government.

It also marks the first time since German reunification that a socialist party will take charge of a government – a breakthrough for a party that has been treated as a pariah by the political and media establishment.

Hillsborough – a disaster forged in ruling-class hate

Twenty-three years too late, the real truth is finally being told about the Hillsborough disaster of April 15, 1989, which killed 96 football fans and injured hundreds more.

A new 354-page report, released by the Hillsborough Independent Panel after accessing over 400,000 pages of secret documents, has implicated the police, media and British government in what has been described as “the biggest cover-up of British legal history”.

Importantly, it has also cleared Liverpool fans of the vile accusations that the media, police and politicians have thrown at them for over two decades, and has opened the way for justice to finally be won.

On April 15, 1989, Sheffield’s Hillsborough football stadium played host to the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool FC and Nottingham Forest.

At 2:52pm, Chief superintendent David Duckenfield directed South Yorkshire police to herd thousands of Liverpool fans into an already dangerously over-packed part of the stands on the Lepping’s Lane end of the ground.

As they surged forward, those being crushed at the front sought to have the gates opened to the nearly-empty neighbouring stands, and tried to climb over the high fences to safety.

The police refused to open the gates or help fans. Instead they beat them with truncheons back into the deadly crush.

As the bodies of the injured and dying began to pile up on the field, police lined up three rows deep to keep fans off the pitch, calling in dog-handlers, and assaulting and arresting those trying to give first aid to the injured.

Germany: Free marketeers made to walk plank, Pirates gain

Elections in the German state of Saarland on March 25 have dealt a heavy blow to the federal coalition government of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) retained its 12-year hold on power, holding steady at 35.2% of the small state’s voters. But Merkel's allies at a federal level - the neoliberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) - were wiped out at the state polls.

The FDP’s share of the vote dropped from 9.2% in 2009 to a tiny 1.2%, well below the 5% required to enter parliament.

Nationally, the FDP is polling at barely 3% - down from a high of 14.6% at the last federal elections. It was booted out of five state parliaments last year, a trend that seems set to continue.

The centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) increased its vote by 6% to 30.6% - not enough to dislodge the CDU from government, but enough to force it into a power-sharing “grand coalition”.

The vote for the anti-capitalist party Die Linke (“The Left”) dropped from 21% to only 16.1%, giving it 17 seats in parliament.

This relatively poor result came despite Saarland being home to Die Linke’s popular and outspoken former leader Oskar Lafontaine, once dubbed “the shadow Chancellor” for his ability to influence German politics.

Germany's presidency: corrupt incumbent out - obnoxious right-wing ideologue in.

German President Christian Wulff resigned on February 17 after prosecutors applied to have his presidential immunity stripped in a corruption scandal.

Wulff has been accused of having received a series of kickbacks from businessmen, including a home loan of 500,000 euros (paid via an anonymous bank cheque) in 2008.

He is also accused of receiving favourable car deals, free hotel-stays, free airline upgrades and other perks during his time as premier of the state of Lower Saxony.

When German tabloid Bild threatened to publish the allegations, Wulff left voice messages on the editor's phone threatening "war".

As more corruption accusations surfaced, prosecutors in Hannover, capital of Lower Saxony, asked the Bundestag (federal parliament) to lift Wulff's presidential immunity.

Faced with the destruction of his credibility, Wulff resigned. He now faces possible charges and the loss of his parliamentary pension.

Under the German system, a new president must be elected within 30 days of the resignation of his predecessor.

Lift Redfern Station Campaign

Redfern Railway station is one of the busiest stations in the country, with over 40,000 people passing through its gates each day, yet it doesn't have a single lift.

Never mind the residents nearby with children, disabilities or heavy luggage; never mind the elderly, frail or unwell; never mind the thousands of students of diverse backgrounds and needs who use the station on a daily basis.

No, if you want to catch or get off a train at Redfern, you have to climb one of the steep concrete staircases, or - if you're lucky - catch an equally steep escalator to the underground platforms.

For many people, this challenge is simply too difficult - or too dangerous - to seriously contemplate, and they are effectively excluded from relying on rail transport to get around. This is an outrage, and is totally unacceptable.

It is, of course, nothing new, nor is the empty government rhetoric about 'reviews' and 'plans' for upgrades. Successive governments have been making - and breaking - promises to fix the situation since at least the 1990s.

So, in January this year, the people of Redfern launched the broad-based Lift Redfern campaign to get the NSW government to pull its finger out.

Germany: Spies target left-wing party

Germany’s domestic spy agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), has been exposed for spying on left-wing MPs.

German magazine Der Spiegel said on January 23 that the BfV spied on MPs from Germany's biggest left-wing party, the socialist Die Linke ("The Left").

Der Spiegel said the intelligence agency had 27 of Die Linke's members in the Bundestag - more than one third of its federal MPs - and a further 11 members of state parliaments, under surveillance, costing 390,000 euros a year.

The BfV spends about 590,000 euros a year on surveillance of the neo-Nazi German National Party (NPD), linked to violent racist terror groups.

Unlike the marginal NPD, Die Linke is Germany's fifth largest party, with representation in almost every state parliament and in the national Bundestag.

The individuals being spied on weren't "fringe" members either, but leading party members and MPs ― many are in the party’s “moderate” wing.

Pirates plunder Berlin as Merkel’s government founders

Elections in the city-state of Berlin on September 18 delivered another serious blow to the government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, even as her party’s vote increased.
 

Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) came in second place in the Berlin election, winning 23.4 percent of the vote – up from 21.3 in 2006.

The ruling centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) dropped slightly, from 30.6 to 28.6 percent, but will remain in government in Germany’s capital. SPD leader Klaus Wowereit – Germany’s first openly gay premier – is likely to replace his “red-red coalition” partners, the socialist Die Linke (“the Left”), with the more moderate Greens.

The Greens came third in the vote, winning 17.6 percent – a swing of 4.7 percent – while Die Linke slipped slightly from 13.4 to 11.7 percent.

During five years of coalition government, Die Linke has become implicated in the Berlin government’s antisocial policies and a 13 percent unemployment rate, damaging its social justice credentials.

The hotly contested question of whether – and under what conditions – Die Linke should enter into future coalitions will be debated in late October, when the party holds its national “Program Congress” in the city of Erfurt.

The surprise winner at this election was the Pirate Party, which took an astounding 8.9 percent of the vote, entering parliament for the first time with 15 seats.

State election defeat humiliates Merkel

Elections in the eastern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on September 4 have handed the conservative government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel another humiliating defeat. 

Merkel's centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) had already suffered five election defeats this year, in Hamburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, Rheinland-Pfalz, Bremen and the highly embarrassing loss of the wealthy conservative southern state of Baden-Württemberg – held by the CDU for sixty years – to the Greens.

The Mecklenburg-Vorpommern defeat was particularly galling for Merkel – who was born in Hamburg and raised in Brandenburg in the former East Germany – because the state includes her own electoral constituency.

On polling day, the CDU could only muster 23.1 percent of the vote, down by more than 5.7 percent since 2006 and its worst result in the state since German unification in 1990.

The Social Democratic Party (SPD) were the clear victors, with 35.7 percent of the vote, an increase of 5.5 percent.

The socialist Die Linke ("The Left") – campaigning on a platform of social justice, democratic rights and action on the environment – won 18.4 percent of the vote.