Workers Solidarity Movement

Today the story broke that an ex-soldier has been arrested in connection with Bloody Sunday in which 13 people (and another who later died from his injuries) were murdered at a protest against internment in Derry's Bogside on 30 January 1972.

The soldiers involved in the massacre, the Parachute Regiment, were involved in another massacre less than six months prior to this. In August 1971, 11 people were murdered over a period of three days by the Parachute Regiment in Ballymurphy in the west of the city - 10 were shot and another suffered a heart attack after a confrontation with a soldier in which it is alleged that the soldier put an empty gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Recent studies in the North have shown that the rich really are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer.

It is no secret that household charges are set to rise due to ongoing “austerity” measures by Capitalist governments.

Today, research from PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers accountancy firm) indicated that households in the North will be hit hardest in the UK by this rise in charges.
 

For the first time in the history of the Northern Irish state a majority of MLAs have voted in favour of Marriage Equality. The motion, however, has fallen due to the DUP launching a Petition of Concern which blocks any passing of the motion to law.

Voting against the motion - as 52 politicians did - is one thing, but guaranteeing its failure in spite of a winning majority vote reveals the homophobic, bigoted and bitter nature of the DUP.

The issue of Marriage Equality is to be debated for the fifth time in Stormont today (Nov 2nd).  Yet again, however, the DUP has launched a Petition of Concern to ensure that should the motion be successful its legal passing will be blocked.

The Petition of Concern is a funny old thing. Sometimes it works in our favour, like when it was used earlier this year to block the DUP’s “Conscience Clause”, a clause which would have effectively blocked LGBT+ people and Queers from certain parts of society under the guise of “religious freedom”.

Today marks three years since the brutal and needless passing of Savita Halappanavar.

During the rise of HIV and Hepatitis B in the 70s and 80s the UK Government enforced a blanket ban on men who have sex with men donating blood.

In 2011 this ban was changed slightly - the ban would only last a year after a man had sex with another man, meaning that if any queer men wanted to donate blood they would have to abstain from sex with men for a year.

Could you really trust someone who claims to be "Pro-Life" when their concern for you is only there when you are in the womb?

An anti-choice clinic is due to open in Belfast City Centre tomorrow, the 13th of October. The Stanton Clinic has as its vision "to close the doors of Marie Stopes" - Marie Stopes which, alongside the NHS, performs abortions when they fit the very restrictive legal criteria, along with other sexual health services.

An estimated 15 people travel from the island of Ireland every day in order to access an abortion. Yesterday, an anti-choice clinic opened in Belfast City Centre in the same building as a travel agents, something that shows the pure contempt, malice and disregard that the anti-choice zealots hold towards women and other pregnant people.

Project Eagle, or Nama's northern portfolio, was landed in March 2014 by American private investment firm, Cerberus. If this sale has done anything, it has proven that good old fashioned political and economic corruption is not an exclusively American affair.

Nama, oftentimes referred to as the south's "bad bank" - as if there are any good ones - was set up in late 2009 as an attempt by the southern government to try and deal with the property loans issued by Irish banks.