The ongoing crisis in Irish farming boiled over this week as tens of thousands of farmers blockaded 40 meat plants throughout the 26 Counties, leaving 3,500 meat factory workers on protective notice. The 600 road hauliers who work exclusively for the meat industry also found themselves out of work. Free article

A dog wanders lazily across the main street of a village in the Northern Highlands of Guatemala, a sad but strikingly beautiful country located somewhere to the north of Honduras. It lifts its leg carelessly against the side of the pavement and rambles off down an alley. The men of this colourful Mam village - overwhelmingly Indian, poor and with little or no education - are in a similarly lacadaisical, hungover state. Somebody came back after five years in the Chicano suburbs of Los Angeles and invited them to bottles and bottles of Gallo beer. The returned Yank. The women continue with their endless work of cooking, weaving, minding children and working in the fields. Free article

Tá an Ard Fheis ag tarraing orainn arís agus mothaíonn Eoghan Mac Cormaic an bhliain ag éalú ón Ard Fheis deireannach. Féile mhór daonlathach ar chóir a bheith in Ard Fheis, dar leis agus chan Lá na bhFurby Polaitiúla... Free article

Construction workers vote for one day stoppage and Undergraduate nurses march Free article

An Phoblacht's occasional sporting columnist, SEÁN Ó DONAILE, takes a typically lateral look at the week in sport. Free article

Dáil Éireann assembled for the first time in the Round Room of the Mansion House, Dublin on 21 January, 1919. Irish republicans took the first bold step towards democracy. The plans for Dáil Éireann were in line with the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis in October 1918 and with the Sinn Féin Executive's decision on 19 December several days before the election results were announced, that it would ``convoke the Dáil Éireann''. Free article

One of the biggest battles over extradition in recent years occurred this week in the Dublin Supreme Court when lawyers for Dermot Finucane challenged attempts to hand him over to the British authorities. For two days, lawyers and judges debated legal decisions which have turned 26-County Courts into rubber stamps for British extradition warrants. Free article