About a thousand people attended the 2009 Edentubber Commemoration in County Louth on Sunday the 8 November. The annual commemoration marks the deaths of five Republicans killed in an explosion during the IRA's Border Campaign in November 1957. The five who died at Edentubber, a few hundred yards from the border crossing at Carrickarnon, and since known as the Edentubber Martyrs, were 54-year-old Michael Watters; Paul Smith 19-years-old and raised at the Gardens in Bessbrook; Oliver Craven from Dominic Street in Newry; and Patrick Parle and George Keegan of Wexford. Free article

SINN FÉIN this week launched its campaign to have the Christmas Social Welfare payment restored. Party President Gerry Adams and Social and Family Affairs Spokesperson Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD, were joined at the launch by Santa Claus who accused the government of stealing Cristmas for many families. Speaking outside the gates of Leinster House in Dublin on Wednesday Gerry Adams said: Free article

SINN FÉIN MP for Newry and Armagh Conor Murphy has hit out at the targeting of leading republican Seán Hughes and his family by the London based SOCA organisation. Sean Hughes's home and that of a number of relatives were raided by the PSNI on Tuesday morning. Free article

TENS OF thousands of workers mobilised in various locations around the 26 Counties on Friday, 6 November for the Irish Congress of Trade Unions-organised Day of Protest against the Irish Government's approach to the economic crisis and in particular against proposed savage cuts in pay for ordinary workers and in a range of vital public services. Under the slogan 'Get up, Stand up', people mobilised in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford, Sligo, Tullamore, and Dundalk. Free article

As grammar schools in the Six Counties have begun testing 10 and 11-year-old children in an unregulated academic selection process, Sinn Féin Education Spokesperson John O'Dowd has said: "The testing of children at 10 and 11 years of age to decide if they may or may not enter a school is wrong. It has no proven educational benefit and numerous educational and social disadvantages." Free article

THE public service strike in the 26 Counties on 24 November looks unavoidable in the face of Government inaction, trade union leaders warned this week. The statement came as thousands of emergency services workers, members of the 24/7 Frontline Service Alliance - including nurses, paramedics, gardaí, firefighters and prison officers - marched to Leinster House on Wednesday afternoon in opposition to public spending cuts being mooted in next month's Budget and by the McCarthy ('Bord Snip') Report. While calling for maximum support, the 24/7 Frontline Service Alliance maintained that it did not intend to affect the delivery of frontline services in any way. Free article

RECENT events in the Basque country and the Spanish state have included ongoing acts of violence causing death, abuses of human rights and the arrest of leading Basque political activists including Batasuna leaders Arnaldo Otegi and Rufi Etxeberria. Otegi and four others arrested at the same time remain in custody. Etxeberria and the other four were released on bail. Both men have made important statements on the current political situation in the past week. Free article