A QUARTER OF A MILLION public sector workers in the 26 Counties staged a one-day strike on Tuesday. Afterwards, union leaders warned Taoiseach Brian Cowen that another all-day stoppage will follow on Thursday 3 December if there is no serious engagement about alternatives to cutting €1.3 billion in public expenditure other than through slash and burn policies which attack workers' wages and conditions. Union members in flood-affected areas deferred their action and emergency cover was in place in essential health services. Free article

THE global agreement reached at next month's United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen must set legally-binding emissions reduction targets based on up-to-date climate science and are fair to developing countries if the world is to prevent catastrophic climate change, according to Sinn Féin MEP Bairbre de Brún The MEP made her declaration at a public meeting organised by South Belfast Sinn Féin, 'The Road to Copenhagen', on Friday 20 November. Free article

MICHAEL TAFT'S blog, Notes on the Front (http://notesonthefront.typepad.com/politicaleconomy/), and his Recession Diaries offer a radically alternative view to the conservative consensus of the economy. In one of his latest entries (Putting the 'Workable' Back into the Economy: The Recession Diaries - 19 November, Recession 213), he takes a critical look at Sinn Féin's Pre-Budget Submission. We reprint it here. Free article

THE priorities for Ireland's biggest trade union in any talks on a new social partnership deal with the Fianna Fáil/Green Party Government were outlined by SIPTU General President Jack O'Connor at the Annual Countess Markievicz Memorial Lecture in Liberty Hall in Dublin on Monday evening. The SIPTU leader said that only through agreement between the Government, unions and employers is a viable and sustainable economic recovery possible and that it must have a strong social dividend to be acceptable to workers. Free article

THE Equality and Rights Alliance was told on Tuesday of this week by Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD that Sinn Féin's approach to equality can be seen in its Pre-Budget Submission which could yield even greater savings than the Government targets without a single cut to social welfare or public service jobs. "The equality agenda is a Sinn Féin priority on a par with the unity agenda," the Dublin South Central TD said. Free article

BELFAST Judge Tom Burgess ruled on Wednesday 18 November that the Spanish authorities' extradition warrant against Basque activist Arturo Beñat Villanueva was "invalid." The judge rejected the warrant, which claimed that Villanueva was a "member of an illegal terrorist organisation" (Jarrai) from 1994 to 2000 on the grounds that it did not include any particularities or details of specific offences committed. Free article

CAMPAIGNERS for the truth behind the 1971 Ballymurphy Massacre received a huge boost from Europe's leading human rights parliamentarians in Brussels on Wednesday 18 November after they secured the support of MEPs from across the political spectrum in a lobby of parliament hosted by Sinn Féin MEP Bairbre de Brún. Between 9 and 11 August 1971, at the beginning of internment, 11 innocent civilians were shot dead by the British Army in the greater Ballymurphy area. Free article

TODAY, Jon McCourt is a well-known figure in his native Derry, he has spent many years working in the community sector and is frequently seen extolling the virtues of the city to groups of visitors. It was a very different story in 1955 when he was sent to the Termonbacca Boys' Home at the age of just two-and-half. Run by the Sisters of Nazereth, it was to become his home for the next decade. Free article