For many it was an irony that former Chilean Dictator Augusto Pinochet's death, probably caused by heart failure, should take place on International Human Rights Day, 10 December. Pinochet, a man who swore an oath of alliance to Chilean democracy and to President Salvador Allende was responsible for the demise of both. Pinochet's subsequent reign of terror was marked by the forced disappearance of 3,000 political prisoners, the torture of thousands of political activists and the exile of over 30,000 Chileans. Free article

Belfast republican Brendan 'Bik' McFarlane lost a legal challenge last Friday, 8 December, to his trial for charges connected with the 1983 kidnapping of supermarket boss Don Tidey. McFarlane may appeal the Dublin High Court decision to the Supreme Court. Free article

Speaking in the Dáil during the debate on Brian Cowen's Budget Sinn Féin Enterprise, Trade and Employment spokesperson Arthur Morgan TD said the budget increased inequality between the low paid and high paid. Pointing out that those above the average industrial wage will gain twice as much as those below it he characterised the Budget as one that put high earners first. Free article

Sinn Féin has welcomed the decision to designate 16 Moore Street as a national monument, after a long campaign to save the last headquarters of the leaders of the 1916 Rising. Free article

Sinn Féin General Secretary Mitchel McLaughlin MLA outlined a number of measures to help reduce workplace deaths, in a debate in the Six County Assembly last Tuesday on corporate manslaughter. He also highlighted the huge underreporting of deaths in the workplace. Free article

And in a cruel twist of fate the attack on the 17-year-old was carried out in Granville Drive, just yards from where 15-year-old Michael McIlveen was fatally wounded in May of this year. The teenager later died from the wounds he suffered. Free article

Merchant Bravery crew get €122,971 and Fake safety certificates given to Polish workers in Kilkenny Free article

The Life and Times Of Hunger Striker Martin Hurson, a DVD set commemorating the Life of H-Block Hunger Striker Martin Hurson was launched on Friday night 8 December in Galbally, Tyrone by Francie Molloy MLA . Free article

Ger Hitchen Free article

Sunday, 10 November saw a large crowd attend the annual Richard Coleman commemoration at the Coleman family plot in St Colmcille's graveyard at Swords, County Dublin. Ceremonies were chaired by Sinn Féin candidate for North Dublin, Matt McCormack, who compared the life, death and ideals of Richard Coleman to those of IRA volunteer Christy Harford, who died in the Swords area in 1992. Free article