Patient and community groups joined together this week to highlight the true nature of many of the companies now benefiting from the Fianna Fáil/PD/Green government's health service privatisation. Health analyst Marie O'Connor, author of the book Emergency - Irish Hospitals in Chaos, showed how companies had defrauded the Federal government in the United States. Free article

Sinn Féin MEP Bairbre de Brún has called for a focus on effective action and social justice to be at the heart of any recommendations from a newly-formed climate change committee at the European Parliament. Free article

Ever since 25 May when the results of the General Election started filtering through to count centres around the state a myth has emerged and gained the status of the "official" explanation for Sinn Féin's disappointing performance in the general election. It is the myth of the great squeeze. Free article

Ali Hassan al-Majid a cousin of the late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death by an (occupied) 'Iraqi' court for the murder of some 180,000 Kurds in 1988. Hassan al-Majid was dubbed 'Chemical Ali' by the western press, the same press that steadfastly ignored the war crimes he and his regime committed as, at that time, Saddam was officially 'good'. Remarkably, the western press - with some honourable exceptions - recovered from that bout of collective amnesia on or about the same time that Saddam's official designation was changed, in Washington and London. Free article

Two days of intense negotiations involving 27 leaders of EU states and what did we get? That depends on who you talk to. In Ireland we were "very happy with the outcome". Tony Blair thought Britain had achieved a "leadership position" in Europe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel who was hosting the negotiations said as the deal was agreed that, "We are very, very satisfied," but that "the possibilities of compromise were stretched to the limit". Free article

Ireland opts out of workers' rights clause in EU charter, Labour Court give OK to Abbey Theatre ID system and Postal workers to strike in North Free article

Cuban revolutionary Vilma Espin died on Monday, 18 June at the age of 77 after a long illness. Free article

Tá go leor caint na laethanta seo ar Acht Gaeilge do na 6 contae. Gan dabht ar bith tá géarghá go mbeadh cearta ag Gaeilgeoirí ós comhair an dlí a dteanga féin a úsáid agus a labhairt. Is cinnte nach bhfuil cá eile ar nós Máire Nic an Bháird de dhíth orainn. Ná déanaimis dearmad áfach nach bhfuil an Gaeilge thar a bheith sláintiúil thíos tíre ach an oiread. Free article

This month marks the tenth anniversary of the death of IRA Volunteer Paddy Kelly on 11 June 1997 at the home of his long-term partner Angela and his family, in his native County Laois as a result of gross neglect and inhuman treatment at the hands of his British captors. Free article

There was a capacity turn-out in the Four Seasons Hotel, Monaghan for the Sinn Féin celebration of the recent General Election result in the constituency last Saturday. Free article