ON Monday, 7 December world leaders will gather in Copenhagen to negotiate the future of our planet. The UN Climate Change Summit is the most important political event of the year. Unfortunately very few people know that it is happening. Even fewer seem to know what is at stake. Free article

"THIS generation needs to be a generation of 'impatient republicans'," that's the message Senator Pearse Doherty sent to Ógra Shinn Féín at its National Congress a number of weeks back in Belfast as we launched our new national campaign, 'Who fears to speak of a united Ireland?' He's right, of course, and as impatient republicans the reunification of our country is an urgent priority and vital objective. That's why we are launching this campaign to encourage our generation to get involved in the struggle to smash partition. Free article

FROM Uruguay comes confirmation that the new order in Latin America - progressive and popular - continues to grow and consolidate. On 29 November, Uruguayan voters chose a former guerilla as their new president, putting him a clear 10 percentage points above his rival in a run-off vote. Jose Mujica was a founder member of the National Liberation Movement - the 'Tupamaros' - that waged a major armed campaign against the rightist, militarised state during the 1960s. In 1973, the army assumed outright control (again) and established a military dictatorship that lasted until 1985. Jose Mujica spent those 12 years in jail. Free article

THE Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign took part in this year's International Week of Solidarity called by the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign. An international call to activists was put out to launch a week of global mobilisation from 9 to 16 November. Free article

THE recent death by suicide of German soccer goalkeeper Robert Enke has given rise to a good deal of debate on depression in sport. A number of high-profile former leading sports people, including the boxer Frank Bruno and former New Zealand All Black John Kirwan, have been among those prominent in media discussions of the issue. Free article

DICK Barrett was one of the leading officers of the IRA in Munster during the Tan War, going on to serve on the IRA's General Headquarters Staff where he was an associate of Michael Collins and Liam Mellows. He opposed the Treaty and was to pay with his life for his allegiance to the Irish Republic. Free article