Republicans across Ireland last weekend came out in their tens of thousands to give the answer to those who would seek to criminalise, demonise or marginalise the struggle for Irish freedom. Free article

The Dáil last week voted to establish a public inquiry into allegations of collusion between a member of the Garda Siochána and the IRA in the 1989 shooting of RUC Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Robert Buchanan in South Armagh. They were the most senior RUC officers killed in the conflict. Sinn Féin Dáil leader Caoimhghin Ó Caoláin put the inquiry in the context of the real story of collusion, while Martin Ferris TD highlighted the murky background to the new inquiry, including the role of alleged informers and Irish Times journalist Kevin Myers. Free article

Sinn Féin and groups involved in the campaign to get plastic bullets banned have reacted angrily to the decision by the Policing Board to give the green light to the PSNI to adopt the latest type of plastic bullet. Free article

Sinn Féin's Philip McGuigan is accusing the PSNI of not doing enough to protect nationalists after loyalists in County Antrim launched a vicious round of sectarian attacks in Ballymena and Ahoghill, including ordering a Catholic grandmother out of her Ahoghill home. Free article

Noam Chomsky recounts a story told by Saint Augustine about a pirate captured by Alexander the Great. Alexander asked the pirate "how he dares molest the sea". "How dare you molest the whole world?" the pirate replied. "Because I do it with a little ship only, I am called a thief; you, doing it with a great navy, are called an Emperor." It is a tale of power and hypocrisy and for Chomsky, it exposes the dynamic of imperialist domination. Free article