IN his 2009 New Year message, Sinn Féin President GERRY ADAMS said 2008 had been a significant year with further progress made in bedding down the all-Ireland political institutions including governmental institutions in the North. He said it is important to see further progress on this and other issues in the year ahead and that Sinn Féin is determined to ensure that commitments given in the Good Friday and St Andrews Agreements are implemented. He also said that the Irish Government has failed to produce a coherent strategy to deal with the severe impact on the economy of the credit crunch and the global economic crisis. And as we prepare to mark the 90th anniversary of First Dáil he spoke of the republican commitment to the ideas and objectives of a sovereign democratic, united Irish republic. Here, in his first interview of 2009, talking to An Phoblacht Editor SEÁN Mac BRÁDAIGH, Gerry Adams elaborates on these and other national and international issues. Free article

AT the time of writing, at least 630 Palestinians have been killed and more than 2,700 wounded in Israel's air onslaught on the Gaza Strip that began on 27 December - and now Israeli tanks, ground troops and artillery shells have joined the assault. More than 2,200 families were displaced across the Gaza Strip before the ground invasion began on 4 January and several thousand more are reported to have fled their homes since the invasion began. Free article

SINN FÉIN International Affairs and Human Rights Spokesperson Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD has written to the respective Chairpersons of the Oireachtas Committees on European Affairs and European Scrutiny to ask for meetings to be convened in order to examine whether Israel's current actions in Gaza are in breach of its agreements with the EU which underpin substantial privileges for Israel including preferential trade. Free article

PAT Doherty, Sinn Féin MP, MLA is to stand down as Sinn Féin Vice President after over 20 years in that office. Doherty said: "I am very proud to have held the position of Vice President of Sinn Féin since 1988 and to have been part of a republican leadership which has been responsible for so much positive change on the island. Ireland has been transformed over these years for the better". Free article

REPUBLICANS throughout Ireland and indeed across the world were shocked and saddened to learn, on 19 December, of the tragic death of H-Block Hunger Striker Seán McKenna, aged 54. Seán's death fell on the 28th anniversary of the ending of the 1980 H-Block Hunger Strike on which Seán almost died. Free article

January 2009 marks the 100th anniversary of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. Here MÍCHEÁL Mac DONNCHA looks at its role in the struggle for workers' rights, national independence and socialism. Free article