POLITICAL OPPONENTS and long-standing anti-republican commentators in the media are shamelessly exploiting alleged rape victim Maíria Cahill in a bid to damage Sinn Féin and topple Gerry Adams. Free article

THE Democratic Unionist Party are looking over their shoulders at their newly-unveiled allies in the ‘pan-unionist front’, including the ‘political advisers’ to the UVF and the UDA. Free article

ONE of the most important elements in ensuring Ireland today will be egalitarian and democratic is the media that comments on, criticises and investigates how that society operates. The newspapers, radio and TV news and current affairs programmes, together with the growing number of online news services that make up the Irish media, all have a role to play in holding that society to account, as do the increasingly small number of wealthy or powerful owners of mainstream media outlets. Free article

THE SIGHT of an estimated 100,000 people marching through the capital city in opposition to water charges panicked the Government and forced them to announce a €100 tax credit relief plan in Budget 2015 in a desperate attempt to soften the impact of their unfair tax on hard-pressed families. Free article

SINN FÉIN has joined forces with a number of carers’ groups to launch an appeal to the Irish Government to reverse cuts made to the Respite Care Grant two years ago. Free article

REPUBLICANS from across the North joined trade unionists, charities, church groups and disability organisations in Belfast city centre on 11 October to campaign against the Tory cuts agenda. Free article

THE NEWS at the very end of September that the largely discredited Historical Enquiries Team (HET) is to be jettisoned by the PSNI due to budget cuts may be of little concern to some (if not many) nationalists but cuts to the Police Ombudsman’s Office is a different case altogether. Premium service article

THUAR Uachtarán Shinn Féin, Gearóid Mac Ádhaimh TD, go bhfuil cuma ghruama ar thodhchaí na Gaeltachta agus é ag oscailt Slógadh Shinn Féin 2014. Agus é ag labhairt ag an Slógadh i gCultúrlann Uí Chanáin, i nDoire, thuar sé go ‘bhfaighfidh an Ghaeltacht bás mura ndéanann an rialtas gníomh láithreach.’ Free article

MARTIN McGUINNESS briefed MEPs from across Europe on the current state of the political process in the North when he visited the European Parliament in Brussels in October. Free article

EVEN THOUGH the Progressive Unionist Party annual conference in mid-October endorsed positions opposing Tory welfare cuts, protecting the NHS, and for the abolition of zero-hour contracts – natural positions for a party locating itself on the Left of the political spectrum – a key plank of the party leader’s address was support for the Orange Order to march through Ardoyne or anywhere else it wants. Free article

BELFAST may not deserve the title given to it by some mainstream media of “Race Hate Capital of Europe” but a racist attack reported almost every day in the Six Counties carries extra impact in such a small geographical area. Free article

EVERY POSITION and statement by all the parties in England, Scotland and Wales is being taken with an eye to the outcome of next May’s general election. And recent by-election results in England have added to this, in particular the response to the growth of UKIP, which has negatively shifted the political agenda to the Right. Free article