As An Phoblacht goes to press, fears are growing that serious health and environmental damage could be caused when a massive Orange Twelfth of July bonfire in Antrim is lit on Wednesday, 11 July. Free article

Speaking this week as the European Parliament debated the liberalisation of postal services across Europe, Sinn Féin MEPs Bairbre de Brún and Mary Lou McDonald have said the Parliament plan to delay by two years the opening of the letters market amounted to no more than a temporary reprieve. Free article

A planned massacre of Catholic primary school children in South Armagh by the notorious Glenanne gang of unionist paramilitaries, centrally involved in the bombings of Dublin and Monaghan in 1974, was only aborted after the Belfast UVF leadership intervened. Aware the gang was controlled by the British army and RUC, the UVF leadership in Belfast feared the plan was double edged and such an atrocity could undermine support the UVF. Free article

Sinn Féin's Billy Leonard has said that UVF members were behind a beating of a 20-year-old man in the Harpur's Hill area of Coleraine on Sunday night. Leonard has alleged that five masked men entered a home, instructed the victim's mother to lie down while they beat her son with hammers. Free article

Sinn Féin has gained a third seat in Cork City Council with the co-option of Fiona Kerins, who has filled the vacancy left by the death of Independent Councillor Con O'Connell. Councillor Kerins was co-opted last Monday as the candidate polling the next highest vote in the 2004 election after the five elected councillors, where she lost out by just 34 votes. Free article

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions held its biennial conference in Bundoran from the 3 to 6 July. Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness, in his capacity of Deputy First Minister addressed the conference on Wednesday and on the Thursday Sinn Féin Workers' Rights Spokesperson Arthur Morgan TD and Head of Sinn Féin's Trade Union Department Caoilfhionn Ní Dhonnabháin attended the conference. Free article

Segi, the Basque youth organisation was banned by the Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón in February 2002. Previously, Garzón had banned the two Basque youth organisations that preceded Segi - Jarrai and Haika. Forty two youth, members of the executive of the groups, were charged with membership of ETA, as Garzón considered that supporting the right to self-determination of the Basque people is not only illegal, but criminal. The case descended into a farce when another judge of the Audiencia National - the Spanish version of the Special Criminal Court, considered that Garzón's arguments were not valid and released all detainees, after handling them minimum sentences for membership of illegal organisations. However, 19 of the 23 released were again imprisoned last February, after the court changed the initial sentence. The new decision of the Audiencia National took place only weeks after ETA planted a bomb in the carpark of Madrid airport. The increasing repression suffered by the Basque pro-independence movement and the immediate imprisonment linked to membership of any of the banned organisations is the backdrop to the decision by two members of Segi who visited Ireland early this month deciding not to disclose their identities. During their Irish visit, An Phoblacht's SALLY GALLAGHER spoke to the Segi representatives. Free article

Eircom workers set to strike, Nurses win pay increase, Mandatory drug testing to become law and Trial begins in Colombian death squad case Free article

Sheol Seán Paul Ó Hare agus a fhoireann Clár Fhéile an Phobail 2007 inné. Is é Féile an Phobail ceann de na féilte pobail is mó san Eoraip agus i mbarúil s'agamsa an ceann is fearr! Free article

The Belfast Féile, at its official launch in Andersonstown Leisure Centre on Tuesday 10 July, received a ringing endorsement from former Armagh football captain Jarlath Burns. Free article