Yikes.
A one-minute horror film by Conor McMahon.
Thanks Laura
Category Archives: Misc
Journalist Martina Fitzgerald being interrupted on RTÉ News in April
Sarah Bardon, in the Irish Times, reports:
Television reporters are to be allowed broadcast from inside the precincts of Leinster House to prevent protesters getting on screen in the background or performing infantile pranks during live broadcasts.
The Oireachtas Committee on Procedure and Privileges (CPP) was told the health and safety situation for reporters and camera staff was “so acute that it is not feasible for them to cover [proceedings] from Molesworth Street or Merrion Square”.
The 13-member committee agreed to allow RTÉ use the portico position and the souvenir shop beside the gates of Leinster House.
… The decision was taken after RTÉ political correspondent Martina Fitzgerald was interrupted during live broadcasts. The same facility is likely to be given to TV3 and UTV.
Hmmm.
Fans of the insider-outsider theory might say…
FIGHT!
TV reporters to move inside Dáil gates to thwart protesters (Irish Times)
Previously: ‘The Idiots Behind You Are A Bit Of A Distraction’
Pic: Tommy English
Souda camp on Chios island, following a fire
Leslie Meral Schick is volunteering on the island of Chios in Greece.
On Tuesday, she wrote the following:
I’m really struggling to post about yesterday’s events and would much prefer not to, but they have to be told.
In the morning, I attended a coordination meeting of all agencies and NGOs involved on the island. The meeting was chaired by a UNHCR rep; the agenda was long.
Three huge issues – which should have been covered by multiple contingency plans a very long time ago – remained yet again unaddressed:
1. The unbelievable overcrowding in all three Chios camps and resulting inhumane living conditions in some; also plans for housing any new arrivals (which everyone believes is a matter of time; I personally think Erdoğan has his hand on the faucet and will deploy what he deems his most powerful threat against the EU whenever necessary).
2. Escape plans in case of emergencies such as a fire.
3. The fact that – as has been made clear for months now – the food situation is entirely unsustainable.
Currently meals for 1600 refugees are provided by volunteer-run and donation-funded kitchens; the funding is scheduled to run out on June 16.
The UNHCR has no plans in response to any of these three important issues. None.
Their representative pointed out that this is Europe, and that people will surely not be allowed to starve in Europe. Um.
The food has been entirely inadequate. It’s good — but insufficient. The living conditions in some areas, including much of Chios, are ungodly.
I was in Athens last week, struggling to find any housing with running water for a family with a hospitalised newborn and a one-year-old – and supplying people living in tiny tents with no running or drinking water, no electricity, no food, no services whatsoever, with food packages purchased through donations.
None of what is happening is permissible, or humane, or acceptable by any stretch of the imagination. So hearing that surely, surely Europe would not allow refugees to go without food, and waiting until the last moment for a magic wand or magic dust to be sprinkled, is not exactly satisfactory.
The UNHCR will not provide funding for food. There is no plan. Today is the 7th. The kitchens will run out of money in 9 days.
It was pointed out repeatedly that the situation is already dire, that nerves are already beyond frayed, and that serious issues were likely to ensue if food should not be provided.
I know that if any of us were living in these conditions and if our children were hungry and if we had no choices, we would be pushed to the brink too. There was unanimous agreement. Tongues were clucked. The meeting was adjourned.
About four hours later, a large fire was set in Souda Camp. Those responsible have not yet been identified, though they were obviously frustrated refugees at the end of their wits.
Several containers housing NGO offices and a large tent housing refugees were burned to the ground. Walking through the camp and talking to people later I found them not angry, but devastatingly sad.
I sat in someone’s tent as she told how they had escaped bombing in Syria only to find themselves in such horrible conditions – and now, this. She was crying.
A small contingent of local Golden Dawn members immediately took the opportunity to situate themselves at the entrance to the camp and to prevent already traumatized refugees from leaving the site; I heard that a few had been violent, and that some refugees were hit.
It’s just impossible to comprehend how this can be happening, broadcast for all to see.
There is huge need for support of all kinds. Rally your representatives, come and volunteer, donate funds to reliable volunteers and to small NGOs. Please help these desperate people in any way that you can.
Leslie is crowdfunding to support volunteers here
Previously: Order Out Of Chios
Illegal prescription drugs seized last year
RTÉ News reports:
Over 60,000 units of illegal prescription medicines have been seized as part of a week-long operation by the Health Products Regulatory Authority.
The seizures include 78 abortion pills illegally imported, in the form of Misoprostol and Mifepristone.
The counterfeit and other illegal medicines were worth around €350,000.
Among the other products seized were anabolic steroids, sedatives, painkillers, stimulants, illegal injectable tanning products, botulinum toxins and weight-loss products.
60,000 units of illegal prescription drugs seized (RTE)
Earlier: ‘The Ashes Were Unexpectedly Delivered To Her Three Weeks Later’
Previously: Dealer’s Choice
Pic: Ruairi Carroll
Just now.
Wolfe Tone Street, Dublin 1.
morpole twetz:
Luas driver tired of waiting for his pay rise?
Br£xit
at
By Con Kennedy.
Earlier: Dan Boyle on Brexit
Stillorgan dual carriageway during the recent VHI Women’s Mini Marathon
“Last Monday I was a participant in the “fast jogger” category of the women’s mini-marathon, running with my aunt, a victor over breast cancer, in Dublin on a hot summer’s day.
On three occasions I was exposed to what what I would consider sexism in the form of “motivational” slogans: “Run like you left the immersion on!”, “The N11 never looked so good!” and “Don’t worry, ladies, the hair still looks gorgeous!”
The first two slogans appeared in fabric stretched across the footbridge of the Stillorgan dual-carriageway.
The latter was shouted by a member of the Order of Malta. To my astonishment, most women around me did not find fault with any of these slogans.
In fact, they cheered on the troglodyte and seemed genuinely validated by his creepy flattery.
Are the old concepts of our worth as women so embedded into the female Irish psyche that comments such as these automatically elicit a positive response of appreciation or, at the very least, an embarrassed smile?”
Christina Cleary, in this morning’s Irish Times
FIGHT!
‘Run like you left the immersion on!’ – Everyday sexism and the mini marathon (Irish Times)
Meanwhile…
Were St Joseph’s Centre for dementia care being sexist when they made the same immersion joke for their campaign? pic.twitter.com/axeFJMpzcW
— Joe Leogue (@JoeLeogue) June 9, 2016
Thanks Rotide
Pics via CJNíChléirigh and Lindie Naughton
UN logo; Amanda Mellet and her husband James Burke
The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner writes:
A woman in Ireland [Amanda Mellet] who was forced to choose between carrying her foetus to term, knowing it would not survive, or seeking an abortion abroad was subjected to discrimination and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment as a result of Ireland’s legal prohibition of abortion, UN experts have found.
The independent experts, from the Geneva-based Human Rights Committee, issued their findings after considering a complaint by the woman, AM, who was told in November 2011 when she was in the 21st week of pregnancy that her foetus had congenital defects, which meant it would die in the womb or shortly after birth.
This meant she had to choose “between continuing her non-viable pregnancy or travelling to another country while carrying a dying foetus, at personal expense and separated from the support of her family, and to return while not fully recovered,” the Committee said.
AM decided to travel to the UK for a termination and returned 12 hours after the procedure as she could not afford to stay longer. The UK hospital did not provide any options regarding the foetus’s remains and she had to leave them behind. The ashes were unexpectedly delivered to her three weeks later by courier.
In Ireland, she was denied the bereavement counselling and medical care available to women who miscarry. Such differential treatment, the Committee noted, failed to take into account her medical needs and socio-economic circumstances and constituted discrimination.
“Many of the negative experiences she went through could have been avoided if (she) had not been prohibited from terminating her pregnancy in the familiar environment of her own country and under the care of health professionals whom she knew and trusted,” the Committee wrote in its findings.
The Committee said that, in addition to the shame and stigma associated with the criminalization of abortion of a fatally ill foetus, AM’s suffering was aggravated by the obstacles she faced in getting information about the appropriate medical options.
Ireland’s Abortion Information Act allows healthcare providers to give patients information about abortion, including the circumstances under which abortion services can be available in Ireland or overseas.
But under the law they are prohibited from, and could be sanctioned for, behaviour that could be interpreted as advocating or promoting the termination of pregnancy. This, according to the Committee, has a chilling effect on health-care providers, who struggle to distinguish “supporting” a woman who has decided to terminate a pregnancy from “advocating” or “promoting” abortion.
Ireland, which is a State party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), is obliged to provide AM with an effective remedy, including adequate compensation and psychological treatment she may need, the Committee said. Ireland is also obliged to prevent similar violations from occurring.
“To this end, the State party should amend its law on voluntary termination of pregnancy, including if necessary its Constitution, to ensure compliance with the Covenant, including effective, timely and accessible procedures for pregnancy termination in Ireland, and take measures to ensure that health-care providers are in a position to supply full information on safe abortion services without fearing being subjected to criminal sanctions,” the Committee’s findings said.
In its observations to the Committee on AM’s claims, Ireland said that the country’s constitutional and legislative framework reflected “the nuanced and proportionate approach to the considered views of the Irish Electorate on the profound moral question of the extent to which the right to life of the foetus should be protected and balanced against the rights of the woman.”
The Human Rights Committee considered this case under the First Optional Protocol to the ICCPR Covenant which gives the Committee competence to examine individual complaints.
Read the UN’s findings in full here
Related: Ireland abortion laws breach human rights, rules UN (The Times Ireland edition)
Previously: Another Victory For ‘Balance’
‘It’s A Sensitive Issue That Must Be Teased Out Very Carefully’
I’m baffled, outraged and perplexed
To read that young Irish folk sext
When I was a lad
We did nothing bad
Whatever will they think of next?
John Moynes