Stormont was back to business last weekend as they laid down the red carpet for a top member of the Communist Party’s politburo Liu Yandong as part of the ongoing normalisation drive to showcase investment and job opportunities in in the North. Before it was pandering to US capital but with a stagnating economy our local ruling class are increasingly keen to build relations with the next emerging global power, China, which is increasingly flexing its muscles in the US sphere of influence.

Today’s protest rally in Derry against the vigilante group Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD) went ahead despite calls for it to be cancelled. Hundreds of people filled Guildhall Square to voice their rage against the recent shooting of two teenage cousins earlier in the week.

Relatives of those recently targeted, attacked and murdered by RAAD also attended the city centre rally calling for an end to the attacks.

Up to 20 people took part in the name and shame tour on Saturday of some of the biggest names on our high street including McDonalds, Primark and Top shop organised by Youth Fight for Jobs.  Protestors, including members of the WSM and the Socialist Party, visited these high street stores during the busy shopping day giving speeches and handing out leaflets to members of the public, to the chants of ’No Pay no Way’.

The end of the 1960’s in northern Ireland were a unique time when, as elsewhere around the world, mass popular protest emerged onto the streets with ordinary people doing extraordinary things. The unique circumstances of northern Ireland and the particular form the state backlash took there resulted in a military conflict that lasted some 30 years and dominated politics on the entire island and to a much lesser extent in Britain. Although tens if not hundreds of thousands of people made this history it can also be told as the history of some of the prominent individuals involved, including the Irish republican socialist activist Bernadette Devlin McAliskey.

Several hundred people from both sides of the community gathered today despite arctic conditions outside Annie’s Bar, in Derry’s Waterside.  They came together united in their outrage at last weeks brutal murder of local man Andrew Allen.

Primark workers in eight stores across Northern Ireland are set to strike over pay and conditions, setting a precendent for private sector workers. Despite a pay freeze the company has made a staggering 644 million in profit in the last two years.  The Union of Shop and Distributive Allied workers (USDAW) represent around 85 percent of the Primark workforce in Northern Ireland and that fact that 93% of its members voted for strike action sends a clear message to management that enough is enough.

A few thousand people took part in the 40^th anniversary Bloody Sunday march demanding real truth and justice after the publishing of the Saville report this year which confirmed that the massacre was ’unjustifiable and unjustified.’

This years march clearly divided the families and relatives of the Bloody Sunday Trust with the majority deciding to end the march with some pressure being concerted by Sinn Fein. Despite attempts by the political class to co-opt and de-radicalise the march and brush it under the carpet as part of the new shiny image of Northern Ireland there was a better than expected turnout, the Irish Times estimated 3,000 took part. Derry anarchists and the WSM were present along with a host of political and social organisations including the Independent Workers Union.

Recent figures uncovered by the Irish News show that almost 41 million of taxpayers’ money was handed over to our local NI politicians in salaries and allowances - including childcare -while the assembly was suspended between April 2003 and May 2007. Yet, only a few weeks ago we listened to the SDLP leader pleading ‘poverty’ and warning of ‘millionaire clubs’ only forgetting to mention that he was born with a silver spoon and remains so. As well as his wage as an MLA and MP (excluding expenses topping at least 150,000 a year) he has a large list of privilege and perks including his part time wage as a GP and rental from several properties including his farm.

Up to 200,000 public sector workers took part in the largest one-day industrial action in Northern Ireland in decades along with millions across the UK, demonstrating that when we withdraw our labour and stand together in defence of our rights we have real strength. Belfast was a sea of red and colourful rainbow coalition trade union flags for a change, as up to 15,000 workers rallied outside the city hall against the cuts and attacks on pensions. From the early morning, picket lines  involving public sector workers from transport workers to teachers dotted the city’s landscape in a show of unity.

SDLP leader Dr Alasdair McDonnell has claimed that Stormont assembly members should be entitled to a ‘small increment’ on their 43,000 basic salary a year and better pension payments to keep them from ‘poverty’ in retirement. Yet again one rule for them and another for the rest of us as these gangsters on the hill expect us to bear the brunt of their vicious cuts in jobs and services being imposed by all our local political parties at the behest of their masters from Westminster.