Director and Animator. Co Founder of Matchbox Mountain @mtchbxmntn https://nitter.gq/t.co/W6Nup6e8Ai
Athlone, Ireland
Joined December 2012
- Tweets533
- Following867
- Followers228
- Likes6.4K
Padraig Fagan retweeted
So much for its “Vision” of "A country where all animals are treated with respect and kindness, protected from harm, and allowed to live in an environment where they can thrive”.
Padraig Fagan retweeted
An alliance of leftwing European political parties co-founded by former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has lost access to its bank account.
The Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25) said on Tuesday that its account was “closed suddenly and without warning” on 8 October, and the group has lost access to tens of thousands of euros.
The organisation has not named the bank, citing legal reasons, but spokesperson Erik Edman said the account was held in Belgium.
“We asked the bank for an explanation and requested an extension,” he told Novara Media. “It declined to explain its decision and refused the extension.”
He said DiEM25 was unable to confirm “whether its decision was politically motivated”.
However, he added, “through conversations with other organisations in Belgium, we have heard accounts suggesting a worrying pattern in which progressive political organisations appear to have been disproportionately affected by debanking.”
The bank account was where DiEM25 supporters had been sending small monthly donations. Edman said it has two staff members and an office in Belgium and is at risk of being unable to pay salaries, social security contributions and rent there.
The group has started an emergency fundraiser to cover its immediate costs and says it is looking for a new bank in Belgium.
“Why did they do it?” Varoufakis, who is also DiEM25’s secretary general, said in a video statement. “You may say [it’s because] we are insufficiently supportive of the oligarchy, of genocide… but of course we couldn’t possibly comment.”
Varoufakis served as an MP for DiEM25’s Greek offshoot, Mera25, between 2019 and 2023. He founded DiEM25 with Croatian philosopher and political activist Srećko Horvat in 2016. The 192,000-member organisation also has parties in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.
In February, Varoufakis was indicted in Greece after saying on a podcast that he had taken ecstasy over 36 years ago in Australia. Mera25 described the prosecution as politically motivated, saying Greece's judiciary was going after “whoever refuses to bend the knee”.
Padraig Fagan retweeted
🔴 URGENT: Our bank has cut us off from our own money.
Our bills haven’t stopped. Neither can our work. Help us build an emergency fund to keep DiEM25 going. Even €10 makes a difference.
Donate now: i.diem25.org/donations/to/de…
Padraig Fagan retweeted
‘A Caucasian leopard injured by a land mine along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border has made a journey of nearly 200 miles (about 320 km) into Georgia, The New York Times reported.’
WTF land mines are really one of the most grotesque human inventions
Leopard maimed by a land mine treks from Armenia to Georgia
A Caucasian leopard injured by a land mine along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border has made a journey of nearly 200 miles (about 320 km) into Georgia, The New York Times reported.
The adult male, named Aren after the village where he was often seen, lost part of his left front leg to the mine. For years, he roamed the high mountain ridges and deep gorges of sparsely populated southern Armenia, walking with a slight limp.
According to researchers cited by the Times, Armenia's Caucasian leopard population has slowly grown. That pushed Aren to search for new territory, free of other males, where he could find a mate.
Last year, he traveled north into Georgia. A trail camera there captured the three-legged leopard, confirming the cross-border trek.
For conservationists in Armenia, Aren's journey is a small sign of progress in protecting the endangered Caucasian leopard. The Times described the trek as a signal that conservation efforts for the species may be working.
The Caucasian leopard remains one of the region's rarest animals. The Times reporter, who hiked for six hours near Areni in search of one, did not see a leopard.
#Armenia #CaucasianLeopard #Leopard #Wildlife #Conservation #Georgia #SouthCaucasus #CivilNet
Padraig Fagan retweeted
It's wonderful to finally have some answers to the question - where do you want to send Irish troops that you can't because of the Triple Lock?
A made in Israel "EU military mission" engaged in civil conflict against Hezbollah.
Irish troops should be deployed to Lebanon as part of a new EU mission and be involved in both peacekeeping and peace enforcement duties, minister says rte.ie/b/1596797
Padraig Fagan retweeted
No. Ireland should NOT deploy troops as part of a trilateral agreement between Israel, the US, and the Lebanese government. Leaving the Shia communities without land or peace.
Irish troops should be deployed to Lebanon as part of a new EU mission and be involved in both peacekeeping and peace enforcement duties, according to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence Helen McEntee.
rte.ie/news/2026/1025/159679…
Padraig Fagan retweeted
NATO is part of an infrastructure of transnational political and military control that gives Washington tremendous power over domestic politics.
Some of that is overt. For example, when Joe Biden outlined the conditions for Poland’s accession to NATO in 1997, he called on us to deepen the neoliberal reforms that had already sold much of our industry off to Western capital. “Businesses like banks, the energy sector, the state airline, the state copper producer, and the telecommunications monopoly will have to be privatized,” he said.
Some of it is a structural consequence of the dependence that NATO membership creates. Questions of war and peace are removed from the purview of democratic decision making and shifted to a transnational structure that, as successive NATO leaders have admitted, is answerable primarily to Washington. NATO members are required to buy “compatible” weapons systems, which means that NATO accession requires funnelling a significant part of the national budget towards the US military-industrial complex. NATO funds think tanks and academic institutions to shift consensus on issues central to its interests. All of this has seismic downstream effects on the entire political system.
Notice how readily the new cohort of Finland’s leaders has given up the country’s neutrality, for example by threatening to veto the EU-China trade agreement. This is one of many examples of how NATO transforms the political system of a country in ways that constrain the capacity for sovereign action by the bloc as a whole. Europe does not benefit from worsening relations with China, but the US does.
NATO is ultimately the armed wing of global capitalism, and its center of gravity is in the US. I am not suggesting that giving up Finland’s forests was a condition of joining NATO, but that surrendering a part of your sovereignty to NATO carries consequences.
Padraig Fagan retweeted
AI - the next wave of American imperialism.
Google felled an estimated 250,000 to 400,000 trees in Finland for planned AI data centers, through its Finnish subsidiary Tuike Finland.
Padraig Fagan retweeted
Outrageously the government proposes to guillotine the debate on scrapping the Triple Lock on Wednesday.
They refuse to put it to the people. Now they won't even allow a full debate in the Dáil.
Padraig Fagan retweeted
The Irish have an extra section at the front of their brain for antisemitism which is why their brows are so low.
Padraig Fagan retweeted
It's more important than ever to ridicule Israeli fear tactics against Ireland.
To ignore the people who claim conflation of Israel & Judaism is antisemitic...then in the same breath say criticism of Israel is fuelling antisemitism.
Be proud to say FUCK ISRAEL every time.
Padraig Fagan retweeted
Journalist Hind Khoudary has sent the Gaza Municipality appeal (fundraising link) to several celebrities with millions of followers.
They ignored her. This is what Gaza actually means to many "celebrities": a hunt for fame and money.
I am calling on you, alongside her, to share this appeal: gaza-city.org/campaign/6
اسمعوا، بعتت لناس عندهم ملايين المتابعين يشاركوا حملة بلدية غزة «ما قبل الشتاء»، حملة تمويل عشان البلدية تقدر تفتح المجاري وتسلّكها، ونحاول نمنع ميّة المطر من إنها تغرق خيام الناس.. طنشوني 😬
يمكن عشان الحملة تطوعية، وما في مصاري مقابل نشر ستوري، مع إنه كل دولار فيها حق للناس اللي بدنا نحميهم من الغرق والشتا.
بتعرفوا حد ممكن يساعد في النشر بدون مقابل؟
رابط الحملة:
gaza-city.org/campaign/6
Padraig Fagan retweeted
Sally Rooney has more courage and spine than any world leader out there. This is what the artist does: shows you the world you live in.
Padraig Fagan retweeted
We had the cheapest electricity to Europe, now we have the most expensive.
ESB needs to be brought back into a not-for-profit mandate to tackle the cost of living and climate crises.
We need to stop private companies profiteering off of people's misery.
#CostOfLivingCrisis
Padraig Fagan retweeted
A genuine legal question.
Irelands position (correctly) is that Israel is committing genocide.
Should these 75 Irish citizens not be immediately detained on suspicion of war crimes?
Padraig Fagan retweeted
People are on the move from all over the country to our National March for Palestine. Join us to show our Palestinian sisters and brothers that we are with them. 1pm, Garden of Remembrance. #FreePalestine
Padraig Fagan retweeted
Protests all over Europe, not just in France. But it seems this is no longer "socialism or barbarism." It's either "revolution right now," or everyone who's discontented gets shipped off to war in the East.
Why fix the ceilings in schools or raise teachers' salaries? "No people, no problem"...
And yet the left's offer is the same as always: vote the left into government and we'll fix everything.
But elections are far too easy to manipulate. "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."
Governments are built in such a way that "fixing everything" simply isn't possible. Only the Bolshevik revolution managed to cancel Russia's debts to the West and get it out of the war.
Maybe it's time to offer something else?
France Erupts In Protest: Over 300,000 Take To Streets Across Country youtu.be/9hD_dAWzJNQ?si=sw7W… via @YouTube
Padraig Fagan retweeted
One thing Free Staters like O'Malley, Ian O'Doherty etc have in common is they can't imagine someone whose identity isn't first and foremost being an individual neoliberal consumer. An Orange march down Eoin's road would only bother him if it reduced the market value of his house
