UCCSU Election Candidates

Well their official since nominations closed at 5. And the candidates are:


President:
Kris McElhinney - NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Dan Ahern
RON

Education:
Diarmuid Angland
RON

Comms:
Sam Whelan-Curtin
RON

Welfare:
Stephen Spillane: Yay!!! thats me!
Aidan Healy
Liz Burke
Tesse Cornally
RON

Projects:
Rebecca Murphy
RON

Ents:
One candidate
Ron

Irish:
No candidates

Morning Briefing, 26th January

Dia Duit ar an maidin fuar!

An nuacht ar an lá seo.

A conference is taking place in Spain on the EU Constitution (BBC). Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain are sending ministers and Germany, Ireland and Portugal are sending observers. Im not sure what outcome it will have as only 17 member states are attending.

The UN will announce its plan for Kosovo today (BBC). Hopefully it will safe gaurd

In a historic step the Prime Minister of Vietnam has met with the Pope (CNN)

Kofi Annan has returned home to Ghana (CNN) after his ten year stint as head of the United Nations. He is thinking of entering agriculture

No more .um sites (CNN)awww, but there are talks of getting rid of .su sites also.

The US has unveiled an non-lethal ray gun!(CNN) i thinks its a cool idea. It makes u think ur going to catch fire, wo wont run from that!

And finally in UCC RAG week is over and nominations for the Student Union Elections open next wednesday. I am intending to seek a nomination to run for Welfare officer in the SU. check out my website its still under construction so check back. But i do have a Bebo, MySpace and Facebook profiles

Pre-Nup Study group announced!

Via PDs website

The Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr Michael McDowell, T.D., today announced the membership of the Pre-nuptial Study Group he has established to study the operation of the law with respect to Pre-nuptial
Agreements.
The Group will be chaired by Ms Inge Clissmann. Ms Clissman is an expert in family law and has represented clients in some of the leading cases in this field. Her particular specialist areas include matrimonial litigation, child advocacy, and related private international law issues. The group will report in March 2007.
The other members of the Group are:

·Ross Aylward, LL.B
·Marie Baker, Senior Counsel
·Margaret Bannon, Advisory Counsel, Office of the Attorney General
·Stephanie Coggans, Managing Solicitor, Law Centre, Legal Aid Board,
Monaghan
·Louise Crowley, Solicitor and Lecturer, Faculty of Law, UCC
·John Kenny, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform



The terms of reference of the Study Group are - “to study and report on the
operation of the law since the introduction of divorce in 1996 with respect to
pre-nuptial agreements taking into account constitutional requirements.”

The Tánaiste has asked the Group to report to him, and to make recommendations
for change in the law as it considers necessary, by 31 March 2007. It is the
Tánaiste's intention to publish the report and any recommendations made.

Making the announcement the Tánaiste said, “The issue of pre-nuptial agreements,
as so circumscribed by the Constitution, is not straightforward and will require
close examination by the Group. I look forward to having the Group's Report
which I expect will help to fully inform the public and the Government on what
action can and should be taken”.

Well i dont know much about the members of the group bar 'Louise Crowley, Solicitor and Lecturer, Faculty of Law, UCC'. She lectured me in Public Law in 1st year and is due to lecture me again after xmas! I cant wait to talk to her about this!
Via FG website

Browne welcomes announcement of Pre-nup Study Group

Fine Gael Carlow/Kilkenny General Election Candidate, Senator Fergal Browne, has welcomed the announcement of the membership and terms of reference of a study group to examine the area of pre-nuptial agreements.

'I am pleased to welcome the Justice Minister's timely response to my call for an examination of the legal status of pre-nups. I stressed the importance of clarifying this legal 'grey area' when I put forward a motion on the subject before Seanad Éireann in October. The appointment of the study group is a welcome development especially as there are more and more people marrying later in life and more people re-marrying. It is important that the current legal status of pre-nuptials is clarified and that the effects of their possible introduction are studied.

'I welcome the appointment of Senior Counsel, Ms Inge Clissman, as the chair of the study group and I look forward to its report which is due for submission to the Tánaiste by the end of March 2007.

'I would encourage all people who have an interest in the area to make submissions to the study group and I look forward with interest to the publication of the group's recommendations.'

UCC YFG - Youtube!

Found this over on Semper Idem



Brilliant work from the lads, and i feature in it a few times!!

Morning Breifing, December 12th

Morning all,

Decided to to this every morning im awake for with a bit of a round up of International News and News from the Bloggersphere, after yesterdays 'Interesting Stuff post'

RTÉ.ie and BreakingNews.ie have reports from the American Geophysical Union that the Artic will be ice free by 2040.

A lot of news agencies are reporting on Ehud Olmert blab on Israeli Nuclear Weapons which I covered last night

A follow on from yesterday's post on France 24, it is availible on Sky Digital on Channel 515

The Examiner is reporting on how Pat Rabitte is flip-flopping again, saying that he "vows to remove FF and PDs from power"

UCC will name its new President today also with four people in the running according to the Examiner

Accoding the CNN that the Vatican have confirmed that the sarcophagus found under St. Paul's Outside the Walls Basilica, is indeed the remains of the apostle St. Paul.

On a sad note, Post Offices across the country will close between 12-1 today, the An Post Website says

The An Post Board, Management, Staff and Postmasters extend their deepest sympathy to the family of the late Postmaster Alan Cunniffe following his tragic death on Friday last, 8th December 2006.

May he rest in peace.

As a mark of respect, all Post Offices will close on Tuesday December 12th from 12 – 1.00pm

Thats all for now have a good day.

ATTN: UCC Graduates! Vote Richard Hammond for Governing Board

Richard is hard working and has huge experience in Poltics.

For more information contact spiller2@gmail.com for his leaflet.


At a recent UCC YFG meeting Richard was endorsed by unanimous vote.

UCC Socs Event Wall!!

UCC Societies Guild have a launch an events wall at http://www.ucc.ie/en/SIN/eventswall/

Tis a fantistic way to cut down on the emails on the allstudents list. Hopefully the Clubs Exec will start the something similar.

USMUN

Hey!

Interested in attending a MUN conference in Brigton during the Xmas holidays? link

for more info pm me! and we shall lobby the committee!!!

View here for more info

International Conferences in Harvard and New York! Interested?

All,

The International Relations Society is offering both undergraduate and
postgraduate students from all disciplines the opportunity to attend
International Model UN Conferences at Harvard University and in the United
Nations Headquarters, New York City in February and March 2007.

We will be sending approximately 20 delegates to these conferences.
Interested students are required to prepare a one page position paper from
the viewpoint of the Brazilian Government on the following:

'The promotion of Health Education in relation to Women and HIV/AIDS in
Developing Countries'

A 'how to' guide for writing position papers is available to download at
http://www.irsoc.com/ppguide.pdf and should definitely be consulted before
the deadline.

Position Papers MUST be submitted to positionpapers@irsoc.com by 8pm on
November 20th, 2006.

A selection panel will review the submitted position papers and will choose
students to go forward for interview.

If you are interested in attending either conference or want more
information contact auditor@irsoc.com, secretary@irsoc.com, visit
http://forum.irsoc.com/ or come along to a weekly IRSoc Meeting!


Regards,
David Murphy

Auditor

International Relations Society

UCC International Relations Society Celebrates UN Day

On Tuesday 24th of October University College Cork's International Relations Society (IRSOC) had an information stand in Arás Na Mac Leinn to coincide with UN day. Members of the society throughout the day operated the stand and they had many materials with information on the UN.

Society Auditor, David Murphy said, "The IRSoc has been very successful at international conferences in New York, Harvard and in Canada. Building on this success, the society has become more active on campus this year, as shown by our well received student centre information stand for UN Day . "

UN Day has been celebrated worldwide since 1973 after the General Assembly passed a resolution calling on states to observe the 24th of October as UN Day as it is the anniversary of the coming into force of the United Nations Charter, which came into to force on the 24th of October 1945.

Give Blood because we cant

On the 6th of December, the Irish Blood Transfusion Service will come to UCC for its annual blood drive. At this time, LGBT students and the Students Union, using recently outed and former poster boy of the IBTS, Westlife member Mark Feehily as their own poster boy, will begin an awareness campaign to draw attention to their outdated and discriminatory policy of refusing blood from gay men. The campaign is a peaceful one and does not want to interfere with the very important business of the IBTS. In fact, it is precisely because of the importance of blood donation that the campaign hopes to change IBTS policy.

The lifetime ban on donation from gay men stems from an emergency policy at the height of the AIDS panic around 1985 when the FDA in America imposed a blanket ban on gay men giving blood. At the time, procedures for screening HIV looked for antibodies for the virus, which could take weeks of months to develop. Policymakers had worried
that during this window, HIV-tainted blood could go through the screening process undetected. Today, there are superior testing procedures so that the window from infection to detection has been cut to 10 days. This means that if blood is donated 10 days after a possibility of infection, there is no reason to refuse the blood. According to the IBTS, they "test every donation received for a number of diseases", including Hep B, HIV and Hep C. Based on this, there is
no reason for a blanket ban on 'men who have ever had sex with men'.

The IBTS tries to excuse their discriminatory policy by pointing out that because a HIV emergency originated from the gay community in the 80's, it is possible that a new, unforeseen disease may emerge in the future by the same route. This argument is clearly flawed: a new disease may emerge from any source, whether or not it has in the past. It is this attitude which is homophobic. The IBTS excludes someone based on their sexuality and because eventually they may be prone to some new, unknown virus. This is highly controversial and not a justifiable discrimination.

"Monogamous gay couples in long-term stable relationships, who are tested regularly and have a history of safe sex are barred from donating blood forever, by stark contrast, and revealing the contradictory values of the IBTS, the same policy allows a single heterosexual to have many partners and who doesn't practice safe sex to donate blood" This awareness campaign is asking the IBTS to re-examine their policy and allow healthy and safe people to donate.


The fact is there is no appropriate reason to refuse the blood of gay men on such blanket terms. LGBT Auditor Diarmuid Angland says "Double standards are at play and the reasons the IBTS gives for this are not in touch with modern day studies". And considering the current blood supply crisis, there can be no justification for needlessly turning away blood like this. The Swedish Prime Minister is now the first world leader to call for a review of the blood ban and we applaud this progressive call to keep in step with the times. Let us not forget that any man need only have had sex with another man once in his whole life for this ban to be effective. So what we are calling for in our campaign is a review of IBTS policy. A cautious measure we would like to suggest is to impose a ban on anyone giving blood a year after engaging in risky behavior. UCC LGBT have produced a document in relation to this matter which is entitled "Give Blood because we Cant", which is also the name of the campaign, if you would like to learn more about this matter they can be contacted on ucclgbt@gmail.com

Gay blood is safe blood and gay people are healthy people. This must be recognized. Lives are in the balance.

YFG new advertising campaign

This is the new advertising campaign for Young Fine Gael.
The aim, to increase membership to 4000 members
With most colleges having their societies day soon the membership drive is well under way!!

ATTENTION UCC STUDENTS!
UCC YFG will have a stand at Socs Day on Wednesday 28th from 9 to 5 in the Multi Functional (Devere Hall) in the Student Centre!!
Come up and join us!
The craic is 90!!!!