Three members of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in a prison colony by a Moscow court today, Friday.

They were found guilty of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” for performing a protest song against Russia’s president Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s main cathedral earlier this year.

The trial of the three musicians— Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich—has drawn widespread condemnation both in Russia and internationally.

The Irish Independent ran yet another of its repetitive stories on Mick Wallace – but it illustrated it with a picture of Richard Boyd Barrett speaking with a megaphone.

In the days preceding, it ran stories about how Joe Higgins TD had claimed €900 in travel expenses to speak at anti-household charges meetings around the country. It never mentioned that Junior Minister, Brian Hayes, had made similar claims for travelling outside his constituency.

The myth of competitiveness provide a powerful narrative for a
national elite desperate to ensure that while they caused the current economic
crisis, they won’t be the one’s paying for it, writes Brian O'Boyle