I4C Trouble with Daly and Wallace

Mick and Clare are back in the parliament for the last episode before the Christmas break. They discuss their recent trip to Lithuania where they visited journalist Algirdas Paleckis in prison, Julian Assange’s nomination for the Sakharov prize, the US Inflation Reduction Act, the Qatargate corruption discovery in the parliament and the end of Michael Martin’s time as Taoiseach

** NOTE ** this is part two of Mick and Clare’s interview with Katie Halper, if you haven’t already listened to part I, we recommend you go back to last week’s episode before listening to this one.

This week we're sharing part one of our appearance on The Katie Halper Show. We talk about the EU-US in the context of the war, among other things. Part two to follow!

This week we’ve got something different for you. Clare and Mick recently appeared on Sina Rahmani’s the East is a Podcast to talk about the EU in the context of the war, the energy crisis, and what this all means for the future of the EU. Today we're sharing that episode. Follow the East is a podcast on Twitter @east_podcast

This week Mick, Clare and Damien are in Strasbourg and the Parliament is making a lot of noise. They discuss the vote to designate Russia a state sponsor of Terrorism, the imprisonment of activists in Egypt and EU arms flows into the country, the EU’s cosying up to Qatar despite its horrific human rights record, and finally a vote on decoupling the EU economy from China.

Clare kicks things off this week with a rundown of recent events in the parliament, most notably, the recent visit by Guatemalan peasant and indigenous movement CODECA. Then Mick joins her, straight from the COP climate conference in Egypt. He fills us in on what he saw there, the geopolitical machinations driving the talks, and the question of loss and damage - whether the Global North is prepared to pay for climate damage it has caused in countries of the Global South.

This week on the podcast Mick and Clare are joined by Dr. Helen Yaffe, coproducer of the documentary "Cuba's Life Task: Combatting Climate Change." They discuss Cuba's climate change adaptation and mitigation plan "tarea vida" and how Cuba is dealing with climate change despite the US sanctions regime and blockade. Find out more about the campaign to defeat the extraterritorial effects of the US blockade at 1C4Cuba.eu

Mick and Clare are just back from a trip to Pakistan. The country is still grappling with the effects of the devastating floods that happened during the summer. Our I4C MEPs met with various government ministers, political groups and industry representatives to hear about how they were dealing with the floods and Pakistan’s place on the world stage.

This week, Clare and Mick are joined by Damien again. They discuss increasing calls for peace coming from the political mainstream, EU double standards around migrants and asylum seekers, unrest in Haiti, debt trap disaster capitalism in action in Tunisia, the proposal for a windfall tax on excess profits of energy companies and finally the question of tracing arms being sent to Ukraine.

This week we’re in Strasbourg and the parliament has been debating the war in Ukraine from every angle imaginable - from the idea of state-sponsored terrorism, to the impact of the war on culture, on research, and migration. We also chat about the Sakharov price, changes in European states’ laws on sex work, the climate impact of the military sector and Josep Borrell’s disgusting comments comparing Europe to a garden and the rest of the world to a jungle.