I've never been able to tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. Maybe my tastebuds aren't sophisticated enough to appreciate the subtle variance in these sugar and carbonation confections. I do like the marketing though. Coca Cola...

Studs Terkel , the great American journalist, broadcaster and more is dead . He died on Friday, aged 96, after a career spanning most of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. He was best known for his oral histories...

Belfast is not a city unaccustomed to parades. From the orange of the Twelfth to the green of St Patrick’s Day to the pink of Pride, we delight in and despise them in all their hues. Yet this Sunday, Belfast’s streets will experience...

9:37 Andi Osho takes the stage. She’s from Newham – a dangerous place to have the Olympics. She tells us about living there. The word ‘chav’ features heavily in her comedic discourse as does a bit of MCing. Not the John Bishop sort of...

8:48 Mike Wozniak takes the stage. He’s from Portsmouth, a town full of sailors. He has floppy hair and a moustache. He’s very popular in Portsmouth apparently. He tell us he’s never been to Ireland before, but his surreal, slightly...

Stand Up For Justice returns to the Belfast Festival at Queen's for the sixth year running. Our regular Festival blogger, Mairead , has cried off, so I'm filling in for one night only. This should be live blogging but the Whitla Hall...

Human rights can be a serious business. Dealing with torture, wrongful imprisonment, war, extreme poverty and the rest mean that we at Amnesty are pretty serious people much of the time. That's as it should be. But we also love nothing...

Brilliant Belfast writer Glenn Patterson (long-time host of the irregular literary fundraisers organised by the Belfast AI Group) will be taking part in the Amnesty International event 'Human Rights, Poetic Redress ' at the Belfast...

Some detailed leaks in the News Letter this morning about the supposed likely recommendations of the Eames-Bradley Consultative Group on the Past in Northern Ireland. As I have blogged before , their report isn't now due for...

Hunger , the film about the 1981 Irish republican hunger strike in Northern Ireland's Maze prison, has just had its official European premiere in Belfast, to a predictably controversial reception . Playwright Gary Mitchell ( about whom...

Mary Robinson delivers the tenth Amnesty International Annual Lecture in Belfast at the start of the Belfast Festival at Queen's. Short filmed report courtesy of Irish News TV (click to view).

Award-winning Limerick-born writer Kevin Barry will be taking part in the Amnesty International event 'Human Rights, Poetic Redress ' at the Belfast Festival at Queen's next Thursday (23rd October) at 6:30pm in The Baby Grand. He will...

I have now had a chance to consult Hansard for yesterday's Lords' vote on the '42 days' counter-terrorism proposals and am happy to report that our noble peers from Northern Ireland voted an overwhelming 8 – 2 against the government...

Disgraceful speech from the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith this evening, as she dropped proposals for 42 days detention without charge, yet announced a new piece of counter-terrorism legislation to contain similar proposals in response to...

Well done to the 309 peers who stood up and were counted this evening in defence of UK civil liberties by soundly defeating the government 's plans to extend the limit on pre-charge detention of terror suspects to 42 days. Amnesty was...

The United Nations General Assembly had designated the year 1968 as the International Year of Human Rights . To many on the streets of Derry/Londonderry in 1968, the designation seemed ironic. Derry Housing Action Committee took care...

I've spent the last few hours reading about torture and genocide and it's time to elevate the mind to finer things before bed. It's National Poetry Day , so I have chosen my favourite human rights poem and reproduced it below for our...

US Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama has backed calls for a Northern Ireland truth process and for an independent public inquiry into the murder of lawyer Pat Finucane , according to lobby group the Irish-American Unity...

Good to see that our colleagues south of the border have launched a letter-writing campaign targeting Barack Obama and John McCain – one of whom will be the new US President in January 2009 – on the issue of extraordinary rendition...

The number of rapes being reported in Northern Ireland has increased by 50% in the past six years, according to official figures. More than 450 rapes or attempted rapes were reported last year – more than one every day. Only 3% of...