Antony Loewenstein

“Whoever is behind the assassinations, Iraq is quickly losing its educated people. More and more doctors and professors are moving to leave the country.

“The problem with this situation is not just major brain drain – it’s the fact that this diminishing educated class is also Iraq’s secular class.”

- Forbes magazine features yet more disturbing allegations about US activities in Europe:

“The US military ran a Guantanamo Bay-type detention centre in Kosovo, a top Council of Europe official said.

“The Council of Europe’s Human rights commissioner Alvaro Gil-Robles said he had been ‘shocked’ by conditions at the barbed wire-rimmed centre inside a US military base, which he witnessed in 2002.”

- John Pilger explains how the mainstream media has become little more than a mouthpiece for the corporate agenda.

- Palestinian public opinion is shifting and years of occupation are causing unsurprising results. Israel and her allies should be concerned.

- Labor leader Kim Beazley thinks that personal abuse maketh a leader.

- Afghanistan is a supposed success in the “war on terror.” Mainstream media propaganda pushes this misconception. So what of this news, published in Asia Times Online?

“Reports emerged in the Pakistani media at the weekend that the US had contacted the Taliban leadership with the aim of establishing a truce in Afghanistan.”

- How does a Chinese blogger answer questions from a Western journalist about issues of censorship?

“And what of Sharon’s political makeover? Has he really accepted that Israel’s best chance for future security lies in the creation of a viable Palestinian state? He won international praise for his mid-2005 withdrawal of Israeli settlers from Gaza. Not surprisingly, this move was portrayed as a painful concession by Israel to the Palestinians.

“In reality the winner was Israel itself, which continues to exercise a veto over everyday Gazan life without having to risk too many Israeli lives.”

The Palestinians have their own problems, too. Internal division, Hamas as a political force and the ongoing occupation.

“I didn’t go looking for this work”, he says. “I don’t choose my clients, but I believe every person is entitled to proper legal defence. It is an honour that people think I could provide that quality defence when the consequences of the cases for them are so enormous.”

Houda provides interesting insights into the ways in which the Howard government and the corporate media constantly shift the goalposts, making fair trials all but impossible.

When such conditions are threatened, our democracy dies a little death.

“Human rights abuses in Iraq are now as bad as they were under Saddam Hussein and are even in danger of eclipsing his record, according to the country’s first Prime Minister after the fall of Saddam’s regime.

“‘People are doing the same as [in] Saddam’s time and worse,’ Ayad Allawi told The Observer. ‘It is an appropriate comparison. People are remembering the days of Saddam. These were the precise reasons that we fought Saddam and now we are seeing the same things.’”

It’s hard to feel sorry for a multi-billionaire who represents the very worst excesses of the establishment.

As for his contributions to the media industry, we get insights into Rupert’s character by hearing recent comments by John Malone, a large shareholder in News Ltd:

“Rupert’s got the creativity and the drive. He’s got the guts to drive it. It will be more sensational, it [Fox News] will have topless news reporters if it has to. It doesn’t really matter. Rupert is just more aggressive than other people. He’s smart and he puts the pieces together. The bottom line is it’s more important to him than to other people.”

“A confidential Foreign Office document accuses Israel of rushing to annex the Arab area of Jerusalem, using illegal Jewish settlement construction and the vast West Bank barrier, in a move to prevent it becoming a Palestinian capital.

“In an unusually frank insight into British assessments of Israeli intentions, the document says that Ariel Sharon’s government is jeopardising the prospect of a peace agreement by trying to put the future of Arab East Jerusalem beyond negotiation and risks driving Palestinians living in the city into radical groups. The document, obtained by the Guardian, was presented to an EU council of ministers meeting chaired by the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, on Monday with recommendations to counter the Israeli policy, including recognition of Palestinian political activities in East Jerusalem.”

If evidence was still needed of Ariel Sharon’s determination to prevent a true Palestinian state, today’s revelation is yet another nail in the coffin of the media elite. The Melbourne Age yesterday called Sharon’s recent political move as “boldly invoking the hope of peace.”

When will they ever learn?

“…It is not that we don’t care about democracy or having the right politicians in place or any other high sounding question you may want to throw at us. No, our nonchalance is evidence only that we care about other things more than we care about politics and governance. We care more about living to see tomorrow. It is all about survival now. Such is the result of how simple and unsophisticated a society [Mugabe's] ZANU-PF has made us.”

International pressure on Mugabe must increase, but then, Western moral legitimacy has never been lower.

“Domestic violence against women has shot up about 40 per cent in Sydney and more than 50 per cent in the rest of NSW over the past seven years, new research shows.”

Today is White Ribbon Day, international day for the elimination of violence against women.

- Noted Israeli economist Avishai Braverman: “I believe that the state of Israel is at a crossroads today. If Israel continues on its present path, it will degenerate into a Third World country.”

- The Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Hartcher wonders if the West is winning the “War on Terror.” The inanity of such a column astounds. Like most corporate journalists, he quotes US government statistics, Donald Rumsfeld and other reliable sources. No mention, of course, of the innocent civilians murdered during the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan or the hornet’s nest created by America’s clueless and damaging militarism.

- Ariel Sharon’s adviser ensures the world understands what the “peace-maker” thinks about the Israel/Palestine conflict. The occupation is not regarded as the main source of terror, according to Eyal Arad. Everybody clear about that?