Thank you for the year that’s been and 2013

On this New Year’s Eve, I wanted to thank all my readers for your support, thoughts, links, insights, criticisms, praise and love during the year. It’s been a wild ride as I’ve travelled to Afghanistan, Haiti, Papua New Guinea, America and beyond for a variety of reasons, mostly work-related. I couldn’t have continued without the…

How an Orthodox Israeli Jewish billionaire loves to exploit Africa

This is a remarkable story, sad, tragic and outrageous, and proves that money doesn’t bring morality (via Bloomberg): Dan Gertler’s bearded face lights up as he looks out the helicopter window. Below, an installation twice the size of Monaco rises from a clearing in the central African forest, where it transforms ore mined from the…

Preparing for the end of the world (at a very reasonable price)

Tim Murphy in Mother Jones: Humans have been preparing for the worst for millennia, but modern Americans have turned it into an art form. At the dawn of the Atomic Age, suburbanites scrambled to build backyard shelters and the government stockpiled food in anticipation of the day after. The spiraling inflation of the 1970s brought…

Just one more reason why academic BDS against Israeli universities vital

After the recent faux controversy in Australia over a principled academic refusing to assist an Israeli academic because his centre abided by BDS principles, this story (via Ben White in Electronic Intifada) shows how intimately linked are Israeli universities, the occupation and the settler establishment: Dozens of academics from Israel and abroad, worried about the…

America’s wars are outsourced so there’s much money to be made

The face of America’s never-ending “war on terror” is increasingly privatised. This Washington Post article explains just one example of this trend but doesn’t examine the lack of accountability of the practice, something I’m doing in my 2013 book and film on disaster capitalism: The rapid collapse of a U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya exposed…

Thinking of occupied Bethlehem this Christmas

The reality of Palestinian life under Israeli occupation is often ignored in the West. This Christmas – I hope my readers have a safe and happy holiday season, wherever they may be – I’m once again publishing the regular missive from Brother Peter Bray, the Vice Chancellor of Bethlehem University (his past writings are here).…

Campaigning for the boycott of Sri Lankan cricket team

I’m honoured to be asked to be a public face of this campaign (via Tamil Guardian): Renowned Australian author Thomas Keneally has spoken out against Australia playing cricket with Sri Lanka and called for a break of sporting ties, as calls to boycott Sri Lankan cricket continue to grow. Writing to Keneally, the Tamil Refugee…

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