I was recently interviewed from Jerusalem on this American radio program, broadcast via the Progressive Radio Network, about my book Disaster Capitalism, poverty in Haiti and the role of the Clinton Foundation.
Showing all posts in June 2019
Palestinian NGO wants to break free of foreign funding
My feature in US magazine Mondoweiss: Palestinians in Jerusalem, and the state of the city itself, are routinely ignored in much international press coverage of the Israel/Palestine conflict. While the rise in Jewish, religious fundamentalism is central to understanding the current state of Israel – a recent… Reuters report… on religious Zionism within governmental and military ranks…
How occupation truths about Palestine often hidden by politicians and reporters
My column in the Guardian: New South Wales Premier Mike Baird… recently visited Israel… and Palestine, the first for a sitting leader of the Australian state. After travelling to the occupied West Bank and seeing the Aida refugee camp, Baird… wrote on Facebook… that the situation was “heartbreaking.” He continued: “I don’t know where the cycle of thousands of…
South Sudan's death spiral
My feature in the Australian literary journal Overland: Flying into Bentiu, a town in northern South Sudan, is unnerving. The front of a broken plane, cockpit windows smashed, sits close to the dusty airstrip; long green grass sprouts around the cracked fuselage. Soldiers of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), a former guerrilla movement and…
The risk and financial cost of speaking honestly about Israel/Palestine
Crikey is one of Australia’s best independent news websites. I… contributed extensively over the years from 2009 – 2012. Its current departing editor, Marni Cordell, with whom I worked when she edited another great Australian site, New Matilda, has written a revealing article that interviews previous Crikey editors and their experiences. It contains this anecdote that…
Disaster Capitalism film asks key questions about aid and politics
The following article appears today in the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age and is written by Garry Maddox. The headline is, “Australia’s foreign aid is largely wasted because of corruption, says documentary maker Antony Loewenstein”: Australian feature films have largely avoided hot political subjects… lately –… though that may… change with Matthew Saville’s planned film on the…
Drug cartel wars between Mexico and the US
My essay in the Los Angeles Review of Books: Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Loera, known as “El Chapo,” was recaptured by Mexican marines in January. It was the latest in a long history of farcical escapes and imprisonments that have dominated the life of the world’s most infamous drug boss. His legacy is clear. Unmarked graves…
The nightmare of today's Western-backed Rwanda
My book review in The Australian: Rwandan President Paul Kagame is feted across the world, celebrated for rescuing his country after the 1994 genocide and bringing stability to a devastated nation. Kagame’s government has received billions of dollars in aid and weapons for more than 20 years from the US, Israel, Britain and the EU,…
What the Sanders and Corbyn movements say about Australia
My column in the Guardian: Charisma and persuasion matter in politics. Though neither trait guarantees fair policies or outlook – think Tony Blair… backing the catastrophic war… against Iraq, or Malcolm Turnbull hailing himself as a free speech champion before… pressuring the ABC… over its robust journalism – image is apparently more captivating than ever in the 21st century.…