I’m now based in East Jerusalem as a freelance journalist and I was thrilled to recently secure the cover story in Newsweek Middle East (15 June edition) on Israel’s settler movement (+ here are my photos from the assignment): The full story, over 3000 words, is below (and here’s the published PDF version: newsweekfeatureonisraelisettlers): Har…
China/Africa Project interview on Chinese relations with South Sudan
I lived for much of 2015 in South Sudan, a country undergoing a violent, post-independence period. I was recently interviewed by the great China/Africa Project on China’s relations with South Sudan: Nowhere else in Africa do China’s financial, diplomatic and geopolitical interests confront as much risk as they do in South Sudan.… Beijing has invested billions…
Byline and 6PR radio on disaster capitalism, journalism and Israel/Palestine
I was interviewed last week by Tony Serve, from Perth, Australia, about Israel/Palestine, the risks pursuing real journalism and my ongoing fundraising campaign for my documentary in progress, Disaster Capitalism. The interview was broadcast on Byline and Perth’s 6PR radio:
How drugs have always perverted human wars
My Guardian book review appears this weekend: In October 2015 a Saudi prince was arrested at Beirut international airport accused of trying to smuggle… nearly two tonnes… of the… amphetamine drug Captagon… through the country. Two months later, Lebanese officials claimed to have confiscated 12 million Captagon pills heading to the Gulf. The synthetic drug, invented in 1961, has…
Please support the Disaster Capitalism fund-raising campaign
For the last five years I’ve been working on the documentary, Disaster Capitalism, partly inspired by my book of the same name released last year. I’m working with film-maker Thor Neureiter and co-producers Media Stockade. It’s a truly international team; I’m based in East Jerusalem, Thor is in New York and Media Stockade are in…
Why I was asked to join Australians for War Powers Reform
Before the 2003 Iraq war, I feared the seemingly inevitable conflict would be a disaster. Based in Sydney at the time, I watched as the general public massively opposed the impending invasion while most politicians and many in the media celebrated the prospect of “shock and awe”. The last 15 years have seen untold bloodshed…
When politicians in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea attack critics (including me)
Over the last years I’ve visited the province of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea (PNG) to investigate how a polluting Rio Tinto mine caused a brutal civil war in the 1980s and 1990s. It’s a major feature of my recent book, Disaster Capitalism, and film in progress of the same name. Locals oppose re-opening of…
Oppose Israeli occupation, face Zionist lobby tears
Australian Zionist lobby group AIJAC have been attacking me for over a decade for daring to challenge the Israeli occupation of Palestine and questioning their blind and obedient support for Israeli violence. Years ago they consistently tried to bully editors and publishers against publishing my work. It was a spectacular failure. The pro-occupation organisation is…
Remembering Australian Greens MP John Kaye
A man who died too young. John Kaye was a New South Wales Greens MP and friend. I was asked to comment about him by Wendy Bacon in online magazine New Matilda: “John was a friend, a trusted, funny, witty and principled man who also happened to be a politician. It’s hard to find that…
American radio program The Gary Null Show on disaster capitalism
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.