My story in today’s Sydney Morning Herald/Melbourne Age: Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is in trouble, and it partly stems from his close relationship with Australia’s most recognisable billionaire, James Packer. The country’s second longest-serving Prime Minister is facing potential charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust after an extensive investigation by Israeli police.…
Articles in The Age
Australia's ambition to become global arms dealer
My major investigation in the Melbourne Age/Sydney Morning Herald on Australia’s surging defence industry: This year’s Avalon Air Show in Geelong was the first chance for the public to see the long-delayed Joint Strike Fighter in action. At a cost of at least $100 million per aircraft, Canberra is slated to spend $17 billion on…
Private companies making a fortune from asylum seekers
My following piece appears in the Melbourne Age today: In 2005, Labor’s then immigration spokesman Tony Burke said detention centres for asylum seekers must never be run by private companies. “You shouldn’t have a situation”, he said, “where the level of supervision and the standard of care has anything to do with the private profits…
Taking the measure of the heat in Gaza
My following book review appeared in Saturday’s Melbourne Age: Gaza: Morality, Law and Politics Edited by Raimond Gaita University of Western Australia Publishing, $29.95 Raimond Gaita’s collection tries to analyse a contentious conflict, writes Antony Loewenstein. MONTHS after the release of the UN-backed Goldstone report that found alleged war crimes by both Israel and Hamas…
The Age on Google’s move highlights the role of China’s censors
My following article is published today in the Melbourne Age: About 100 Chinese citizens gathered outside Google’s Beijing office this week to sing the popular tune Grass Mud Horse. They paid their respects to the web giant after it announced the closure of its censored Chinese search engine and redirected users to a Hong Kong-based…
America’s journey to a rogue state
My following book review appeared in the Melbourne Age on January 10: The gloves came off after September 11 and left leaders petrified, writes Antony Loewenstein. The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals By Jane Mayer Scribe, $35 Near the beginning of this…
Government uploads hypocrisy with internet censorship
My following article appears in today’s Melbourne Age: Before this year’s Beijing Olympic Games, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd chastised the Chinese authorities for blocking full access to the internet for the assembled world media: “My attitude to our friends in China is very simple”, he said. “They should have nothing to fear by open digital…
New ways to make news matter
My following article is published today by the Melbourne Age: During the bruising Democratic Party tussle with Hillary Clinton in April, a citizen journalist recorded Obama saying that he understood why working-class voters in decrepit industrial towns were “bitter” and clung to “guns or religion”. Despite being a paid-up Obama supporter, writer Mayhill Fowler worked…
A celebration that ignores the plight of Palestine
My following piece in the Melbourne Age, co-written with Michael Shaik, reflects on Israel’s 60th anniversary: “If you will it,” wrote Theodore Herzl, the founding father of the Zionist movement, in 1902, “it is no dream.” The dream to which he referred was the establishment of a Jewish state in the Arab country of Palestine.…