Last week’s ABC TV 4 Corners, on the mental trauma suffered by refugees inside Australia’s immigration detention centre network, was a devastating portrait of dysfunction. We are literally breeding individuals who are going mad, if not worse. Locking people up for sometimes years is both unnecessary and unethical. And who is making money from all…
Showing all posts tagged human rights
Calling all Zionist artists; come protect occupying Israel and do your duty
A rather tragic story in the Jerusalem Post, which yet again utterly ignores why an increasing number of musicians and artists in general are boycotting and ignoring Israel; it’s the occupation, stupid. No amount of PR will change the brutal facts on the ground: Their aim, as an old Elvis Costello song professes, is true.…
Think before you travel to “paradise”
Ethical tourism is an issue that rarely permeates the mainstream media (hello New York Times). Congrats to Reporters Without Borders for launching “Censorship Paradise” about three nations regularly visited, Thailand, Mexico and Vietnam. More here: Reporters Without Borders is launching a new awareness campaign today, one aimed at drawing the attention of holidaymakers to free…
Those poor military contractors in Iraq just need a good hug
Trouble in paradise, as a legacy of American war-making (privatised security) faces new challenges. CNN reports: With the removal of all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of the year looking more likely, absent an agreement to extend legal immunity, a large contingent of U.S. contractors will still remain facing their own legal and…
Maintaining pressure on the autocratic thugs in Sri Lanka
I was honoured to be asked to sign the following statement released yesterday by Federal Greens MP Lee Rhiannon about the ongoing horrors in Sri Lanka: Commenting on the arrival of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in Australia for CHOGM, Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon said: “Attorney General Robert McClelland’s decision to refuse permission for a…
Globalised terror; from Palestine to America
Welcome to a world where the rapacious arms industry has a global reach, and sees no difference between helping an occupying army and thuggish police in a supposed democracy. Max Blumenthal reports: With the rise of the Occupy Wall Street, a new generation of mostly middle class Americans is learning for the first time about…
Holding power to account in PNG when resource curse hits hard
This is welcome news, as corporations are systemically raping Papua New Guinea; it’s disaster capitalism on crack with little oversight: A US federal appeals court has revived a lawsuit seeking to hold Rio Tinto responsible for human rights violations and thousands of deaths linked to a Bougainville copper and gold mine it once ran. A…
Insulate Israel from attack, oh wise people, its nuclear arms can’t handle it
Take cover, people, Nazi Germany is returning to the quiet campus of Sydney University. Well, maybe not but the hilarious hysteria whipped up by Murdoch’s Australian over complaints about an upcoming collaboration between the university and an Israeli institution suggests the Zionist state must remain beyond criticism. Perhaps only foreign policy “experts” should be allowed…