Showing all posts tagged human rights
Private companies will clearly keep detainees warm at night
Despite a company such as G4S having a shocking human rights record in Britain and globally, this clearly has little impact on the firm receiving new contracts. After all, failure is rewarded in disaster capitalism. Privatisation will make everything more “efficient”, haven’t you heard? The Guardian reports on the latest British experiment in vulnerable people’s…
What’s a dictator’s wife to do?
As Syria continues to groan under intense violence between government troops, opposition elements and unknown outside forces, this story in the UK Independent is eerie: Vogue magazine famously called her a “rose in the desert”, while Paris Match proclaimed she was the “element of light in a country full of shadow zones”. But when Syria’s…
Iraq remains the catastrophe that nobody wants to acknowledge
Juan Cole on the spluttering end to the (kind of/sort of) formal US involvement (though private contractors are only increasing): The US keeps fretting over Iranian influence in Iraq, but that is silly. If you didn’t want Iranian Shiite influence in Iraq you shouldn’t have overthrown the Sunni Saddam Hussein and seated the Shiite fundamentalists…
Rewarding failure in the privatised asylum seeker world
The death last year of Jimmy Mubenga by private contractor G4S, as he was being forcibly removed from Britain, revealed the largely hidden and unaccountable world of outsourced horror in a supposed democracy. One year on, justice remains elusive. This letter appeared in the Guardian a few days ago: Jimmy Mubenga died one year ago…
Just the latest government hack in bed with Sinhalese war criminals
The thugs running Sri Lanka in Colombo must have loved the attention of a leading British government minister. War crimes? Who cares, hey? The Guardian reports: Liam Fox faced fresh accusations of running a shadow foreign policy after it emerged he was involved in setting up a private investment firm to operate in Sri Lanka…
The Obama rationale for intervention in Libya
A fascinating investigation by Michael Hastings in Rolling Stone – this is one journalist (and friend) with a fine record of uncovering secrets – on the internal American dialogue over military intervention in Libya. A key theme, repeated over and over again by various officials, is the desire by elements within the Obama administration to…
When disaster capitalism strikes, Papua New Guinea is on front line
Barely a day goes by when another report emerges of locals in PNG not gaining anything from multinationals pillaging the vast natural resources of the country. This week’s Guardian features a story on the subject and explains how the PNG government is more than happy to allow rapacious corporations to extract the valuable assets from…
Independent Australian Jewish Voices newsletter just out
The following was sent yesterday: Dear friends, We are sending out our occasional newsletter and we would like to express our gratitude for the support we have received. In particular, we are grateful to various generous benefactors without whom our… activities would not be possible. We have recently joined the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network… (APAN), which “has…