During my five hour flight from Sydney to Perth, while thinking about the lack of internet access and ability to focus more on reading, I read this extraordinary recent feature by Lawrence Wright in the New Yorker about Scientology, film-maker Paul Haggis and the toxic culture inside cults. It’s truly one of the finest pieces…
Showing all posts tagged human rights
Israel’s Dubai hit taught them nothing
Jewish, American blogger Richard Silverstein uncovers what sounds like yet another Zionist violation of sovereignty in a foreign land: The wife of a Palestinian engineer has accused the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad of abducting her husband. Derar Abu Sisi went missing five days ago while visiting his Ukrainian wife in her home country. The Ukraine-based…
Perth Writer’s Festival, here I come
This will be fun. I’m about to head across to Perth in Western Australia for the Perth Writer’s Festival. My events: Sat 5 Mar, 2.00PM The invasion of Gaza in 2008 provoked worldwide condemnation and questions aboutIsrael’s right to exist. Some asked why other nations acting unjustly don’t face debate about the validity of their…
Woman from Gaza confronts Zionist enforcer of status quo
For those of us in the pro-Palestinian and pro-justice community who recognise and call Israeli crimes for what they are, we must acknowledge we have a long way to go in the US: Americans’ views toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict held fairly steady over the past year, with a near record-high 63% continuing to say their…
Of course Sri Lanka should pay a price for murdering countless Tamils
These are encouraging noises from Washington but one can’t help but wonder if it’s because China has essentially bought off Colombo and locked out the US. Payback time? Sri Lanka could be hauled before a war crimes tribunal over the killing of ‘many thousands of civilians’ in the final months of its separatist war with…
NSW Greens don’t see their job as solely defending brutish Israel
The decision of Sydney’s Marrickville council and the NSW Greens to back BDS against apartheid Israel continues to generate predictable hysteria from the Murdoch tabloids (and that’s to say nothing of the racist, anti-Muslim diatribes being circulated by many Jews and bigots across Australia): The Greens have threatened a trade boycott against the world’s second-largest…
Who wants nuclear power and massive amounts of waste?
Which private companies are salivating over the prospect of establishing an industry in Australia to turn a profit? And are indigenous Australians meant to simply disappear and accept this gross destruction of their land? For the first time Greens MP Adam Bandt will vote against a government bill in Federal Parliament today and seek to…
Villawood: asbestos still present despite government claims
My following investigation appears in today’s edition of Crikey: Sydney’s Villawood detention centre contains asbestos years after the federal government claims it was managed, according to a whistle-blower working at the site. A guard hired by MSS Security, the firm contracted by British multinational Serco to manage security at Villawood, told Crikey about the lack…