Via the New York Times: A group advocating a more transparent government has formed a nonprofit organization called the Freedom of the Press Foundation to serve as a conduit for donations to organizations like WikiLeaks. The goal is to insulate those groups’ fund-raising efforts from political and business pressures. In December 2010, Visa, MasterCard and…
Showing all posts in June 2019
Chomsky supports BDS against Israeli illegality
Following 10 days of daily coverage in The Australian of Dr Jake Lynch from Sydney University supporting a boycott against Israeli universities, the last two days have seen more letters published. Friday: On what basis does the University of Sydney lend institutional support to a group with a guiding objective of boycotting Jewish business and…
UK Israel lobby is most powerful in the country
The power of the Zionist lobby in Britain is far too rarely discussed in the mainstream media. And yet its presence is one of the key reasons London is so blindly supportive of Israel. Here’s a rare perspective, written by Peter Obourne in the UK Telegraph.… Note the fear that the two-state solution is dead/dying/on life…
War on Drugs a massive failure so who’s ready to stop it?
British Deputy Prime Minister and Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg speaks the truth about the “war on drugs”: If you were waging any other war where you have 2,000 fatalities a year, your enemies are making billions in profits, constantly throwing new weapons at you and targeting young people – you’d have to say you…
What unaccountable US torture looks like
Stunning post by Darryl Li at the Middle East Research and Information Project: Two of today’s headlines together provide a good example of the work of imperial forgetting. On the front page of theNew York Times, a… story… about the depiction of torture in the forthcoming national revenge flick… Zero Dark Thirty… shows how little debates have advanced over…
Voice of academic reason; why I boycott Israeli universities
Following the avalanche of media coverage in the last 10 days of Sydney University’s Dr Jake Lynch about his brave stand to oppose any institutional links with Israeli universities, he’s written two pieces in New Matilda that outline some of the issues. One: Journalist Christian Kerr recently filed a series of critical articles in The…
How Australia actively blocks legitimate refugees globally who need our protection
Australia’s largely secret role in actively blocking persecuted people from escaping life-threatening situations should be exposed more often. Canberra seems happy colluding with authoritarian figures in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and beyond to “stop the boats”. Here’s Aubrey Belford in The Global Mail: Australian authorities have increasingly turned to a strategy some find disturbing: they are…
Anybody else like to speak out against a courageous academic challenging Israeli apartheid?
There’s been so much media coverage of Dr Jake Lynch at Sydney University taking a principled stance against an Israeli academic that it’s vital to just have all the stories on the record. I’ve been publishing all the information I can find about it on a daily basis (here’s the piece from yesterday). The Australian:…
New Zealand Super Fund takes stand against Israeli illegality
Very interesting development and the sign of thing to come globally (via the New Zealand Herald): The $20 billion New Zealand Superannuation Fund has excluded three Israeli companies from its portfolio on ethical grounds because of their involvement in illegal settlements and the security wall. The fund’s investments in the firms were insubstantial. Some $9,744…
Another day and Murdoch’s Australian on case of rampant anti-Semitism in our universities (oh wait…)
Today Rupert Murdoch’s very serious broadsheet organ The Australian continues its brave reporting on, well knows anymore, the countless stories about Dr Jake Lynch at Sydney University. It’s beyond parody. Thankfully, Lynch is standing firm and he has received the full support of his Peace and Conflict Studies board. News story: Australia’s peak Jewish body…