A book I co-edited with Jeff Sparrow, Left Turn, is about to launch. One of the contributors, Rodney Croome, a strong advocate of gay marriage, has written a powerful piece in ABC’s The Drum about this issue: The American civil rights movement was a colourful but hollow distraction from the far more important issue of…
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ABC Radio National interview on free speech and human rights
The last four days have involved extended time at the Sydney Writer’s Festival. There was the first public event for my forthcoming book with Jeff Sparrow, Left Turn. There wasn’t a spare seat in the house. They’ll be far more about this title in the next days and weeks, so stay tuned. The following day…
This is how Australian media reports Afghanistan
A feature in last week’s Murdoch Australian by Brendan Nicholson is typical of the kind of coverage about the war-torn nation. It reflects a reality of a reporter who has spent a lot of time with the military and little time with local Afghans. Note the main, patronising message; the West simply has to stay…
Destroying Afghanistan as we reach the door
Paul McGeough, Sydney Sun Herald: You will not hear the words ”mission accomplished” but that will be the sense of the spin. Never mind that Afghanistan will be more dangerously poised for self-destruction than it was in the aftermath of the retreat by Soviet occupation forces in 1989. The West walked away from Afghanistan then.…
Don’t rely on Murdoch press to accurately report Wikileaks
WL Central has the story: On 16 May 2012 The Times published a piece claiming that information found in an embassy cable released by WikiLeaks directly led to the execution of Majid Jamli Fashi, an Iranian kickboxer. Within hours, media outlets around the world picked up the article and the story went viral. Nothing could…
Underwear bomber from Yemen? Not so fast
Memo to world; never believe White House spin over terrorism or the countless mainstream media hacks who blindly report it (via Reuters): White House efforts to soft-pedal the danger from a new “underwear bomb” plot emanating from Yemen may have inadvertently broken the news they needed most to contain. At about 5:45 p.m. EDT on…
Assange talks Caged Prisoners, Islam, terrorism and resistance
This week’s episode of … The World Tomorrow – here’s past episodes of this essential program – features former Gitmo prisoner… Moazzam Begg and Asim Qureshi, former corporate lawyer, whose human rights organization Cageprisoners Ltd raises awareness of the plight of prisoners who remain in Guantanamo Bay. They discuss the “war on terror”, Obama and Bush, Islam…
There’s a new sheriff in American towns and he’s from a corporation
A privatised future where companies desperately want citizens to stay and remain in prison?… It’s here, today: Louisiana is the world’s prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana’s incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran’s, seven times China’s…