Category General
Promo video for Call of Duty Black Ops game shows future of warfare
This is basically propaganda for a new computer game (even if it claims to be a documentary) and yet the film provides disturbing insights into how the merging between reality and fiction is here:
New Zealand radio interview about Wikileaks
I was interviewed last week by the independent program Earthwise. We discussed the importance of Wikileaks and its challenge to the mainstream media:
Corporate press routinely ignores real people in Papua New Guinea
Business reporting often ignores the vast bulk of human beings and focuses solely on company profits. Take this lead story in today’s Murdoch Australian: Papua New Guinea specialist Highlands Pacific has long been known as an asset-rich, share-price-poor type of stock. There is a feeling out there that this year could well see that change…
Assange interviews two key Arab revolutionaries
The World Tomorrow is becoming essential weekly viewing (here’s past episodes). The latest edition features… Alaa Abd El-Fattah from Egypt and Nabeel Rajab from Bahrain, two remarkable men who show dedication to free their countries from internal and external (read US) tyranny:
Highlighting the Western obsession with disaster tourism
What a fascinating project: A disaster is not the event itself, but the trauma of the event. By adjusting to looming collapse in advance, your lifestyle can change gradually, at your own pace. ARK-INC offers holidays in apocalyptic landscapes, low-tech home comforts, and materials for self-evaluation.
How to treat corporations complicit in human rights abuses
The number of lawsuits filed by multinationals against governments is growing globally. It truly shows who controls this world. It’s time for a serious fight-back. Evidence for the prosecution (via the Guardian): Lloyds Banking Group… has become embroiled in a row over its investment in a company accused of involvement in the… rendition… of terror suspects on behalf…
This is our insanely monitored world in 2012
Glenn Greenwald, Salon: …Issuing subpoenas to journalists to force them to reveal their sources is now obsolete — unnecessary — because the U.S. Government’s Surveillance State is so vast, so comprehensive, that it already knows who is talking to whom. It now… subpoenas and harasses reporters… simply to force them to confirm in court what they have…
Our charming Western legacy in Afghanistan
Over a decade occupying the place, hundreds of billions spent and this is the result (via the Washington Post): After signing a 10-year lease and spending more than $80 million on a site envisioned as the United States’ diplomatic hub in northern Afghanistan, American officials say they have abandoned their plans, deeming the location for…
Taliban Poetry adds a sonnet or two to tonight’s reading group
Surely the only way to understand Afghanistan is to listen to all voices: A British publisher has defended its decision to release a collection of poems penned by members of the Taliban. The book comprises more than 200 works which centre on insurgents’ experiences during the decade-long conflict and document “the thrill of battle”. A…