The only people really benefitting from the steady stream of asylum seekers to Australia are the heads of multinational Serco. Sydney’s Sun Herald reports: A surge in asylum seeker boats has delivered an explosion in profits for the private company operating Australia’s detention centres. Serco Australia, a division of a British multinational, enjoyed a 45…
Category General
Are only multinationals with bad records able to continually secure contracts?
The global onslaught of vulture capitalists continues space: Giant US military-industrial company Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) is in the running to win a slice of a controversial …£1.5 billion (US$2.43 billion) contract to transform the West Midlands and Surrey police forces in Britain, The (London) Times reported.… Hailed as the largest police privatization scheme…
Lest we forget that journalists are threatened and must be protected
The latest report by Reporters Without Borders finds the ever-increasing numbers of journalists being murdered around the world. It is therefore the responsibility of reporters who work in challenging environments – and that includes me, who’s just returned from Pakistan and Afghanistan and needs to become more familiar with protecting sources who work in dangerous…
What Obama’s deal with Afghanistan really allows
Away from the slop offered by mainstream propagandists, Washington’s occupation of Afghanistan will continue for years to come, as Gareth Porter explains: The optics surrounding the Barack Obama administration’s “Enduring Strategic Partnership” agreement with Afghanistan and the Memorandums of Understanding accompanying it emphasise transition to Afghan responsibility and an end to U.S. war. But the…
The amazing struggles of Chen Guangcheng
A truly remarkable story that reads like a thriller but reveals a dark side of Chinese repression that we should never forget. The New York Times reports: Injuries suffered in the course of a daring nighttime escape. A covert appeal from underground activists to top State Department officials for humanitarian protection. A car chase through…
The militarisation of aid in “war on terror”
This is a growing issue since 9/11, where the US military and others are perfectly happy to corrupt the NGO process by delivering so-called aid and development themselves, therefore trying to convince people under occupation that the military will “save” them. The vitally important separation between the military and aid has largely disappeared. This story…
Assange interviews Tunisia’s first post-revolution leader
Following two weeks of intriguing interviews, this week’s episode of The World Tomorrow features… Moncef Marzouki. The role of democracy in post-dictatorships is raised and how to transform a nation after years living under repression. The fact that such a man is rarely seen or heard in the Western media shames us all, considering Tunisia was…
If you only read one investigative piece this week…
Read this stunning… story… by Ken Silverstein in Foreign Policy. It’s about corporate power, energy needs, corruption, immunity from prosecution, Bill Clinton, the company Glencore and how our world is increasingly ordered: When Glencore, the world’s biggest commodities brokerage firm, went public in May 2011, the initial public offering (IPO) on the London and Hong Kong stock…
Our failed war against Yemen
Yet another country where US policy has empowered resistance forces against a corrupt and brutal central government. Jeremy Scahill and Richard Rowley report for Al-Jazeera: