In 2011 Norwegian… Anders Breivik murdered dozens of his countrymen and women in a rampage of hatred.… Soon after, three Australians, Tad Tietze, Liz Humphrys and Guy Rundle, edited a collection,… On Utoya, about the event. My chapter was about the growing connections between the far-right and Israel. The e-book has now been released as a free…
Category General
How the NSA wants total population control
My weekly Guardian column: William Binney is one of the highest-level whistleblowers to ever emerge from the NSA. He was a leading code-breaker against the Soviet Union during the Cold War but resigned soon after September 11, disgusted by Washington’s move towards mass surveillance. On 5 July he spoke at a… conference… in London organised by the…
ABCTV Big Ideas on freedom of the press
The following was broadcast last week by ABC TV’s Big Ideas: Big Ideas went to the deep north for the Wordstorm festival in Darwin. This is a festival that covers local and national politics and culture with a hefty dose of late night rapping. Some of the rap probably needs a late night time slot;…
WikiLeaks Editor Sarah Harrison on Ed Snowden and indy journalism
Fascinating interview in Germany on Democracy Now! with one of the key figures in the still living and breathing Wikileaks and newly formed The Courage Foundation to support whistle-blowers:
What resistance looks like in austerity-captured Greece
My weekly Guardian column: The story from an Athens hospital beggared belief. In May a 54 year old man needed immediate heart surgery. He was unemployed and uninsured, a… common reality… for many Greek citizens since the economic crisis hit in 2008. The hospital initially refused to admit him, fearing they would never get paid, but the…
The toxic Greek brew of racism, fascism and hatred of refugees
My weekly Guardian column: On a searing hot day last weekend I took the train an hour out of Athens to the Greek city of Corinth. There, one of the country’s largest detention centres sits behind high walls. It was the recent site of a mass hunger strike by asylum seekers, whose protest has now…
Talking about nation and identity in Greece
I’m currently in Greece working on a new book, out in 2015 with Verso Books on disaster capitalism (more details soon), and excited to announce this public event on 24th June with my friend and colleague (and bloody fine and successful writer), Christos Tsiolkas. It’s organised by the art/intellectual collective, the Athens-based Libby Saucer Foundation:…
Listening to Iraqi voices when hearing about Iraq
My weekly Guardian column: Since last week’s… victories… by the militant group Isis against a weak, US-backed, Iraqi government, the same, failed protagonists from the 2003 invasion have come out of the woodwork to advocate another… military intervention. Although some journalists, like The Independent’s… prescient… Patrick Cockburn, have been warning about the… growing power… of Isis, voices on the ground are few…
Why do so many Australians embrace spying?
My weekly Guardian column: Australians feel… very comfortable… with spying on our friends and enemies. During his visit to Canada this week, Tony Abbott, the prime minister,… backed… the Five Eyes intelligence sharing structure between America, New Zealand, Britain, Canada and Australia, saying “our intelligence gathering has got to be done in a way that is decent and fair…
Triple R radio interview on US, drones and civilian murder
I was interviewed this week on Triple R’s Spoke show about US drone strikes in Yemen, killing Australians and the law: