Travelling ethically to Sri Lanka, a nation run by a thugocracy, requires skill. A key source of traveller information is Lonely Planet guidebooks but UK-based Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice demands the company steps up and takes greater responsibility for the information they’re disseminating: Lonely Planet made the news recently after the BBC…
Category General
What the Iraq war destroyed for average Iraqis
Riverbend was one of the most prolific and savvy Iraqi bloggers during the 2003 Iraq war. And then, she disappeared, not writing for years. On the 10th anniversary of the invasion, she’s back with a short and devastating post about her country: April 9, 2013 marks ten years since the fall of Baghdad. Ten years…
Inside the devastating war for Syria
The conflict has now been going for more than two years and many in the mainstream media have given up reporting. There are notable exceptions. This remarkable footage (shot by Olly Lambert and screened by PBS Frontline) must be seen. Lambert writes movingly… about the realities of war journalism in ways that happen far too rarely:…
Wikileaks, by publishing 1.7 million documents, proves ongoing relevance
A huge day for journalists, archivists and citizens (via the Guardian): WikiLeaks… has published more than 1.7m US records covering diplomatic or intelligence reports on every country in the world. The data, which has not been leaked, comprises diplomatic records from the beginning of 1973 to the end of 1976, covering a variety of diplomatic traffic…
Australia’s future must not be all about digging up minerals
Australia has a long history of romanticising the individuals who make a fortune selling our natural resources, regardless of the cost to the environment. Gina Reinhart, profiled in this stunning New Yorker piece, is part of this tradition, pushing tax-free, economic zones and advocating low wages so she makes a killing. It’s vulture capitalism on…
Keeping Bradley Manning and Wikileaks alive in America
Last night in New York the following event was held with… Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir,… Alexa O’Brien, FireDogLake’s Kevin Gosztola, FAIR media critic Peter Hart, moderated by Sam Seder:
Jean-Luc Godard teaches #ZeroDarkThirty 200 things about torture
The recently released US film about the capture and killing Osama Bin Laden, Zero Dark Thirty, was rightly condemned, including by me, as a fanciful examination of the “war on terror” with a dodgy moral centre. Richard Brody, writing in the… New Yorker, responds: In 1960, France was embroiled in the Algerian war, in which some…
Endorsing “My Isl@m” book
Last year I was asked by New York publisher St. Martin’s Press to read and endorse a book, about to now be released, by Amir Ahmad Nasr called My Isl@m. It’s an interesting read about Muslims, rejecting fundamentalism in all ways and being open to a more inclusive religious belief. Here’s the book’s website and…
Lest we forget the pro-war hacks who backed Iraq invasion
Opposing the 2003 Iraq invasion was often a lonely journey amongst the media elites. I was writing against the travesty of the war from 2003 (here’s a piece of mine in the Sydney Morning Herald from 2004) but far too many supported the conflict out of bravado or cowardice. Here’s US reporter Chris Hedges calling…
CIA criminality rewarded not punished
A classic case of America’s establishment protecting its own (via the Washington Post). It’s why the United State’s constant claims of “spreading democracy” around the world hasn’t even started at home: As John Brennan moved into the CIA director’s office this month, another high-level transition was taking place down the hall. A week earlier, a…