Category General
Disaster capitalism strikes at the heart of African mining
A key focus of my forthcoming book and film about disaster capitalism is the way Western resource companies exploit poor nations and often commit human rights abuses in the process (I’m looking at Papua New Guinea and Haiti). Here’s an interesting Human Rights Watch report about Eritrea: International mining firms rushing to invest in Eritrea’s…
Far too many journalists worthy of a Shammy award
John Pilger on a new much-needed new media award: There are awards for everyone. There are the Logies, the Commies, the Tonys, the Theas, the Millies (“They cried with pride”) and now the Shammies. The Shammies celebrate the finest sham media. “Competition for the 2013 Gold Shammy,” said the panel of judges, “has been cutthroat.”…
The Western war to assist brutality against the Shia
With the current Western war in Mali (in simple terms, blowback from our intervention in Libya), who and what exactly is the West supporting in the Muslim world? Patrick Cockburn writes in Counterpunch that hypocrisy is name of the game: It is a ferocious war waged by assassination, massacre, imprisonment and persecution that has killed…
How gullible is the corporate press in believing that Iran wears devil’s horns?
A compelling investigation by Pro Publica shows what degrees some pro-war fanatics will go to demonise Tehran and the gullibility of the media repeating the lie: Several media outlets reported this month on an alarming finding from a new U.S. government study: Iran’s intelligence ministry, as CNN put it, constitutes “a terror and assassination force…
Toxic mix of American “justice” and war on drugs
I’m currently writing the introduction of my disaster capitalism book (the vast bulk of the manuscript is written and being edited by my publisher) and looking into the role of privatised prisons in the US and how the “war on drugs” has deformed the society. This short film is deeply powerful:
Documenting the unaccountable war on terror
Laura Poitras is a remarkable American film-maker who has faced constant harassment by US officials for simply doing her job of documenting the countless abuses against innocents since 9/11. Here are two short films, made for the New York Times, that are beautiful, moving and rage-inducing. This is the true face of America in the…
Former Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks details US torture post 9/11
Moving testimony on the 11th anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo Bay, a gulag that remains open to this day. Justice is yet to be done: