Amira Hass in Haaretz explains: News came this week of three individual battles against Israel’s discriminatory regime that have scored gains. Bedouin from the Jahalin tribe will not be expelled to a community next to the Abu Dis dump, and their school will not be demolished. A tender for a luxury development in Lifta, a…
What Murdoch will be remembered for; backing imperial wars
Interesting comment here, and undeniably true, in the UK Press Gazette. There are so few truly courageous journalists from the Murdoch stable who would know this to be true but refuse to speak out; gotta pay the mortgage on that charming 4 bedroom place, remember? Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre yesterday said other Fleet Street…
What can the poor empire do in Iraq? Reduce its footprint and cry
Via the New York Times comes a story that burns with resentment towards those ungrateful Iraqis. I mean, Washington “liberated” you and now you aren’t grateful every day for causing chaos in the country? Less than two months after American troops left, the State Department is preparing to slash by as much as half the…
Private eyes are watching us activists
A worrying development in Australia (courtesy of the… Greens): Minister Joe Ludwig, representing the Attorney General in the Senate, confirmed in Question Time today that the Australia Federal Police monitors coal seam gas protesters and that the government outsources some intelligence gathering to private consultants. “Farmers in Queensland trying to protect their land from coal seam…
Disaster capitalism alive and well in USA
Via the Guardian: It’s almost as if… Rahm Emanuel… was lifting a page from… Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine… – as if he was reading her account of Milton Friedman’s “Chicago Boys” as a cookbook recipe, rather than as the ominous episode that it was.… In record time, Emanuel successfully exploited the fact that Chicago will host the upcoming… G8… and… Nato… summit meetings to…
What we aren’t hearing about Syria (apart from goodies vs baddies)
Nir Rosen, one of the finest independent journalists around, sends the following message to the essential Angry Arab: so media accounts of yesterday’s fighting in Homs are not exactly accurate. they make it seem as if this is Hama in 1982 all over again and Homs has fallen. In fact the armed opposition controls more…
South Africa mulls imposing sanctions on apartheid Israel
Via The New Age newspaper: The South African government might consider supporting sanctions against Israel as it explores a variety of peaceful methods to step up support for the Palestinians’ fight for freedom and independence. “We want to step up our support of the Palestinians and are investigating a number of peaceful ways to upgrade…
How Wikileaks must be supported and why
Mainstream support for Wikileaks is often far removed from the daily news cycle. Many journalists seem to feel uncomfortable backing Wikileaks (and Julian Assange) because of his ongoing legal issues, forgetting the key miracle behind the site; the profound challenges to the established information order and exposing the sycophancy between journalists and corporate power. I…
NYTimes discusses future US role in Afghanistan but magically ignores mercenaries
This is typical corporate media reporting on “our” wars. Ideologically embedded New York Times reporters in Washington DC are handed information from the White House and essentially write a press release for the Obama administration. Any mention of the huge role of private contractors in Afghanistan, a group that will continue to grow, like in…