The arms industry is a massive global market of Western nations, willing dictatorships and heaps of money. New Statesman reports on the world’s largest arms fair recently held in London: The two main exhibition halls have previously hosted concerts by Roxy Music, Alice Cooper and UB40. But today they are crammed with around 1300 exhibits,…
UN Palestine vote does nothing for Palestinian rights
As the UN vote on Palestine nears, opinion in much of the Western media is to support the bid. A sense of ‘about time’ and ‘Palestine deserves to be a state’ permeates the coverage. Predictably, Murdoch’s Australian shows its ingrained hatred of Arabs in today’s editorial (with no mention of the occupation, which for the…
Future for good journalism is interactivity (or death)
Following last weekend’s first investigative journalism conference in Australia, Pacific Media Watch have highlighted some of the key points discussed by yours truly: Freelance journalist and author Antony Loewenstein, speaking about Wikileaks, said Julian Assange’s efforts were miles ahead of the mainstream media, as he was not concerned about corporate pressures, and delivered maximum information…
Tony Judt on the kind of Judaism we should admire
The death last year of British historian Tony Judt was a deep loss for those of us who crave intelligent debate of world affairs and especially the Middle East. The Atlantic has just published his last interview and Judt is shown, despite his last years being afflicted with a horrible disease, with a clarity of…
Britain’s capitulation to Israeli desires to remain above the law
The Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights releases a timely statement that reminds the world that justice for Israeli crimes won’t be forgotten: On Thursday, 15 September 2011, the United Kingdom modified its universal jurisdiction legislation as a direct result of political pressure exerted by the Government of Israel, following the issue of arrest warrants…
Anyone can make a revolution (or can they?)
The upcoming Festival of Dangerous Ideas is taking place at the Sydney Opera House in October. Feel threatened. I’m involved in the following event on 2 October at 6pm: In Egypt and Tunisia we have seen ordinary people come together to claim democracy and human rights in the face of oppressive regimes, with Twitter and…
Talking about the role of Serco negatively affecting public freedom
It’s a discussion that rarely occurs in Western countries where Serco (and other corporations) are increasingly intruding on our lives. As citizens we are meant to silently accept the influence of these unaccountable firms. Privatisation will set us free, apparently. Resistance is most certainly not futile. Take this recent piece by Zoe Williams in the…
Duty to hold Sri Lanka to account for war crimes but Australia embraces the thugs
In some countries, such as Britain, there is continued public pressure on Colombo to hold those accused of war crimes to account. And rightly so. The Australian government has a rather different view: Several of the Tamil asylum seekers caught trying to flee Sri Lanka for Australia this week are being held in detention camps…
Hiring private thugs in Afghanistan and hoping for the best
It’s so hard to see why the Western-led war in Afghanistan is failing miserably: An Afghan-owned security company accused of operating an illicit protection racket received “a slap on the wrist” from the Defense Department despite ample evidence of wrongdoing, according to a senior House Democrat critical of the military’s efforts to combat corruption in…