This last weekend saw a large break-out at Australia’s Christmas Island detention facilities. The federal government acknowledges tear gas was used to quell the protests. Thousands of asylum seekers languish for months and often longer with no indication when their cases may be resolved. It’s a prison camp designed to punish those seeking asylum. My…
Sri Lankan regime can only teach the world how to murder Tamil civilians
The recent push to boycott and/or highlight the gross human rights abuses in Sri Lanka during the Galle Literary Festival – something I supported with a strongly worded petition – continues now in a different form: An international human rights watchdog has called on over 50 invited countries to boycott a conference aimed at sharing…
Warning, NSW: companies like Serco aren’t your real friends
My following story appears in today’s edition of Crikey: The New South Wales election is weeks away and privatisation is a key issue of concern for voters. Liberal opposition leader Barry O’Farrell, the likely next premier, leads a team that openly talks about restructuring the ways in which public assets could be sold. It’s possible…
Hacker who turned in Bradley Manning
Very unconvincing interview, and one wonders what the government has asked/told Adrian Lamo to say to try and implicate Julian Assange:
Revolution in China? Not so fast
It may take a little bit longer to bring serious political reform to China, especially when the connected class is so comfortable. Barbara Pollock writes in Artnet: During a recent visit to Beijing, the conversation at a local restaurant on a Saturday night turned briefly, only briefly, to politics. The video artist Wang Gongxin spoke…
US-backed thugs in Saudi Arabia armed by Western arms firms
As Saudi Arabia crushes peaceful pro-democracy protesters, let’s not forget the Western firms doing business with the brutes: A newly-released secret U.S. diplomatic cable has alleged that British-based defense contractor BAE Systems PLC bribed Saudi officials in return for lucrative arms deals. The cable from the U.S. embassy in Paris, released by WikiLeaks on Friday,…
Real power in Egypt; trade unions
Most Western press talk about the online revolution occurring in Egypt. That’s happening but is only a small part of the picture. Here’s independent Australian journalist Austin Mackell – currently based in Egypt and showing a post-revolution nation when most Western corporate reporters have left – interviewing local journalist Jano Charbel on the ongoing struggles…
Libyan resistance dying for backing from Israel-based reporter
Here’s the way not to report from a war-zone. Western journalist parachutes into a country and starts condemning the actions of the Libyan rebels, offering advice how to better fight a war. Because a Murdoch hack who lives a comfortable middle class existence in Israel knows so much about winning wars against dictators. John Lyons…
Neo-liberalism only helps the corporations, nobody else
As Britain’s conservative government embarks on a massive program of privatisation, Britain’s Channel 4 Dispatches discovers that many major multinationals, including Serco and G4S, are doing very nicely, thank you, out of the public cuts: Channel 4’s Ben Laurance writes in the Daily Mail: It has been a week in which public sector workers have…
“We don’t need no thought control” over Palestinian rights
Roger Waters, once of Pink Floyd fame, has become a high-profile supporter of Palestinian rights and endorser of BDS: In 1980, a song I wrote, Another Brick in the Wall Part 2, was banned by the government of South Africa because it was being… used by black South African… children to advocate their right to equal education.…