A fine statement: Pip Hinman, the Socialist Alliance candidate for the NSW state electorate of Marrickville, has expressed strong support for Marrickville Council’s recent resolution to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli apartheid in Palestine. She disputed claims by the ALP candidate for Marrickville, Carmel Tebutt, and the local federal Labor…
Galle Literary Festival appeal to not ignore human rights
I was recently asked to sign the following statement about the upcoming Galle Literary Festival in Sri Lanka. I am honoured to appear in such company to highlight the ongoing abuses taking place in a supposedly terror-free country: Reporters Without Borders and Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), a network of exiled Sri Lankan…
If Wikileaks cables can’t change US policy, what would?
So: The damage caused by the WikiLeaks controversy has caused little real and lasting damage to American diplomacy, senior state department officials have concluded. It emerged in private briefings to Congress by top diplomats that the fallout from the release of thousands of private diplomatic cables from all over the globe has not been especially…
Australians have the right to know how our leaders “lead”
Scott Burchill, in an ongoing series dedicated to the issues surrounding Wikileaks that the media is ignoring, reminds us of the various ways Australian governments over the last decades have attempted to keep information secret that we have the right to know. Note how few journalists today are leading this kind of charge: Asserting the…
North Korea and Iran sitting in a tree…
Wikileaks is providing profoundly significant news day after day (and thanks to Greg Mitchell at The Nation for keeping the fires burning): A US diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks over the weekend says North Korea has likely received 2-and-a-half million US dollars for weapons sold to Iran through the Seoul branch of Iran’s Bank Mellat.…
30 nations backing Iran to build the bomb?
Many Wikileaks cables are fascinating but not necessarily reflecting the truth. This one, on Iran’s supposed rush for a nuclear bomb, is written by US officials with many reasons for telling their masters that Tehran is an evil nation pursuing evil means. It may be true, of course: Iran has been developing contacts in more…
Hersh on who really controls the world
Honesty is such a rare beast in journalism. Perhaps that’s why it takes a master who doesn’t fear a corporate overlord to silence/intimidate (ignore the petty intro): DOHA, Qatar—David Remnick, call your office. In a speech billed as a discussion of the Bush and Obama eras, New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh delivered a rambling, conspiracy-laden…
Memo to Washington; only shows us as exceptional 24/7
The recent news that the US State Department will be taking an acclaimed documentary about Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg to show around the world has upset Fox News. The US shouldn’t be “airing its dirty linen” to the globe, says the national security “reporter”. Watch and learn how real media messaging works: Watch the…
Hello America, there is a world outside Martha Stewart
Wonder why the American public is largely ignorant about the world? They’re fed content to make them obsessed with themselves: America was founded upon the principle of liberty and freedom, but guess who was covering the quest for freedom in Tunisia extensively yesterday? Al Jazeera, not the American news TV Networks. I am utterly disgusted…