Tehran fears cultural imperialism but they just end up looking like paranoid and bigoted fools: In little more than a year, the Persian-language satellite television channel beamed into Iran by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and a prominent Afghan family has rapidly become one of the most popular stations in the country. A little too popular,…
Privatising education in Britain (should not be the future and yet)
From the Times Higher Education supplement: No one is suggesting that Sir Michael or Sands put the interests of their employer, or former employer, first. But the Browne Review does symbolise and sanction an insidious aspect of the wider privatisation process, which brings into education-policy formation management consultancies whose policy fixes, although discussed as “improvements”…
The Afghans love us for destroying them
Balloon Juice highlights a startling passage in a Washington Post story: But many residents near Kandahar do not share the view. They have lodged repeated complaints about the scope of the destruction with U.S. and Afghan officials. In one October operation near the city, U.S. aircraft dropped about two dozen 2,000-pound bombs. In another recent…
Israel lobby welcomes image of naked people engaged in sexual acts
America’s leading Zionist lobby, AIPAC, loves pornography. And many other tales here.
What’s hundreds of thousands dead to a Murdoch columnist?
Earlier this week we were reminded of the Australian Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan years ago dismissing the Burmese “dissident” Aung San Suu Kyi. Sheridan is back at it today (thanks to Scott Burchill): For nearly 20 years, good hearted Indonesians have been telling the Burmese to study the New Order regime that prevailed in Indonesia…
Independent thought doesn’t have to go behind a paywall
Wise words about a media mogul that too few people are willing to challenge: Alan Rusbridger, the editor-in-chief of the Guardian, today stepped into the debate over whether Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation should be allowed to take full control of BSkyB, by warning of the “chilling effect” that “one large media company can have on…
What “Miral” does for the Palestinian cause
Last night in Sydney at the Palestinian Film Festival I saw an amazing new film by Jewish film-maker Julian Schnabel, Miral. This is a deeply moving tale about the Palestinian experience, from the 1948 Nakba to the Deir Yassin massacre, the 1967 war and the first intifada. Is it this generation’s Exodus, asks Mondoweiss? Its…
Privatisation will keep us warm at night
With the British government massively cutting public spending, expect reliance on the private sector to grow. And little accountability. Just how both sides want it: The scale of the country’s reliance on private companies to power the state is revealed today as the government takes the historic step of publishing its accounts for the first…
The Zionist love felt by Wilders and his shaven mates
The rise of the far right in Europe and its love for Israel is a connection that many in the Zionist community would rather ignore. So why do we think far-right fascists like Israel so much these days? Not because they’re Jewish but the killing and occupation of Muslims is terribly appealing. Max Blumenthal reports…