Thanks for clarifying, Tel Aviv

Take that Jew-haters, anti-Semitics and dead Palestinians: “Israel is a democratic and law abiding country that carefully observes international law and, when need be, knows how to investigate itself,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ygal Palmor said in a statement.

Here’s your future Palestinian state

Nora Barrows-Friedman writes from occupied Palestine that the US and Israeli backed Palestinian Authority is behaving exactly as directed, brutes establishing a police state: “The Palestinian Authority (PA) forces came late at night and started shooting inside the camp,” Shihab said. “They came in, shooting, acting like the Israeli military. They wanted to make the…

Serco love and respect everybody, says Australian government

Here’s Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs, Brendan O’Connor, defending the reputation of the firm running Australia’s detention centres: Serco has a long-standing interest in this area. It manages other centres and indeed it employs dedicated staff that have the skills to deal with these situations.

Obama’s covert killing squads in Afghanistan

The book, Obama’s Wars, by Court Reporter Bob Woodward, is about to be released, examining American’s deepening involvement in Afghanistan. Expect mountains of coverage in the coming weeks, but here’s a preview: Beyond the internal battles, the book offers fresh disclosures on the nation’s continuing battle with terrorists. It reports that the C.I.A. has a…

Private contractor Serco escapes scrutiny in the detention debate

My following piece appears today in Crikey: I visited Villawood on Sunday”‰—”‰alongside a delegation of union leaders and Greens Senator-elect Lee Rhiannon”‰—”‰and met several asylum seekers subsequently involved in the protest that ended peacefully last night with the arrival of UNHCR officials. We spent hours conversing with men in their 20s and up from Iraq,…

Serco provide “security” in Australia so let’s all relax

Behold! The local media (in today’s Australian) briefly mention the role of British multinational Serco but watch how quickly it’ll be buried again. Nothing to see here, all hail privatised cruelty: The government has ruled out using the military as a crisis response force in the event of trouble at a new immigration detention centre…

FBI fears the radical Quakers

Never trust the government or intelligence authorities to not exceed their mandate, to poke where they should not and investigate what is not their business: The FBI in recent years opened investigations into some U.S. activists with little basis, unjustifiably extended the duration of the probes, improperly retained information about activist groups in its files,…

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