This is the reality of US foreign policy in the Middle East. Dictatorships for life: Hosni Mubarak, Egypt‘s long-serving president, is likely to seek re-election next year and will “inevitably” win a poll that will not be free and fair, the US ambassador to Cairo, Margaret Scobey, predicted in a secret cable to Hillary Clinton…
Your search for wikileaks returned 803 results
![](https://antonyloewenstein.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/bg_12.jpg)
We are fighting growing PR power so we must strike back
If any more evidence was needed, this is why sites like Wikileaks are so important: Between 2006 and 2009, news room budgets were cut by $1.6 billion. Meanwhile, on the government side, between 1996 and 2009, the number of documents and other communications containing information labeled secret has risen 1,000 percent. We are at the…
![](https://antonyloewenstein.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/bg_13.jpg)
Assange and Serco, quite a relationship
Great letter in today’s Crikey about the ubiquitous Serco and its merry jobs. How many ways can this company make a buck from misfortune? Michael R. James writes: To top off a frenetic 24 hour news cycle of the harassment of Julian Assange, nothing was quite as chilling as seeing him being ferried to a…
![](https://antonyloewenstein.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/bg_08.jpg)
Karzai is about as statesmanlike as Mugabe
So this is what mature diplomacy means. Working with a corrupt government to further another bromance? So sweet and so revealing: Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called it “extraordinarily embarrassing,” which might also describe the sentiments beneath the decorous tableau on Wednesday night in the palace of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. A little more…
![](https://antonyloewenstein.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/bg_04.jpg)
Challenging authority is only beginning
Wikileaks as an inspiration: John Young, whose website cryptome.org has published about 60,000 classified and non-classified documents over the past 14 years, believes the storm will pass. “This is just typical arm-waving and yelling. If anything, this will just further wind people up to oppose authority and send in more documents.”
![](https://antonyloewenstein.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/bg_03.jpg)
Why is the national broadcaster giving so much air-time to a propagandist?
What an embarrassment. The US government is upset about Wikileaks and also pissed off that one of its best assets, Kevin Rudd, is being smeared in some leaked cables. Damage control time. But why did ABC TV’s 7.30 Report allow a senior US official 10 minutes last night to slobber over the client state known…
![](https://antonyloewenstein.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/bg_09.jpg)
The rape of Africa, courtesy of shiny Shell
Who says Wikileaks isn’t providing essential new information into the public domain? The oil giant Shell claimed it had inserted staff into all the main ministries of the Nigerian government, giving it access to politicians’ every move in the oil-rich Niger Delta, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable. The company’s top executive in Nigeria…
![](https://antonyloewenstein.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/bg_11.jpg)
What to do with colluding corporates?
With hackers attacking Visa and Mastercard for colluding with censorship of Wikileaks, blogger Jon Seymour has an idea: I have a concrete suggestion for a campaign idea. The Australian Parliament, for example, could reserve for itself the right to impose a “freedom tax” on payment services like PayPal, MasterCard and Visa. The tax rate would…
![](https://antonyloewenstein.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/bg_08.jpg)
Our jolly good mates in Saudi laugh at our oil dependence
Wikileaks-released cable about Saudi Arabia, our cuddly fundamentalist friend in the Middle East. We’ve been supporting these brutes for decades and yet no major Western leader seems to think it may be a good idea to move away from them. Alternative energy anybody? Summary: The Saudi regulatory system offers the al-Saud regime a means to…
![](https://antonyloewenstein.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/bg_03.jpg)
Saudi elites drink, smoke and sleep around (thanks for the help, world)
Our close friends in Saudi Arabia are a bunch of hypocritical bigots who love a good party like the rest of us. Oh, they also don’t allow women to work or vote, support terrorist organisations and hate democracy. Just the kind of friend the West loves: United States diplomats have described a world of “sex,…