My following article appears in today’s edition of Crikey: I recently reported… for Crikey on alleged anti-Israel bias of educational simulations on the Israel/Palestine conflict conducted by Macquarie University’s Centre for Middle East and North African Studies. The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and The Australian have both conducted a campaign to stigmatise the simulations as…
Articles in Crikey
The danger of pretending to be Arab or Israeli
My following article appears in today’s edition of Crikey: Readers of Wednesday’s Australian may have noticed a front page article by Rebecca Weisser which stated: A simulation exercise in which Year 11 students played Arabs and Israelis has been dropped by NSW schools after parents complained it was creating racial tension and painted terrorists in…
Iraq’s civil war and the American response
My following article appears in today’s edition of Crikey: The war in Iraq is a debacle and no amount of semantic fudging can change that reality. While it is encouraging that a number of US media outlets have finally acknowledged that civil war is raging in the occupied nation, the Iraqi people have known this…
The journalist, the spy and Vladimir Putin
My following article appears in today’s edition of Crikey: The recent London murder of former KGB and FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko has once again focused world attention on the increasingly authoritarian rule of Vladimir Putin. Russian authorities are determined to deny any responsibility for the targeting of a key Putin critic, but evidence already points…
Mud-slinging moratorium for NSW politicians’ big night out
My following article appears in today’s Crikey newsletter: The last weeks have seen the NSW Labor government and Liberal opposition at each other’s throats over corruption, allegations of child sexual assault and incompetence. Strangely these… tensions were little… in evidence at last night’s annual NSW Parliamentary Christmas Party at Parliament House in Macquarie Street. Over 250 journalists,…
War and media bias in the UK
My following article appears in today’s Crikey newsletter: In 2003, the Blair government accused the BBC and other media outlets of being biased against the Iraq war. The British Prime Minister and his Director of Communications Alastair Campbell alleged that the public broadcaster dared to suggest that the government had exaggerated the military threat from…
Al-Jazeera International revolution set to launch
My following article appears in today’s Crikey newsletter: This week’s launch of Al-Jazeera International (AJI) – the English language version of the incendiary Qatar-funded news channel – is bound to bring fresh perspectives to the reporting of world affairs. Its four main bases – Kuala Lumpur, Doha, London and Washington – will allow the service…
Love-in for Robert Hughes at launch
My following article appears in today’s Crikey newsletter: In his just-released memoir, Things I Didn’t Know, Robert Hughes, the Australian-born and New York-based author, art critic and perennial stirrer, recalls his near-death in 1999 from a horrific car accident in Western Australia. He once told Sunday’s then host Jana Wendt about the event: A lot…
West Papuan independence is achievable
My following article appears in today’s Crikey newsletter: In late March, the Australian’s Foreign Editor, Greg Sheridan, wrote that the Howard government had “absolutely no desire to see an independent West Papua.” He acknowledged that “human rights abuses” did occur in the Indonesian province, but “Canberra wants to give no comfort to the independence movement.”…
Iraqi bloggers: letters from the inside
My following article appears in today’s Crikey newsletter: As the “Coalition of the Unwilling” furiously spins new objectives, deadlines and targets for “victory” in Iraq, former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has labelled the invasion a “pure failure” that has left the country in worse shape than under Saddam Hussein. The Independent’s Patrick Cockburn writes…