My following book review appeared in last weekend’s Melbourne’s Sunday Age and Sydney’s Sun Herald: The news late last year that Australia’s richest man, Andrew ”Twiggy” Forrest, had not paid any corporate tax for seven years was unsurprising. Fortescue Metals’s tax manager, Marcus Hughes, conceded to a parliamentary committee in December: ”We have not cut…
Articles in Sydney Sun-Herald
Getting inside the head of Julian Assange
My following book review appeared in yesterday’s Sydney Sun Herald: Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography Julian Assange (Text, $29.95) This is unlike any book you’ve ever read. Take one of the most recognisable figures in the world, sit him down for hours of interviews and sign a multimillion-dollar contract to publish an authorised autobiography. Talk…
A blinkered view of the war on terrorism
My following book review appeared in last weekend’s Sydney Sun Herald newspaper: The Triple Agent Joby Warrick (Scribe, $32.95) Reviewed by Antony Loewenstein The war in Afghanistan is the longest in modern American history. This year has been the most deadly for Afghan civilians. British MP Rory Stewart wrote in The New York Times that…
A man out to save young, innocent lives in Asia
My following book review appeared in last Sunday’s Sydney Sun Herald newspaper: The Grey Man John Curtis (Macmillan, $34.99) Al-Jazeera reported in 2008 that the child sex trade in Cambodia was rampant, fuelled by local interest and Western tourism. In 2007, Cambodian authorities arrested only 21 people for sex crimes with children and many brothels…
This is Australia’s past and future?
My following book review appeared in last Sunday’s Sydney Sun Herald newspaper: The Protectors Stephen Gray (Allen & Unwin, $29.99) “Mainstream Australia is equivocal about the apology [to the stolen generations] at best.” It’s a provocative start to a work that aims to understand the motives of the farmers, politicians and public figures who took…
Australia’s future is not ignoring human rights in the region
My following book review appeared in yesterday’s Sydney Sun Herald newspaper: There Goes the Neighbourhood Michael Wesley (New South Books, $32.95) Australia’s insecurity in the Asia-Pacific region is legendary. Over decades prime ministers and commentators have urged a close relationship with Washington while remaining open to romance with leading powers such as China to buy…
When politicians and journalists dance incestuously
My following book review appeared in yesterday’s Sydney Sun Herald newspaper: Sideshow Lindsay Tanner (Scribe, $32.95) “Australia and its people deserve much better than the carefully scripted play-acting that now dominates our nation’s politics.” So begins former ALP minister Lindsay Tanner’s timely examination of the toxic relationship between corporatised media and its political cousins. Politics…
How Wikileaks has opened our eyes to the world
My following review appeared in this week’s Sydney Sun Herald: Underground Suelette Dreyfus and Julian Assange (Random House, $24.95) Inside Wikileaks Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Scribe, $29.95) During a rare public appearance in March, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange told a packed audience at Cambridge University that the internet is the “greatest spying machine the world has ever…
David Hicks shows us what we became after 9/11
My following book review appeared in yesterday’s Sydney’s Sun Herald newspaper: AUTOBIOGRAPHY Guantanamo: My Journey David Hicks (William Heinemann, $49.95) Reviewed by Antony Loewenstein Almost 10 years after the Bush administration launched the ”˜”˜war on terror’’, the victims of the policy remain largely voiceless. The unknown number of civilians murdered by Western bombs have no…
Mental health cure isn’t available with a pill
My following book review appeared in yesterday’s Sydney Sun Herald: Crazy Like Us Ethan Watters Scribe, $35 About one in five adult Australians will experience mental illness at some point. In the US, about 27 per cent of people aged 18 and older suffer from a mental disorder each year. These are startling figures that…
More articles in Sydney Sun-Herald
- Refugees’ fate beyond the wire — August 14, 2005
- Following them home — July 6, 2005
- Call to Arms Could Signal Calamity — June 12, 2005
- Oppressed In Their Own Land — May 22, 2005
- God Under Howard — February 20, 2005
- In Praise of Soharto The Desperate — February 13, 2005
- Questions for John Pilger — December 19, 2004
- ‘Democracy’ At A Terrible Price — November 28, 2004
- Herzl’s Nightmare — September 27, 2004
- A Certain Maritime Incident — August 29, 2004
- War of Words: How President Bush Got It Wrong — August 8, 2004