For the last years I’ve been working with New York based film-maker Thor Neureiter on a documentary about Disaster Capitalism. We successfully raised money on Kickstarter last year and we’re currently pursuing funding from a range of global sources. Film-making is a long, painful and challenging process. I’m happy to release the new teaser that…
Showing all posts tagged Afghanistan
Talking vulture capitalism at the Byron Bay Writer's Festival
I’ve returned from the wonderful Byron Bay Writer’s Festival where I’ve enjoyed the outdoor festival in the sun talking about Gaza, Palestine, politics, war (on a very interesting and sometimes heated panel with Washington Post journalist David Finkel and writer Abbas El-Zein and another one on free speech) and vulture capitalism. My 2013 best-selling book,…
The mess in Libya is deep warning to "humanitarian interventionists"
My weekly Guardian column: Libya was sold as a glorious, liberating war. London’s Tory mayor Boris Johnson… wrote… in March 2011 that the overthrow of dictator Muammar Gaddafi was “of course ”¦ a good idea”. He was cautiously optimistic that a Western-led military campaign would not be a “disaster” like Iraq in 2003. “What kind of democracy…
How the West has always backed brutal Sri Lanka
My weekly Guardian column: The Sri Lankan Navy band was busy last week, learning the tune to Waltzing Matilda. They played it to welcome Scott Morrison, the Australian immigration minister, who was visiting to launch two patrol boats donated by the Australian government. A photo of the moment,tweeted… by journalist Jason Koutsoukis, showed Morrison sitting alongside…
The toxic Greek brew of racism, fascism and hatred of refugees
My weekly Guardian column: On a searing hot day last weekend I took the train an hour out of Athens to the Greek city of Corinth. There, one of the country’s largest detention centres sits behind high walls. It was the recent site of a mass hunger strike by asylum seekers, whose protest has now…
The Daily Show on Bowe Bergdahl and Fox News
Nothing short of genius tinged with necessary slap-downs of race-baiting Fox News:
Why understanding the "other side" remains vital in war
During last week’s Sydney Writer’s Festival, I was involved in a fantastic event about World War One Poetry with Tony Birch, Colin Friels, Judy Davis, Jennifer Mills, Omar Musa and Maxine Beneba Clarke. It was organised by Jeff Sparrow at Overland magazine. I read the following piece: My father’s father, Fred Loewenstein, was born in…
Alternative Law Journal reviews Profits of Doom
The following review by Kate Galloway appears in the Alternative Law Journal: Antony Loewenstein; Melbourne University Press, 2013; 261 pages; $32.99 (paperback) In this extensively researched book, journalist Antony Loewenstein takes the reader on a world tour. From the remotest parts of Australia — at the Curtin Immigration Detention Centre, Christmas Island and James Price…
How the US war in Afghanistan has protected a torturer
A stunning investigation by the Washington Post on what the American war in Afghanistan has supported; one of the most brutal thugs in the country: In Afghanistan, his presence was enough to cause prisoners to tremble. Hundreds in his organization’s custody were beaten, shocked with electrical currents or subjected to other abuses documented in human…
We know too little about US drone attacks
My weekly Guardian column: The news that the US had killed two Australian “militants” in a drone strike was… announced… in mid-April.… Christopher Havard… and “Muslim bin John”, who… also held… New Zealand citizenship, were allegedly killed by a CIA-led airstrike in eastern Yemen in November last year. Readers were given little concrete information, apart from a “counter-terrorism source” who claimed…