A man who died too young. John Kaye was a New South Wales Greens MP and friend. I was asked to comment about him by Wendy Bacon in online magazine New Matilda: “John was a friend, a trusted, funny, witty and principled man who also happened to be a politician. It’s hard to find that…
Showing all posts tagged Australia
How occupation truths about Palestine often hidden by politicians and reporters
My column in the Guardian: New South Wales Premier Mike Baird… recently visited Israel… and Palestine, the first for a sitting leader of the Australian state. After travelling to the occupied West Bank and seeing the Aida refugee camp, Baird… wrote on Facebook… that the situation was “heartbreaking.” He continued: “I don’t know where the cycle of thousands of…
The risk and financial cost of speaking honestly about Israel/Palestine
Crikey is one of Australia’s best independent news websites. I… contributed extensively over the years from 2009 – 2012. Its current departing editor, Marni Cordell, with whom I worked when she edited another great Australian site, New Matilda, has written a revealing article that interviews previous Crikey editors and their experiences. It contains this anecdote that…
Disaster Capitalism film asks key questions about aid and politics
The following article appears today in the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age and is written by Garry Maddox. The headline is, “Australia’s foreign aid is largely wasted because of corruption, says documentary maker Antony Loewenstein”: Australian feature films have largely avoided hot political subjects… lately –… though that may… change with Matthew Saville’s planned film on the…
What the Sanders and Corbyn movements say about Australia
My column in the Guardian: Charisma and persuasion matter in politics. Though neither trait guarantees fair policies or outlook – think Tony Blair… backing the catastrophic war… against Iraq, or Malcolm Turnbull hailing himself as a free speech champion before… pressuring the ABC… over its robust journalism – image is apparently more captivating than ever in the 21st century.…
Private immigration facilities making money from misery
My debut article in the New York Times: Berlin — Immigration and Customs Enforcement calls the detention site in Dilley, Tex., a “family residential center.” But to the 2,000 migrant children and mothers who live there, it’s something else: “People who say this is not a prison are lying,” Yancy Maricela Mejia Guerra, a detainee…
Turkish channel TRT World interview on Australia's asylum policies
Australia’s refugee policies are designed to inflict harm on the most vulnerable. Last week I was interviewed by Turkish international news channel TRT World in Berlin about the issue (my interview starts at 19:54):
US radio show Majority Report interview on Disaster Capitalism
Last week I was interviewed from Berlin by the US radio program Majority Report with Sam Seder. We discussed my book, Disaster Capitalism, Haiti, the Clinton Foundation and Australia’s brutal refugee policies.
How Australia is inspiring Europe's immigration policies
My column in the Guardian: Australia first… introduced… onshore detention facilities in 1991 at Villawood in Sydney and Port Hedland in Western Australia. Mandatory detention came in 1992. Bob Hawke’s government announced it was because “Australia could be on the threshold of a major wave of unauthorised boat arrivals from south-east Asia, which will severely test both…
Guardian book review of Disaster Capitalism
This book review by Owen Hatherley, of Disaster Capitalism,… was published in the Guardian Review last Saturday: At one telling moment in this unnerving and convincing book, Antony Loewenstein quotes the managing director of one of the many private military companies (“PMCs”) working in Afghanistan. The United States, says “Jack”, “is not capable of running empires”.…