My debut article for US outlet The Intercept: RUPERT MURDOCH, who oversees a global media empire that includes Fox News, doesn’t like losing, but he just tasted defeat in Australia’s election. Despite years in which Murdoch’s media properties vociferously backed conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Labor leader Anthony Albanese won the May 21 contest. Australia…
Showing all posts tagged Australia
Will the Australian election give voice to Palestinians?
My latest investigation for Declassified Australia (including my photos from Gaza in 2017): It’s one of the longest trials of a Palestinian in Israeli history with no end in sight. Israel charged a Gaza-based, World Vision Australia employee, Mohammed El Halabi, in 2016 with illegally diverting millions of dollars of aid money to Hamas. Six years on, Halabi remains in detention…
Supporting Palestinian rights can be risky
Back in 2007, I co-founded Independent Australian Jewish Voices (IAJV) with academic Peter Slezak, a space to support more critical voices on Israel/Palestine. One of our early signatories was Moss Cass, a senior minister in Gough Whitlam’s government in the 1970s and one of the world’s finest environment ministers. He recently died at 95 and…
Radio New Zealand interview on spying in the Pacific and independent journalism
Following the recent publication in Declassified Australia of a great investigation on Australian and New Zealand spying across the Pacific by reporter Nicky Hager, we were both interviewed on Radio New Zealand on the Pacific Waves show that broadcasts across New Zealand and the Pacific: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Nicky Hager was also interviewed…
The never-ending gold rush in Afghanistan
My latest investigation is a joint piece for Declassified Australia and Declassified UK on the rush to exploit Afghan resources (mostly since 9/11): The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August last year has caused the country to implode. It was already on life support after more than 40 years of war but the swift removal…
ABC Radio National Big Ideas on Afghanistan and the Taliban
The ongoing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan receives far too little international media attention. Last night ABC Radio National Big Ideas program featured a discussion about the issues: The crisis in Afghanistan Six months after the withdrawal of Australian troops from Afghanistan, it is clear the embattled country is in the midst of a major humanitarian…
The war on drugs from a Slovakian view
My book, Pills, Powder and Smoke: Inside the Bloody War on Drugs, was recently released in a Slovakian edition. It’s been reviewed in Slovakia’s biggest newspaper, SME, by Lubomir Jasko, and it’s very positive. Here’s the Google Translate version: Anti-drug campaign or war against people? Antony Loewenstein, The War on Drugs, translated by Samuel Marec,…
20 Years: The words that shaped the war in Afghanistan
As part of the Twenty Years project, a journalistic and artistic initiative with Afghans in Australia and around the world to assess the legacy of the US-led war in Afghanistan, we commissioned young, female, Afghan-Australian artists to make a short film on these themes. This is their statement: The fall of Kabul in 2021 was…
Britain and Australia’s secretive relationship
The recent launch of Declassified Australia coincides with the first piece by journalist Peter Cronau and me for the great news organisation Declassified UK on the often sordid and secretive relationship between Australia and the UK. Some highlights (but read the whole thing): Australia’s independence from Britain has been contested ground since the nation’s birth in…
No uranium mining in Greenland
Back in 2014, I reported for the Guardian on an Australian company determined to open a uranium mine in Greenland. Years later, the issue is still live, the mine hasn’t happened but the corporation is determined to make it a reality. Green Left is covering the story (and virtually nobody else is): Sydney-based independent journalist,…