Stuart Rees, head of the Sydney Peace Foundation and presenter to Julian Assange of the Sydney Peace Medal recently, writes in today’s Sydney Morning Herald why Wikileaks matters: The WikiLeaks revelations are a watershed in decades of struggles to unmask what really occurs in the conduct of powerful people and institutions, in governments, corporations and…
Showing all posts tagged Australia
An interview on Palestine, boycott, Jews, Zionism, Australia and blindness
My following interview, conducted by Sarah Irving, appears in the Electronic Intifada: Antony Loewenstein (“antonyloewenstein.com) is a writer and journalist based in Sydney, Australia and a founder of Independent Australian Jewish Voices. His first book, My Israel Question, was an Australian best-seller and was short-listed for the 2007 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award; an…
Privatised services ignore duty of care and yet governments love them
Clare Sambrook reminds us of a tragic story in Australia that should provide a salutary warning to governments desperate for privatised “efficiency”: Last week in Western Australia, Graham Powell and Nina Stokoe, two former private security guards, pleaded not guilty to charges relating to the death of renowned Aboriginal elder Mr Ward, cooked to death…
I mean, what would Desmond Tutu know about apartheid anyway?
He’s compared the situation in Palestine today to those suffered by blacks under apartheid in South Africa. But comically, Murdoch’s Australian newspaper – always a wonderful defender of the underdog as long as they have solid business or media contacts – thinks Tutu should shut up about Palestine. It’s not like he has any clue…
Tutu salutes the brave Marrickville council backing Palestinian rights
Bravo: The Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu has penned a letter of praise to Marrickville Council over its support for a boycott of Israel, almost two months after the policy was abandoned amid an angry political backlash. The Nobel peace prize recipient and critic of Israel wrote that he wanted to extend his respects to the…
Murdoch logic; backers of war should receive a peace prize
Noam Chomsky has won the 2011 Sydney Peace Prize over his legendary support for human rights and challenging power it all its forms. That makes him an enemy of a Murdoch empire that spends its entire time wanting to be intimate with government and business. The poor dears can’t understand why a man who opposes…
Serco using imported labour to oppress refugees in Australia
This is what privatisation does; forces corporations to manage situations without accountability or care to the human beings in the situation: Dozens of foreign workers have been shipped to Australia to work at immigration detention centres. Serco has imported 58 staff members, most from England, to staff detention centres it charges hundreds of millions of…
Palestine rises while Israel lobby grumbles into its beer
While the Australian Zionist lobby continues to attack anybody who dares challenge the Israeli government (or settlements, or the siege on Gaza or Zionism in general) – AIJAC slams me for my recent appearances at the Sydney Writer’s Festival; yes, I dared talk about not believing in a racially discriminatory Jewish state – the Economist…
Palestine’s Gandhi: Omar Barghouti, BDS and international law
My following article is published today in Overland journal and was co-written with John Docker and Ned Curthoys: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. – Mahatma Gandhi Israel is creating a kind of moral schizophrenia in world Jewry. In the outside world, the welfare of…
Gaza flotilla 2 set to sail and Australians are involved
The following statement was released yesterday: On the eve of first anniversary of the deadly Israeli attack on the 2010 international Flotilla to break the siege of Gaza, Australian participants reiterated their determination to join the second Flotilla, which will set sail for Gaza at the end of June. “We welcome Egyptian moves to partially…