Global dissidents may not want US openly backing them

Promoting web freedom is a noble idea, especially since so many autocratic regimes and Western multinationals are working together to stop citizens accessing the glories of information on the internet. But this idea is full of potential problems (via the New York Times), not least because Washington has a shocking record of supporting dictatorships at…

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…

The Net Delusion is alive and well

My following book review appeared in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald: THE NET DELUSION Evgeny Morozov Allen Lane, 408pp, $29.95 As people in the Middle East have been protesting in the streets against Western-backed dictators and using social media to connect and circumvent state repression, it would be easy to dismiss The Net Delusion as almost…

Don’t allow any country to sever web connections to our planet

The Arab Spring hasn’t been kind to countless Middle East dictatorships. Internet censorship has been a key plank of trying to maintain order in the face of a massive popular uprising. At least in Egypt we’ve now seen former Mubarak ministers and the former President himself being fined for daring to cut internet connections and…

Britain happy to train Saudi thugs for crowd control

The real face of London’s foreign policy posture: Britain is training Saudi Arabia‘s national guard – the elite security force deployed during the recent protests in Bahrain – in public order enforcement measures and the use of sniper rifles. The revelation has outraged human rights groups, which point out that the Foreign Office recognises that…

On Obama, AIPAC, occupation, revolutions and the status-quo

So much discussion about the latest elaborate dance between the US under Barack Obama and Israel. In many ways, little has changed over the years, as Washington occasionally talks tough with Israel but then never does anything more. Words are cheap in the Middle East, especially as the occupation deepens every day. And, as if…

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