My following interview appears in this week’s Green Left Weekly: Independent journalist and author… Antony Loewenstein… visited Papua New Guinea in January and February as part of his research for an upcoming book and documentary about disaster capitalism and privatisation. He spoke to… Green Left Weekly‘s… Ash Pemberton… about the influence of the resource industry in PNG, its links with…
Showing all posts tagged privatisation
Trusting Woodside is a fool’s game
The struggle over James Price Point in Western Australia is a key issue of our time. I visited there in late 2011 and reported about the forces against Woodside and the government to protect the pristine environment from destruction. The battle over natural resources will only increase during this century. This recent piece in the…
Another day and yet more evidence that Serco thrives through failure
The Guardian investigates: A leading private health company, poised to win much of the new wave of… NHSoutsourcing contracts, is under investigation for allegedly providing an “unsafe” out-of-hours GP service, and over claims that it manipulated results where it failed to meet targets. Serco, which runs a large range of outsourced services for the government and…
NATO expands and vulture capitalists make a killing
Salon reports: “Optics!” hissed the NATO summit staffer. “Jesus Christ, optics!” He was right to panic. It was Sunday evening, 6 sharp, the end of the first day of the NATO summit in Chicago. A swarm of global press was gathered around the convention hall’s lone display, a slick industry-sponsored video exhibit of NATO’s ballistic…
Global detention centres are thriving and vulture capitalists rejoice
Placing tortured asylum seekers into immigration detention in Britain – where private companies “take care” of aspects of this process – is shameful. Britain’s Channel 4 has the story: Meanwhile, in Australia Serco is loving the increase in asylum boats. The more the merrier. Yesterday’s Australian records the screams of joy from the Serco board-room:…
Future warfare will be brought to you by a multinational
Wired reports: Sure, it took an extra year or so, but Northrop Grumman has finally penciled in the first flight of the giant surveillance airship it’s building for the U.S. Army. The… Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle… —… a football-field-size, helium-filled robot blimp fitted with sensors and data-links — should take to the air over Lakehurst, New Jersey, the…
ABC TV News interview about freedom of speech in West and beyond
During last week’s Sydney Writer’s Festival, before my PEN lecture on free speech, I was interviewed by ABC TV News about the growing threat to our freedoms in the West, as governments and private companies monitor and collect our digital details: [video… ogg=”/cms/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/586444_20120517-Sydney-Writers_video2.ogg” mp4=”/cms/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/586444_20120517-Sydney-Writers_video2.m4v” width=”400″ height=”224″]
Bush administration inspired by Israeli homeland security post 9/11
No real secrets here but at least it’s acknowledged that the extreme, often racist and discriminatory polices of the Zionist state assisted Washington after September 11. And the greatest irony of all? Neither country feels safe. Here’s the Times of Israel: The world changed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, former US secretary of…
There’s a new sheriff in American towns and he’s from a corporation
A privatised future where companies desperately want citizens to stay and remain in prison?… It’s here, today: Louisiana is the world’s prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana’s incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran’s, seven times China’s…