Britain has embraced rampant capitalism and the effects, writes The Independent’s Johann Hari, will be severe: Margaret Thatcher is lying sick in a private hospital bed in Belgravia but her political children have just pushed her agenda further and harder and deeper than she ever dreamed of. When was the last time Britain’s public spending…
Showing all posts tagged privatisation
The slow curse of disaster capitalism covers the world
I recently wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald about the ever-increasing arrival of the Shock Doctrine in Australia and Asia-Pacific. Privatisation running riot. George Monbiot writes about the same problems facing Britain: We’ve been staring at the wrong list. In an effort to guess what will hit us tomorrow, we’ve been trying to understand the…
This is what our asylum seeker policy looks like
While Australia releases some families from immigration detention into the community yet builds more facilities to imprison refugees, a foreign journalist visits the country and finds a privatised and largely unaccountable system away from the prying eyes of average citizens. Just as the government wants it to be.
Serco and friends line up for dirty and profitable work
How many more people can we exploit for profit? Far too many, it seems: Jimmy Mubenga died during deportation from the UK, and the first fingers of blame will undoubtedly be pointed at the Home Office-contracted private security firm, G4S. But we need to look at ourselves and ask how we became a society that…
Assange; the importance of making powerful enemies
In the annual “50 People Who Matter 2010” for New Statesman, John Pilger endorses Julian Assange and Wikileaks; guts that matters and so necessary: The arrival of WikiLeaks is one of the most exciting developments in the enduring struggle of ordinary people for the right to call secret power to account. This is what journalism…
Serco and friends take refugees and show them the door
Exporting misery is a nice little earner: The scale of Britain’s largely privatised deportation industry has mushroomed as the Home Office responds to political pressure for the faster removal of failed asylum-seekers and people overstaying their visas. There are 11 immigration removal centres across the country with space for around 3,000 detainees. Most are operated…
Australian unions recognise the power and necessity of BDS
Now this is news, a growing realisation that the status-quo in Palestine is simply oppressing Palestinians. Civil society is rising: Australian unions are signing up to an international campaign to boycott Israeli goods. But a fight is brewing over a proposal for the Australian Council of Trade Unions to endorse the movement. The broad-based divestment…
Serco continues its glorious work in the UK
Guess who runs this privatised detention centre in Britain? Serco: A pregnant woman detained at Yarl’s Wood immigration centre who was told by a midwife she could not find her baby’s heartbeat was refused a scan for four days despite repeated requests and a high court order. Theresa Diedericks, 26, a South African who has…
Yes, Australia imprisons children
This is how Australia treats refugees, including children, when they come seeking asylum; under lock and key for months and longer:
How much death can billions buy?
War is Business blog unpacks the true cost of our conflicts: At the start of the Iraq invasion, the US military spent twice as much on its own personnel as it did on procurement from private sources. Within a few years’ time, the military was spending three times as much on outside contractors as on…