Just which part of the Jewish state is democratic for all?

You can smell the fear in this Haartez editorial. Israel is a democratic state that should be saved? Who thinks this? Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza? While the negotiations over the final-status arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians have fallen into lethargy, Israel’s international status is steadfastly sinking. The process…

Holding the bastards to account

Yes: Robert Stary, Assange’s Melbourne-based lawyer, thinks his client’s defense should be pretty straightforward, because he considers Assange to be a journalist, protected by U.S. First Amendment guarantees of free speech. But Stary is worried about some possibilities: “Our main concern is really the possible extradition to the U.S. We’ve been troubled by the sort…

Reporting the occupation; voices in Jaipur

Today I chaired a session here in Jaipur, India at the literature festival with three men who know something about war and conflict. Brit Rory Stewart, New Yorker’s Jon Lee Anderson and the Washington Post’s David Finkel. We faced a packed audience – hundreds in an outdoor tent with overflowing crowds hanging out as far…

America doesn’t want to be on the side of democracy

So the US government is caught out lying about the supposed threat posed by Wikileaks. In many ways, the damage to Washington is more far-reaching. Maybe not in a practical sense but it’s image around the world. Suffice to say, it’s worsening. For example: Confidential US diplomatic cables from 2005 and 2006 released this week…

Ireland hearts US torture

Another government, post Wikileaks, shown to have lied post 9/11: Slowly but surely the entire shameful truth is coming out about Shannon airport, CIA renditions, and the lengths the Irish government went to avoid the evidence. One of the first Dublin embassy cables from Wikileaks confirmed that the Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern knew…

No wonder China will one day rule the world

Wow: China’s online population rose to 457 million in 2010 as use of mobile phones to surf the Web spread rapidly, an industry group reported Wednesday. China’s population of Internet users – a group more than 50 per cent larger than the whole U.S. population – grew 19 per cent in 2010 over the previous…

Recognising anti-Islam mood is first step to recovery

It’s almost impossible to imagine a conservative leader talking this way in Australia or America: Islamophobia has “passed the dinner-table test” and become widely socially acceptable in Britain, according to Lady Warsi, the Conservative chairman. Warsi, the first Muslim woman to attend Cabinet, is expected to use a speech at Leicester University today to raise…

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