Last week I was invited down to Canberra to give the keynote speech at the Independent Scholars Association of Australia 2011 Conference. It was held at the National Library to an appreciative audience. The following are my notes: -… … … … … … Quote from Julian Assange, The UnAuthorised Autobiography, p. 119/120 + 168 -… … … … … … … What is modern journalism…
Showing all posts tagged Venezuela
Guess who is showing the world what real democracy is like?
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri on challenging racist stereotypes of what popular revolt can achieve. No wonder so many “experts” are confused; “stability” in the Middle East has helped their careers: One challenge facing observers of the uprisings spreading across north Africa and the Middle East is to read them as not so many repetitions…
A little taste of what kind of democracy Egypt deserves
My following analysis appears on ABC Unleashed/The Drum today: An Egyptian blogger displayed characteristic humour when news broke overnight that president Hosni Mubarak would not be stepping down: Mubarak (n.): a psychotic ex-girlfriend who fails 2 understand it’s over. If Mubarak and his new deputy Omar Suleiman thought their speeches would placate the protesters, they…
A litany of Wikileaks evidence that US behaves like rogue state
The Wikileaks stories keep on coming. One: The Drug Enforcement Administration has been transformed into a global intelligence organization with a reach that extends far beyond narcotics, and an eavesdropping operation so expansive it has to fend off foreign politicians who want to use it against their political enemies, according to secret diplomatic cables. In…
Don’t see Iran as freedom fighters
While Hugo Chavez shamefully embraces Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and utterly ignores Tehran’s horrific human rights record, Nasrin Alavi highlights the struggles inside Iran that deserve global support: The Iranian state has to come to terms with the reality that, a generation after the revolution, no hardline Islamic student group is (or has been) able…
Sri Lanka must be condemned, without ifs or buts
An important editorial in today’s Sydney Morning Herald that undermines its argument by continuing the Western corporate press obsession with the supposed dictatorship of Hugo Chavez. Human rights abuses obviously occur in Venezuela but the nation isn’t a police state and attempts to paint it otherwise, or compare it to the brutal regime in Colombo,…
Journalists on the government drip-feed like to love their masters
The importance of independent journalism in a bought and sold world has never been more important. Being on the payroll of a government department – I was recently discussing with a prominent old-time reporter about the number of corporate journalists providing information to intelligence services – means that transparency is lacking. Example: US State Department…
Iran, Iran, Iran (don’t talk about Israel and settlements)
Just in case we’d forgotten why Washington should never pressure Israel (today it’s Iran, yesterday it’s Iraq and perhaps in years to come…Venezuela?): As more than a dozen lawmakers go on record to ask the Obama administration to end the diplomatic spat with Israel following Vice President Joe Biden‘s visit, some are now warning that…
The slow destruction of the Arabs
Hugo Chavez speaks to French newspaper Le Figaro: The question is not whether the Israelis want to exterminate the Palestinians. They’re doing it openly.
Anti-Semitism is the least of problems in Venezuela
The global Jewish Diaspora loves to criticise Venezuela under Hugo Chavez for its supposed anti-Semitic attitudes and growing intolerance of Jewry. But this essay in the North American Congress on Latin America debunks many of the myths, highlighting the deliberate mis-information campaign run by Zionist groups in the US and the mainstream media. High-profile critics…