A fine historical reminder in the UK Guardian: There is a precedent for Julian Assange’s predicament. Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett in the late 60s was banned from Australia for reporting the Vietnam war from the North, and for allegedly asking prisoners taken during the Korean conflict to confess to Chinese interrogators. Authorities attempted to turn…
Wikileaks
Wikileaks is one of the biggest and most important stories in the world, challenging governments and journalists alike. I’ve been writing extensively about the group since 2006, featured an exclusive interview in 2008 with founder Julian Assange and examined the myriad of issues around the website. Assange himself asked me in the early days whether I wanted to be on the group’s board to vet incoming leaks and determine their veracity before publishing. I agreed but unfortunately this never eventuated.
Karzai knows his pimp isn’t going anywhere, yet
How we all miss the good old days? Useful idiot dictator longs for an unquestioning, clueless Washington elite to prop up his regime (not that the Obama administration is much different): Longing for the early years of the Bush administration, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been consumed by anti-U.S. conspiracy theories, convinced American officials are…
A “serious” newspaper debases itself
Perfection. ABC columnist Tim Dunlop offers his reflections on 2010 and takes out Murdoch’s Australian: If The Australian was a member of your family you would’ve arranged an intervention by now to stop further self-harm. If it was a bloke you would suspect it of having a very small penis. Has anyone ever seen a…
“In World War Two, journalists were patriots first”
Newt Gingrich reminds us that his vision for America is a dark, undemocratic nightmare: A fellow traveller, John Bolton, believes the US should lie its way to superiority. No wonder Washington’s image globally has never been worse:
Sarkozy doesn’t dislike Arabs all the time?
Putting aside the unworkability of a two-state solution, this shows growing international anger towards Israel. Next step is financial and diplomatic punishment for the Zionist state: Former French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner in January 2010 had already discussed with the US the idea of recognizing a Palestinian state regardless of the outcome of negotiations with…
CNN hearts Bush admin peeps over Wikileaks
This is a debate on CNN over Wikileaks that is deeply revealing. Note the strong sense that journalists should really not uncover information that could upset governments:
Corporations are on the way out thanks to intense leaking?
Noam Scheiber, The New Republic, 27 December: The Wikileaks revolution isn’t only about airing secrets and transacting information. It’s about dismantling large organizations—from corporations to government bureaucracies. It may well lead to their extinction.
Wikileaks resonates in Mugabe’s gulag
The almost impossible role of an opposition leader in a brutal dictatorship: Zimbabwe is to investigate bringing treason charges against the prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, and other individuals over confidential talks with US diplomats revealed by WikiLeaks. Johannes Tomana, the attorney general, said he would appoint a commission of five lawyers to examine whether recent…
US had no issue with Israeli murder of Hamas leader
It’s only terrorism when “they” do it? On February 25, 2010, State Department spokesperson Philip Crowley lied when he told a press conference that he wasn’t aware of any request from Dubai for assistance in tracking the Mossad killers of Mahmoud al-Mabouh. … To those who say that Wikileaks hasn’t told us anything we didn’t already…
US on Russian justice: “lipstick on a political pig”
A brutal state assessed as such by the US, a nation not adverse to backing countries that display an authoritarian impulse in support of Washington: The trial of Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky shows the Kremlin preserves a “cynical system where political enemies are eliminated with impunity”, US diplomats say in classified cables released by WikiLeaks…