Australia’s role as a sub-imperial power

My review in The Saturday Paper, of the new book by Clinton Fernandes, Subimperial Power Australia in the International Arena: In early October, Australia’s deputy prime minister and minister for Defence, Richard Marles, was in Hawaii to meet the American and Japanese defence chiefs near Pearl Harbor. “The global, rules-based order is being pressured in…

Stop the rush to war (with China)

I’m happy to have signed this public letter to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to stop the rush to another war (ie. with China). The letter was written by Australians for War Powers Reform: With multiple military and defence commentators offering increasingly bleak assessments of the possibility of armed conflict, now is the time to…

Accountability in Palestine?

After the recent news that the International Criminal Court made an historic decision to allow its prosecutor to investigate war crimes in Palestine, I was asked by global broadcaster TRT World to comment: Antony Loewenstein, an independent author and film-maker who lived in Jerusalem from 2016-2020, is also happy about the ICC decision. “The recent…

US outlet Truthout Q&A on disaster capitalism in a Trump world

US outlet Truthout has picked my book, Disaster Capitalism: Making A Killing Out Of Catastrophe, as an important title. Here’s my Q&A: The following is a Truthout interview with Antony Loewenstein, the author of… Disaster Capitalism:… Making a Killing Out of Catastrophe. Mark Karlin: Naomi Klein praises your book effusively. How were you galvanized by her book,… The… Shock… Doctrine:…

Imprisoning refugees remains big business

In January, my book, Disaster Capitalism: Making A Killing Out Of Catastrophe, was published globally in a paperback edition by Verso.…  I wrote a piece for my publisher’s popular blog this week on the ever-growing industry of privatised immigration: The unaccountability of privatised immigration had rarely been so brazen. Australia is the only country in…

Arms dealers making a killing from the European refugee crisis

My essay in UAE newspaper The National: The defence industry has never been happier. With sales at unprecedented levels – US$65 billion (Dh 238bn) in 2015, according to the… Global Defence Trade Report… – France, the United States, Canada and Britain have become global leaders in arms exports. The Middle East is the largest importing region and…

How drugs have always perverted human wars

My Guardian book review appears this weekend: In October 2015 a Saudi prince was arrested at Beirut international airport accused of trying to smuggle… nearly two tonnes… of the… amphetamine drug Captagon… through the country. Two months later, Lebanese officials claimed to have confiscated 12 million Captagon pills heading to the Gulf. The synthetic drug, invented in 1961, has…

Why I was asked to join Australians for War Powers Reform

Before the 2003 Iraq war, I feared the seemingly inevitable conflict would be a disaster. Based in Sydney at the time, I watched as the general public massively opposed the impending invasion while most politicians and many in the media celebrated the prospect of “shock and awe”. The last 15 years have seen untold bloodshed…

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