As part of the Twenty Years project, a journalistic and artistic initiative with Afghans in Australia and around the world to assess the legacy of the US-led war in Afghanistan, we commissioned young, female, Afghan-Australian artists to make a short film on these themes. This is their statement: The fall of Kabul in 2021 was…
Showing all posts tagged Kevin Rudd
My #MarchinMay speech to thousands in Sydney
Yesterday thousands of Australians marched around the country to reject the extremism of Tony Abbott’s government. I was asked to speak in Sydney to a crowd of around 10,000 people (some great photos by Jaroslaw L Gasiorek here). This video features 15 minutes of highlights (I appear at 7.24): A slightly expanded version of my…
ABCTV News24's The Drum on Sri Lankan abuses, asylum seekers and Kevin Rudd
I appeared last Friday on ABCTV News24’s The Drum and we discussed vast human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, highlighted by the Commonwealth meeting in Colombo, and Australia under Prime Minister Tony Abbott turning a blind eye to Sri Lankan torture and abuse in the name of stopping people getting onto refugee boats. With the…
ABCTV News 24's The Drum on asylum seekers and Indonesia
I appeared last Friday on ABCTV News 24’s The Drum (video here) talking principally about the reality of asylum seekers and why Australia’s policy towards them is based on cruelty and not compassion. In summary, I’ve long argued that Australia, as a rich nation, is making a choice to punish refugees in remote detention camps…
Voice of Russia interview about Australian election of Tony Abbott
I was interviewed last night by The Voice of Russia about the ascension of Tony Abbott to the Prime Ministership (my previous interview with them was in July on asylum seekers): As Australia conservative leader Tony Abbott has won the national elections by a landslide, bringing an end to a six-year Labor rule, Antony Loewenstein,…
Australian Jewish heads love Zionist colonies, conservatism and remain lost cause
Australia has a federal election on 7 September. We’re looking at a change of government to Liberal leader Tony Abbott; a period of neo-conservatism awaits us. I agree with Wikileaks head Julian Assange who argues that one of the key issues is liberating ourselves from genuflecting towards Washington on every issue. Israel/Palestine has barely featured…
Welcome to the remote Curtin detention centre
The following extract from my book Profits of Doom appears in The Melbourne Review: In this extract from his recently-released… Profits of Doom, Antony Loewenstein visits the remote and jealously guarded Curtin Immigration Detention Centre.… It’s a 30-minute drive through the desert from Derby to the Curtin Air Base. A number of signs warn us to…
What is vulture capitalism doing to our world?
My follow article appears today in The Conversation: The story in last weekend’s Sydney’s… Daily Telegraph… was stark: “[Prime Minister] Kevin Rudd will warn people smugglers he stands ready to create an island from hell in Papua New Guinea housing 10,000 asylum seekers.” The message, an “exclusive” by News Corp Australia journalist Samantha Maiden, was to inform…
Tony Abbott’s foreign policy would be as clueless as George W. Bush
My following article appears today in the Guardian: In April 2010, as the war in Afghanistan was raging and US president Barack Obama… “surged” 30,000 more troops… into the country, Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott suggested that under his leadership, a Coalition government would have considered increasing involvement. “The government should explain why it’s apparently right that…
No, Kevin Rudd, boycotts against Israeli institutions aren’t anti-Semitic
Late last year Rupert Murdoch’s Australian newsletter ran a campaign against the head of Sydney University’s Centre of Peace and Conflict Studies, Jake Lynch, for bravely rejecting institutional links with occupation-supporting Israeli universities. Today former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd appears in the same paper with quotes implying that boycotts are anti-Semitic and concerned people should…