My investigation in the Guardian: Australian miners are making a killing overseas. With little regulation or oversight, billions of dollars are being made in some of the most remote places on Earth. The necessity of partnering with autocratic regimes has proved no impediment to investment. Human rights have been breached. Victims are largely invisible. None…
Showing all posts tagged Rio Tinto
Voices in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, oppose dirty mining
My weekly Guardian column is published today: The mine. Photograph: Antony Loewenstein The mine lies like a scar across a bloody face. Guava village sits in a remote area in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea (PNG), above a copper mine which closed 25 years ago. Resistance to the Rio Tinto-owned pit… exploded in the late 1980s… and during…
Why tackling fossil fuel corporations is vital for the planet
My weekly Guardian column is published today: The viability of a fossil fuel future is rarely connected to the human rights abuses required to sustain it. How often do we think about where oil and gas is obtained? Are the Europeans or Americans any more aware? This deliberate depoliticisation of our energy present, by the…
Aid Watch event on Profits of Doom and politics of development
With the release of my recent book, Profits of Doom, I’ve been doing many public events discussing the issues. This was a great one, organised by the wonderful NGO Aid Watch on 19 August: A major concern with the Australian aid program is that it favours commercial interests in aid delivery. The commercialisation of aid…
Unquestioning aid is worst kind of support for the world
My following article appears today in ABC Religion and Ethics: Cholera is killing Haitian men, women and children. For three years the United Nations has refused to take full responsibility for its Nepalese peace-keepers bringing the deadly disease to a nation they were tasked to protect. More than 8,300 people have died and more than…
My disaster capitalism documentary needs your support
Today I’m proud to announce the launch of a Kickstarter campaign with New York-based film-maker Thor Neureiter. Here’s the trailer: We need to raise US$20,000 in one month to continue shooting footage in Haiti, Papua New Guinea and Afghanistan. All the details about the project are here. Please tell your friends, family, lovers, enemies and…
How to fight mass privatisation one industry at a time
My following article appears in The Hoopla today: The rate of incarceration of Indigenous Australians is… higher per capita… than it was for … blacks living in apartheid South Africa. The Australian Institute of Criminology released figures this year that confirm the problem. One in four are behind bars and the over-representation of Indigenous people in West Australian…