My following article is published in Crikey: In the shadow of Aceh’s tsunami memorial museum sits a colonial, Dutch-era cemetery. Framed by overgrown grass and red flowers, graves lie disjoined, the result, I was told by writer Fozan Santa, of time and the tsunami’s raging water. At the back of the space, behind ornate statues…
Showing all posts tagged Saudi Arabia
The truth of the matter in journalism
The following interview is published this week in the literary journal, Quill: SYDNEY-BASED ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN is the author of the best-selling book,… My Israel Question, a controversial discussion of one of the most important issues of our time, as well as… The Blogging Revolution, a searching examination of the ways the internet is threatening the rule of…
Washington is not the future over oil
Robert Fisk on a new brave world: In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and…
”˜Anti-Zionist’ Jew: author of ”˜My Israel Question’ heads for Bali
The following article by Katrin Figge is published today in one of Indonesia’s largest English newspapers, The Jakarta Globe: For a person who gets hate mail and death threats on a regular basis, Antony Loewenstein remains surprisingly cheerful. The Jewish-Australian journalist, activist, blogger and author, who is based in Sydney, has stirred up plenty of…
What the Muslim world needs from Israel
Saudi Arabia, despotic and a US ally, is a key player in the Middle East, mainly due to its oil reserves. In the New York Times, Prince Turki al-Faisal, former director of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence services and ambassador to the United States, writes that until Israel gives up its colonial addiction to land, the Arab…
Twitter is vulnerable everywhere
Although there are signs that Saudi Arabia is ever-so-slowly liberalising, here’s the reality for anybody who speaks out: Saudi Arabia’s Communications and Information Technology Commission has recently blocked access to Twitter accounts of two Saudi human rights activists because the authorities didn’t like the human rights angle of theit Twittering.
Imagining a Middle East that doesn’t exist
Laura Rozen writes in Foreign Policy on the likely moves by the Obama administration towards Middle East “peace”: Aaron David Miller, a veteran Middle East peace negotiator for six secretaries of state, said Sunday that the Obama administration is planning to produce, “in late September or October,” either a conference or an announcement of a…
Don’t define Saudi through oppression alone
Human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia are legendary and largely ignored by the Western elite. That oil is certainly tasty. But the Kingdom is changing, slowly but surely, through a very modern medium: “5 riyals” – less than two dollars – that’s all the money many unemployed Saudi youths have in their pockets. It’s also…
Perhaps it’s time to switch off the Saudi oil pump
Brutality and censorship in Saudi Arabia is legendary. This news is therefore unsurprising: A Saudi Arabian princess who had an illegitimate child with a British man has secretly been granted asylum in this country after she claimed she would face the death penalty if she were forced to return home. The young woman, who has…
How to handle human rights the Israeli way
The Wonk Room reports: Reporting that the Israeli government “has decided to take a much more aggressive stance” toward human rights NGOs, the Jerusalem Post quotes Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev attacking Human Rights Watch for raising raising funds from private Saudi individuals. Regev told the Post that “A human rights organization raising money in Saudi…