Antony Loewenstein
Antony Loewenstein is an independent Australian journalist, documentarian and blogger who has written for The BBC, The Nation, Huffington Post and Haaretz, amongst many others. He is the author of three bestselling books, My Israel Question, The Blogging Revolution and Profits of Doom: How Vulture Capitalism is Swallowing the World, co-writer of For God's Sake and co-editor of Left Turn and After Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine. His latest book is Disaster Capitalism: Making A Killing Out Of Catastrophe. He's working on a film about disaster capitalism.
. His website is here. Follow him on twitter @antloewenstein
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Shooting Up: A History of Drugs in Warfare by Lukasz Kamienski review – what turns soldiers into monsters?Drunk Romans and drugged Americans: the chemical arsenal used to dull the horror of war
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Cruelty to asylum seekers dressed up as compassion is the scandal that bedevils AustraliaWe took issue with Peter Dutton’s comments about refugees but the greater issue is public acceptance of abuses against asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus
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Mike Baird's motherhood statements on Palestine dilute the politicsSome activists celebrated Mike Baird’s trip to the West Bank as a victory for Palestinian recognition but there remains a lack of honesty in public discourse about Israel’s stranglehold on the Palestinian territories
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Will Australia ever have a progressive leader like Corbyn or Sanders?The rise of Jeremy Corbyn in the UK and Bernie Sanders in the US shows that renewed passion for politics is still possible ... just not in Australia
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Ditching the war on drugs won't be the silver bullet, but it's an essential new pathwayAustralia remains disconnected to more enlightened drug policies internationally. No major country, however, dares argue for the complete legalisation of all drugs
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Now's the time to boycott companies that profit from detentionSerco and Broadspectrum (once Transfield) are vulnerable to shareholder pressure thanks to their indefensible complicity in offshore detention
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Sanders' war on private prisons should make Australia feel the BernThe private prison industry is something Australia knows well. So why haven’t we produced a Bernie Sanders-style figure to make it a political issue?
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Australia against Isis: how much do we actually know?‘Australia ranks pretty much near the bottom’ for transparency in the fight against Isis, continuing our history of secrecy around ‘operational matters’
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Why is it left to US NGOs to expose Australian mining's wrongdoing in Africa?Australian mining companies are running amok in Africa, and no one back home seems to have taken any notice
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We need new leaders: women of South Sudan's Bentiu camp speakMore than 100,000 now live in this base for internally displaced people in the world’s newest country. Inside the camp, three women tell their stories
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Afghanistan should leave its copper in the ground to avoid further strifeAfghanis say that since the Aynak copper mine was set up, their lives have become plagued with conflict and environmental destruction
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PNG, 40 years after independence, can be more than a quarryBougainville’s much-loathed Panguna mine may reopen. Australia and the US are contesting Pacific energy assets. What future is there for PNG?
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You can tell a lot about the west by the way it celebrates autocrats' deathsDoes the west’s insistence on trading freedoms for stability actually achieve anything except platitudes at the funerals of dead strongmen?
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South Sudan food crisis leaves people of Ganyiel desperate for a peace dealIn a country where conflict has left almost 2 million people displaced, the town of Ganyiel offers relatively safe harbour. But food is scarce and child malnutrition rates at critical levels
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US evangelicals in Africa put faith into action but some accused of intoleranceWhile some modern missionaries are aware of the colonial legacies attached to their work, evangelical churches continue to provide aid while promoting an explicitly anti-gay agenda – which Christian nations are more likely to support
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My introduction to South Sudan: celebs, strife and plenty of questionsMoving to South Sudan with my partner, an aid worker, was a big decision – even though we’d both wanted a change of scene for a long time
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Valerie Amos calls for arms embargo against South SudanUN humanitarian chief supports international action during visit to rebel-held area with American actor Forest Whitaker
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WikiLeaks: not perfect, but more important than ever for free speechJust before Christmas, WikiLeaks released its latest round of explosive leaks. The organisation may not be perfect, but it’s more important than ever
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After New Era, it's harder than ever to mock Russell Brand as a hypocriteHe’s not the messiah, but the British comedian’s intervention shows he’s no longer merely the ‘voice of the discontented wealthy’ either
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The lack of any official condemnation for CIA torture ensures it will happen againInstead of trials for those accused of endorsing torture, or a process of accountability for political leaders, we get trials by essay. It’s not enough for a healthy democracy
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Scott Morrison should not be trusted to decide the 'good character' of vulnerable citizensA new citizenship bill is yet another attempt by Scott Morrison to give himself largely unchecked powers over the lives of vulnerable people
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Attacks on public broadcasting have gone global. The ABC is no exceptionThe enemies of state-owned media – Rupert Murdoch among them – make the same arguments around the world. Cuts to the ABC, BBC, NPR and PBS are justified the same way
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Arms dealers are setting up shop in Australia. There's still time to reject these merchants of death
Arms dealers are setting up shop in Australia. There's still time to reject these merchants of death
Antony Loewenstein: Northrop Grumman, a leading US defence contracting firm, will launch a major Australian expansion next month. We’re a bigger market for arms than you might think -
Ebola: for-profit disaster capitalists are already out looking to make money from miseryAntony Loewenstein: NGOs with months of front line exposure were shunned in favour of a private company which was awarded a $20m contract to run an ebola response in Sierra Leone
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Serco is failing, but is kept afloat thanks to Australia's refugee policyAntony Loewenstein: It’s a sign of the times that a company like Serco, with murky financial statements masking its true economic shape, is continually rewarded for failure by new and larger contracts
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If Gough Whitlam was a saint at home, he was often a sinner abroadAntony Loewenstein: Whitlam supported Suharto, challenged Israel and had a tense relationship with the US. His foreign policy legacy contains plenty to trouble myth-makers on both the left and right
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'Feminism lite' is letting down the women who need it the mostAntony Loewenstein: I’ve hesitated to write about gender, worried that I’ll be slammed for daring to speak out. But we all benefit from gender equality, and therefore must give feminism some tough love
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Australia's war on whistleblowers must endAntony Loewenstein: The prosecution of Freya Newman, court actions against news outlets and police investigations of immigration leaks show the war on whistleblowers is escalating
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Australia is on the road to a Tea party revolutionAntony Loewenstein: Shirtfronting, Islamaphobia and sweeping national security laws all point to a political culture that’s growing increasingly more extreme
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Is it possible to run a drone business with an ethical base?Antony Loewenstein: With a hugely expanding commercial market with potential clients in mining, infrastructure or even surf-life saving groups, the drone industry brings with it crucial ethical issues
Dark past: so little has changed in Australia's posture towards asylum seekers