The National newspaper interview on the Gaza Strip
I recently visited Gaza and wrote a feature for the UAE newspaper The National. I was interviewed by the publication about my experiences:
Disaster has become big business. Talking to immigrants stuck in limbo in Britain or visiting immigration centers in America, Loewenstein maps the secret networks formed to help corporations bleed what profits they can from economic crisis. He debates with Western contractors in Afghanistan, meets the locals in post-earthquake Haiti, and in Greece finds a country at the mercy of vulture profiteers. In Papua New Guinea, he sees a local community forced to rebel against predatory resource companies and NGOs.
What emerges through Loewenstein’s reporting is a dark history of multinational corporations that, with the aid of media and political elites, have grown more powerful than national governments. In the twenty-first century, the vulnerable have become the world’s most valuable commodity. Disaster Capitalism is published by Verso in 2015.
I recently visited Gaza and wrote a feature for the UAE newspaper The National. I was interviewed by the publication about my experiences:
A few months ago I was interviewed on the US radio program, Writer’s Voice with Francesca Rheannon, about my book, Disaster Capitalism: Making A Killing Out Of Catastrophe (out in paperback in January). We spoke for an hour about war, immigration, Haiti relief and people making money from misery.
There are growing moves to privatise more prisons in New South Wales, Australia despite the disastrous experiences of outsourcing prisons and detention facilities in the UK and US.
I was interviewed today by Australian current affairs show, The Wire:
Australian company Wilson Security recently announced it would withdraw from working in Australia’s offshore detention facilities from October 2017. It’s one, small positive step in the collapse of Australia’s privatised immigration network.
I was recently interviewed about this development and privatised detention on ABC Radio’s 702 Sydney with host Wendy Harmer:
I was based in South Sudan for most of 2015. It’s a country still fracturing along racial and ethnic lines. I was recently interviewed by Voice of America on its daily Africa 54 program (via Skype at Frankfurt Airport). The segment starts at 13:07. I’m described as a “South Sudanese journalist” when in fact I was merely living there last year.
Yesterday I was interviewed by one of Ireland’s best radio programs, the Pat Kenny Show, about my recent Newsweek cover story on Israel settlers and the Israel/Palestine conflict:
I was interviewed today by journalist Tony Serve from Perth, Australia for 6PR Radio about asylum seekers and Australia’s public broadcaster refusing to call Gaza occupied (which it is):
I lived for much of 2015 in South Sudan, a country undergoing a violent, post-independence period.
I was recently interviewed by the great China/Africa Project on China’s relations with South Sudan:
Nowhere else in Africa do China’s financial, diplomatic and geopolitical interests confront as much risk as they do in South Sudan. Beijing has invested billions of dollars in the country’s oil sector, deployed over a thousand troops to serve as UN Peacekeepers and committed considerable diplomatic capital to help resolve the ongoing civil/ethnic war between President Salva Kiir against former Vice President Riek Machar.
Even though Beijing has repeatedly deployed its most senior Africa-diplomats to help broker a ceasefire and committed vast sums of money for investment and development, none of it seems like it will do much to slow South Sudan’s seemingly inevitable decline to becoming the world’s newest failed-state.
The destruction this conflict has caused is staggering. Since fighting broke out in December 2013, an estimated 50,000 people have been killed, many by some of the 16,000 child soldiers who have been forcibly conscripted by both sides. Now a quarter of a million refugees are on the move, fleeing the combined threats of war, drought and famine.
Even against these seemingly insurmountable challenges, Beijing’s point man for South Sudan remains stubbornly upbeat. “We as a government are cautiously optimistic about the future of South Sudan. The country’s leaders must remember that peace and security are essential for the growth of the people and the economy,” said Zhong Jianhua, China’s Special Representative for African Affairs, during a May 2016 interview in Beijing.
So why is China so committed to South Sudan? It probably has something to do with money and oil, but that doesn’t explain everything because for a country as large as China, the billions invested in South Sudan represents a relatively small piece of a truly massive global investment portfolio. So what is it?
Independent journalist and Guardian columnist Antony Loewenstein traveled to South Sudan in 2015 to cover the fighting. While in Juba, he also learned a lot more about what the Chinese are doing (or not) in South Sudan. Antony joins Eric & Cobus to discuss the findings from his reporting assignment and whether he shares Ambassador Zhong’s optimism for the future of the country.
I was interviewed last week by Tony Serve, from Perth, Australia, about Israel/Palestine, the risks pursuing real journalism and my ongoing fundraising campaign for my documentary in progress, Disaster Capitalism. The interview was broadcast on Byline and Perth’s 6PR radio:
I was recently interviewed from Jerusalem on this American radio program, broadcast via the Progressive Radio Network, about my book Disaster Capitalism, poverty in Haiti and the role of the Clinton Foundation.
Yesterday I was interviewed by ABC Radio Adelaide from Australia by host Peter Goers on Israel/Palestine, disaster capitalism and Papua New Guinea: