Wednesday 27 December 2017

The films and journalism of John Pilger

• 2017 December WHY THE DOCUMENTARY MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO DIE 11 December 2017 Show intro... An edited version of an address John Pilger gave at the British Library on 9 December 2017 as part of a retrospective festival, 'The Power of the Documentary', held to mark the Library's acquisition of Pilger's written archive. October CLINTON, ASSANGE AND THE WAR ON TRUTH 20 October 2017 Show intro... John Pilger describes the obsequious media support for Hillary Clinton's score-settling book about her failed attempt to win the US presidency - title, What Happened - notably by the ABC in Australia. He analyses her attacks of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, whose disclosures of her warmongering and corruption were blamed for her losing to Donald Trump. THE RISING OF BRITAIN'S 'NEW POLITICS' 6 October 2017 Show intro... As the Tories plot to get rid of Prime Minister Theresa May, John Pilger analyses the alternative Labour Party, specifically its foreign policy, which may not be what it seems. September THE KILLING OF HISTORY 21 September 2017 Show intro... Reporting from New York, John Pilger describes the re-writing of the history of the Vietnam War in the 10-part television series by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. Millions died "in good faith", they say. And so yet more wars are justified - as President Trump tells the world he is prepared to "totally destroy" North Korea and its 25 million people. August ON THE BEACH 2017. THE BECKONING OF NUCLEAR WAR. 4 August 2017 Show intro... In a new essay, John Pilger recognises Nevil Shute's novel, On the Beach - on which a Hollywood film was based - as a forgotten masterpiece, which conveys an urgent warning of how close we may be to nuclear war in 2017. July THE KILLING FIELDS OF AUSTRALIA - A MATTER OF ROUTINE 23 July 2017 Show intro... Chris Graham reports on the trial in Perth, Australia of the white man who killed Elijah Doughty, an Aboriginal teenager, and the litany of killings and injustice that preceded it and mark the other Australia behind the sunny mask. Palestine is still the issue 10 July 2017 Show intro... Read the abridged version of John Pilger's address to the Palestinian Expo 2017 in London in July 2017. May TERROR IN BRITAIN: WHAT DID THE PRIME MINISTER KNOW? 31 May 2017 Show intro... In this investigation, John Pilger raises questions about the role of the British 'deep state' in the atrocity that killed 22 in Manchester on 22 May 2017. GETTING JULIAN ASSANGE: THE UNTOLD STORY 20 May 2017 Show intro... Following the news that Sweden has dropped its case against Julian Assange, John Pilger draws together his investigations into the pursuit and persecution of the founder of WikiLeaks. The universal lesson of the courage of East Timor 8 May 2017 Show intro... On May 5, John Pilger was presented with the Order of Timor-Leste by East Timor's Ambassador to Australia, Abel Gutteras, in recognition of his reporting on East Timor under Indonesia's brutal occupation, especially his landmark documentary film, Death of a Nation: the Timor Conspiracy. The following was Pilger's response... April AUSTRALIA BECKONS A WAR WITH CHINA 12 April 2017 Show intro... Australia is sleep-walking into a confrontation with China. Wars can happen suddenly in an atmosphere of mistrust and provocation, especially if a minor power, like Australia, abandons its independence for an "alliance" with an unstable superpower. January THIS WEEK THE ISSUE IS NOT TRUMP. IT IS OURSELVES. 17 January 2017 Show intro... John Pilger argues that the obsession with Donald Trump, as the liberals' ultimate demon, masks an enduring complicity in creating him and his predecessor in the White House.
• 2016 August Provoking nuclear war by media 23 August 2016 Show intro...

  In describing the exoneration of one of the West's demons, John Pilger argues that a western media campaign to demonise and goad Russia is leading inexorably to war.

  June Why the British said no to Europe 25 June 2016 Show intro...

  John Pilger argues that the referendum result represents a deeper, more dynamic anger than the reasons rehearsed by politicians and the media and offers a glimpse of hope.

  May Silencing America as it prepares for war 27 May 2016 Show intro... Writing from the United States, John Pilger joins a momentous election campaign - his fourth as a reporter - and suggests that the sound and fury may not be as it appears. April Starvation in Australia: Utopia's dirty secret 11 April 2016 Show intro... In this latest report on the vast Indigenous region in Australia known as Utopia, John Pilger reveals a dirty secret. March Trump and Clinton: Censoring the unpalatable 29 March 2016 Show intro... A virulent if familiar censorship is about to descend on the US election campaign. As the cartoon brute, Donald Trump, seems almost certain to win the Republican Party's nomination, Hillary Clinton is being ordained both as the "women's candidate" and the champion of American liberalism in its heroic struggle with the Evil One. A world war has begun. Break the silence. 20 March 2016 Show intro... In an address at the University of Sydney, John Pilger describes the beckoning danger of a nuclear war and the propaganda that smothers dissent. February The rape of East Timor: "Sounds like fun" 25 February 2016 Show intro... John Pilger, whose film, Death of a Nation, revealed the atrocities and political machinations that befell tiny East Timor reports on the discovery of documents that reminds us of the enduring piracy of great power. Freeing Julian Assange: the last chapter 5 February 2016 Show intro... John Pilger describes a landmark judgement in the Julian Assange case that may see the WikiLeaks founder walk free after five years. January John Pilger on the Indigenous struggle: 'There is no alternative now' 26 January 2016 Show intro... On 26 January 2016, John Pilger spoke at a rally at Sydney Town Hall on the hidden meaning of 'Survival Day'. Australia's day for secrets, flags and cowards 21 January 2016 Show intro... John Pilger describes the real meaning of 'Australia Day', a national day celebrated and mourned.
• 2015 September The revolutionary act of telling the truth 30 September 2015 Show intro... In London, John Pilger launched 'The WikiLeaks Files: the World According to the US Empire', with an introduction by Julian Assange. July Assange: the untold story of an epic struggle for justice 31 July 2015 Show intro... This is an updated version of John Pilger's 2014 investigation which tells the unreported story of an unrelenting campaign, in Sweden and the US, to deny Julian Assange justice and silence WikiLeaks: a campaign now reaching a dangerous stage.
  
  Read the Spanish version of this article / Leer la versión en español Julian Assange: La historia no contada de una lucha épica por la justicia 31 July 2015 Show intro... Ésta es una versión actualizada de la investigación de John Pilger en 2014, que describe la historia de la que no se ha escrito sobre una campaña implacable en Suecia y los Estados Unidos de América para denegar acceso a la Justicia a Julian Assange y silenciar a Wikileaks. The problem of Greece is not only a tragedy. It is a lie. 13 July 2015 Show intro... An historic betrayal has consumed Greece. Having set aside the mandate of the Greek electorate, the Syriza government has willfully ignored last week's landslide "No" vote and secretly agreed a raft of repressive, impoverishing measures in return for a "bailout" that means sinister foreign control and a warning to the world. May Time to celebrate real heroes, like the one just lost 15 May 2015 Show intro... If you want to meet the best Australians, meet Indigenous men and women who understand this extraordinary country and have fought for the rights of the world's oldest culture. Theirs is a struggle more selfless, heroic and enduring than any historical adventure non-Indigenous Australians are required incessantly to celebrate. April The message of Anzac: Put out more flags, or shut up 28 April 2015 Show intro... In this article for the Sydney Morning Herald, John Pilger compares the heroism of those with moral courage with the 'sludge' of fake patriotism. The secret country again wages war on its own people 22 April 2015 Show intro... In a major article for the Guardian, John Pilger follows the release of his film 'Utopia' with an investigation into a new attack on Australia's indigenous people, which has been called 'cultural genocide'. February Why the rise of fascism is again the issue 26 February 2015 Show intro...

  In a major essay, John Pilger describes a 'Faustian Pact' that allows the suppression of a modern fascism in the West and its reliance on propaganda as news, and the beckoning of a war that rarely speaks its name.

  The struggle of Venezuela against 'a common enemy' 17 February 2015 Show intro... Children in Venezuela benefit from the country's first free universal education. With a 'slow motion coup' under way in Venezuela, John Pilger is interviewed for Telesur, the Latin American TV network, by Mike Albert.
• 2014 December War by media and the triumph of propaganda 5 December 2014 Show intro...

  John Pilger's address to the Logan Symposium, 'Building an Alliance Against Secrecy, Surveillance & Censorship', organised by the Centre for Investigative Journalism, London, 5-7 December, 2014. You can also watch the address here

  November The siege of Julian Assange is a farce - a special investigation 16 November 2014 Show intro... John Pilger investigates the rise of WikiLeaks and the Kafkaesque saga that has enveloped its founder, Julian Assange, since he blew the whistle on the dangers and lies of great power and its courtiers. October The forgotten coup - how America and Britain crushed the government of their 'ally', Australia 23 October 2014 Show intro... In an article for the Guardian, John Pilger marks the death of former Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam with the one story missing from the 'tributes' to a man whose extraordinary political demise is one of America's dirtiest secrets. From Pol Pot to ISIS: “Anything that flies on everything that moves” 8 October 2014 Show intro...

  In his latest essay, John Pilger evokes the US bombing of Cambodia in the 1970s, which gave rise to Pol Pot and the genocidal Khmer Rouge, in examining the rise of the equally fanatical ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the role of Western governments, and the urgent need for solutions that include a truce in Syria, and justice for the Palestinians.

  September War, circus and injustice down under 19 September 2014 Show intro...

  In an article for the Guardian, John Pilger reports on how the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, seeks to regain his lost popularity with an outback circus in which he performs in the role of war leader.

  Breaking the last taboo - Gaza and the threat of world war 11 September 2014 Show intro... In this essay based on his Edward Said Memorial Lecture in Adelaide, John Pilger argues that the assault on Gaza represents a wider threat to us all, and with episodic dangers in Ukraine, and the accompanying propaganda, we are drawn closer to world war. July The return of George Orwell and Big Brother’s war on Palestine, Ukraine and the truth 11 July 2014 Show intro... In his latest essay, John Pilger describes the liberal "one-way, legal/moral screen" behind which great power and its Orwellian propaganda ensure an impunity for war and deception, dependent on what Leni Riefenstahl called our "submissive void". May Break the silence: a world war is beckoning 13 May 2014 Show intro... John Pilger examines the drift to a wider war in Ukraine and the Orwellian propaganda that masks the dangers. April The Strangelove effect - or how we are hoodwinked into accepting a new world war 18 April 2014 Show intro... John Pilger describes the enduring effect of Stanley Kubrick's classic film, 'Dr. Strangelove' and its warning today of a new cold war, and a world war. South Africa: 20 years of apartheid by another name 13 April 2014 Show intro... In an article for the Sunday Times in Johannesburg, marking the 20th anniversary of South Africa's first democratic election, John Pilger describes how secret deals ensured that apartheid lived on. March Once again, Australia is stealing its Indigenous children 21 March 2014 Show intro... In an investigation for the Guardian, John Pilger expands the evidence in his new film, 'Utopia', to reveal the scandal of a second Stolen Generation. The forgotten coup - and how the godfather rules from Canberra to Kiev 16 March 2014 Show intro... John Pilger describes how the upheaval in the Ukraine is no different, in principle, from other US-engineered coups, including the least known of all - in Australia. February 'Good' and 'bad' war - and the struggle of memory against forgetting 12 February 2014 Show intro...

  John Pilger describes how historical memory and investigation have rescued a 'forgotten' war with significance for us all.

  The accessories to war crimes are those paid to keep the record straight 8 February 2014 Show intro... John Pilger describes his experience with the BBC's top-rating Today programme and how the truth about Iraq had to be 'countered'. January It's the other Oscars - and yet again the winner slips away 29 January 2014 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger steals a march on the Oscars with the 'celebrity Oscars' - 'those whose ubiquitous self promotion demands recognition'. In India, a spectre for us all, and a resistance coming 3 January 2014 Show intro...

  John Pilger reports from India on the illusions of an economic experiment as brutal as Pinochet's Chile, and a resistance building.

  Is media just another word for control? 2 January 2014 Show intro... John Pilger describes censorship in 'free societies' on a special edition of BBC Radio 4's Today programme guest-edited by artist and musician PJ Harvey.
• 2013 December Mandela is gone, but apartheid is alive and well in Australia 19 December 2013 Show intro... In the late 1960s, I was given an usual assignment by the London Daily Mirror's editor in chief, Hugh Cudlipp. I was to return to my homeland, Australia, and "discover what lies behind the sunny face". The prison that is Bangladesh 15 December 2013 Show intro... Once Moudud Ahmed defended the country's independence leader, but now he is sick and in jail as the prime minister cracks down on opposition ahead of January's national elections. November Discovering the power of people’s history – and why it is feared today 28 November 2013 Show intro...

  John Pilger recalls his arrival in England and his reporting of an entirely different nation from that around London with its all-for-one-and-one-for-all.

  The brutal past and present are another country in secret Australia 5 November 2013 Show intro... In an article for the Guardian, John Pilger describes the suppression of Australia's bloodied history while veneration for its colonial wars and the rise of militarism excludes the true story of the 'the greatest expropriation of land in world history'. October One of the truest journalists is a cartoonist armed with a penguin 31 October 2013 Show intro... John Pilger pays tribute to Britain's greatest political cartoonist: Steve Bell of the Guardian. From his Thatcher-eyed caricature of Tony Blair to other celebrities of the British establishment as they are immersed in or water-ski on a sea of bullshit, Steve Bell's satire is rare - and needed. Why bad movies keep coming out and what to do about it 17 October 2013 Show intro... John Pilger describes the dispiriting routine of trying to find a good movie on general release, but also points towards an oasis of film at its best. Old game, new obsession, new enemy. Now it’s China. 10 October 2013 Show intro... In his latest column for the Guardian, John Pilger describes the latest chess moves in the enduring 'great game' for domination of the world - from the invasion of Africa to a new cold war in Asia. September In an age of 'realists' and vigilantes, there is cause for optimism 19 September 2013 Show intro... John Pilger marks the 40th anniversary of the crushing of social democracy in Chile by Augusto Pinochet and Henry Kissinger. He argues that Kissinger-style 'realism' set a double standard that is applied across the world, currently in the Middle East. From Hiroshima to Syria, the enemy whose name we dare not speak 11 September 2013 Show intro... In an article for the Guardian, John Pilger writes that regardless of diplomatic attempts to delay an attack on Syria, the US objective has nothing to do with chemical weapons and everything to do with wiping out the last independent states in the Middle East. August The courage of Bradley Manning will inspire others to seize their moment of truth 8 August 2013 Show intro... John Pilger describes the importance of Bradley Manning's 'triumph' and of other whistleblowers, whose inspiration may well be their most enduring achievement. July Australia's election campaign is driven by a barbarism that dares not speak its name 29 July 2013 Show intro... John Pilger describes the cynical forces driving the election campaign in Australia, evoking an era of fear and exclusion that many Australians would prefer to forget. How we are impoverished, gentrified and silenced - and what to do about it 25 July 2013 Show intro... John Pilger describes the rapid takeover of public institutions and people's lives by a deeply ideological government in Britain. Recalling Shelley's epic 'Masque of Anarchy', he argues it's time we acted on his inspiration. Mandela's greatness may be assured, but not his legacy 11 July 2013 Show intro... John Pilger recalls his return to South Africa after his banning and a concern that apartheid did not die.
  Forcing down the Bolivian president's plane was an act of piracy 4 July 2013 Show intro... John Pilger describes the 'casual abduction' of Bolivian President Evo Morales as a metaphor the gangsterism that now dominates international affairs and urges that a taboo is broken. June Understanding the latest leaks is understanding the rise of a new fascism 20 June 2013 Show intro... John Pilger recalls the dawn of the "PR age" and how whistleblowing reveals what Daniel Ellsberg calls "that abyss". There is a war on ordinary people and feminists are needed at the front 6 June 2013 Show intro... John Pilger examines the world according to a feminist 'media club' and asks why Europe's raging class war seems not to be a priority. May From Iraq, a tragic reminder to prosecute the war criminals 27 May 2013 Show intro... In an article for the Guardian, John Pilger describes a "top secret" report by the World Health Organisation that says birth defects are appearing across Iraqi society at unprecedented "crisis levels" following the widespread use of depleted uranium and toxic heavy metals in the Anglo-American invasion and occupation. Hold the front page! We need free media, not an Order of Mates 9 May 2013 Show intro... John Pilger returns to where he began his career in journalism and argues that Australia, his homeland, provides a model of media that was once free and independent and is no more. April Australia's boom is anything but for its Aboriginal people 29 April 2013 Show intro... In an article for the Guardian, John Pilger reveals that the story of the first Australians is still one of poverty and humiliation, while their land yields the world's biggest resources boom. Dance on Thatcher's grave, but remember there has been a coup in Britain 25 April 2013 Show intro... John Pilger describes reporting Margaret Thatcher's many wars, at home and abroad, from the side of her enemies - such as miners and Vietnamese children. He argues that her acolytes ensure she 'didn't really die at all'. March The new propaganda is liberal. The new slavery is digital. 14 March 2013 Show intro... John Pilger examines propaganda as not so much a conservative concept as a quintessentially liberal concept, an extremism that never speaks its name. February WikiLeaks is a rare truth-teller. Smearing Julian Assange is shameful. 14 February 2013 Show intro... John Pilger replies to Jemima Khan who, with others, lost bail money when Julian Assange sought and was granted political asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy in London. Jemima Khan has attacked Assange and his supporters as "blinkered". January The real invasion of Africa is not news and a licence to lie is Hollywood's gift 31 January 2013 Show intro... John Pilger describes the invasion of Africa and how its stated reasons are both false and unnewsworthy, leaving official truth to Hollywood. Welcome to the Shammies, the media awards that recognise truly unsung talent 17 January 2013 Show intro... John Pilger inaugurates a very different prize for sham journalism, and not the journalism made infamous by Rupert Murdoch who "has been honoured enough".
• 2012 December Leveson's Punch and Judy show on the press masks 'hacking' on a scale you can barely imagine 6 December 2012 Show intro... John Pilger argues that the Leveson inquiry into the British press served to preserve a corrupt system, having omitted all mention of hacking on an scale that it touches us all. November As Gaza is savaged again, understanding the BBC's historical role is vital 22 November 2012 Show intro... John Pilger traces the political history of the BBC's reporting of colonial war as an essential part of an establishment consensusus, with Palestine as a vivid example. The political trial of a caring man and the end of justice in America 8 November 2012 Show intro... John Pilger describes the ordeal of a doctor who founded a charity to help the people of Iraq: a miscarriage of justice that says more about America today than the circus of a presidential re-election. October Making the world a more dangerous place - the eager role of Julia Gillard 25 October 2012 Show intro... John Pilger describes the important part played by the Australian government in the spread of nuclear dangers, with Prime Minister Julia Gillard's ending of her party's long-standing ban on the sale of uranium, an essential ingredient of nuclear weapons. Australia's Julia Gillard is no feminist hero 16 October 2012 Show intro... John Pilger argues that Australian prime minister Julia Gillard's internationally praised attack on opposition leader Tony Abbott as anti-woman masked the consequences of her policies for vulnerable Australians, especially women and black Australians. The life and death of an Australian hero, whose skin was the wrong colour 4 October 2012 Show intro... John Pilger pays tribute to his friend, the Australian Aboriginal fighter for justice, Arthur Murray, an heroic figure almost unknown in the white society whose justice was denied him and his family. September Apartheid never died in South Africa. It inspired a world order upheld by force and illusion 19 September 2012 Show intro... John Pilger reports that racial apartheid in South Africa was always reinforced by economic apartheid, which was never dismantled and is now a model for "free market" subjugation across the world. The liberal way to run the world - "improve" or we'll kill you 6 September 2012 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger  discuss what has become a political taboo in the West - the imperal violence of liberalism. From Kennedy to Blair and Obama, the most powerful ideology dares not say its name. August The pursuit of Julian Assange is an assault on freedom and a mockery of journalism 23 August 2012 Show intro... John Pilger describes the augmented Anglo-American government and media campaign against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as Assange is granted political asylum by Ecuador and remains in that country's London embassy. How the chosen ones ended Australia's sporting prowess and revealed its secret past 9 August 2012 Show intro... John Pilger describes how sports-obsessed Australia's disappointing showing at the London Olympics offered a glimpse of a secret past. July Blair, Olympic deals and the glimpse of another Britain 19 July 2012 Show intro... John Pilger reports on two letters that illuminate two very different Britains, and on how the London Olympics is being used to rehabilitate Tony Blair, the invader of Iraq. June Murdoch may be a convenient demon, but the media is a junta 30 June 2012 Show intro...

  John Pilger examines the struggle for supremacy among the media monopolies in Australia, where Rupert Murdoch launched his empire. He describes a worldwide system that dominates media in western countries, of which Murdoch is but one part.

  History is the enemy as 'brilliant' psy-ops become the news 21 June 2012 Show intro... John Pilger describes the appropriation of news and contemporary history by public relations, or psy-ops, as President Obama launches a campaign to conceal the truth about the war in Vietnam - so that 'other Vietnams' can proceed, suitably disguised. May The Leveson Inquiry into the British press - oh, what a lovely game 31 May 2012 Show intro...

  John Pilger describes how the Leveson public inquiry in the press set up following the phone-hacking revelations exemplifies the "matrix of official and social relations within which power in Britain is exercised".

  Never forget that Bradley Manning, not gay marriage, is the issue 16 May 2012 Show intro... John Pilger warns that same-sex marriage, now embraced by Barack Obama and his vice-president, is deployed as a distraction from issues of life and death and meaningful justice, such as those illuminated by the case of Bradley Manning. April You are all suspects now. What are you going to do about it? 26 April 2012 Show intro... John Pilger describes the politicising of the law in western democracies and the emergence of increasingly draconian police powers: the corollary of a contrived state of 'permanent war'. Why should this be accepted? East Timor: a lesson in why the poorest threaten the powerful 5 April 2012 Show intro... John Pilger returns to the once silent issue of East Timor, a tiny country rich in resources and ravaged by its neighbour, Indonesia, with the help of the Indonesian dictators western sponsors. And yet East Timor broke free. President Obama's threats to China once again highlight the undeclared power of small, impoverished countries. March Up, up and away: how money power works Down Under 22 March 2012 Show intro... John Pilger reports on an Australian icon, the the world's oldest and safest international airline, and what happened when global finance took over. The dirty war on WikiLeaks is now trial by media in Sweden 10 March 2012 Show intro...

  In an article for the Guardian in London, John Pilger describes the attacks on WikiLeaks and the smearing of its editor Julian Assange that now permeate much of the Swedish media. A decision by the UK Supreme Court on Assange's extradition to Sweden is now imminent, over which hangs the prospect of his transfer to the United States where a fabricated indictment awaits him.

  Julia Gillard’s rise marks the triumph of machine politics over feminism 8 March 2012 Show intro... John Pilger asks: What has happened to the politics of modern feminism? Has feminism forgotten its roots and been appropriated by its natural enemies? The rise of Australia's first female prime minister helps us understand. February It's time we recognised the Blair government's criminality 16 February 2012 Show intro...

  John Pilger reviews the paperback of Gareth Peirce's 'Dispatches from the Dark Side: on Torture and the Death of Justice'. Peirce, Britain's pre-eminent human rights lawyer, argues that the Labour government of Tony Blair, in its pursuit of rapacious war and in support of policies of rendition and torture, was criminal.

  The Assange case means we are all suspects now 2 February 2012 Show intro... As the Supreme Court in Britain hears the Julian Assange case, John Pilger examines the implications of an intensified US campaign to silence WikiLeaks and prosecute Assange for a crime that doesn't exist, threatening the principle of free speech and all unfettered journalism. January The world war on democracy 19 January 2012 Show intro... John Pilger argues that, behind its democratic facade, the true nature of western political culture is that of American-led violence and ruthlessness in the cause of enduring dominance. He pays tribute to Lisette Talate, who has died. A Chagos islander forcibly expelled from her homeland by Britain in order to make way for a US military base, her resistance and that of people like her all over the world offer real hope, not the counterfeit slogans of those like Barack Obama.
  
• 2011 December In the land of facades, mark the first signs of an Indian spring 29 December 2011 Show intro... John Pilger describes his return to India, now promoted as an "economic tiger" and a "global leader", where the reality is very different for the lives of those beyond the advertisers' hoardings. Once again, war is prime time and journalism's role is taboo 1 December 2011 Show intro... John Pilger argues that the theatre of the inquiry in London into media phone hacking deflects from the role of journalism in promoting war and other crimes of state. November In Mexico, a universal struggle against power and forgetting 10 November 2011 Show intro... John Pilger reports from Mexico where the past often a vivid and surreal presence and the present sends a univeral message. October The Son of Africa claims a continent’s crown jewels 20 October 2011 Show intro... John Pilger analyses President Obama's decision to send special forces to Uganda, Congo and Central African Republic. This amounts to a US invasion of the African continent - following the West's de facto conquest of Libya. The dangers and ironies ought to be clear. The ‘getting’ of Assange and the smearing of a revolution 6 October 2011 Show intro... John Pilger describes in the New Statesman how the WikiLeaks founder and editor is subjected to 'a drip feed of hostility' from those who were once his allies. The information revolution is a threat not only to great power but to its media gatekeepers. September War and shopping - an extremism that never speaks its name 22 September 2011 Show intro... John Pilger describes the surreal experience of a Westfield mega mall. The biggest mall in Europe has just opened in London, controlling the main entrance to the 2012 Olympics. In the West, consumerism and war are apparently natural allies, with indebted shopping now 'normal' - like 'perpetual war'. Hail to the true victors of Rupert's revolution 8 September 2011 Show intro... John Pilger describes the lethal similarities between the propaganda that led to the invasions of Iraq and now Libya, and the arms industry's view of "a very worthwhile region to target". August Damn it or fear it, the forbidden truth is an insurrection in Britain 18 August 2011 Show intro... John Pilger describes the conditions that have led to the social explosion across the UK and argues that while crime may feed on riots, it does not ignite them. In Cuba, the revolution continues, softly, as times change 4 August 2011 Show intro... John Pilger reports from Havana on his first assignment to Cuba in many years. He finds a softer, easier society, with the idea and symbol of revolutionary Cuba, unchanged. July Amid the Murdoch scandal, there is the acrid smell of business as usual 21 July 2011 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger examines the spectacle of the Murdoch scandal and its cover for a system that welcomed Rupert Murdoch's "rapacious devotion to the free market". The strange silencing of liberal America 7 July 2011 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger examines the 'Obama effect' on much of liberal opinion and anti-war dissent in the United States, of which the recent banning of his film, 'The War You Don't See', is a symptom. The invasion of Australia - official at last 1 July 2011 Show intro... In a report for the Guardian, John Pilger salutes the City of Sydney's recognition of the invasion of Australia and describes the growing resistance, in culture and conscience, against an unspoken apartheid. June Brainwashing the polite and professional way 23 June 2011 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger reviews a forgotten book, Disciplined Minds, and examines how a new class of managers defend the status quo at all costs. May Welcome to the violent world of Mr. Hopey Changey 26 May 2011 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes a new colonial phase as the Western powers seek to turn back the Arab revolution that began in January. The newly endowed 'warrior president' is leading the charge. How the Murdoch press keeps Australia's dirty secret 12 May 2011 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the fraudulent intent of Australian governments' "intervention" against the Aboriginal people and the critical role of the dominant Murdoch press. April Marching for Anzac in the 51st State 20 April 2011 Show intro... In his column for the New Statesman's Easter issue, John Pilger describes growing up with the militarism that today drives the celebration of one modern history's great military disasters. David Cameron's gift of war and racism, to them and us 6 April 2011 Show intro... John Pilger argues that the West's attack on Libya merely follows a long history of rapacious assaults on resource-rich countries: the opposite of "protecting civilians". March How the so-called guardians of free speech are silencing the messenger 10 March 2011 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger recalls the warning of the revolutionary Tom Paine in describing the relentless attacks on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, which come from the protectors of the status quo. February Behind the Arab revolt is a word we dare not speak 24 February 2011 Show intro...

  In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger examines the imperial force that has preserved an unfree Middle East and whose true political nature is rarely uttered, except occasionally by those who have known it from within.

  The Egyptian revolt is coming home 9 February 2011 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger argues that the Egyptian revolt, with epic spectacle and inspiration, has wider possibilities than a change of regime in Cairo. January Australia's Katrina moment 27 January 2011 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger reports on the the scandalous neglect and failure of Australian governments to plan for a disastrous great flood long predicted, and the suppression of the reasons why. The war on WikiLeaks: A John Pilger investigation and interview with Julian Assange 13 January 2011 Show intro... In a cover article for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the information revolution that threatens old power orders in politics and the media, igniting a war on Wikileaks and its founder. "If I can be indicted," Julian Assange tells Pilger, "other journalists can too".
• 2010 December Protect Assange, don’t abuse him 16 December 2010 Show intro... John Pilger argues that years of 'identity politics' have had a marked effect on those who might otherwise see clearly the principles raised by WikiLeaks and the need to defend Julian Assange. Why are wars not being reported honestly? 10 December 2010 Show intro... In an article for the Guardian, John Pilger says that the public needs to know the truth about wars and explains how journalists have colluded with governments to hoodwink us. Vietnam: the last battle. John Pilger reports from Saigon 2 December 2010 Show intro... In an essay for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes his return to Vietnam, whose war he reported for almost a decade. He finds old friends, their spirit unchanged, and asks if Vietnam's independence, for which millions died, is now under threat from the conditions of its membership of the "international community". November The party game is over. Stand and fight 4 November 2010 Show intro... John Pilger describes the disenchantment with parliamentary politics as the British "coalition" government pursues its devotion to 'an extreme political cult of money worship'. He suggests there is only one course of action now. October Chile's ghosts are not being rescued 14 October 2010 Show intro... As the 33 Chilean miners are brought to the surface after ther epic rescue, John Pilger describes the unspoken life in Chile behind the media facade that the government of President Sebastion Pinera has skilfully exploited. September The BBC is on Murdoch's side 30 September 2010 Show intro... John Pilger says that while the dangers of Rupert Murdoch's dominance are understood, the role played by the respectable media, such as the New York Times and the BBC, notably in the promotion of colonial wars, is at least as important. C'mon, time to rebrand your life! 16 September 2010 Show intro... John Pilger examines the effect of 'extreme corporatism' - money - on sport. He contrasts the last of the great sporting stars who were not celebrities in the modern sense with the enrichment of Rupert Murdoch and the corruption of sports like cricket. Flying the flag, faking the news 2 September 2010 Show intro... John Pilger traces the history of propaganda to Edward Bernays, the American nephew of Sigmund Freud, who invented the term "public relations". Bernays believed in "engineering public consent" and creating "false realties" as news. Here are examples of how this works today. August Why Wikileaks must be protected 19 August 2010 Show intro... John Pilger describes the importance of Wikileaks as a new and fearless form of investigative journalism that threatens both the war-makers and their apologists, notably journalists who are state stenographers. Tony Blair must be prosecuted 5 August 2010 Show intro... John Pilger writes about the "paramount war crime" defined by the Nuremberg judges in 1946 and its relevance to the case of Tony Blair, whose shared responsibility for the Iraq invasion resulted in the deaths of more than a million people. New developments in international and domestic political attitudes towards war crimes mean that Blair is now 'Britain's Kissinger'. July The new warlord of Oz 22 July 2010 Show intro... John Pilger describes the rise of Julia Gillard, Australia's first female prime minister who, in following her "role model" former prime minister Bob "Silver Bodgie" Hawke, has capitulated to the mining companies and reaffirmed Australia's race-based refugee policies and tradition of fighting in other people's wars. The charge of the media brigade 8 July 2010 Show intro... John Pilger describes how an all-pervasive corporate media culture in the United States prepares the way for a permanent state of war. And yet for all the column inches and broadcast hours filled, the brainwashing is not succeeding. And this, he suggests, is 'America's greatest virtue'. June The black art of news management 3 June 2010 Show intro... John Pilger describes the "master illusions" which have formed the basis of black propaganda and provided "false flags" for political chicanery and for wars and atrocities, such as Iraq and the Israeli assault on the Gaza peace flotilla. May The heresy of the Greeks offers hope 20 May 2010 Show intro... John Pilger inverts the perception of Greece as a "junk country" and sees hope in the uprising of ordinary Greeks protesting against the "bailout" of an economy plunged into debt by the tax-evading rich. Greece, he writes, is a microcosm for the developed world, where class war are the words seldom used because they are the truth. Voting in Britain for war. Take your pick 4 May 2010 Show intro... John Pilger describes how Edwardian notions of war are again being promoted in western democracies, along with the militarising of history, journalism and parliamentary politics. In Britain, the three main candidiates for prime minister are declared warmakers; and yet popular feeling is very different. April Why sharks should not own sport 22 April 2010 Show intro... John Pilger describes how the rich and powerful have taken over and distorted the people's pleasure - sport, from Tiger Woods Inc to the World Cup, soon to begin in South Africa. Pilger looks at the way Fifa and multiple sponsors have invaded South Africa and ordinary South Africans have been pushed aside in the cause of profiteering. March Have a nice world war, folks 25 March 2010 Show intro... John Pilger describes the increasing American war front across the world: from Afghanistan to Africa and Latin America. This is the Third World War in all but name, waged by the only aggressive "ism" that denies it is an ideology and threatened not by introverted tribesmen in faraway places but by the anti-war instincts of its own citizens. Welcome to the world's first murdochracy 11 March 2010 Show intro... John Pilger goes back to Australia, where Rupert Murdoch launched his worldwide media empire, and describes how his and Murdoch's homeland has become a murdochracy - a country where important media, issues and perception are influenced if not dominated by Murdochism: "an inspiration to his choir on seven continents". February Listen to the heroes of Israel 25 February 2010 Show intro... John Pilger reminds us of the struggle by an extraordinary few in Israel against the repression and lawlessness of the occupation of Palestine. They are the inspiration to break the loud silence in the Jewish diaspora. Why the Oscars are a con 11 February 2010 Show intro... John Pilger asks why directors and writers allow Hollywood formula propaganda to dominate the movies, with a hot contender for the Oscars airbrushing a million dead Iraqis, Clint Eastwood dispatching the truth of the struggle against apartheid and George Clooney amusing himself with the same old stereotypes. January The kidnapping of Haiti 28 January 2010 Show intro... John Pilger describes the "swift and crude" appropriation of earthquake-ravaged Haiti by the militarised Obama administration. With George W. Bush attending to the "relief effort" and Bill Clinton the UN's man, The Comedians - Graham Green's dark novel about exploted Haiti - comes to mind. For Israel, a reckoning 14 January 2010 Show intro... John Pilger describes the growing boycott, disinvestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine. Based on the anti-apartheid campaign that helped bring down the racist regime in South Africa, BDS is becoming a catch-cry for freedom in countries whose governments continue to ignore the Palestinians' struggle against another form of apartheid and which Nelson Mandela has described as "the greatest moral issue of our time".
• 2009 December Welcome to Orwell's world 2010 30 December 2009 Show intro... John Pilger draws on George Orwell's prophetic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four to describe a superstate where truth and lies are indivisible, and peace is no longer peace, but rather a permanent war that, in the words of President Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, "extends well beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan". Normalising the crime of the century 10 December 2009 Show intro... John Pilger describes the lonely death of an honourable man, a whistleblower, as striking contrast to those British politicians and officials now running for cover from the part they played in the invasion of Iraq, the crime of the 21st century. November Return to a secret country 27 November 2009 Show intro... John Pilger marks the 20th anniversary of the publication of A Secret Country, his best-selling history of Australia, with a description of Aboriginal Australia and its relationship with white authority following Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's apology to the "stolen generations" last year. Free the forgotten bird of paradise 12 November 2009 Show intro... John Pilger describes the wholesale corporate takeover of the natural resources of West Papua, known as the "forgotten bird of paradise" by its impoverished indigenous people. A mountain of copper and gold, forests and fisheries, oil and gas: the "acquisition" of untold riches, sanctioned by the Suharto tyranny, was unique and remains a metaphor for "globalisation". Breaking the great Australian silence 5 November 2009 Show intro... In a speech at the Sydney Opera House to mark his award of Australia's human rights prize, the Sydney Peace Prize, John Pilger describes the "unique features" of a political silence in Australia: how it affects the national life of his homeland and the way Australians see the world and are manipulated by great power "which speaks through an invisible government of propaganda that subdues and limits our political imagination and ensures we are always at war - against our own first people and those seeking refuge, or in someone else's country". October Thirty years on, the holocaust in Cambodia and its aftermath is remembered 26 October 2009 Show intro... In a report for the London Daily Mirror, John Pilger recalls the stricken society he found in Cambodia in 1979 which he described in his documentary, Year Zero: the Silent Death of Cambodia. He reminds us that the Pol Pot horror emerged from the bombing ordered by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, and that Cambodia was again "punished" when its liberators came from the wrong side of the Cold War and the Thatcher government sent special forces to train the Khmer Rouge in exile. A postal strike in Britain is the war at home 22 October 2009 Show intro... John Pilger argues that the strike by British postal workers for the right to work with dignity, consultation and security has wider significance for all touched by the political regression that imposes high rates of poverty and gross wealth for an opulent minorty represented by "rescued banks" now celebrating record bonuses. War is peace. Ignorance is strength 15 October 2009 Show intro... John Pilger draws on George Orwell's inspiration to describe the Call of Obama: "attractive to liberal sensibilities, if not to the Afghan children he kills". The lying game: how we are prepared for another war of aggression 1 October 2009 Show intro... John Pilger compares the current drum-beating for war against Iran, based on a fake "nuclear threat", with the manufacture of a sense of false crisis that led to invasion of Iraq and the deaths of 1.3 million people. September For many Britons, the party game is over 17 September 2009 Show intro... John Pilger analyses the impact of 'Blair's wars' on the Labour Party and its historic convergence with the Tories into a single ideology state. Lockerbie: Megrahi was framed 3 September 2009 Show intro... John Pilger describes the suppression of facts behind the furore over the "compassionate" release of the so-called Lockerbie bomber, Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi. He writes that Megrahi was "in effect blackmailed by the governments of Scotland and England" so that it would not be revealed in his appeal that he had been framed for a crime he did not commit. August Cover-up: a film's travesty of omissions 20 August 2009 Show intro... John Pilger recalls his undercover reporting from East Timor and reveals that a major new movie, Balibo, perpetuates the cover-up of the role played western governments in the genocial invasion of East Timor by Indonesia and the Australian government's part in the murder of its own journalists. Books that counter our "training" to make war 6 August 2009 Show intro... John Pilger asks his readers to set aside the usual summer holiday reading lists and reach for books that help us make sense of extraordinary times and to resist our "training" to make war. July Murdoch: a cultural Chernobyl 23 July 2009 Show intro... John Pilger describes "an iceberg of relentless inhumanity" beneath the Guardian's revelations about illegal phone tapping at Murdoch's Sunday tabloid and the impact of his empire in Britain and all over the world. Mourn on the fourth of July 9 July 2009 Show intro... John Pilger argues that while liberals now celebrate America's return to its "moral ideals", they are silent on a venerable taboo. This is the true role of Americanism: an ideology distinguished by its myths and the denial that it exists. President Obama is its embodiment. Power, illusion and America's last taboo 4 July 2009 Show intro... A transcription of John Pilger’s address to Socialism 2009 in San Francisco June Back to the point of departure 25 June 2009 Show intro... John Pilger reflects on the idea of a journey, and wonders, like TS Eliot, if the point of travelling is also to find out where you came from. However, the unsuspected and tragic can change everything. Smile on the face of the tiger 11 June 2009 Show intro... John Pilger de-codes the "historic" speech President Obama made in Cairo "reaching out to the Muslim world", according to the BBC: in reality showing the seductive face of American power as it proceeds towards its unchanged goal. May Britain: the depth of corruption 28 May 2009 Show intro... John Pilger describes how the current scandal of MPs' tax evasion and phantom mortgages conceals a deeper corruption that is traced back to the political monoculture of the United States. Distant voices, desperate lives 14 May 2009 Show intro... John Pilger describes the catastrophe facing the Tamil people of Sri Lanka, whose distant voices have appealed to the world for almost as long as the Palestinians. April Obama's 100 days: the mad men did well 30 April 2009 Show intro... John Pilger describes the power of advertising - from the effects of smoking to politics - as he reaches behind the facade of of the first 100 days President Barack Obama. The reds down under are revolting 16 April 2009 Show intro... John Pilger describes a personal loss as the quality of Australia's once distinguished wine declines - a lesson for others as the greed of "cash cropping" threatens a nation's food supply. Fake faith and epic crimes 2 April 2009 Show intro... John Pilger describes a worldwide movement that is 'challenging the once-sacrosanct notion that imperial politicians can destroy countless lives and retain an immunity from justice'. In Tony Blair's case, justice inches closer. March War comes home to Britain 5 March 2009 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the basic freedoms being lost in Britain as the "national security state", imported from the United States by New Labour, takes effect. February Cambodia's missing accused 20 February 2009 Show intro... In an article for the Guardian, John Pilger calls on his long experience with Cambodia's struggles in lamenting missing faces in the dock at the UN-backed trial of crimes committed during the Khmer Rouge period. Where are Pol Pot's accomplices and collaborators in the West? Hollywood's new censors 19 February 2009 Show intro... John Pilger describes how censorship in Hollywood works in the age of the 'war on terror'. Unlike the crude days of the cold war, it's by omission and 'introspective dross'. The politics of bollocks 5 February 2009 Show intro... John Pilger borrows from Lord West of Spithead to deconstruct current mythology, such as the 'impartiality' of the BBC and the 'radical changes' implemented by President Obama. January Come on down for your Freedom Medals 22 January 2009 Show intro... John Pilger writes that "as deserving as Tony Blair is of his George W. Bush Freedom Medal, others cry out for a place in his company". Following Israel's assault on Gaza, he offers two additional nominees. Holocaust denied: the lying silence of those who know 8 January 2009 Show intro... Writing in the New Statesman, John Pilger calls on 40 years of reporting the Middle East to describe the 'why' of Israel's bloody onslaught on the besieged people of Gaza - an attack that has little to do with Hamas or Israel's right to exist.
  
• 2008 December The good news for 2009, a seasonal wish list 18 December 2008 Show intro... The festive edition of the New Statesman offers a menu of good news to celebrate in 2009. John Pilger adds his own wish list. Beware of Obama's Groundhog Day 11 December 2008 Show intro... John Pilger reckons 'Groundhog Day', the black comedy about time repeating itself, might be a parable for the Age of Obama - as the president-elect's major appointments turn out to be almost totally retro, without a single figure representing those who voted for him. Kafka has a rival. The Foreign Office lectures us on human rights 1 December 2008 Show intro... In an article for the Guardian, John Pilger describes the black irony of an "open day to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights" at the Foreign Office, guardian of rapacious British power and policies that invert the meaning of human rights. November The power and corruption that makes unpeople of an entire nation 27 November 2008 Show intro... John Pilger describes the latest chapter in the extraordinary story of the 'mass kidnapping' of the people of the Chagos islands in the Indian Ocean, British citizens expelled from their homeland to make way for an American military base. On 22 October, Britain's highest court of appeal, the Law Lords, demonstrated how British power works at its apex by handing down a transparently political judgement that dismissed the Magna Carta and banned an entire nation from ever going home. Beware of the Obama hype. What 'change' in America really means 13 November 2008 Show intro... John Pilger writes that the lauding of Barack Obama has a history and that 'historical moments' ought to be less about their symbolism and accompanying histrionics than what they really mean. The question is: what is Obama's true relation to unchanging American myths about the imposition of its notorious power? October Under cover of racist myth, a new land grab in Australia 24 October 2008 Show intro... In a report for the Guardian, John Pilger describes the deception behind the pretext for a "national emergency" declared by the Australian government in Aboriginal areas. A political cry of "save the children" can also mean the profits of uranium and toxic waste. The diplomacy of lying 23 October 2008 Show intro... John Pilger describes the truth and lies of great power as practised by British "diplomacy'', and the prospects for peace and order following the US presidential election on November 4. The people's sporting star who had 'the grace' 9 October 2008 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger celebrates the life of Sep Prosser, one of Australia's great swimmers and swimming coaches, whose celebrity was based on an ingredient now missing from so much sport: grace. South Africa: the liberation's betrayal 2 October 2008 Show intro...

  In an article for the Mail & Guardian, Johannesburg, John Pilger describes the 'social and economic catastrophe' that replaced the African National Congress's 'unbreakable' promise' to end the poverty of the majority.

  September The new world war - the silence is a lie 25 September 2008 Show intro... John Pilger describes the 'great silence' over the annual British party conferences as politicians and their club of commentators say nothing about a war provoked and waged across the world the responsibility for which lies close at hand. A murderous theatre of the absurd 11 September 2008 Show intro... John Pilger examines news as parody as those prominent in the British media seek to justify the official versions of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. August The ghost of Pinochet haunts the campaign against Chavez 17 August 2008 Show intro... In an article for the Guardian, John Pilger describes how he sought the help of Chile's former political prisoners, tortured by Pinochet, in the making of his film, The War on Democracy, and how they bear witness to the historical meaning of the current campaign of propaganda and lies aimed at Venezuela and Hugo Chavez. Don't forget Yugoslavia 14 August 2008 Show intro... John Pilger digs beneath the received wisdom for the break-up of Yugoslavia and points to a largely ignored memoir by the former chief prosecutor in The Hague - and an echo from current events in the Caucasus. The lies of Hiroshima are the lies of today 6 August 2008 Show intro... In an article for the Guardian on the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, John Pilger describes the 'progression of lies' from the dust of that detonated city, to the wars of today - and the threatened attack on Iran. July Obama, the prince of bait-and-switch 24 July 2008 Show intro... John Pilger describes the devaluing of civilian casualties in colonial wars, and the anointing of Barack Obama, as he tours the battlefields, sounding more and more like George W. Bush. How Britain wages war 10 July 2008 Show intro... John Pilger describes the insidious militarisng of Britain as the effects of two colonial wars and the cover-up of atrocities come home. One journalist's story: from triumph to torture 2 July 2008 Show intro... In an article for the Guardian, John Pilger describes presenting a top journalism award to a young Palestinian, Mohammed Omer, and how, on his return home to Gaza, he was seized by the Israelis, who demanded the prize money and tortured him. June In the cause of fear and ignorance 26 June 2008 Show intro... John Pilger describes another Britain: "a vicious, sectarian and mostly unreported war" against Muslims. People snatched from the homes following 9/11 are consigned to a Kafkaesque oblivion, and worse. In the great tradition, Obama is a hawk 12 June 2008 Show intro... John Pilger reaches back into the history of the Democratic Party and describes the tradition of war-making and expansionism that Barack Obama has now left little doubt he will honour. May Burma, victim of the 'War on Terror' 31 May 2008 Show intro... Writing for the Guardian, John Pilger marks the Burmese junta's renewal of the house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi with an examination of the intimidations of the 'war on terror' on those who help to free her and her people.
  From Kennedy to Obama: Liberalism's last fling 29 May 2008 Show intro... John Pilger refers back to his travels with Robert Kennedy to describe the false hopes offered by those, like Barack Obama, who exploit the appeal of liberalism then present a very different reality. Destroying the best of Britain 8 May 2008 Show intro... John Pilger describes how the New Labour government is destroying one of the the venerable features of "communal decency" in Britain - the local post office. Economies need to be made, though not in the pursuit of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. April Latin America: the hidden war on democracy 24 April 2008 Show intro... John Pilger argues that an unreported war is being waged by the United States, and Britain, to restore power to the privileged classes at the expense of the majority. The struggle against apartheid has begun again in South Africa 10 April 2008 Show intro... John Pilger describes how economic apartheid has become a model for much of the world and resistance to it has begun again in the country where apartheid was said to be in the past. March Honouring the 'unbreakable promise' 28 March 2008 Show intro... Almost fourteen years after South Africa's first democratic elections and the fall of racial apartheid, John Pilger describes, in an address at Rhodes University, the dream and reality of the new South Africa and the responsibility of its new elite. A tribute to Philip Jones Griffiths, who understood war and peace, and people 27 March 2008 Show intro... John Pilger pays tribute to his friend, the great photo-journalist Philip Jones Griffiths, who has died. "No photographer," he writes, "produced such finely subversive work, knowing that truth in war is always subversive." The quiet rendition of Moudud Ahmed 12 March 2008 Show intro... In an article for the Guardian, John Pilger describes the extraordinary life of Moudud Ahmed, who in 1971 led him into liberated East Pakistan, later Bangladesh. Now a political prisoner of the military dictatorship in Dhaka, Moudud Ahmed is seriously ill in a country which, says his wife Hasna, "is itself a prison". Australia's hidden Empire 5 March 2008 Show intro... In his latest article for the New Statesman, John Pilger reports from his homeland on Australia's hidden empire - a 'sphere of influence' that stretches from the Aboriginal slums of Sydney to East Timor and Afghanistan. The arrival of a new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, offers important continuity.
  February Catching the last tram home 20 February 2008 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger catches a ghostly tram to returns to where he grew up in Australia, the scene of his first encounter with the brutal, though enjoyable world of newspapers. Bringing down the new Berlin Walls 13 February 2008 Show intro... In his latest article for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes how the Palestinian breakout of Gaza offers inspiration for people struggling to bring down the new Berlin Walls all over the world.
  January Suharto, the model killer, and his friends in high places 28 January 2008 Show intro... In an article for the Guardian, John Pilger says the death of General Suharto, the former dictator of Indonesia, is an opportunity to review the role of this "model" for high crimes in the modern era - from Indonesia, to Chile, to Vietnam - and the powerful friends who ensured he would never suffer the fate of Saddam Hussein. The danse macabre of US-style democracy 24 January 2008 Show intro... John Pilger looks back on the US presidential campaigns he has reported and draws parallels with the current 'ritual danse macabre' that covers for democracy and the veiled propaganda that accompanies it. The 'good war' is a bad war 10 January 2008 Show intro... John Pilger describes how the invasion of Afghanistan, which was widely supported in the West as a 'good war' and justifiable response to 9/11, was actually planned months before 9/11 and is the latest instalment of 'a great game'.
• 2007 December Blair's legacy: from liberalism to Murdochracy 18 December 2007 Show intro... In an article for the Guardian, John Pilger writes that in Britain, after more than a decade of the New Labour "project", once noble terms such as democracy, reform, even freedom, have been emptied of their true meaning and replaced by a murdochracy. How the Anglo-American elite shares its 'values' 13 December 2007 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the origins and 'shared values' of the British-American Project for a Successor Generation, founded in 1983 by Ronald Reagan with support from Rupert Murdoch. Today's BAP meets every year alternately in the US and Britain and includes scientists, economists, community leaders and journalists, a number of them liberals or 'on the left'. November Exposing the guardians of power 29 November 2007 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger pays tribute to the influence of an extraordinary British website Medialens.org whose creators David Edwards and David Cromwell have challenged the declared objectivity and other myths of the liberal media. On 2 December, they will receive the Gandhi International Peace Prize. No tears, no remorse for the fallen of Iraq 14 November 2007 Show intro... In the New Statesman, John Pilger looks back on Remembrance Day - Veterans Day in the US - and describes the presence of hypocrisy as the bowed heads of the establishment mourned none of the million dead of Iraq and the destruction of their society. Sicko 2: The destruction of Britain's health service 1 November 2007 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes how the notorious US healthcare companies exposed by Michael Moore in his film, Sicko, are now invading Britain and warms of the destruction by stealth of the model for universal for health care, Britain's acclaimed National Health Service. October The hypocrites who say they back democracy in Burma 26 October 2007 Show intro... Addressing a London meeting, 'Freedom Writ Large', organised by PEN and the Writers Network of Burma, John Pilger pays tribute to Aung San Suu Kyi and the writers of Burma, 'the bravest of the brave', and describes the hypocrisy of Western leaders who claim to back their struggle for freedom.
  Why they're afraid of Michael Moore 17 October 2007 Show intro... John Pilger marks the European release of Michael Moore's latest film, Sicko, with an examination of why the documentary film-maker exerts such influence, with fans and enemies alike. "In societies ruled by an invisible government of media," he writes, "no one has broken through like Moore, who breaks every rule by reporting from the ground up, instead of from the top down." My last conversation with Aung San Suu Kyi 3 October 2007 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger recalls his last conversation with Aung San Suu Kyi, under premanent house arrest in Rangoon. Filmed secretly by Pilger and David Munro, the legitimate leader of the Burmese people provides a glimpse of her aloneness and courage.
  September Class is still the issue 6 September 2007 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the parallel worlds of the great 'unmentionable', class, in modern Britain: in the streets and in the media. August Israel: an important marker has been passed 23 August 2007 Show intro... In a column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes his first encounter with a Palestinian refugee camp and what Nelson Mandela has called "the greatest moral issue of our age" - justice for the Palestinians. 'Something has changed', he writes, referring to the world view of sanctions and a boycott against Israel. Good ol' Bill, the liberal hero 8 August 2007 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger looks forward to the arrival of Bill Clinton in London where an "audience" with him will cost up to £799 a head. In examining Clinton's liberal credentials and comparing them to George W. Bush's record, Pilger illuminates what Hillary Clinton might offer America and the world as the first female president.
  July How truth slips down the memory hole 25 July 2007 Show intro... In his latest article for the New Statesman, John Pilger applies to current events Orwell's description in '1984' of how the Ministry of Truth consigned embarrassing truth to a memory hole. He highlights the killing of a Palestinean cameraman by the Israelis as an example of how "we" are trained to look on the rest of the world as quite unlike ourselves: useful or expendable.
  The London bombs also belong to the new Prime Minister 5 July 2007 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger breaks the taboo of the latest 'potential' bombs found in London. They are prime minister Gordon Brown's bomb, too, the 'inevitable consequence of the lawless invasion of Iraq' which Brown backed and whose death toll now equals that of the Rwanda genocide.
  June The invisible government 16 June 2007 Show intro... In a speech in Chicago, John Pilger describes how propaganda has become such a potent force in our lives and, in the words of one of its founders, represents 'an invisible government'. The rising of Latin America - the genesis of 'The War On Democracy' 13 June 2007 Show intro... Modern fictional cinema rarely seems to break political silences. The very fine Motorcycle Diaries was a generation too late. In this country, where Hollywood sets the liberal boundaries, the work of Ken Loach and a few others is an honourable exception. However, the cinema is changing as if by default. The documentary has returned to the big screen and is being embraced by the public. The British Army rebels against propoganda 6 June 2007 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger quotes from a letter received from a British army officer serving in Iraq and sent to the BBC. The officer calls the war unwinnable and wrong, and appeals to the media not to swallow "the office/White House line". For the first time, journalists are now being scrutinised by the soldiers whose war they report. May Imprisoning a whole nation 22 May 2007 Show intro... In an article for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes how Gaza in Palestine has come to symbolise the imposition of great power on the powerless, in the Middle East and all over the world, and how a vocabulary of double standard is employed to justify this epic tragedy.
  The Kennedy myth rises again 10 May 2007 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger recalls the night Robert Kennedy was shot in his presence and the myths that followed his untimely death. Having elevated Kennedy to be one of his heroes, Prime Minister-in-waiting Gordon Brown describes him as the pinnacle of "morality" - when this myth really tells us about Brown himself and his political twin, Tony Blair. April Iran may be the greatest crisis of modern times 12 April 2007 Show intro... In a cover piece for the New Statesman, John Pilger evokes the memory of Germans 'looking from the side' at Bergen-Belsen to describe the challenge facing us in the West as the Bush/Blair 'long war' becomes 'perhaps the greatest crisis of modern times'. March The swimmer's journey home 29 March 2007 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger touches on the life behind his public face. "I am a swimmer," he writes. From his childhood on Australia's famous Bondi Beach to a career that has taken him to many places the opposite of benign, Pilger has swum through, as he puts it, "the difficulties".
  Closing the gap between torturer and victim 14 March 2007 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger reports on new revelations that torturers in America's 'war on terror' were directed personally by the US secretary of defence. He argues that the historical antedote to such barbarity is the new exuberant democracy movement in Latin America. Australia: the 51st State 1 March 2007 Show intro... In his latest article for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the remarkable servility of John Howard's government in Australia to the Bush administration - Howard is known as Bush's 'deputy sheriff' - and how this is eroding the country's freedoms.
  February Mourning a secret Australia 15 February 2007 Show intro... In a column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes another 'day of mourning' for the first inhabitants of his homeland, Australia, which for many whites remains a secret country behind the neo-conservative bluster of John Howard's government.
  Iran: a war is coming 1 February 2007 Show intro... In his latest piece for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes American plans to attack Iran, possibly with nuclear weapons. Although the majority of Americans voted last November to end the war in Iraq, the Bush cabal remains undeterred by inspid protests from Democrats and is proceeding with another, even more dangerous adventure. January Cruelty and xenophobia shame and stir the lucky country 19 January 2007 Show intro... In an article for the Guardian, John Pilger returns to his homeland, Australia, and described the social regression of a once proud liberal democracy and says that the flag-waving "values" of the neo-con prime minister may be coming unstuck in Guantanamo Bay.
  Looking to the side, from Belsen to Gaza 18 January 2007 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the warnings of genocide in Gaza, and the suffering of 1.4 million Palestinians living a "life in a cage" as the world looks on.  He quotes Israeli journalist Amira Hass on the experience of her mother in a Nazi concentration camp and the Germans who watched, "looking from the side".
• 2006 December Setting the limits of invasion journalism 7 December 2006 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger reports an unprecedented study by three UK universities which found that, contrary to myth, 80 per cent of the media followed "the government line" on Iraq and only 12 per cent challenged it. He analyses the subtleties and insidious nature of censorship in free societies and asks why this is neglected by many media colleges.
  November Now let's charge Saddam's accomplices 9 November 2006 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger wonders why Saddam should be alone in the dock. Surely, those who aided and abetted his crimes, and were accomplices in other great crimes committed against the Iraqi people, should be prosecuted, too. The Blair doctrine: blood and money 6 November 2006 Show intro... John Pilger describes how the distintegration of real and mythical democracy in the United States influences British politics under Tony Blair, such as the reduction of Parliament to a 'craven talking shop' and the promotion of war and 'thoughtcrimes'. October Busy fondling their self-esteem 12 October 2006 Show intro... As the news reveals a study that puts civilian deaths in Iraq at 655,000, John Pilger recalls the words of a song by the great Chilean balladeer, Victor Jara, to describe those who see themselves as rational and liberal are, in fact, complicit in an unrecognised crime. September In praise of the 'subversive' documentary 14 September 2006 Show intro... In an article for the Guardian, timed with a season of his own documentaries at the Barbican, John Pilger pays tribute to 'that most powerful and subversive medium, the political documentary' - 'at its best, fearless, and able to show the politically unpalatable and to make sense of the news' and he urges support for those, like 'citizen' documentary makers, who break through the insidious censorship of 'current affairs'. No news is slow news 14 September 2006 Show intro... In the latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes how the obvious becomes invisible in today's mainstream news agenda. The news that doesn't make the front pages or the BBC bulletins is 'slow news'. For example, the resistance to foreign power by the Palestinians, ordinary Iraqis and Afghans is 'slow news'  while the internecine machinations of Bush and Blair is 'regular news'. The revolution will not be televised 11 September 2006 Show intro... As he launches a season of his films, John Pilger argues that, in the age of Big Brother, television is no longer nurturing challenging documentary-makers.  August The return of people power 30 August 2006 Show intro... John Pilger reaches behind the news of war and suffering and is inspired by the rise of popular resistance throughout the world: from Lebanon to Latin America, to an unprecedented level of political awareness in Britain. The real threat we face in Britain is Blair 17 August 2006 Show intro... John Pilger writes about the the alleged plot to blow up airliners flying from London and says that "unimaginable mass murder" has already taken place - in Iraq - and that the real threat the British face is in Downing Street.
  July Empire and Israel 27 July 2006 Show intro... The National Museum of American History is part of the celebrated Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Surrounded by mock Graeco-Roman edifices with their soaring Corinthian columns, rampant eagles and chiselled profundities, it is at the centre of Empire, though the word itself is engraved nowhere. This is understandable, as the likes of Hitler and Mussolini were proud imperialists, too: on a "great mission to rid the world of evil", to borrow from President Bush.
  What did you do during the Dock Strike? 13 July 2006 Show intro... Members of the flexible workforce might find a lesson in the dockers' fight against casualisation. June East Timor: the coup the world missed 22 June 2006 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the latest phase of East Timor's struggle for independence, which, in the 1990s, he went undercover to report. One of the world's newest and poorest states now faces the overweening power of its vast neighour, Australia. Once again, the prize is oil and gas.
  Palestine: A war on children 15 June 2006 Show intro... In a cover piece for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes how the US and Israel have finally resolved the problem of the Palestinians, who voted for the "wrong" government. They are to starve them while missiles are fired at their homes and picnickers on a beach. A Worse Slaughter 1 June 2006 Show intro... Blair makes much of 'humanitarian values' but sells arms to Indonesia which are used against East Timor. May Out of Eden 29 May 2006 Show intro... The Indian Ocean paradise of Diego Garcia was once home to more than a thousand contented British subjects. In 1966, Harold Wilson's government sold it to the US in a secret, illegal deal and terrorised the population into leaving. Bolivia: a glimpse of freedom 24 May 2006 Show intro... The long, wide, bleak streets of cobblestones and tufts of petrified grass reach for the sacred mountain Illimani, whose pyramid of snow is like a watchtower. Chavez is a threat because he offers the alternative of a decent country 13 May 2006 Show intro... Venezuela's president is using oil revenues to liberate the poor - no wonder his enemies want to overthrow him, writes John Pilger in the Guardian. Return of the Death Squads - Iraq's hidden news 4 May 2006 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the the difference between Iraq as seen on the corporate news and the real news, such as the return of US-trained and armed death squads, reminiscent of Central America and Vietnam. April The real first casualty of war 24 April 2006 Show intro... Censorship by journalism is virulent in Britain and the US - and it means the difference between life and death for people in faraway countries.
  The quiet death of democracy 13 April 2006 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes how a bill passing through the British parliament will undermine centuries-old concepts of freedom and human rights - democracy itself. March The war lovers 23 March 2006 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes a kind of war lover and war salesman (and woman) very different from the 'almost endearing fools' he has met in real wars. Secret war against defenceless West Papua 9 March 2006 Show intro... In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes how the terrible history of East Timor is repeating itself in nearby West Papua, another stolen resource-rich province of Indonesia, whose notorious army is again colluding with the West.
  February Put out more flags: the making of another America 28 February 2006 Show intro... Writing in the New Statesman, John Pilger's second dispatch from Australia, his homeland, describes how the neo-conservative government of John Howard has set out to change the basic culture of Australian society. Iran: the next war 10 February 2006 Show intro... In a cover article for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the headlong rush by the United States, aided by Britain, to attack Iran. Like the attack on Iraq, there is a secret agenda. January No mourning for Kerry Packer 23 January 2006 Show intro... Behind the glamour of Australian sport, black footballers, including whole teams, are often dead before 40, writes John Pilger. The death of freedom 9 January 2006 Show intro... The rights of ordinary people to speak out against an unjust war and atrocities unleashed in their name are being crushed. Fascism is at the door. Who else, asks John Pilger, will fight it?
• 2005 November If you want to know the truth about Iraq, join the millions who have given up on the silences of the mainstream media 28 November 2005 Show intro... The Indian writer Vandana Shiva has called for an "insurrection of subjugated knowledge". The insurrection is well under way. In trying to make sense of a dangerous world, millions of people are turning away from the conventional sources of news and information and to the world wide web, convinced that mainstream journalism is the voice of rampant power. America's new enemy 14 November 2005 Show intro... Latin Americans have spent the past few years finding their voices. Now they may have the strength to defy their northern neighbour. October Applauding a military refusenik 31 October 2005 Show intro... An RAF officer is about to be tried before a military court for refusing to return to Iraq because the war is illegal. We need to be told 17 October 2005 Show intro... When journalists report propaganda instead of the truth, the consequences can be catastrophic - as one largely forgotten instance demonstrates. Blame Basra on the British 3 October 2005 Show intro... Is there to be no honest accounting for the events in Basra? Do we simply accept John Reid's customary arrogance? September Behind America's facade 19 September 2005 Show intro... The destruction caused by Katrina has enabled us to glimpse realities that are usually carefully hidden away. And what we discover is that New Orleans and Baghdad are not so far apart. August John Pilger hails the Brigaders 8 August 2005 Show intro... John Pilger explains how the legacy of the International Brigades helps us understand not only the nature of fascism, but that even those who are not fascists have similar goals. July Blair's bombs 25 July 2005 Show intro... The senseless repercussions of interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine demand that we renew our anger at our leaders. Our troops must come home. We owe it to all those who died in London on 7 July. Fighting Fascism, then and now 19 July 2005 Show intro... At an extraordinary memorial event in London for the International Brigades who went to the aid of the Spanish people in the late 1930s, John Pilger paid tribute to the 'brigaders'. The ghost at Gleneagles 11 July 2005 Show intro... In the orgy of summit coverage something has been overlooked: the two men at the heart of it, telling us how the world should be run, are the men responsible for Fallujah and Abu Ghraib. June Tony Blair's "vision for Africa" is about as patronising and exploitative as a stage full of white pop stars (with black tokens now added) 27 June 2005 Show intro... The front page of the Observer on 12 June announced, "$55bn Africa debt deal 'a victory for millions'". The "victory for millions" is a quotation of Bob Geldof, who said, "Tomorrow 280 million Africans will wake up for the first time in their lives without owing you or me a penny...". The nonsense of this would be breathtaking if the reader's breath had not already been extracted by the unrelenting sophistry of Bob Geldof, Bono, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, the Observer et al. April Blair's forgotten victims 25 April 2005 Show intro... By voting for Blair, you will walk over the corpses of at least 100,000 people, most of them innocent, slaughtered in defiance of international law. March Be proud of what you've achieved 21 March 2005 Show intro... Speaking in Sydney, Australia, at a rally to commemorate the second anniversary of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, John Pilger said that his compatriots who opposed the invasion should be proud of their achievements and those of millions like them. Kebabing the Tonier-than-thou club 7 March 2005 Show intro... Those who regard themselves as commissars of the respectable, moral, liberal class do not convey to us the enormity of what happened in Iraq. Their silence is quite disgusting. February Our children are learning lies 21 February 2005 Show intro... In our schools, children learn that the US fought the Vietnam war against a "communist threat" to "us". Is it any wonder that so many don't understand the truth about Iraq? Fear and silence in the 'lucky' country 7 February 2005 Show intro... Australia, once the land of the "fair go", has collaborated with Guantanamo more closely than any other western government and is guilty of human rights abuses of its own.
  January John Pilger denounces EU appeasement of Burma 24 January 2005 Show intro... With an eye to its vast Asian market, Europe promotes human rights when the price is right. In Burma, crimes against humanity are allowed to continue without challenge.
  
• 2004 December Reminders of Kosovo 13 December 2004 Show intro... Kosovo - the site of a genocide that never was - is now a violent "free market" in drugs and prostitution. What does this tell us about the likely outcome of the Iraq war? November Iraq: the unthinkable becomes normal 15 November 2004 Show intro... Mainstream media speak as if Fallujah were populated only by foreign "insurgents". In fact, women and children are being slaughtered in our name. Americanism threatens war on the world 1 November 2004 Show intro... "Anti-Americanism" has long been a pejorative, used to denigrate critics of an imperial system. But it is the opposite, "Americanism", which threatens a war on the world. October The Secret Files that reveal how a nation was deported 18 October 2004 Show intro... In this second article on the expulsion of the Chagos islanders, published in the Daily Express, London, John Pilger reveals more of the secret files that mark the conspiracy between Britain and the United States to 'cleanse' the main island, Diego Garcia. Why we ignored Iraq in the 1990s 4 October 2004 Show intro... Even before the 2003 war, we were attacking Iraqi civilians with our inhumane economic sanctions. Yet where were the media protesting against this injustice? July Understanding Australia's black uprising 12 July 2004 Show intro... Aboriginal children today have the same life expectancy as white children in 1900. Yet most Australians can't understand why there was an uprising in Sydney this year.
  John Pilger warns that the documentary form is an endangered species 8 July 2004 Show intro... Writing in The Independent, John Pilger says that, in survey after survey, when people are asked what they want more of on television, they say documentaries - especially those that make make sense of news. May Another fake 31 May 2004 Show intro... Shareholders wanted the Mirror editor out long before the allegedly bogus photos. Does anyone care that the BBC and other papers fall for the hoaxes of US and UK rulers? A tribute to my mother 17 May 2004 Show intro... My mother, aged 19, sold her books to pay the fare to her first teaching job in the bush. The currency of her generation was determination and courage. Torture is news but it's not new 7 May 2004 Show intro... Writing in the Daily Mirror, John Pilger recalls the news coverage of the war in Vietnam and how American atrocities and torture were not considered newsworthy. The same was true of the brutality of British colonial adventures. April Only Australia remains true to the uber-sheriff in Washington 5 April 2004 Show intro... Ten years ago, I filmed secretly in East Timor, a small country in south-east Asia whose brutal occupation was largely unknown to the outside world. March The source of terror in Palestine 22 March 2004 Show intro... No front pages in the west mourn victims of the enduring bloodbath in occupied Palestine, the equivalent of the Madrid horror week after week, month after month. Universal justice is not a dream 22 March 2004 Show intro... In an article for the Melbourne Age, John Pilger says that with the the establishment of an International Criminal Court, the promise of universal justice is no longer far-fetched. February Once again, white Australia is reminded of life behind its picture postcard 23 February 2004 Show intro... Epidemics of disease ravage Aboriginal communities in Australia as they did the slums of 19th-century England. No wonder there are riots in Sydney. Gilligan was an exception 9 February 2004 Show intro... The war correspondent James Cameron was smeared as a "dupe of communism". "When they call you a dupe," he told me, "they're really complaining that you are not their dupe". Another Hutton whitewash? 5 February 2004 Show intro... Writing in the Daily Mirror, John Pilger asks whether the latest inquiry called by Tony Blair - into the "failure of intelligence" - will turn out, like the Hutton inquiry, as a whitewash.
  January The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine 30 January 2004 Show intro... Writing in the Guardian, John Pilger reviews what he describes as a 'spell-binding' new documentary, S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine, directed by the Cambodian film-maker, Rithy Panh. Power, propaganda and conscience in the 'War on Terror' 26 January 2004 Show intro... John Pilger delivers the Summer School Lecture at the University of Western Australia in Perth on power, propaganda and conscience in the 'war on terror', with special reference to the part played by Australian government, media and scholarship. American terrorist 12 January 2004 Show intro... Forget Hutton. He will not reveal what the US and UK authorities really don't want you to know: that radiation illnesses caused by uranium weapons are now common in Iraq.
• 2003 December Opposition views are absent at Dyke's BBC 8 December 2003 Show intro... When Greg Dyke attacked American television's cheerleading coverage of Iraq, how did he manage to keep a straight face? The BBC gave even less voice to opposition views. November We know when Bush is lying - his lips move 24 November 2003 Show intro... Blair and Straw dare to suggest that the millions who have rumbled the Bush gang are simply being "fashionably anti-American" - another desperate act by desperate men. John Pilger laments the silence of the writers 10 November 2003 Show intro... For the great writers of the 20th century, art could not be separated from politics. Today, there is a disturbing silence on the dark matters that should command our attention. September Colin Powell said Iraq was not a threat 22 September 2003 Show intro... Writing in the Daily Mirror, John Pilger reveals that both US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Bush's closest adviser Condaleeza Rice said, in 2001, that Saddam Hussein was effectively disarmed and no threat - putting the lie to their own propaganda.
  The Betrayal of Afghanistan 20 September 2003 Show intro... In a major article in The Guardian magazine, John Pilger describes Afghanistan since its liberation from the Taliban, which he filmed for his latest documentary, 'Breaking the Silence'. Apart from notional freedoms, little has changed. Put Blair in the dock 15 September 2003 Show intro... While we are allowed to read internal e-mails in Whitehall, we can't see the traffic between Blair and Bush that would reveal the biggest lie of all. August Needed - an inquiry into a slaughter 24 August 2003 Show intro... Writing in the Independent on Sunday, John Pilger says that, while the Hutton inquiry into the death of David Kelly has revealed more evidence of the deception behind the attack on Iraq, a full public inquiry into why Britain went to war is now needed. Who are the extremists? 22 August 2003 Show intro... Writing in the Daily Mirror, John Pilger identifies the root cause of the bloody bombing of the UN compound in Baghdad, which Washington and London have blamed this on 'extremists from outside'. War on truth 4 August 2003 Show intro... The White House sets the tone and the media echo a line that celebrates the victimhood of the invader and the evil of the Iraqis. And then London takes its cue. June Bush's Vietnam 23 June 2003 Show intro... Once more, we hear that America is being "sucked into a quagmire". The rapacious adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan are going badly wrong. The catalogue of Tony Blair's deceptions are now being revealed by the day 3 June 2003 Show intro... In his latest article for the Daily Mirror, John Pilger argues that the "high crime" of the invasion of Iraq that "will not melt away" and says the catalogue of Tony Blair's deceptions are now being revealed by the day, unravelling any credibility left. May Britain supports terrorism 26 May 2003 Show intro... The official version is that Britain's foreign policy is basically benevolent: that it promotes democracy, peace and human rights. The truth is that Britain supports terrorism. April Journalism is rotting away 28 April 2003 Show intro... Something deeply corrupt is consuming journalism. A war so one-sided it was hardly a war was reported like a Formula One race, as the teams sped to the chequered flag in Baghdad. The saving of one little boy must not be a cover for the crime of this war 22 April 2003 Show intro... The unthinkable is becoming normal. The saving of one little boy must not be a cover for the crime of this war and we should not forget its true horror. A crime against humanity 14 April 2003 Show intro... They have blown off the limbs of women and the scalps of children. Their victims overwhelm the morgues and flood into hospitals that lack even aspirin. We now glimpse the forbidden truths of the invasion of Iraq 6 April 2003 Show intro... A man cuddles the body of his infant daughter; her blood drenches them. A woman in black pursues a tank, her arms outstretched; all seven in her family are dead. An American Marine murders a woman because she happens to be standing next to a man in a uniform. "I'm sorry,'' he says, "but the chick got in the way.'' "We dropped a few civilians", said Sgt Eric Schrumpf of the US Marines 5 April 2003 Show intro... "We had a great day," said Sgt Eric Schrumpf of the US Marines last Saturday. "We killed a lot of people." March Today is a day of shame for the British military 26 March 2003 Show intro... Today is a day of shame for the British military as it declares the Iraqi city of Basra, with a stricken population of 600,000, a "military target". We all have a choice 25 March 2003 Show intro... When Bush and Blair begin their illegal and immoral attack on a country that offers us no threat, we all have a choice.
    Civil disobedience is the sole path left for those who cannot support the Bush-Blair pact of aggression 17 March 2003 Show intro... Civil disobedience is the sole path left for those who cannot support the Bush-Blair pact of aggression. Only then will politicians on both sides of the Atlantic be forced to recognise the folly of their ways. Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were almost certainly destroyed following the Gulf War 13 March 2003 Show intro... The Blair Government has known, almost from the day it came to office in 1997, that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were almost certainly destroyed following the Gulf War. Blair ignores Sun's smear of British journalist hanged by Saddam 3 March 2003 Show intro... When Saddam hanged a British journalist in 1990, MI5 had the journalist smeared in the Sun, and the Mail agreed he was a spy. What did Blair say? John Pilger can find nothing. February As the world protests against war, we hear again the lies of old 17 February 2003 Show intro... "A painful decision," say the supporters of an invasion. But it is not they who will feel the pain: it will be the Iraqi infants writhing in the dust when the cluster bombs fall. Importance of the march against Iraq attack 14 February 2003 Show intro... It is not possible to overstate the significance and urgency of the march and demonstration against an unprovoked British and American attack on Iraq, a nation with whom we have no quarrel and who offer us no threat. The Observer: the great betrayal 3 February 2003 Show intro... In its leaders supporting the war in Iraq, the Observer proves that it has truly buried its great liberal editor David Astor, and his principled, "freethinking" legacy. January Impeccable politicians who, at a safe distance, order the mass killing of ordinary people 29 January 2003 Show intro... William Russell, the great correspondent who reported the carnage of imperial wars, may have first used the expression "blood on his hands" to describe impeccable politicians who, at a safe distance, order the mass killing of ordinary people. George Bush's other poodle 20 January 2003 Show intro... John Howard, Australia's PM, is the mouse that roars for America, whipping his country into war fever and paranoia about terrorism within. 
  
• 2002 December The "secret" war which has seen a 300 per cent increase in bombing raids on Iraq 20 December 2002 Show intro... The American and British attack on Iraq has already begun. While the Blair government continues to claim in Parliament that "no final decision has been taken", Royal Air Force and US fighter bombers have secretly changed tactics and escalated their "patrols" over Iraq to an all-out assault on both military and civilian targets. Two years ago a project set up by the men who now surround George W Bush said what America needed was "a new Pearl Harbor". Its published aims have come alarmingly true 16 December 2002 Show intro... The propaganda used to 'justify' war against Saddam aims only to distract from the real prize: Iraq's rich reserves of oil 3 December 2002 Show intro... On November 7, the day before the United Nations Security Council voted on a resolution that made an American and British attack on Iraq more than likely, Downing Street began issuing warnings of imminent terrorist threats against the United Kingdom. October The fanatics who threaten murder 7 October 2002 Show intro... The Palestinians are no longer alone; Israel, despite the craven intimidation of some of its supporters, has ceased to be immune from truthful media criticism.
  September Today, true democracy will demonstrate its resilience on the streets of London 28 September 2002 Show intro... In the week that Parliament was manipulated by the Government and denied a proper vote on whether Britain should join the Bush gang in its assault on Iraq, many thousands of people will converge on London in what is expected to be the greatest demonstration against war for a generation. The tragedy of an epic injustice that is at the root of Bush's and Blair's threats of war 16 September 2002 Show intro... Last October, in the early hours of the morning, a young expectant mother called Fatima Abed-Rabo awoke with intense labour pains; and she and her husband Nasser set out in a friend's car for the hospital in Bethlehem, in Israeli occupied Palestine. August The Blair government continues to insist that Iraq poses a threat to the Middle East, despite clear evidence to the contrary 27 August 2002 Show intro... The Blair government was told in January by the Americans that there was no justification for attacking Iraq in the "war on terrorism" and that their main aim was getting rid of Saddam Hussein who stood in the way of the West's control of Middle Eastern oil wealth. July 'War on Terror' a smokescreen created by the ultimate terrorist, America itself 22 July 2002 Show intro... As the West prepares for an assault on Iraq, John Pilger argues that 'war on terror' is a smokescreen created by the ultimate terrorist ... America itself. Israel and the media 1 July 2002 Show intro... If you got your news only from the television, you would have no idea of the roots of the Middle East conflict, or that the Palestinians are victims of an illegal military occupation. June Denying the Israeli past 3 June 2002 Show intro... Ethnic cleansing attended the birth of Israel but, more than 50 years later, the country is still in denial about its bloody past. Those who speak out risk their jobs. April The response of Britain's media to the conspiracy in Venezuela provided an object lesson in how censorship works in free societies 29 April 2002 Show intro... Last month, I wrote about Venezuela, pointing out that little had been reported in this country about the achievements of Hugo Chavez and the threat to his reforming government from the usual alliance of a corrupt local elite and the United States. How dare George Bush preach peace to Israel when he's meeting Blair to plan war on Iraq 5 April 2002 Show intro... George W Bush yesterday called on Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian cities occupied by its forces during the last week.He excused Israel's violence, but lectured the Palestinians and the rest of the Middle East on the need for restraint and a lasting peace. "The storms of violence cannot go on," said Bush. "Enough is enough." March Should we go to war against these children? 25 March 2002 Show intro... A compliant press is preparing the ground for an all-out attack on Iraq. It never mentions the victims: the young, the old and the vulnerable. January Waging war against refugees 28 January 2002 Show intro... Few asylum-seekers actually reach Australia's shores, and if they do, their treatment beggars belief. Blair's meeting with Arafat served to disguise his support for Sharon and the Zionist project 14 January 2002 Show intro... Tony Blair's heroic peacemaking is not as it seems. Take the Middle East. When Blair welcomed Yasser Arafat to Downing Street following 11 September, it was widely reported that Britain was backing justice for the Palestinians.
• 2001 November This war of lies goes on 16 November 2001 Show intro... There is no victory in Afghanistan's tribal war, only the exchange of one group of killers for another. The difference is that President Bush calls the latest occupiers of Kabul "our friends". October September 11 - why weren't there similar outcries at earlier atrocities? 4 October 2001 Show intro...

  This week saw the end of an exhibition I helped put on at the Barbican in London, devoted to photo-journalism that makes sense of terrible events.

  September Blair has made Britain a target 21 September 2001 Show intro... The prime minister's "we are at war" statements are irresponsible in the extreme. It is said that some of his senior officials understand this, as do many MPs: thus the messages of "restraint" now being whispered to journalists. July Spoils Of A Massacre 23 July 2001 Show intro... In Indonesia 35 years ago, a military dictator took over, a million people were killed and a red carpet was rolled out for western capital. It was the start of globalisation in Asia, a model for the rest of the world, leaving a legacy of sweatshops and corruption. The state is more powerful than ever; the view that big business alone shapes the new world order is wrong 9 July 2001 Show intro... There is a view fashionable in the media that the world is being taken over by huge multinational corporations, accountable to no one. June The violence of a few protesters in Gothenburg is trivial. Blair runs a violent government, which sells lethal weapons 25 June 2001 Show intro... The young people who have had the courage to take to the streets on every continent, and were among the 20,000 protesters at Gothenburg, should take satisfaction from the panic of new right politicians like Blair and Berlusconi. In the remotest parts of Australia's great outback, refugees are incarcerated, insulted and abused 11 June 2001 Show intro... There has been a lot of political partying in Australia this year. First, there was the centenary of Federation, the coming together of the Australian states in 1901 as "a proud independent entity". April The salacious demolition job on Martha Gellhorn cannot obscure a remarkable human being 16 April 2001 Show intro... The other day, the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism was awarded in honour of the great American reporter who lived in this country until she died three years ago. Gellhorn adhered to no consensus of the kind that shapes and distorts so much journalism. She regarded governments, indeed all authority, as her professional enemies, and their propaganda as "official drivel". March British and American pilots are blowing the cover... 19 March 2001 Show intro... Britain and America's pilots are blowing the cover on our so-called 'humanitarian' no-fly zone. January Iraq: the great cover-up 19 January 2001 Show intro... On the eve of an election campaign, the Blair government is attempting,with mounting desperation, to suppress a scandal potentially greater than the arms-to-Iraq cover-up. This is the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps many more, caused by decisions taken in Whitehall and Washington. The Peter Hains beware... 4 January 2001 Show intro... While his more senior colleagues in Whitehall and Washington understandably fall silent on the mounting deaths in Iraq, the Foreign Office minister Peter Hain has become a strangely aggressive voice in promoting the failed and lethal embargo.
• 2000 December US foreign policy has not changed since Vietnam and, potentially, it is more dangerous than ever 22 December 2000 Show intro... The other day, an Indonesian friend took me to his primary school where,in October 1965, his teacher was beaten to death, suspected of being a communist. Australia ignores the plight of the East Timorese, but keeps a watchful eye on their oil and gas 11 December 2000 Show intro... The Australian prime minister, John Howard, recently described his government's actions over East Timor last year as "wholly honourable and decent". November The price of Vietnam being allowed to come out of isolation was the destruction of its health services 27 November 2000 Show intro... In reporting Bill Clinton's visit to Vietnam, the BBC's diplomatic correspondent declared that what the Vietnamese needed was "more economic growth". The question begged: why send a reporter all the way to Hanoi when the British ambassador would have happily propagated this line? October The West has its reasons for validating Israel's violence; human rights are not an issue 30 October 2000 Show intro... Richard Falk, professor of international relations at Cornell, once wrote that western foreign policy was formulated "through a self-righteous, one-way moral/legal screen [with] positive images of western values and innocence portrayed as threatened, validating a campaign of unrestricted political violence". Charles Perkins: a tribute 19 October 2000 Show intro... Charlie Perkins was, in many ways, Australia's Mandela. Indeed, had the Australian racial composition, been reversed, as in South Africa, he would have surely fulfilled that role. Australia is the only developed country whose government has been condemned as racist by the United Nations 13 October 2000 Show intro... According to the folksy writer Matthew Engel, the glories of the Olympic Games have a cathartic effect on nations. The 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles 'helped the US regain the confidence it lost in Vietnam'. August Labour claims its actions are lawful while it bombs Iraq, strarves its people and sells arms to corrupt states 7 August 2000 Show intro... "All governments are liars," wrote the great American muckraker I F Stone, "and nothing they say should be believed." He exaggerated, although not by much. July A voice that shames those who are silent on Timor 23 July 2000 Show intro... Last month Prime Minister Paul Keating launched a "trade and cultural promotion" with Indonesia. Surrounded by businessmen and representatives of the arts, Keating made an extraordinary speech that was praised in the Australian press for its "maturity". Burma in the balance 21 July 2000 Show intro... A military junta and multinational corporations on one side, and Buddhist democratic forces led by Aung San Suu Kyi on the other, are engaged in battle for Burma. June In the Gulf war, every last nail was accounted for, but the Iraqi dead went untallied. At last their story is being told 26 June 2000 Show intro... The great American reporter Seymour Hersh is at war with the American military over his j'accuse in the New Yorker that a much-lauded general, now a member of President Clinton's cabinet, ordered his troops to fire on retreating Iraqis on the eve of the Gulf war ceasefire in 1991. May Turkey, which has killed 30,000 Kurds, has now invaded northern Iraq 15 May 2000 Show intro... This month, two extraordinary men came to London and spoke about a silent holocaust, and not a word of what they said was reported. Robin Cook's lies are worthy of David Irving, while the government perpetrates crimes against humanity 1 May 2000 Show intro... The Foreign Office continues to send out its standard dissembling letter on Iraq. Dozens of copies have been forwarded to me by members of the public bemused or angered by the contempt in which they are clearly held by the civil servants responsible. April Try as he might, Robin Cook cannot give credence to his vast lies 3 April 2000 Show intro... The facts of Iraq's epic suffering are now unassailable. The latest report by Unicef says that half a million young children have died in eight years of economic sanctions. That represents almost 200 deaths every day. March Iraq: yet again, they are lying to us 20 March 2000 Show intro... The Foreign Office repeatedly hides the truth from the public: on Cambodia, on East Timor, on arms sales and now on sanctions. Sanctions on Iraq kill 200 children every day; bombing raids have cost the taxpayer 6 March 2000 Show intro... Last August, the defence minister John Spellar described the no-fly zones over Iraq as "international zones, designed by the international community". This is false. Squeezed to Death 4 March 2000 Show intro... Half a million children have died in Iraq since UN sanctions were imposed - most enthusiastically by Britain and the US. Three UN officials have resigned in despair. Meanwhile, bombing of Iraq continues almost daily. John Pilger investigates for the Guardian.
• 1999 November A Moral Outrage 2 November 1999 Show intro... It was the public, not politicians, who forced the Australian government to end the betrayal of East Timor. October Phoney War 19 October 1999 Show intro... The US is planning a massive intervention in Colombia under the pretext of fighting the 'narco-guerrilla'. Australia's Under Side 5 October 1999 Show intro... What is the "international community" really doing in East Timor? After their arrival almost two weeks ago, Australian troops have secured only the capital, Dili, and a few towns. September We helped them descend into hell 23 September 1999 Show intro... It had been a long night of waiting for the Indonesian troop convoy to pass. Two of us then crossed the border into East Timor clandestinely, through a forest of dead, petrified trees that appeared as silhouetted needles around which skeins of fine white sand drifted, like mist. As the sun rose, there stood the surreal crosses. Under the Influence 21 September 1999 Show intro... For the few of us who reported East Timor long before it was finally declared news, the "disclosures" last weekend that Washington had trained Indonesia's death squads are bizarre. Jakarta's Godfathers 7 September 1999 Show intro... It is grotesque hypocrisy for Tony Blair to weep for the children of Dunblane. As British bombs rain down daily on Iraq, the Blair intelligentsia worries about Martin Amis turning 50 6 September 1999 Show intro... Following the "moral crusade" in the Balkans, there were calls for heretics to apologise. It was reminiscent of the hysteria surrounding the death of Diana Spencer and, like the froth on a cappuccino, blew away once reality was restored. The crusaders have now fallen silent, many realising they were gulled and lied to. August Western war reporting is selective and the real stories of the Kosovan crisis remain largely untold 24 August 1999 Show intro... Last week, 14 members of the same Iraqi family were reportedly killed when their house was hit by a missile. There were no military installations nearby. Fixed Race 21 August 1999 Show intro... Australia is gearing up to host the 2000 Olympics, yet its own sporting history is far removed from the spirit of the Games. Some of its greatest sportspeople were denied the chance to make their mark. Why? Because of the colour of their skin. And even today, to be aborigine, is to be a second-class citizen. July Cowards of Oz 27 July 1999 Show intro... Few care about their subjection to the Queen. But they're jumpy about the Asiatic hordes. June Moral Tourism 15 June 1999 Show intro... Whatever Nato says, the war was waged against innocent civilians and the tyrant is still in place. May Acts of Murder 18 May 1999 Show intro... How many NATO aircraft have really been shot down or crashed? This is suppressed, of course. Nuclear War, courtesy of NATO 4 May 1999 Show intro... Kosovo, like Vietnam, has liberal support. But what of our weapons? In Baghdad, the babies are dying: there's no anaesthetic, no antibiotics, no clean water, and sometimes no breast milk 3 May 1999 Show intro... On 26 March the New Statesman published a letter by Derek Fatchett, the Foreign Office minister, objecting to my suggestion that the enforced suffering of the people of Iraq by the US and British governments was a crime comparable with those of General Pinochet or General Suharto or Henry Kissinger. April Morality, don't make me laugh 20 April 1999 Show intro...

  John Pilger sees only one Balkan winner: the arms trade.

  March A private and quiet sacrifice 28 March 1999 Show intro... Just as Aung San Suu Kyi is Burma's most famous heroine, her husband Michael Aris was one of its heroes. Blair shed his tears for Diana. Does he have any for the 6,000 children being killed by the west in Iraq each month? 19 March 1999 Show intro... Whether or not General Pinochet is sent for trial, the question looms: who is next? Henry Kissinger and George Bush come to mind. Their terrorism is documented from Chile to South-east Asia. February Armed only with a camera 12 February 1999 Show intro... One of the greatest documentaries ever made is to be given a rare screening in Britain. John Pilger reveals how The Battle Of Chile records Pinochet's crimes against humanity. January Blood on Our Hands 25 January 1999 Show intro... More than 200,000 people have been killed since Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975. For decades, the British government was complicit in these killings. All that was supposed to change in May 1997. Instead, it's been business as usual. John Pilger reports on the sham of Labour's ethical foreign policy. Whatever the Defence Secretary says, the killing of 82 Iraqi civilians is a crime, which has achieved nothing 22 January 1999 Show intro... The New Statesman last week published a letter from the Defence Secretary, George Robertson, who took exception to my description of his government's recent actions in Iraq as murder. The press is obsessed with petty vendettas while British ministers continue to support a silent holocaust 8 January 1999 Show intro... There was a great deal of publicity and empathy last week for the four tourists, two of them Britons, murdered in Yemen. There has been nothing for the 68 Iraqi civilians murdered by the American and British governments shortly before Christmas.
• 1998 December When the Olympics comes to Sydney, it will provide a facade for a shameful Australia 11 December 1998 Show intro... Sydney is one of the world's most desirable cities. I grew up here and I keep coming back to my former home at Bondi, with its cocktail of salt spray, milk shakes, dogshit and other summer fragrances; a Hindu returning to the Ganges will understand.
• 1996 June A cry for freedom 1 June 1996 Show intro... Arriving in Burma, the facades are almost normal: traffic in the streets of Rangoon, crowds in the markets and tea stalls, astrologers announcing the future at the great Shwedagon pagoda; families playfully dousing small ivory Buddhas in water. May In a Land of Fear 4 May 1996 Show intro... For 34 years the people of Burma have been ruled by a military junta as tyrannical and secretive as any in the modern era. Now, desperate for hard currency, the country's dictators are at pains to establish Burma as a holiday destination.
• 1995 April Vietnam Now 22 April 1995 Show intro... John Pilger reported the Vietnam War for a decade, right up until the last day. Twenty years on he returns to find a country facing a new battle. This time there are no bombs and there is no napalm. But already the civilian casualties are mounting again.
• 1994 February The West's 'dirty wink' 12 February 1994 Show intro... In 1975 Indonesia invaded East Timor. Like Saddam's attack on Kuwait, the occupation was declared by the UN to be illegal. But no action ever followed. In the last 18 years a third of the East Timorese population has been killed, while Western governments have remained silent, or, like Britain, have sold arms worth hundreds of millions to Indonesia...

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