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 people’s sporting star who had ‘the grace’
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.
Cover-up: a film’s travesty of omissions
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.
Return to a secret country
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.
Breaking the great Australian silence
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”.
The press is obsessed with petty vendettas while British ministers continue to support a silent holocaust
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.
As British bombs rain down daily on Iraq, the Blair intelligentsia worries about Martin Amis turning 50
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.
Squeezed to Death
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.
In Baghdad, the babies are dying: there’s no anaesthetic, no antibiotics, no clean water, and sometimes no breast milk
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.
Sanctions on Iraq kill 200 children every day; bombing raids have cost the taxpayer
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.
