Archive for December, 2010

The US Airforce has blocked access to the websites of the New York Times and other media containing WikiLeaks documents. To my knowledge, Australia has not done this with the Sydney Morning Herald. So, the “land of the free” (Noam Chomsky) should rank behind Australia if you want to rank countries according to the degree of freedom of information they provide. Is there a convergence between countries like China and USA in this respect?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/14/air-force-wikileaks_n_796799.html

Mrs. Rhinehart, who lives in New York, owns a huge portion of the Australian mining industry and has, in the past, financed much of the media campaign against the mining tax, has now invested $50 million in  Fairfax  (The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age) and bought a considerable slice of shares of Channel 10. Now less than half a dozen people, all with  a strong rightwing agenda, practically own and run the Australian media. Freedom of the Press Australian style? – Interesting that two of the media magnates, Murdoch and Rhinehart, live in the USA.