The extreme bias of the BBC was made manifest in a recent story they did on a subject that they normally never touch — that is, the extensive and extreme antisemitism in the Arab world, especially the media. The August 10 story, by the BBC Cairo Correspondent, Kate Clark, entitled "interpreting Egypt’s anti-semitic cartoons," did deal, at least in passing, with some of the severe antisemitism in Egypt, including portrayals of Ariel Sharon as a hook-nosed Satanic figure, blood libel, Holocaust denial, claims that the Mossad were responsible for Sept. 11, though it somehow missed last year’s TV broadcast of a dramatisation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. However, the whole context of the story was to explain why these things are really not important or a problem, despite the criticisms of them by Jewish groups like the Anti-Defamation League (mentioned by name for its criticisms).

The story consisted wholly of various Egyptian experts, editors and journalists explaining why such claims were either, in some cases, unfortunate but understandable, or in other cases, just understandable as a response to the plight of the Palestinians. This much is perhaps defensible as journalism - probing what Egyptians say on the subject.

However what cannot be defended is the reporter’s open endorsement of the Egyptian view that antisemitic invective is understandable. Clarke not only asserted, quite falsely, "there is no indigenous tradition of anti-Jewish racism in the Muslim world," she finished her report with the following plea for understanding of Egyptian racist invective against Jews:

Anyone who knows anything about the highly politically correct BBC knows how unthinkable it would be for one of their reporters to be allowed to make a similar plea for understanding of any other sort of racism. But it apparently is now the semi-official position of the BBC that holocaust denial, blood libel, and claiming the Mossad committed Sept. 11 are reasonable ways to support the Palestinian cause, which people should understand and not criticise. Disgusting — there simply is no other word.

Want more proof of bias? Media Tenor, a Bonn-based media research group, last year conducted a study of BBC coverage of Israel. Their result — 85% was negative, 15% was neutral, 0% was positive. That’s right, the BBC literally cannot find a single good thing to say about Israel, according to a neutral observer.

Meanwhile, the BBC continues to deny that it has a left-wing bias, but the convenor of BBC-1, Lorraine Heggessey, told an interviewer (Independent, Aug. 24) that Rupert Murdoch, who owns some competing media outlets, is a "capital imperialist."

What is it about Nazism that some people in east Asia do not get? Nazi imagery has been used in promotions previously in Korea and Taiwan in recent years, now Hong Kong is getting in on the act.

A chain of 14 Hong Kong clothing stores called Izzue clothing decided to have a Nazi theme for their clothing in early August. Shirts and pants were sold with swastikas and other Nazi symbols, including Adolf Hitler standing on a laurel. The stores were decorated with swastikas banners, and Nazi-style eagle flags, and projectors showing Nazi propaganda, and even giant metal drums with swastikas on them. Happily, the company announced on August 11 they were cancelling the whole Nazi theme after complaints from both Israel and German diplomats.

However, a Hong Kong karaoke bar, Bar Pacific, says it will not change its décor, which features 37 pictures of Hitler, other Nazi leaders, and Second World War German soldiers. After Israeli and German diplomats complained to the bars manager, he did agree to remove one photo, which showed a Nazi soldier executing a man on the edge of a pit piled with bodies. But the owner refused to change the remaining photos, which had been there for four years. He said, "I love history and I just want to tell the younger generation about what happened in the past."

Last month, Scribblings revealed that Richard Wolstencroft, director and founder of the Melbourne Underground Film Festival (which attempted this year to screen a David Irving film and interview Irving, as well as screen another film about French Holocaust denier Robert Faurrison) had described himself as a "transcendental fascist" and had a history of flirtation with Nazism. This sort of put paid to claims made by the festival that they only wanted to show the Holocaust denial films to demonstrate their support for free speech, no matter how extreme.

Well, in the aftermath of that story, Scribblings was contacted by a former co-worker with Wolstencroft, who has a website devoted mainly to expressing his concerns about Wolstencroft’s fascism. The website, available at http://www.geocities.com/wollythewhip/, has even more evidence that Wolstencroft is what he says he is, a fascist. For example, a British filmmaker, Ben Hopkins attests that Wolstencroft told him that "fascism is the only way forward" and then tried to convince him of the misunderstood greatness of Hitler, based on an idiosyncratic interpretation of Nietzsche and Heidegger. Wolstencroft also describes as his philosophical mentor a man named Boyd Rice who starred in one of Wolstencroft’s films, but was formerly a member of an American neo-Nazi group called the National Front, and has a long history of other links with Holocaust deniers and other fascists.

The bottom line is that the Australian government is providing much of the funding, via the Australian Film Commission, for a film festival whose main organiser and guiding spirit is someone with definite fascist sympathies, which are clearly affecting the programming decisions.