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Binoy Kampmark
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.
Binoy Kampmark - Latest News [Page 106]
The Paris Aftermath: Global Manhunts; Halting Refugees
Tuesday, 17 November 2015, 10:20 am | Binoy Kampmark
On this Monday morning, the CNN network is scrolling features about a “global manhunt” for those said to have been involved in the Paris attacks on Friday. Attackers are “at large”. The imaginary of global terror feasts yet again on the body of reason. ... More >>
Collusion and Control: Europe Pays Africa to Keep Refugees
Monday, 16 November 2015, 9:35 am | Binoy Kampmark
Things are getting their populist worst in Europe, with proposals of payment to various regimes to control the flow of refugees assuming grand proportions. Various African governments (Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia) have been offered in the order of 1.8 billion ... More >>
Paris, the Terrorists’ Magnet
Monday, 16 November 2015, 9:20 am | Binoy Kampmark
Twenty-four hour news cycles have made adolescents of us. Captivated by the brutality, the horror, and the disgust of it all, we venture into the world of around the clock news with blindness that finds everything exceptional, without precedent. In the ... More >>
David Cameron’s Gimmick: Negotiating with Brussels
Thursday, 12 November 2015, 10:35 am | Binoy Kampmark
It’s a bit like threatening to walk out of a marriage of four decades because your husband doesn’t put the top on the toothpaste tube.” Mark Leonard, European Council on Foreign Relations Director, New York Times, Nov 10, 2015 More >>
The Privilege of Exclusive Blame
Wednesday, 11 November 2015, 1:28 pm | Binoy Kampmark
When the International Olympic Committee gets judgmental about a country, we know the moral ride ahead is going to be an odd one. Strange sight, indeed, to have such remarks that Russia deserves special sanction in allegations of mass doping violations ... More >>
Means of Execution
Monday, 9 November 2015, 12:07 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Nitrogen is often associated with soils and crop-talk. “If nitrogen taken up early by the crop is sufficient for yield,” goes a piece from the Sidney Herald (MT) from May 5, 2012, “then it will get redistributed to help produce grain protein. ... More >>
The Fakery of the Fake
Monday, 9 November 2015, 11:13 am | Binoy Kampmark
The vacuity of television, it has been said, says nothing about it as a medium and everything about its users. “Television,” claimed Malcolm Muggeridge, “was not invented to make human beings vacuous, but is an emanation of their vacuity.” ... More >>
A Trade Deal of Denial: Omissions and Sins in the TPP
Friday, 6 November 2015, 1:35 pm | Binoy Kampmark
After five years of secret negotiations, the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement has finally come up to open air.1 Kept secret, watched over carefully by delegates all too distant from their own constituencies, the TPP did not disappoint ... More >>
“Homelessness: Love Airbnb”: San Francisco
Thursday, 5 November 2015, 10:48 am | Binoy Kampmark
It was brewing for some time. Airbnb’s specialised style of accommodation – allowing users resident in a city to effectively let their premises outside the usual hotel-rent nexus – was bound to put urban planners, some citizens and authorities out of joint. More >>
Elements of Chance: Nikola Tesla in Belgrade
Tuesday, 3 November 2015, 10:01 am | Binoy Kampmark
What is the Tesla factor? It might be deemed a mixture of chance and selflessness, that inventive genius which works towards broader, holistic goals; a genius with the selflessness of a shaman and the morality of an ascetic. Wherever one places ... More >>
Paying the Problem
Monday, 2 November 2015, 10:22 am | Binoy Kampmark
“All of the available evidence points to Australian officials having committed a transnational crime by, in effect, directing a people-smuggling operation, paying a boat crew and then instructing them on exactly what to do and where to land in ... More >>
David Cameron and the Slavery Question
Wednesday, 28 October 2015, 2:17 pm | Binoy Kampmark
There are few more intrinsically brutal facts than slavery’s role in the building of European, and then subsequently, its various settler empires. As a system, it became the peculiar institution, as it was euphemistically termed, in the American ... More >>
Portugal’s Coup Against Anti-Austerity
Tuesday, 27 October 2015, 12:22 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“Meanwhile in Portugal we are witnessing the makings of a genuine coup with the unwillingness of the establishment there to accept the outcome of an election and the support won by parties who oppose EU austerity.” More >>
Hacking the CIA Director: What John Brennan’s Emails Reveal
Tuesday, 27 October 2015, 12:19 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The CIA director’s position can prove hazardous. General David Petraeus found that out personally when he had to resign after falling on the sword of mixing classified information with private pleasure. The consequences of such a breach were never grave ... More >>
Quagmires and Permanent Occupations
Wednesday, 21 October 2015, 11:19 am | Binoy Kampmark
“If the invaders lost the war in Afghanistan with the presence of hundreds of thousands of troops, their hopes of reversing the tide with five thousand troops are also misguided.” More >>
Using Refugees: Merkel’s Turkish Gambit
Tuesday, 20 October 2015, 4:33 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The frontline in Europe’s refugee movement is shifting. In some cases, there is more of the same: the Hungarian approach entailing closures, followed by a brief easing and more closures. Closing the border with Croatia saw an inevitable movement ... More >>
Crimes of Silence
Monday, 19 October 2015, 3:29 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Institutionalised brutality is a rather easy thing to replicate. It begins with a selected language, and ends up justifying monstrous conduct. It pardons behaviour, and it condemns victims. The global debate on refugees is characterised by its distinct ... More >>
The Politics of the Angry Man: Stephen Harper’s Canada
Saturday, 17 October 2015, 11:22 am | Binoy Kampmark
“He brought to Ottowa an oilman’s attitude to climate change and a sheriff’s approach to law and order.” The Economist on Stephen Harper, Oct 17, 2015 More >>
Defending Henry Kissinger
Saturday, 17 October 2015, 11:20 am | Binoy Kampmark
One of the most lamentable features of international relations courses remains the continued, and looming presence, not merely of Henry Kissinger the statesman but Henry Kissinger the theorist. Whatever one may think of old Heinz, he shaped geopolitics ... More >>
Lifting the 24 Hour Siege
Friday, 16 October 2015, 10:30 am | Binoy Kampmark
Lifting the 24 Hour Siege: Julian Assange, London’s Metropolitan Police and Continued Detention Binoy Kampmark More >>
