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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 109]
Out of the Closet: Fiorina and the China Threat
Saturday, 15 August 2015, 12:00 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The China Threat continues to remain the plate du jour on the menu of American security commentators. It is also very much at the forefront of political chatter. But explicit statements of China as power monger, hungering to challenge US primacy, tend to be ... More >>
The Problems with an MH17 Tribunal
Sunday, 2 August 2015, 10:53 am | Binoy Kampmark
By Dr. Binoy Kampmark The statement from the Australian Prime Minister’s office on July 30 cast a strong light on a mind that has its hazy moments. “Russia’s veto of the United Nations Security Council resolution to establish a tribunal to ... More >>
When Will the Rogue Resign? Blatter and FIFA
Saturday, 1 August 2015, 12:16 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Even he admitted it. Having ridden roughshod over those who questioned his authority to be at the helm of the world’s most famed sports mafia enterprise, Sepp Blatter decided to resign from his position as FIFA head. Only, he hasn’t. More >>
Dead Again: Mullah Omar
Friday, 31 July 2015, 8:07 am | Binoy Kampmark
What is it about these rubbery like figures of history? Death becomes them, and obituaries are fairly useless, less they suggest finality. The point about such fantasy producing tropes such as the “war on terror” is that they cannot allow their subjects, ... More >>
Shark “Attack”: Mick Fanning and Surfing with the Animals
Wednesday, 22 July 2015, 8:28 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It happened at the J-Bay Open surf event in Jeffreys Bay, South Africa, featuring Australian surfer Mick Fanning and a shark that found itself grabbing the champion surfer’s leg rope. “It just kept coming at my board and I was kicking and screaming.” ... More >>
Expansion by Stealth: UK strikes in Syria
Wednesday, 22 July 2015, 8:23 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It is worth noting that the UK Parliament was against it, namely, enlarging a campaign against the Islamic State that would also involve targeting Syrian positions. The security cognoscenti were always insisting that any conflict with IS worth its salt ... More >>
Censorship in Adelaide
Saturday, 18 July 2015, 6:36 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The more things change, the more they stay the same in all their decaying tedium. And so, the censors in Australia have been busying themselves through the not so intelligent arm of the law by insisting that copies of Bret Easton Ellis’ American ... More >>
Warring Against Windmills: Tony Abbott and Renewable Energy
Saturday, 18 July 2015, 11:29 am | Binoy Kampmark
Stone age politics continues its creaky, inscrutable way in Canberra, with the Australian Prime Minister keen to show his acute lack of understanding about the renewable energy sector. One wonders whether he believes in its existence at all. On this occasion, ... More >>
Southeast Asian Games and the Carnival of the Dirty Mind
Saturday, 11 July 2015, 12:19 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Don’t show me the Aurat! The Southeast Asian Games and the Carnival of the Dirty Mind More >>
When is Free Speech Unfree?
Saturday, 27 June 2015, 10:19 am | Binoy Kampmark
Let’s get a few things straight. Australia, thin-lipped conformist society that it is, possesses minimal freedoms on that marked concept of liberal democracy called freedom of speech. For those who laud the Racial Discrimination Act, free speech ... More >>
The Pope’s Message for Climate Change Deniers
Monday, 22 June 2015, 6:10 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“It was their Waterloo,” claimed Kert Davies, executive director of the Climate Investigations Centre. “They wanted the encyclical not to happen. And it happened.” Pope Francis’ papal document on climate change was already in gestation from March ... More >>
Eight Hundred Years of Forgetting: The Magna Carta
Tuesday, 16 June 2015, 9:37 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“Governments and the illiberal cherish Magna Carta not despite its lack of legal significance, but because of it.” More >>
Tony Abbott and the ISIS Phenomenon
Saturday, 13 June 2015, 10:56 am | Binoy Kampmark
The terrorist imaginary necessarily requires mutual enforcement. It begins with the idea of a red under the bed, or the monster in the woods. The work for such a monster is essentially done by the fantasist victim, the individual who fears what he or ... More >>
The Deceptions of Freedom: Reviving the Patriot Act
Thursday, 4 June 2015, 4:58 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Even as talk about the expiry of various parts of the USA Patriot Act was taking place, the background was never going to move that much. Assumptions of security – or its other side, paralytic insecurity – are so entrenched in the complex ... More >>
The Public Speaking Racket: Tony Blair and the Silver Tongue
Thursday, 4 June 2015, 4:50 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“The eye-watering fee works out at £275 a second for the proposed 20-minute speech.” Daily Mail , Jun 1, 2015 More >>
Attracted to Calamity: Hollywood and the Uses of Disaster
Friday, 29 May 2015, 1:15 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Where there is a natural disaster of epic proportion, Hollywood is bound to be around the corner seeking to lap it up. Salivating stars are propelled to misery, and big black holes become sites of opportunity for incandescent hope. More >>
Australia’s response to the Rohingya Asylum Seekers
Wednesday, 27 May 2015, 11:28 am | Binoy Kampmark
“I’m sorry. If you want to start a new life, you come through the front door, not through the back door.” Tony Abbott, Australian Prime Minister, May 21, 2015 More >>
The Return of History: The Morsi Death Sentence
Tuesday, 26 May 2015, 11:53 am | Binoy Kampmark
“The crackdown against the opposition is only intensifying and the judiciary is very much at the forefront of this crackdown.” Shadi Hamid, Brookings Centre for Middle East Policy, YNet, May 23, 2015 More >>
Day-Dreams of Millions of Losers: The Bikie Legacy in Waco
Wednesday, 20 May 2015, 11:33 am | Binoy Kampmark
“The streets of every city are thronged with men who would pay all their money they could get their hands on to be transformed – even for a day – into hairy, hard-fisted brutes who walk over cops, extort free drinks from terrified bar tenders ... More >>
US Bombers to Australia
Wednesday, 20 May 2015, 11:06 am | Binoy Kampmark
The language never reflects the actual conduct. Deploying weapons to a region in greater numbers is not seen as provocative, even if placing such items in a theatre of operations is bound to get neighbours nervous. This is particularly the case about ... More >>
