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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 112]
National Data Retention in Oz: The Next Phas
Monday, 23 March 2015, 5:35 pm | Binoy Kampmark
March 19 should be scratched down in the diary of police state antics, if only because it was one when Australia’s non-service providing politicians decided, fairly broadly, that data retention would be a fine thing indeed. Telecommunication companies will ... More >>
When Free Speech Got Foolish: France’s Dieudonné Verdict
Saturday, 21 March 2015, 5:56 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It lies in the ambiguity of the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 10, the provision that provides for the protection of free speech, can hardly be said to be the broad creature it purports to be. Restrictions will be tolerated, as long ... More >>
Fear as Gold: The Currency of Israel’s Elections
Friday, 20 March 2015, 5:07 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Elections can be shots in the barrel of darkness. Polls can prove the poorest of measures, masking expediency, calculation and, in the end, sheer desperation. The voter finds form just before casting the ballot. The mind can take leave of its senses. ... More >>
The Strange Case Against Abid Naseer
Thursday, 19 March 2015, 9:26 am | Binoy Kampmark
There was nothing ordinary about the Abid Naseer trial, which was a proceeding that gave off different fumes and smells depending on the audience. After September 11, 2001, terror trials became something of a carnival, with manipulated legal whispers ... More >>
Statues to History: Gandhi on Parliament Square
Monday, 16 March 2015, 10:47 am | Binoy Kampmark
Statues are not for everyone. They signify flesh made into stone, the sort of transmogrification that frustrates rather than reveals. It suggest the end of an argument by those who erect it – the statue is there, acknowledge and pay due respect, and move on. But ... More >>
Detoxifying the National Front: Marine Le Pen and France
Sunday, 15 March 2015, 10:26 am | Binoy Kampmark
It has been on her agenda for some time. Marine Le Pen of the nationalist Front National (National Front) wants France out of NATO, and, by virtue of that, the US out of Europe. It is a form of neutering that doesn’t excite the warriors in Brussels, ... More >>
Forgetting the UN: Australia, Child Detention and Torture
Thursday, 12 March 2015, 2:43 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Apparently, the Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, is “sick of being lectured to”. One should add that this lecturing is framed in a more collective sense – Australians, he argues, are tired of those soap box enthusiasts who keep reminding ... More >>
Cotton’s Iran Letter: The GOP, Iran and Diplomatic Sabotage
Wednesday, 11 March 2015, 3:12 pm | Binoy Kampmark
War is addictive. It is also sweet to those who do not know it. There is always someone else who fights it on their behalves. The GOP is better at that than most – their desperation to keep seats in Congress and win others has propelled them to lunatic ... More >>
The Power Vacuum: Sending more Troops to the Middle East
Tuesday, 10 March 2015, 10:49 am | Binoy Kampmark
“Five hundred Australian soldiers on the ground is boots on the ground. They will be on the frontline… Their lives will be at risk and you’ve got to ask why.” Andrew Wilkie, MP from Tasmania, Mar 2, 2015 More >>
Asleep at the Wheel: John Brennan and Restructuring the CIA
Monday, 9 March 2015, 10:55 am | Binoy Kampmark
The term “restructuring” has deserved, quite rightly, its place in the demonology of sackings, removals and exits that come with every consultant’s manual. When the boss of a unit or company passes the word around, be it in the boardroom or the ... More >>
Spreading the Web: The Extent of HSBC’s Tax Evasion Scandal
Monday, 9 March 2015, 10:37 am | Binoy Kampmark
Like a neutrino bomb on the landscape of banking, regulation and journalism, the HSBC tax evasion story via its Swiss subsidiary keeps spreading with devastating effect – at least for those whose careers concern it. According to investigative ... More >>
Signalling For War: Benjamin Netanyahu Before Congress
Monday, 9 March 2015, 9:56 am | Binoy Kampmark
He has been busy, drunk with that transformation that afflicts Israeli politicians when touring the United States. Deflecting and parrying while stabbing and thrusting, he should never have given an address to Congress in these circumstances. Cold water ... More >>
Freedom to Control: The FCC, the Internet and Net Neutrality
Monday, 2 March 2015, 10:07 am | Binoy Kampmark
The Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler was bullish after the 3-2 vote of his commission reclassifying broadband as common carriers. Companies such as Verizon had made their mark in previous litigation, arguing that the FCC ... More >>
Fantasies of the Fleet: The Emotion of Submarines
Sunday, 1 March 2015, 8:02 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“Submarines are the spaceships of the ocean.” [1]Idiosyncratic as ever, the remark from Australia’s independent Senator John Madigan on the ABC program Q & A, who had seemingly come down from a distant historical shelf, says the needed thing when ... More >>
Abbott’s Response to Sydney’s Hostage Crisis
Thursday, 26 February 2015, 11:11 am | Binoy Kampmark
The inquiry into Sydney’s Lindt Café hostage crisis (not, as has become popular to deem it, a siege) has come out with some police state fanfare. Terminal governments tend to scrounge for poor solutions, and much of this is to be found in the joint ... More >>
Stealing the Keys: The SIM Card Hacking Case
Tuesday, 24 February 2015, 10:11 am | Binoy Kampmark
It is hard to muster enthusiasm for events that have become so frequent in their pummelling effect, they are as expected as the sun’s clockwork appearance in the morning. It would, however, be dangerous to yawn at the latest Edward Snowden treat, ... More >>
The Case for Removing the Fantasist-in-Chief
Monday, 23 February 2015, 10:29 am | Binoy Kampmark
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is full of predictable surprises. Stomping and punching his way into the history books, his government finds itself teetering before the electoral precipice. More >>
The Folly of Data Retention: A Fool’s Paradise in Australia
Sunday, 22 February 2015, 9:53 am | Binoy Kampmark
There should be nothing polite about it, whatever the curious start of the article in Gizmodo (Feb 3) suggests. The “future of privacy on the internet in Australia” is simply but one in a series of skirmishes being waged by a mishmash of authoritarian ... More >>
The NPT, Israel and Nuclear Exceptionalism
Tuesday, 17 February 2015, 9:00 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Wither the bomb – as a legal problem. Ever since its inception as a weapon of war, atomic, and subsequently nuclear weaponry, have become the totemic reminders that sovereignty lie in their acquisition. Not having them poses insecurity; acquiring ... More >>
Bibi’s Dance with Congress: Israel & the Botched Invitation
Sunday, 15 February 2015, 8:10 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It looks like a measure of hollow desperation – Israel, left out in the cold in terms of isolating Iran, and finding itself looking like the mad hermit wondering if its days are numbered in the self-constructed asylum of life. Prime Minister Benjamin ... More >>
