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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 116]
When Deals are not Deals: The German-US No-Spy Arrangement
Tuesday, 21 January 2014, 1:08 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It was not bound to happen and it is unlikely to. The huffing that tends to accompany recrimination and disagreement about espionage revelations is predictable. Elected representatives need to earn their keep and stay in the good books of their electorates. More >>
Britain & the European Court of Human Rights | Binoy Kampark
Tuesday, 31 December 2013, 10:52 am | Binoy Kampmark
The cart of legal sobriety is truly getting away when parliamentarians start seeking exemptions from laws in the name of upholding them. The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has been the solemn target for many a British politician since it came ... More >>
No to New Idolatry of Money: Pope Francis I on Capitalism
Tuesday, 17 December 2013, 11:51 am | Binoy Kampmark
Pope Francis I is no ideological jester. He should not fool any one at this point of time, nor is he attempting to. He is a formidable figure and has a sense of his enemies within the Church. He also knows the various precipices the world’s first ... More >>
Petitioning the Surveillance State: A Digital Bill of Rights
Thursday, 12 December 2013, 12:43 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Every global state, or clunky imperium, deserves its global counterpart, a balancing lever to ensure that it doesn’t fall into depravity. The state of global surveillance, so extensive it not so much subverts as pushes pass bills of rights and entitlements ... More >>
The Other Mandela: A Revolutionary Without Revolution
Monday, 9 December 2013, 11:11 am | Binoy Kampmark
The cloyingly sweet tributes to the late Nelson Mandela do as much to undermine the man’s legacy as they do to distort the record as to how various statesmen and their regimes responded to him when he was a full fledged activist. More >>
Grilling Rusbridger: The Guardian in the Dock
Thursday, 5 December 2013, 11:55 am | Binoy Kampmark
A few things have happened since The Guardian decided to storm the Bastille of surveillance with its cultivation of such journalists as Glen Greenwald and the recruitment of Spencer Ackerman. (We might also place Julian Assange in that heady mix, though that ... More >>
Comic Relief: Capitalising on the Useful Poor
Wednesday, 4 December 2013, 5:49 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Comic relief has become an industry, its own self-justifying premise. In January this year, BBC2 hosted its Great Comic Relief Bake Off. It had four million viewers, meaning that 16.3 percent of the audience was nabbed between 8pm and 9pm on one specific ... More >>
The Karzai Dilemma: The Puppet Who Refused to Move
Wednesday, 4 December 2013, 4:52 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Afghan leader Hamid Karzai is not conforming to his puppet status. He was meant to be the marionette of Washington’s confused and often incompetent policy in Afghanistan. With Karzai at the helm of a broken and mutilated state, the Coalition forces demonstrated ... More >>
Nipping Nuclear Buds: The Iran Deal
Wednesday, 27 November 2013, 11:54 am | Binoy Kampmark
This was the limited deal, one designed to halt Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapons option and stave off the proliferating actions of other states. It is a deal replete with unresolved issues – but then again, it was not expected to. More >>
Climate Change Saboteurs: The Retreat from Obligation
Tuesday, 19 November 2013, 12:53 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The climate change saboteurs are mucking in with their bits of devastating advice. Australia, as it promised to do with its new conservative government, has taken the lead against carbon pricing as a mechanism of curbing pollution. Its newly elected ... More >>
Free Speech: Narrowing Racial Vilification in Australia
Wednesday, 13 November 2013, 12:03 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Free speech has a shallow grounding in Australian jurisprudence. There are no express provisions for it in the Australian Constitution. It is striking that, for a country considered liberal democratic in character, suspicion of much in the manner of speech, ... More >>
Even Educated Fleas Do It: The Consequences of the Spy Feast
Friday, 8 November 2013, 12:16 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Everyone is doing it to everybody else. A norm, perhaps, or something like a misguided custom that evolves over time. The test in international law as to what the comity of nations accepts is often one of persistent usage over time. More >>
The Equine Sacrifice: Death at the Melbourne Races
Friday, 8 November 2013, 12:01 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The near inimitable Marx Brothers made a point of taking comedy to the races in 1937. Horse racing is central – as joke, as investment, as potential saviour for the doomed Standish Sanitarium. More >>
Killing Peace: Drones and Hakimullah Mehsud
Thursday, 7 November 2013, 10:52 am | Binoy Kampmark
In time, an insidious practice assumes the property of custom. It might seem barbaric and archaic, but as the great Sophist Protagoras claimed, man is the measure of all things. A ghastly measure, at that. More >>
Lawfare, Boycotts and Israel: The Shurat HaDin Case
Friday, 1 November 2013, 11:28 am | Binoy Kampmark
The Israeli law centre Shurat HaDin has proven to be rather aggressive in its campaign against the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement globally. It has taken Australia as one its focal points, where one academic has particularly piqued their ... More >>
EU Surveillance Blues: The Risk of Snowden Fatigue
Wednesday, 30 October 2013, 5:55 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Oh, the fury of the states at the peeping toms of Uncle Sam, the lusty search for data, material and subject matter. The latest Edward Snowden spectacular has seen the Spanish government haul the US ambassador before its offices to deal with “doubts” ... More >>
Farewelling the Populist: Bob Carr Evacuates
Wednesday, 30 October 2013, 1:07 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Soon to be ex-Senator Bob Carr, a man who has done in a short time more damage to the Senate than any single roo poo thrower could in an election, is thankfully taking to some other distant, and no doubt corporate pasture. More >>
Tito’s Shield: Jovanka Broz and Yugoslavia’s Memory
Thursday, 24 October 2013, 12:48 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Jovanka Broz is dead. Her legacy, like so much in the former Yugoslavia, was a troubled one. It is mournful, heavy with a blanket of nostalgia. “With Broz’s death,” cited Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dačić, “we are left without one of the most ... More >>
Ralph Miliband: The Illusion of Radical Change
Thursday, 17 October 2013, 6:08 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Radical conservative critiques often suffer from one crippling flaw: they are mirrors of their revolutionary heritage, apologies for their own deceptions. If you want someone who detests the Left, whom better than someone formerly of the card carrying, ... More >>
Nuclear Actors: Rot in the US ICBM Forces
Thursday, 17 October 2013, 6:06 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Imperial powers can be the greatest moralists. The Roman Empire projected the ius gentium as a principle of collective worth, the fictitious laws of the peoples that remains the cornerstone of international law. More >>
