Binoy Kampmark - Latest News [Page 122]
Fantasy and Speculation: The Al-Hilli Killings
Saturday, 8 September 2012, 3:02 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It isn’t because someone says there is a dispute between two brothers that he is necessarily the prime suspect in the murder, with bullets to the head, of an entire family. Eric Maillaud, French Public Prosecutor on the al-Hilli killings, Sep 7, ... More >>
The Abramovich Victory: The Oligarch Machine in Action
Tuesday, 4 September 2012, 5:38 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Neither oligarch came out spruced and cleansed, but there is little doubt that Boris Berezovksy emerged the poorer, both in terms of the time spent and effort to target Roman Abramovich. Abramovich, in contrast, won what is probably the biggest private ... More >>
Caricatures of Violence: The Poisoning of Yasser Arafat
Monday, 3 September 2012, 5:41 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It is the language of brutal indifference – words that are chewed, gnawed, spat out with derision. But when asked whether the Israeli authorities might have had a hand in the death of Yaser Arafat, the reaction is stubbornly predictable. More >>
Purging Sports and Humbling Men: The Lance Armstrong Affair
Monday, 3 September 2012, 4:15 pm | Binoy Kampmark
He was the superman of the sport, the untouchable product of well honed athleticism. Precisely because he seemed to hum into cycling history, to purr onto the podium with feline ease, the critics grew in number, as did the questions. Was Lance Armstrong ... More >>
Victorious Apple: The Wireless Hegemon’s Victory
Saturday, 25 August 2012, 4:13 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Apple monster has received a boost with its victory on Friday over Samsung Electronics Co. in the first major patent trial over smartphone technology, ensconcing it in the wireless industry as never before. The mobile industry, take heed. Competition, ... More >>
Reviving the Pacific Solution: Houston Panel Recommendations
Wednesday, 15 August 2012, 4:59 pm | Binoy Kampmark
This is a story of embittered stinginess that never ends. Poorer countries have done more, and have been more conspicuous in the way they have been flooded (yes, flooded) by refugees. Nation states with porous borders, located in areas of regional conflict, ... More >>
Romney’s Running Mate: Paul Ryan and the GOP
Monday, 13 August 2012, 9:24 am | Binoy Kampmark
He started with that characteristic bumble, the clumsiness that some might regard as charming. This time, it was the remark about welcoming the next President of the United States to the podium. No, it wasn’t Mitt Romney about himself, but U.S. ... More >>
Medal Madness, Sporting Myopia: Australia’s misery continues
Tuesday, 7 August 2012, 4:43 pm | Binoy Kampmark
A certain disease has taken hold of the sporting consciousness in Australia. Some might argue that it was jaundiced to begin with, obsessive, narcissistic, and, in spates, self-loathing. But the recent ‘silver’ performance of the Australian ... More >>
The Correctionist: Remembering Gore Vidal
Thursday, 2 August 2012, 4:42 pm | Binoy Kampmark
He was very quick, cerebrally deft. Whatever he wrote – be it on the novel (birth, death exaggerated or otherwise), ancient Rome, Richard Nixon or sexual freedom – he was always channelling his interests in the United States. More >>
The Pathology of the Pool: Australian Loss in London
Tuesday, 31 July 2012, 2:35 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Australian athletes used to mock swimmers as big fish in a small pool. No longer; the pool is huge, and deadly, too. Greg Baum, Sydney Morning Herald , Jul 30, 2012 More >>
Romney in Blighty: How Mitt the Twit Talks
Tuesday, 31 July 2012, 1:32 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Mitt Romney is now going about the business of inflating Israeli expectations as being their most staunch of friends. He had just been in London for the Olympics opening ceremony. He saw fit, on his visit to Blighty, to comment on the inadequacy ... More >>
Let the Muddle Begin: Opening the London Olympics
Saturday, 28 July 2012, 3:27 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It has begun. Oscar-winning Danny Boyle is one of the artistic gatekeepers who was commissioned to deal with the opening ceremony of the London Olympics, and was given £27m to do it. There was Mary Poppins, the Red Arrows, there was the Tour de France ... More >>
Banning the Snip: The Debate on Circumcision
Wednesday, 25 July 2012, 8:28 am | Binoy Kampmark
Chancellor Angela Merkel has a plateful of matters to deal with, most of them of an economic nature. Europe is stuttering and staggering, and the Dame of Austerity is finding herself with fewer friends by the day. With the recent decision by the ... More >>
Backing Horses: The Civil War in Syria
Thursday, 19 July 2012, 9:14 am | Binoy Kampmark
While the Russians are being painted as international law’s bogeymen, indifferent to choosing sides in a conflict when the only side to pick can only ever be that of peace, the Syrian opposition forces are nibbling, if not slaughtering their way, ... More >>
Missiles in the Metropolis: Militarising the London Olympics
Saturday, 14 July 2012, 12:02 pm | Binoy Kampmark
We’ve been universally very much impressed with everything we’ve seen. As far as I can see they [London’s police] have done an excellent job preparing all their forces. Commissioner Raymond Kelly, NY Police Chief, May 23, 2012. More >>
Meet the City Bankster: The Decline of Barclays
Saturday, 7 July 2012, 12:29 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Meet the City Bankster: The Decline of Barclays There is a putrescence coming from the banks of what Londoners term ‘The City’, an intense odour of disgust suggesting old tricks from the seasoned and the crooked. The resignation this week of Barclay’s ... More >>
TomKat and the Scientology Craze
Thursday, 5 July 2012, 12:10 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The gossip columnists are compiling their ill-composed scribbles, and their latest find (or non-finding) is working out what is transpiring in the dissolution of the Tom Cruise –Katie Holmes union. Could it be an issue of parenting and religion? More >>
Everyone’s Assange
Thursday, 28 June 2012, 12:06 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Julian Assange has a few tricks left up his sleeve after his 16-month battle to avoid extradition to Sweden, and seeking asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy in London has been one of them. He has managed to throw an assortment of spanners into the works ... More >>
Subtracting from Rio+20: The Continuing Problem
Monday, 25 June 2012, 11:42 am | Binoy Kampmark
It was a very busy conference, or at the very least, a very crowded one. 100 heads of state and government formed the head of 40,000 delegates which was meant to hammer out a plan for sustainable development in the 21st century at Rio. More >>
The Greek Nadir: Going to the Polls
Monday, 18 June 2012, 4:38 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The European political scene as the Greeks go to the polls is one of foreboding. Germany’s Merkel government refuses to renegotiate terms of the bailout that has been arranged for the Greek ‘non-government’ – or whoever is willing to implement ... More >>