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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 132]
The Pornographic Aftershock: Earthquake in Japan
Monday, 14 March 2011, 3:02 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It was only last month that Japanese experts well versed in the palliative arts of rescue were sent to Christchurch in New Zealand to help in the aftermath of a disastrous earthquake. The earthquake remains Japan’s permanent shadow. The trembler at Kobe ... More >>
Gillard Goes to Washington: US-Australian Security Alliance
Monday, 14 March 2011, 2:42 pm | Binoy Kampmark
An American journalist could not help mentioning it: that Australians have fought alongside the United States in every major conflict since the First World War. This is, after all, the 60th anniversary of the ANZUS treaty, binding Washington and Canberra ... More >>
The Ultimate Reversal: Obama on Guantánamo
Thursday, 10 March 2011, 10:47 am | Binoy Kampmark
The Wall Street Journal (Mar 8) ran with an almost smug opinion piece on the subject of President Obama’s latest policy reversal. ‘Obama ratifies Bush’. We can change? Perhaps only in small ways, and in some cases, not at all. The ultimate reversal ... More >>
International Women’s Day
Wednesday, 9 March 2011, 11:06 am | Binoy Kampmark
March 8 is a contradictory day in the calendar of events. International Women’s Day comes with its usual, painstakingly rehearsed formulae: cheery, optimistic advocates keen to show advances made in women’s welfare; solemn reminders that there is much ... More >>
Rogue Football: Libya and Juventus
Monday, 7 March 2011, 1:08 pm | Binoy Kampmark
As Libya descends into civil war, the trail of the Gaddafi family through the highest echelons of international government and sport becomes thicker by the day. In 2002, Al-Saadi Gaddafi, son of beleaguered ‘mad dog’ Muammar, joined the board of Italian ... More >>
Impossible Project: Sidney Nolan and Australian Drought
Monday, 7 March 2011, 1:02 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The grotesque is always hard to capture, be it in terms of natural disaster or human-made catastrophe. When it comes to the Australian drought, it is nigh impossible. Human and animal figures elude proper examination. The carcasses of dead life stock seem ... More >>
Libyan Connection: Drama at the London School of Economics
Monday, 7 March 2011, 12:52 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Sir Howard Davies, former director of the London School of Economics, is in the soup. He has been rather less than diligent on the issue of receiving tainted funds, accused over his carelessness in accepting a £1.5 million donation from the Gaddafi International ... More >>
Riddle’s Judgment: Assange and Swedish Extradition
Tuesday, 1 March 2011, 10:33 am | Binoy Kampmark
Judge Howard Riddle, district judge of Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court in South London, was not impressed, least of all by the antics of cyber information fiend Julian Assange. In his judgment on Thursday, the judge found in favour of Marianne Ny of the Swedish ... More >>
Complicity and Denial: The Problem with Unit 731
Thursday, 24 February 2011, 11:56 am | Binoy Kampmark
Medical experiments are conducted on human subjects all the time. History’s record on this is a dark one. Japan’s less than glorious contribution to experimenting on human subjects is Unit 731, a lethal outfit kitted out to experiment on captured ... More >>
Unrest in Wisconsin: Battle Against Collective Bargaining
Thursday, 24 February 2011, 11:44 am | Binoy Kampmark
It seems to be the season of protest. Not merely are people in their tens of thousands marching in the Middle East and Africa, where blood is being spilt, but trouble is brewing in freedom land. Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker’s bill ... More >>
Complicity and Denial: The Problem with Unit 731
Thursday, 24 February 2011, 11:30 am | Binoy Kampmark
Medical experiments are conducted on human subjects all the time. History’s record on this is a dark one. Japan’s less than glorious contribution to experimenting on human subjects is Unit 731, a lethal outfit kitted out to experiment on captured ... More >>
The Last Days of Gaddafi? Collapse in Libya
Thursday, 24 February 2011, 11:25 am | Binoy Kampmark
The regimes are panicking in pools of blood. The earth, it would seem, is moving beneath the feat of those who have stayed in power for decades in the states of Africa and the Middle East. The Libyan authorities have been trigger happy, butchering hundreds. ... More >>
Queues and Border Patrol: Queuing at Melbourne Airport
Friday, 18 February 2011, 2:14 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Perhaps no obsession is a healthy one, and on arriving in Melbourne airport, we find one in steady operation. While the English are able to queue with a single person, the Australian version is somewhat different. Queues are regarded with a forbidding ... More >>
Carnival of Brutality: Lara Logan and the Egyptian Protests
Thursday, 17 February 2011, 2:30 pm | Binoy Kampmark
A journalist’s vocation is a dangerous one. Revolutions have a habit of providing good copy and lethal results. The risk of injury is never far away. The fate of CBS foreign correspondent Lara Logan in Egypt provides a gruesome reminder of the craft’s ... More >>
Carnival of Brutality: Lara Logan & the Egyptian Protests
Thursday, 17 February 2011, 1:09 pm | Binoy Kampmark
A journalist’s vocation is a dangerous one. Revolutions have a habit of providing good copy and lethal results. The risk of injury is never far away. The fate of CBS foreign correspondent Lara Logan in Egypt provides a gruesome reminder of the craft’s ... More >>
Infernal Queues and Border Patrol
Wednesday, 16 February 2011, 11:55 am | Binoy Kampmark
Perhaps no obsession is a healthy one, and on arriving in Melbourne airport, we find one in steady operation. While the English are able to queue with a single person, the Australian version is somewhat different. Queues are regarded with a forbidding ... More >>
Remembering the Military Industrial Complex
Thursday, 10 February 2011, 10:25 am | Binoy Kampmark
When he went to play golf, a note of ease could be detected in the American populace. Ike, as President Dwight D. Eisenhower was referred to, could be counted on winning the Cold War on the golf course. His reactionary Secretary of State John Foster Dulles ... More >>
Violating the Law: The FBI in Operation
Tuesday, 8 February 2011, 10:19 am | Binoy Kampmark
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has fallen into that nasty habit, perfected during the Bush years, of violating privacy laws and regulations with impunity. By its own admission to that toothless tiger, the Intelligence Oversight Board, the agency reported ... More >>
Reagan at 100: Embalmed and Ready for Action
Monday, 7 February 2011, 10:08 am | Binoy Kampmark
It has been a hundred years since America’s 40th President Ronald Reagan, the ‘triumph of the embalmer’s art’, as Gore Vidal noted, was born. So, on examining the art close at hand, what can we make of this political creation on its centennial? More >>
Design in San Francisco: Taking Tickets on the Gravy Train
Saturday, 5 February 2011, 3:33 pm | Binoy Kampmark
All roads on the Villa Rosa of San Francisco eventually lead either to penury and a rehabilitation center, or the world of money. (The difference is not always easy to ascertain.) The latter is, as is so often the case, an illusion. Like lords with ... More >>
