Scoop has an Ethical Paywall
Binoy Kampmark
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.
Binoy Kampmark - Latest News [Page 31]
Joining The War Club: Australia’s HIMARS Purchase
Friday, 13 January 2023, 6:30 am | Binoy Kampmark
Another needless, fatuous endeavour; another irresponsible drain on the public purse; another expression that the military-industrial complex Down Under is thriving in all its insidious stupidity. But Australia’s purchase of HIMARS (High Mobility ... More >>
Suing Meta In Kenya
Thursday, 22 December 2022, 3:20 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Africa has been a continent exploited since the European scramble carved it out in lines of a draughtsman’s crude design. Its resources have been pilfered; its peoples enslaved for reasons of trade and profit; its political conditions manipulated ... More >>
The Wieambilla Killings: The Sense Behind Senseless Murder
Wednesday, 21 December 2022, 2:11 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The contradiction behind the messages is clear. This was a “sophisticated” operation involving surveillance. It was planned. Those unfortunate police officers were lured to an isolated Queensland property where they were “executed”. The details were ... More >>
Basketball, Viktor Bout And Troubling Exchanges
Saturday, 10 December 2022, 5:48 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Prison exchanges and swaps are never entirely satisfactory affairs. The appropriate measure in such cases is the degree of dissatisfaction that arises from them. In the instance of the exchange of US basketballer Brittney Griner for Russian arms ... More >>
The US Imperium Garrisons Australia
Thursday, 8 December 2022, 1:10 pm | Binoy Kampmark
On December 6, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin hosted Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles. It was the 32nd occasion the countries had ... More >>
Baguette Listings: Why Food Is Politics
Tuesday, 6 December 2022, 1:56 pm | Binoy Kampmark
On November 30, the French baguette was formally added to the United Nations’ Intangible Cultural Heritage list. The bureaucrats had finally gotten hold of a glorified bread stick, adding it to their spreadsheet list of cultural items worthy of preservation. ... More >>
Gallic Rebuke: France And The US Rules-based Order
Friday, 2 December 2022, 2:42 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Gérard Araud was not mincing his words. As France’s former ambassador to Washington, he had seen enough. At a November 14 panel hosted by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft titled “Is America Ready for a Multipolar Word?”, Araud decried the ... More >>
Julian Assange And Albanese’s Intervention
Thursday, 1 December 2022, 1:07 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The unflinching US effort to extradite and prosecute Julian Assange for 18 charges, 17 of which are chillingly based upon the Espionage Act of 1917, has not always stirred much interest in the publisher’s home country. Previous governments have been lukewarm ... More >>
Tuvalu, Climate Change And The Metaverse
Tuesday, 29 November 2022, 1:41 pm | Binoy Kampmark
When lost to climatic disaster and environmental turbulence, where does a whole nation go? History speaks about movements of people, whether induced by human agency or environment, finding sanctuary and refuge on other terrains, or perishing altogether. ... More >>
Football Capitulates At Qatar
Sunday, 27 November 2022, 10:39 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It did not take much. The initial promises of protest from a number of footballers and their teams at the Qatar FIFA World Cup were always suspect and hollow. There was Denmark’s less than impressive form of camouflaged protest via merchandise, ... More >>
Silicon Valley Fake: Elizabeth Holmes And The Fraudster’s Motivation
Wednesday, 23 November 2022, 12:47 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It has been one noisy time for the paladins of big tech. Jobs have been shed by the thousands at Meta, Amazon and Twitter; FTX, the second largest cryptocurrency company, has collapsed. Then came the conviction of Elizabeth Holmes, founder of ... More >>
Ginger Sufferings: Gianni Infantino’s Sportswashing Performance
Monday, 21 November 2022, 2:43 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, the most famous 52-year-old brat of the world football federation, has not been much in the news of late. Such creatures of authority do their best (and worst) work in the shadows. But given that the FIFA Men’s World ... More >>
The Polish Missile Narrative
Friday, 18 November 2022, 11:56 am | Binoy Kampmark
Wars tend to bury facts. What comes out of them is often a furiously untidy mix of accounts that, when considered later, constitute wisps of fantasy and presumption. Rarely accepted in the heat of battle is the concept of mistake: that a weapon was ... More >>
Privacy Woes: Google’s “Location History” Settlement
Thursday, 17 November 2022, 2:27 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It all speaks to scale: the attorney generals of 40 states within the US clubbing together to charge Google for misleading users. On this occasion, the conduct focused on making users assume they had turned off the location tracking function on their ... More >>
Saudi Blood Money, Golf And Adelaide
Wednesday, 16 November 2022, 3:18 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Peter Malinauskas, the South Australian Premier, has been the latest convert to the LIV Golf circuit, showing little to no awareness about where the lion’s share of funding is coming from. When confronted with that, he paddles away the prospect ... More >>
The Secret Wars Of The US Imperium
Monday, 14 November 2022, 12:48 pm | Binoy Kampmark
To get to where they are, imperial powers will deceive, dissimulate and distort. The US imperium, that most awesome of devilish powers, has tentacled itself across the globe, often unbeknownst to its own citizens. In a report released by the New ... More >>
November 11: The Command Of The Donkeys Continues
Monday, 14 November 2022, 6:28 am | Binoy Kampmark
It’s a grotesque, ceremonial observance, marked by a degree of unpardonable acceptance. The First World War, which killed millions, extirpated classes in Europe, and destroyed monarchies, established a mawkish ritual that serves to continue, rather than prevent ... More >>
Micronations: Eccentric And Unthreatening
Thursday, 10 November 2022, 12:05 pm | Binoy Kampmark
A trolley load of books, chapters and treatises have been written on the subject of sovereignty. Usually, the concept entails control and power, the latter a corollary of the former. In international law, sovereignty finds some form of expression in ... More >>
Extradition Clouds: The Duggan Case And The Chinese Angle
Monday, 7 November 2022, 11:12 am | Binoy Kampmark
Soon, the US government may be making waves regarding another extradition request for a figure connected with that oft exaggerated notion of national security. While the high profile and insidious effort to extradite Julian Assange from the United ... More >>
Rishi Sunak: A Thatcherite In Downing Street
Friday, 4 November 2022, 12:49 pm | Binoy Kampmark
They are falling like ninepins, and the Tories have now given the weary people of Britain yet another prime minister. And what a catch: stupendously wealthy, youthful – the youngest in two centuries – and a lawbreaker. As Chancellor of the Exchequer ... More >>
