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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 43]
Patriotic Snitch: Bob Hawke As US Informant
Sunday, 5 September 2021, 4:04 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Larrikin is a word often, and inaccurately used, in Australian political lingo. Australia’s longest serving Labor Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, was known as one such figure. He was praised as the great communicator and healer between the forces of ... More >>
Blinken Says No To Greenland Real Estate
Saturday, 4 September 2021, 5:07 am | Binoy Kampmark
In May, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a visit to Greenland. In a rather unedifying way, he was called ‘Tony’ by his hosts, a disarming point that was bound to open the floodgates of insincerity. For all the convivial stuffing, there ... More >>
Droning Disasters: A US Strike on Kabul
Wednesday, 1 September 2021, 12:38 pm | Binoy Kampmark
No more profoundly disturbing statement was needed. In the dying days of the official US departure from Kabul, a US drone etched its butcher’s legacy with a strike supposedly intended for the blood-lusty terrorist group ISIS-K, an abbreviation of Islamic State ... More >>
Abandoned and Alone: Lamenting the US-Australian Alliance
Monday, 30 August 2021, 3:21 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Listening to Australian pundits talk about the relationship of their country with the US – at least from a strategic perspective – can be a trying exercise. It is filled with angst, Freudian fears of abandonment, the strident megalomania of ... More >>
The Neocons Speak: Afghanistan as Political Real Estate
Friday, 27 August 2021, 3:42 pm | Binoy Kampmark
When the tears dry, it is worth considering why there is so much upset about the fall of Kabul (or reconquest) by the Taliban and the messy withdrawal of US-led forces. A large shield is employed: women, rights of the subject, education. Remove the shield, ... More >>
Amazon’s Drive Into Africa
Wednesday, 25 August 2021, 2:29 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Since 2004, Amazon has been building a foothold on the African continent. In Cape Town, it already employs thousands in a global call centre and a range of data hubs. Its South African career portal is a busy place, with the vast majority of advertised ... More >>
Reluctant Acceptance: Responding To Afghanistan’s Refugees
Sunday, 22 August 2021, 4:14 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Do not for a minute think that this is a kind, heart-felt thing in the aftermath of Kabul’s fall. True, a number of Afghans will find their way to Germany, to Canada, to the UK, US and a much smaller number to Australia. But this will be part of the ... More >>
Wounded Paternalism: Biden and the US Imperial Complex
Wednesday, 18 August 2021, 1:35 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Civilisation has tended to be seen like a gift by those claiming to grant it. It is done, in the sense Rudyard Kipling intended it, with solemn duty. It is a task discharged as a burden borne heavily. In its modern form, notably in the hands of ... More >>
The Taliban take Kabul
Monday, 16 August 2021, 2:49 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It unfolded as a story of fleeing. The Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, taking flight to Tajikistan, giving little clue of his intentions to colleagues. The fleeing of the infamous Abdul Rashid Dostum, a warlord assured to to fight another day. The ... More >>
A Taste Of Panic: The Taliban Continues Its Advance
Sunday, 15 August 2021, 4:19 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The historical vectors are moving with conviction and purpose; the weak and lacking in conviction are in retreat and the gun is doing the talking. The government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, the security services and the Afghan National Army, ... More >>
Targeting The Medical Evidence: The US Challenge On Assange’s Health
Thursday, 12 August 2021, 2:03 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The desperate attempt by the US imperium to nab Julian Assange was elevated to another level on August 11 in a preliminary hearing before the UK High Court. The central component to this gruesome affair was the continuing libel of the expert witness ... More >>
Call In The Khaki: The Australian Defence Force And COVID-19
Tuesday, 10 August 2021, 3:24 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Towards the latter part of July, Australia’s unimaginative Prime Minister Scott Morrison received a request from the police commissioner from the state of New South Wales. It was a query on whether personnel from the Australian Defence Forces might ... More >>
Cultivated Delusions At The Tokyo Olympics
Monday, 9 August 2021, 12:34 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Australia’s Channel 7 team was all about ignoring history as its selected commentators went into describing, poorly, the closing ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics. The trio was poorly equipped culturally, geographically and totally (the Japanese component ... More >>
Silicon Valley, New Zealand And Pandemic Exceptionalism
Sunday, 8 August 2021, 3:59 pm | Binoy Kampmark
There are some crises that never touch the well-heeled. Money, like flab, insulates them from bruising. The generally applied laws of a state can be treated as meaningless jottings; the citizenry ignored with class contempt. But few can blame the world’s ... More >>
Sanitising Censorship: The Twitter-AP-Reuters News Partnership
Thursday, 5 August 2021, 1:36 pm | Binoy Kampmark
This week, Twitter was keen to share the news about its new arrangement with The Associated Press and Reuters “to expand our efforts to identify and elevate credible information” on its platform. The company reiterates its commitment that people ... More >>
Fighting Malta’s Rule Of The Jungle: The Daphne Caruana Galizia Inquiry
Wednesday, 4 August 2021, 2:36 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Public Inquiry into the murder of the resourceful journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia handed down its findings on July 29. Firm aim was taken at the Maltese State, which had “to shoulder responsibility for the assassination because it created ... More >>
Rio Tinto In Serbia: The Jadar Lithium Project
Tuesday, 3 August 2021, 3:44 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The company has been looking forward to this for some time. For an outfit found wanting in dealing with inhabitants of a land whose culture it eviscerated in a matter of hours in May last year, Rio Tinto could think grandly about another future. The ... More >>
Global Britain Slashes International Aid
Saturday, 31 July 2021, 2:37 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“Decisions on aid are eroding trust and eroding relationships between the UK and developing countries.” Abby Baldoumas, Financial Times , July 15, 2021 Politics is not merely the art of the possible but the pursuit of concerted hypocrisy. When ... More >>
Papers Instead Of Human Lives: The Sentencing Of Daniel Hale
Wednesday, 28 July 2021, 7:25 pm | Binoy Kampmark
In May 2019, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, that famous bastion of anti-whistleblowing fervour, unsealed an indictment charging former intelligence analyst Daniel Everett Hale with five counts of providing classified information ... More >>
Afghanistan, Failure And Second Thoughts
Tuesday, 27 July 2021, 3:15 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It is a country other powers simply cannot leave alone. Even after abandoning its Kabul post in ignominy, tail tucked between their legs, Australia is now wondering if it should return – in some form. The Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs ... More >>
