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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 47]
Biden, Afghanistan And Forever Wars
Friday, 5 March 2021, 6:40 am | Binoy Kampmark
The papers are full of suggestions on what US President Joe Biden should do about his country’s seemingly perennial involvement in Afghanistan. None are particularly useful, in that they ignore the central premise that a nation state long mauled, ... More >>
Delusions Of Self-Defense: Biden Bombs Syria
Tuesday, 2 March 2021, 3:14 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Every power worth its portion of salt in the Levant these days seems to be doing it. On February 25, President Joe Biden ordered airstrikes against Syria. The premise for the attacks was implausible. “These strikes were authorized in response to ... More >>
Breaching Digital Rights: India’s Platform And Media Ethics Code
Monday, 1 March 2021, 5:09 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Having made something of a splash last month with the fuss over Australia’s News Media Bargaining code, Facebook, and the digital giants, are facing another stormy front in India. The move here has nothing to do with revenue so much as alleged bad ... More >>
Culpability And Recalibration: MBS And The Killing Of Jamal Khashoggi
Saturday, 27 February 2021, 3:24 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It was a brutal way to go, and it had the paw prints of the highest authorities. On October 2, 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian insider turned outsider, was murdered by a squad of 15 men from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He was dismembered ... More >>
War Mongering For Artificial Intelligence
Friday, 26 February 2021, 12:42 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The ghost of Edward Teller must have been doing the rounds between members of the National Commission on Artificial Intelligence. The father of the hydrogen bomb was never one too bothered by the ethical niggles that came with inventing murderous ... More >>
Refriended In Defeat: Australia Strikes A Deal With Facebook
Wednesday, 24 February 2021, 3:19 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Australian Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, was unconvincing in his efforts to summon up courage. The Australian government had been left reeling in the wake of Facebook’s decision to scrap and block Australians from sharing and posting news items on hosted ... More >>
Morons, Vaccines And Tennis: Booing At The Australian Open
Monday, 22 February 2021, 1:07 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It was a fittingly poor conclusion to a tournament that risked being cancelled, run to ground, or even rendered stillborn. The tennis world number one, Novak Djokovic, had captured his eighteenth grand slam against would be usurper Daniil Medvedev, ... More >>
Snap Decisions: Victoria’s Third Lockdown
Thursday, 18 February 2021, 2:38 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Queen Victoria Market in Australia’s second largest city, Melbourne, is usually a thriving affair. Like any ancient agora, people travel to meet there, purchase fresh produce, and natter. The fruit and vegetable vendors are all colour, a profusion ... More >>
Sexual Assault In Canberra
Wednesday, 17 February 2021, 2:11 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Who knew what? In many cases of sexual assault in politics, events take place behind bolted doors, the perpetrator and victim bound by ties of power, seediness and suppression. The victim is left with an odious and onerous task: to report the event. The risks ... More >>
The “Return” Of America: Biden’s Maiden Foreign Policy Speech
Tuesday, 16 February 2021, 2:26 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Few could have been slack-jawed at the first significant foreign policy speech of US President Joe Biden. It can easily be filed under the “America is back” label. Back as well, as if the previous administration had been incapable of it, was a promise ... More >>
Lobbying For Gain: Nick Warner And Australia’s Revolving Door
Monday, 15 February 2021, 1:33 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Governments have an almost crippling trouble appreciating conflicts of interest. Since tentacle-heavy lobby groups decided to move into the world’s capitals to make the case for their clients, the revolving door has become the sickening feature ... More >>
Missions To Mars: Mapping, Probing And Plundering The Red Planet
Sunday, 14 February 2021, 4:33 pm | Binoy Kampmark
In the first month of 2020, Forbes was all excitement about fresh opportunities for plunder and conquest. Titled “2020: The Year We Will Conquer Mars”, the contribution by astrophysicist Paul M. Sutter was less interested in the physics than the conquest. ... More >>
Trouble In Vaccine Land: The Wiliness Of South Africa’s Coronavirus Variant
Friday, 12 February 2021, 12:44 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It began as a shudder through the scientific and public health establishments. A new variant of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 had been found, mutating in South African climes, potentially outwitting human responses to it. Vaccines such as Oxford-AstraZeneca’s ... More >>
Continuing Prosecutions: Assange And The Biden Administration
Thursday, 11 February 2021, 1:18 pm | Binoy Kampmark
With changes of presidential administrations, radical departures in policy are always exaggerated. Continuity remains, for the most part, a standard feature. It is precisely that continuity being challenged by groups fearful of the continuing prosecution ... More >>
Information Interruptus: Bing, Google And The News Media Bargaining Code
Wednesday, 10 February 2021, 1:10 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It’s looking a touch quixotic, but the News Media Bargaining Code has become Australia’s weapon of choice in attempting to redistribute proceeds from big tech into the coffers of a withering fourth estate. It has now reached a point of sufficient concern for ... More >>
China, Papua New Guinea And Australia’s Backyard Blues
Monday, 8 February 2021, 4:23 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Clever diplomacy rarely involves total commitment or unqualified fidelity to any one state. Treacherous waters require careful navigation, an understanding of shifty and shifting allegiances. The goal for the prudent statesperson is the pursuit of ... More >>
Let The Investigation Begin: The International Criminal Court, Israel And The Palestinian Territories
Sunday, 7 February 2021, 4:27 pm | Binoy Kampmark
International tribunals tend to be praised, in principle, by those they avoid investigating. Once interest shifts to those parties, such bodies become the subject of accusations: bias, politicisation, crude arbitrariness. The United States, whose legal and political ... More >>
Going Airborne: Coronavirus And Hotel Quarantine
Friday, 5 February 2021, 2:56 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It has happened again. This time, a diligent worker, having followed all the protocols given to him, had returned a positive result for COVID-19. The 26-year-old had been serving as a resident support officer in the Australian Open quarantine program in ... More >>
Coronavirus Education: Learning And Teaching From The Margins
Thursday, 4 February 2021, 3:57 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The coronavirus student, a species brought forth in the world of education by a pandemic that has killed over 400,000 people in the United States and 100,000 in the United Kingdom, is a troubled creature. When universities and schools across ... More >>
Cowardly History: Australia Day And Invasion
Tuesday, 2 February 2021, 4:16 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It’s the sort of stuff that should have been sorted years ago in Australia: a murderous, frontier society ill disposed to the indigenous populace; the creation of a convict colony that was itself an act of invasion rather than settlement; the ... More >>
