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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 50]
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 >>
White House Briefings For Children: Jen Psaki Circles Back
Sunday, 31 January 2021, 4:45 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Biden administration’s first White House press secretary is keen that things will be done differently under her guidance. The jaw dropping, sniping sessions between the press and government that were characteristic of the Trump administration were ... More >>
Boris Johnson And The Deaths Of The Hundred Thousand
Friday, 29 January 2021, 2:55 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Not exactly Thermopylae. Not even close. The hundred thousand who have now been taken by COVID-19 in Britain were not determined warriors holding up the forces of a mighty empire to save their land. They were the innocent victims of infection, ... More >>
The Mad Monk Strikes: Tony Abbott, Taxi Rides And Coronavirus Despotism
Thursday, 28 January 2021, 1:22 pm | Binoy Kampmark
This is a man who decries the use of experts. He prefers things rough, ready, pungent with vernacular promise and populist feeling. To be in the front seat of a taxi, no less, is considered a right. But former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott, ... More >>
Not Knowing What You Stand For: Deborah Birx And Public Health
Tuesday, 26 January 2021, 2:02 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Pity the public health official tasked with convincing those beyond convincing that a pandemic crisis is worthy of serious consideration. This is further complicated in instances where such officials feel the need to play court jester, appeaser or ... More >>
Masking Up Under Biden: The Perils Of Tribalism, Bureaucracy And Lawsuits
Sunday, 24 January 2021, 4:32 pm | Binoy Kampmark
One crackling theme streaking through the US elections of 2020 was the issue of mask wearing. Critics initially felt that facemasks were of the too important category in combating the novel coronavirus: purchasing and using them was tantamount to prizing ... More >>
Immortal Wins: India Defeats Fortress Australia
Friday, 22 January 2021, 5:04 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It was never meant to be like this. After the Indian cricketing team met misery and disaster in the first test match at Adelaide, registering a paltry 36 in its second innings, little hope was had for the touring side. Australia threatened rout ... More >>
Sunk Before Service: Australia’s Disastrous Submarine Project
Thursday, 21 January 2021, 1:50 pm | Binoy Kampmark
One only gets into the submarine procurement business to spite government treasurers and economic managers. Efficiency and effectuality are bonus additions, but hardly necessary. Witness the evolving disaster that is Australia’s SEA 1000 Future Submarine ... More >>
Reading The COVID Fine Print: The Undoing Of The Australian Open
Monday, 18 January 2021, 2:56 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The decision to go ahead with the Australian Open, the first of the grand slams of the tennis calendar, was always going to be fraught with problems. Players journeying from designated “hot spots” of novel coronavirus outbreaks; large entourages ... More >>
Trigger Finger For Armageddon: Trump And The Thermonuclear Monarchy
Sunday, 17 January 2021, 4:14 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It is the sort of breezy, skimpy and careless reasoning that is laying the ground for the Biden Republic. A person, kicked off a social media babbling platform and having the means to incinerate the human race multiple times over, seen as corollaries ... More >>
Encircling China And Praising India: The US Strategic Framework For The Indo-Pacific
Friday, 15 January 2021, 2:18 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The feeling from Rory Medcalf of the Australian National University was one of breathless wonder. “The US government,” he wrote in The Strategist , “has just classified one of its most secretive national security documents - its 2018 strategic framework ... More >>
Julian Assange, WikiLeaks And Australia’s Complicity
Wednesday, 13 January 2021, 3:24 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Australia’s Foreign Minister, Marise Payne, said little in the statement from her department , which was a good thing, as it might have been dangerously useful. The finding of a UK court on whether Julian Assange would be extradited to the United ... More >>
Twitter Nukes Trump
Tuesday, 12 January 2021, 3:01 pm | Binoy Kampmark
This was Twitter Safety’s January 8 post , full of noble concern: “After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them - specifically how they are being received and interpreted off Twitter - we ... More >>
Trump, Insurrections And The 25th Amendment
Saturday, 9 January 2021, 4:28 pm | Binoy Kampmark
How strange it must have seemed for US lawmakers to be suddenly facing what was described as a “mob”, not so much storming as striding into the Capitol with angry purpose. A terrified security force proved understaffed and overwhelmed. Members ... More >>
Proxy Jailor: Denying Assange Bail
Friday, 8 January 2021, 10:59 am | Binoy Kampmark
History, while not always a telling guide, can be useful. But in moments of flushed confidence, it is not consulted and Cleo is forgotten. A crisp new dawn can negate a glance to the past. Having received the unexpected news that Julian Assange’s ... More >>
