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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 52]
Sloppy Methodology: Social Media, Censorship And New York Post’s Hunter Biden Story
Monday, 19 October 2020, 4:18 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It was highly probable. Given the howls of concern that social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook nurse and nurture a bias (every choice on content entails one), a gift was made to critics to show just that. Last Wednesday, Twitter prevented ... More >>
Britannic Impunity: The UK Overseas Operations Bill
Sunday, 18 October 2020, 2:37 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It was praised by Michael Clarke, former Director-General of the Royal United Services Institute, as “clear and entire laudable” – at least up to a point. The UK Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill would “give [British] ... More >>
Dropped Prosecutions: The Afghan Files, Public Interest Journalism And Dan Oakes
Friday, 16 October 2020, 1:12 pm | Binoy Kampmark
In July 2017, two journalists working for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Dan Oakes and Sam Clark, wrote of a stash of incriminating documents, running into hundreds of pages. They were “secret defence force documents leaked to the ABC”. ... More >>
Boris Johnson At Sea: Coronavirus Confusion In The UK
Tuesday, 13 October 2020, 2:51 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The tide has been turning against UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Oafishly, he has managed to convert that tide into a deluge of dissatisfaction assisted by the gravitational pull of singular incompetence. Much of this is due to such errors of ... More >>
Back On The Stairway To Heaven: Led Zeppelin Wins Over Spirit
Sunday, 11 October 2020, 3:01 pm | Binoy Kampmark
In March, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeal upheld an original jury finding that Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven did not infringe copyright in Spirit’s 1968 song Taurus . Michael Skidmore, who had filed the suit in 2014 as trustee of the ... More >>
Omnibus Collisions: Coronavirus Policing And Overreach In Victoria
Friday, 9 October 2020, 6:49 pm | Binoy Kampmark
In her September 17 speech to parliament, the Attorney General of the Australian state of Victoria, Jill Hennessy, explained various provisions of the COVID-19 Omnibus (Emergency Measures) and Other Acts Amendment Bill . Of most interest was the proposal ... More >>
Matters Of International Justice: Challenging Trump’s ICC Sanctions
Thursday, 8 October 2020, 4:02 pm | Binoy Kampmark
On September 2, US sanctions – the sort normally reserved for fully fledged terrorists and decorated drug traffickers – were imposed on the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda and her colleague Phakiso Mochochoko, head of Jurisdiction, ... More >>
Infectious Conspiracies: Donald Trump, Coronavirus And Reality
Tuesday, 6 October 2020, 6:47 pm | Binoy Kampmark
One measure of success in politics is the degree enemies imitate you, even if done insincerely and without flattery. Insincere imitation has become the preserve of a whole panoply of Donald Trump’s critics stretching from the money, corporate ... More >>
Lunar Lunacy: Competition, Conflict And Mining The Moon
Monday, 5 October 2020, 2:19 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The discussion about mining the Moon resembles that of previous conquests: the division of territory; the grabbing of resources; language of theft and plunder. All of this is given the gloss of manifest destiny and human experiment. Such language is also ... More >>
Assange 18th Day At The Old Bailey: Abuse Of Power, Breaching Attorney-Client Privilege, Adjournment
Friday, 2 October 2020, 4:38 pm | Binoy Kampmark
October 1, 2020. Central Criminal Court, London. The Old Bailey has been the venue for a trial that should never have taken place. But during the course of these extradition proceedings against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder accused by the US Department ... More >>
Assange’s 17th Day At The Old Bailey: Embassy Espionage, Contemplated Poisoning, Proposed Kidnapping
Friday, 2 October 2020, 5:21 am | Binoy Kampmark
September 30. Central Criminal Court, London. Today will be remembered as a grand expose. It was a direct, pointed accusation at the intentions of the US imperium which long for the scalp of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. For WikiLeaks, ... More >>
Special Administrative Measures, Unreliable Assurances And Espionage
Wednesday, 30 September 2020, 3:56 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Julian Assange’s defence team spent the day going over, reemphasising and sharpening the focus on what awaited their client should he, with the blessing of Her Majesty’s Government, make his way to the United States. Not only will he confront 17 charges ... More >>
Assange’s Fifteenth Day At The Old Bailey: Solitary Confinement And Parlous Health Care
Wednesday, 30 September 2020, 5:56 am | Binoy Kampmark
September 28. Central Criminal Court, London. Throughout the sham process formally known as the Julian Assange extradition trial, prosecutors representing the United States have been adamant: the carceral conditions awaiting him in freedom’s land ... More >>
Assange’s Fourteenth Day At The Old Bailey: Elections, Cracking Passwords And Failures Of Proof
Sunday, 27 September 2020, 5:55 pm | Binoy Kampmark
September 25. Central Criminal Court, London. On this Friday, the Assange trial moved into the rarefied realm of computer hacking and the less than rarefied world of when final arguments will be made. The WikiLeaks publisher is confronting the ... More >>
Dean Jones: Life Of A Cricketing Entertainer
Sunday, 27 September 2020, 5:53 pm | Binoy Kampmark
He was very much one of those cricketers who made the pulse race, a figure for the advocates of a faster variant of the game. Nothing of the solid blocker in the man, though he could, if needed, linger at the crease. Australia’s Dean Jones sported ... More >>
Assange’s Thirteenth Day At The Old Bailey: Mental Health, Managed Risk And Publication Chronologies
Friday, 25 September 2020, 4:18 pm | Binoy Kampmark
September 24. Central Criminal Court, London. The lion’s share of today’s Old Bailey proceedings in Julian Assange’s extradition trial was spent on battles over mental health and dire risk. The prosecution continued its attempt to minimise the ... More >>
Assange’s Twelfth Day At The Old Bailey: Autism, Suicide And Prisons
Thursday, 24 September 2020, 2:31 pm | Binoy Kampmark
September 23. Central Criminal Court, London. Following the script sheet of the previous day, the non sequitur, pop medical view of the prosecution was again in sharp evidence at the Old Bailey. In an effort to make the road for Julian Assange’s ... More >>
Assange’s Eleventh Day At The Old Bailey: Suicide, Hallucinations And Psychological Torture
Wednesday, 23 September 2020, 3:04 pm | Binoy Kampmark
September 22. Central Criminal Court, London. Today, the prosecutors in the Julian Assange case did their show trial predecessors from other legal traditions proud. The ghosts of such figures as Soviet state prosecutor Andrey Vyshinsky, would have ... More >>
Assange’s Tenth Day At The Old Bailey: Bolting Horses, Death Penalties And Plots Of Eviction
Tuesday, 22 September 2020, 6:20 pm | Binoy Kampmark
September 21. Central Criminal Court, London. Today was one of reiteration and expansion. Computer scientist Christian Grothoff of the Bern University of Applied Sciences supplied the relevant chronology on what led to the publication of unredacted US ... More >>
Dangerous Streamlining: Emergencies, Militarisation And Civil Liberties
Monday, 21 September 2020, 12:44 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Be wary of anyone insistent on using the word “streamline” in the context of policy and planning. It suggests a suspicion of sound procedure, due process and keen scrutiny. The streamliner hates accountability, attacks the world of red tape ... More >>
