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 56]
Netanyahu’s Annexation Drive
Wednesday, 8 July 2020, 4:02 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Land seizures, annexations, and conquest. These are words axiomatic to the state of Israel. In the main, the state has maintained an uncomfortable position based on patience and attrition. We have waited this long; you will wait longer. Be it ... More >>
The Coronavirus Seal: Victoria’s Borders Close
Tuesday, 7 July 2020, 2:59 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The state of Victoria is being sealed off from the rest of Australia. On Tuesday, at 11.59pm, the border with New South Wales will be shut with publicised resoluteness. It is happening at the insistence of politicians across the country with a panicked ... More >>
Spiked Concerns: The Melbourne Coronavirus Lockdown
Monday, 6 July 2020, 4:40 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It all looked like it was going so well for Australia and Victoria, in particular. They could point to the mishandling of the Ruby Princess, a cruise ship that docked in Sydney and whose passengers disembarked chocked with coronavirus, precipitating ... More >>
While The Shark Still Swims: Boris Johnson, Super Saturday And Super Responsibilities
Saturday, 4 July 2020, 5:56 pm | Binoy Kampmark
By most accounts, the response of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to the coronavirus pandemic has been abysmal. When the architect of the response himself catches the virus, he is either a more informed person for his sin or a buffoon in need of serious ... More >>
Criminalising Journalism: Australia’s National Security Craze
Friday, 3 July 2020, 2:26 pm | Binoy Kampmark
There has been a lot of noise made in Australia about the need for broader protections when it comes to the fourth estate and the way it covers national security matters. In a country lacking a backbone in terms of constitutional free speech, journalists ... More >>
Killing Koalas: The Promise Of Extinction Down Under
Thursday, 2 July 2020, 2:50 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The British conservationist Gerald Durrell once remarked that the koala was “the most boring of animals”. Its brain size, proportionally the smallest of any mammal, evolved to cope with its slow metabolism. But the spectacle of these singed, toasted ... More >>
Defending Australia: The Deputy Sheriff Spending Spree
Wednesday, 1 July 2020, 2:34 pm | Binoy Kampmark
There are few sadder sights in international relations than a leadership in search of devils and hobgoblins. But such sights tend to make an appearance when specialists in threat inflation either get elected to office or bumped up the hierarchies of ... More >>
The Kafkaesque Imperium: Julian Assange And The Second Superseding Indictment
Tuesday, 30 June 2020, 2:45 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Kafkaesque Imperium has taken yet another absurd step towards mean absurdity with another superseding indictment against Julian Assange. This move by the US Department of Justice seems to have surprised those involved in his extradition proceedings. ... More >>
A Trendy Rage: Boycotting Facebook And The Stop Hate For Profit Campaign
Tuesday, 30 June 2020, 6:41 am | Binoy Kampmark
Rage can be that most trendy of things, and social media rage has become modish. If you dislike something, scream it in a certain number of characters and post it on every network you subscribe to. You might even feel good about it. When the pot ... More >>
Wasteful, Secret And Vicious: The Absurd Prosecution Of Witness K And Bernard Collaery
Saturday, 27 June 2020, 5:52 pm | Binoy Kampmark
This week has not been a good one for the Australian legal system. For those who feel that an open justice process requires abuses of power to be exposed and held to account, it was particularly awful. It began with the Q&A program on the ... More >>
Indicting Hashim Thaçi: The Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor’s Office Gets Busy
Friday, 26 June 2020, 4:12 pm | Binoy Kampmark
When it comes to the touchy, violent matter of Kosovar affairs, history keeps company with the devils of nationalism and vengeance. Serbia remains scornful of the aspirations of the territory, whose legitimacy it does not recognise; Kosovo remains spiteful ... More >>
Bolton’s Memoir Bolts From The Stable
Thursday, 25 June 2020, 4:35 pm | Binoy Kampmark
President Donald Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton would have been confident. His indulgent The Room Where it Happened: A White House Memoir pitted him against the administration in a not infrequent battle over material that is published ... More >>
Dishonour On The Bench: Dyson Heydon And The Australian High Court
Wednesday, 24 June 2020, 3:01 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It is one of the oldest professions, stacked with rules, conventions and protocols. It is also tribal and hierarchical. The law, presided over its executors, the judges, do not do transparency well. It stands to reason: according to Charles Dickens, the ... More >>
Dangerous And Uncertain: Coronavirus And The Nuclear Industry
Tuesday, 23 June 2020, 4:04 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Accountability has always been a problem in the nuclear industry, despite praises to the contrary. Constantly keeping its muddled head above water with government handouts to remain competitive; ostensibly keeping a hand in the energy sector despite ... More >>
Secret Trials Down Under: Witness J, Witness K And Bernard Collaery
Monday, 22 June 2020, 2:42 pm | Binoy Kampmark
There a few more spiteful things in political life than a security establishment attempting to punish a leaker or whistleblower for having exposed an impropriety. Such a tendency has no ideological stripe or colouring: it is common to all political ... More >>
Reverse Logic: Trump Sanctions The International Criminal Court
Friday, 19 June 2020, 4:35 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The decision by the Trump administration to sanction members of the International Criminal Court defies logic, in so far as there is any logic to sanctions. As a policy tool, such tools are supposedly designed to target specific members of a regime that ... More >>
The Conviction Of Maria Ressa: Press Freedom In The Philippines
Thursday, 18 June 2020, 1:34 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It has long been said that countries in Southeast Asia take a dim view of the fourth estate. Various legal measures have been deployed against those irritable scribblers over the years: old, colonial-era security legislation; defamation suits; traditional ... More >>
Sticks, Stones And Death In Galwan Valley
Wednesday, 17 June 2020, 2:37 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Things along the Indian-Chinese border in the Himalayas have rarely lacked interest, notably along the secretive, heavily patrolled 3,488 km Line of Actual Control. Neither China nor India have ever quite sorted out their differences on that front, plagued ... More >>
The Narrative Of The Leakers: Collateral Murder And The Assange Indictment
Tuesday, 16 June 2020, 1:19 pm | Binoy Kampmark
When the superseding indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia against Julian Assange on May 23, 2019, there was one glaring omission. It was an achievement, it might even be said the achievement, that gave ... More >>
Trump At West Point: Un-Policing The US Imperium
Monday, 15 June 2020, 2:17 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Donald Trump claims to be the law-and-order president of the United States. There does not seem much sign of this as the stitching of the Republic gets undone. Protestors have been given a considerable roughing up across several states; police forces are ... More >>
