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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 58]
Harvard’s Fossil Fuels Formula: Engagement Before Withdrawal
Thursday, 30 April 2020, 3:03 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it,” urged the Earl of Chesterfield in a letter of advice to his son penned in 1749. “No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till tomorrow what you can ... More >>
Pandemic Diplomacy: The Gum On China’s Shoe
Wednesday, 29 April 2020, 11:52 am | Binoy Kampmark
Disasters always invite blame – divine, natural, human – and the current calls of blame being directed with vengeful spleen have one target. The People’s Republic of China is being accused for everything from having shoddy and irreverent diplomats ... More >>
Pandemic Delays: Postponing The Assange Extradition Hearing
Tuesday, 28 April 2020, 3:25 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Julian Assange must have had time amidst cramped and hostile surrounds, paper work, pleas and applications, to ponder what circle of Dante’s Hell he finds himself in. Ailing but still battling, the WikiLeaks publisher, through his lawyers, made ... More >>
Threatening The Governors: William Barr’s Commercial And Civil Liberties Brief
Monday, 27 April 2020, 6:40 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“[Y]ou can’t just keep on feeding the patient chemotherapy and say well, we’re killing the cancer, because we were getting to the point where we’re killing the patient.” William Barr, US Attorney General, April 21, 2020 The US Federal Attorney ... More >>
Despots And Disease: Gossiping Over Kim Jong-Un
Monday, 27 April 2020, 6:32 am | Binoy Kampmark
Illness can often fall into the category of the obsessive, becoming a sport for mugs, sufferers and observers alike. The following often feature: the hypochondriac, the speculator of disease, the gossip about how far gone a person is who has contracted ... More >>
Treacherous Accommodations: Australian Universities, Coronavirus And The NTEU
Saturday, 25 April 2020, 5:00 pm | Binoy Kampmark
They have been struggling to keep their membership numbers healthy, but the latest antics of the executive that make up Australia’s National Tertiary Education Union suggest why. For a good period of time, Australian unions have been losing teeth, ... More >>
An Odd Little Commemoration: ANZAC Mythology During Coronavirus
Thursday, 23 April 2020, 4:24 pm | Binoy Kampmark
War commemorations nurse a dirty secret, though it is one displayed with a peacock flourish. The victors bring out the celebratory paraphernalia and talk about noble ideas; the defeated, quite simply, do not. We won, we celebrate and we, somehow, ... More >>
Climbing The Revenue Mountain: Google, Facebook And The Publishers’ Right
Wednesday, 22 April 2020, 2:52 pm | Binoy Kampmark
They are rather good at raking in the cash; rather poor at sharing it. Google and Facebook have radiated, strafed and shrivelled hundreds of news outlets across the globe with their information sharing platforms while celebrating choice, advertising ... More >>
Settling Scores: Malcolm Turnbull’s Smaller Picture
Tuesday, 21 April 2020, 11:53 am | Binoy Kampmark
Memoirs can be unreliable artefacts. They feature fiercely subjective views, reflections tempered, or hardened, by the passage of time. They tend to be of lives edited, errors justified, triumphs amplified. Malcolm Turnbull, yet another Australian prime minister ... More >>
Donald Trump’s Governor Problem: Debates On Opening Up The Economy
Monday, 20 April 2020, 3:21 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Things are getting dizzy in the White House on what, exactly, is being done to “open the economy”. Cranky advocates for the financial argument over the restrictions of public health have been attempting to claw back some ground. As Jonathan Chait ... More >>
The Coronavirus Liability Craze: Holding China Accountable
Saturday, 18 April 2020, 6:12 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Politicians, as any political class, will nurse their favourite prejudice. And when there is a crisis, those prejudices will be fanned and praised to the heavens. For some politicians, who find the whole business of lockdowns and business restrictions ... More >>
Cutting The Funding: The WHO, Trump And The Coronavirus Wars
Friday, 17 April 2020, 1:08 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The US president is in a warring mood. Having declared himself a president at war, a meaningless gesture given that the US is always, somewhere in the world, at war, finding necessary enemies in distraction was always going to be a priority. Donald ... More >>
The Fire Fauci Brigade
Wednesday, 15 April 2020, 3:13 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The intemperate volcano that is the US President has done much to burn its way through prominent appointments. As the title of former GOP strategist Ray Wilson’s book goes, Everything Trump Touches Dies . There seem few more important individuals in ... More >>
Pandemic Lifestyles And Domestic Violence
Tuesday, 14 April 2020, 2:17 pm | Binoy Kampmark
In No Exit , the translated title of Jean-Paul Sartre’s play, Huis Clos , three deceased characters find themselves in a room, ostensibly in Hell, in what transpires as a permanent wait. Locked after being ushered in by a valet, with quite literally ... More >>
Worshiping And Defiling Britain’s NHS
Monday, 13 April 2020, 6:02 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Tories worshipping Britain’s National Health System are akin to fanatical carnivores who suddenly extol the virtues of vegans. Has the grave response to COVID-19 signalled a change of heart? In the case of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, it was all heart, ... More >>
Julian Assange: One Year In Belmarsh
Monday, 13 April 2020, 6:40 am | Binoy Kampmark
It should not be a matter of distinction, but Julian Assange is a figure who is becoming the apotheosis of political imprisonment. This seems laughable to those convinced he is an agent without scruple, a compromiser of the Fourth Estate, a figure ... More >>
The Coronavirus State: New Zealand And Authoritarian Rumblings
Sunday, 12 April 2020, 2:13 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It’s all about the lever of balance. Laws made for public protection, within which public health features prominently, provide grounds for derogation authorities can exploit. Like plasticine, the scope of power during times of an emergency extends. ... More >>
A Victory For The Fogeys: Bernie Sanders Drops Out
Friday, 10 April 2020, 6:31 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Champagne corks will be popping in the Trump Empire, for good reason. Whatever happens come November, the exit of Senator Bernie Sanders from the US presidential race will be a relief. The fractured republic can be reassured that the Democrats have not ... More >>
Cosmic Gangster Capitalism: Elon Musk Crowds The Heavens
Thursday, 9 April 2020, 4:00 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“I don’t trust glib reassurances from satellite operators without precise details.” Alice Gorman , space archaeologist, May 26, 2019 Astronomers tend to have their eyes, and minds, not merely in the clouds but beyond them. The dream of unimpaired vision ... More >>
Banal Terrors: Pandemics And The Ordinary Business Of War
Tuesday, 7 April 2020, 4:12 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The twaddle of framing the confrontation of the coronavirus as a “war” has proven to be a cheapening, misguided exercise. France’s president Emmanuel Macron has deemed COVID-19 the “invisible, elusive enemy”, making it sound like an adept ... More >>
