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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]
Why Thinking Makes It So: Donald Trump’s Obamagate Fixation
Tuesday, 19 May 2020, 4:00 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The “gate” suffix has been wearing thin since the break-in scandal that gave it its birth. Since Watergate, virtually anything dubious and suggestive, and much more besides, is suffixed. Which brings us to the issue of President Donald Trump’s ... More >>
Inglorious Bastardry: Hacking For Vaccines
Monday, 18 May 2020, 3:58 pm | Binoy Kampmark
If you cannot discover or create something, best steal it. It has been the operating principle for everything from wealth to technology. With the efforts to discover a vaccine to the novel coronavirus being all but bound by solidarity, the race on ... More >>
The Mouse Roars: Australia, China And A Coronavirus Independent Inquiry
Sunday, 17 May 2020, 6:59 am | Binoy Kampmark
Australia matters little when it comes to international muscle. It is the retainer and pretender of power, a middle-distance runner who runs out of puff on the final stride. The big boys and girls look, agog. Why did you even bother? In the recent ... More >>
The Liabilities Of History: The Dangers Of Pandemic Compensation
Thursday, 14 May 2020, 4:36 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Smug assertions of liability in history are often incautious things. They constitute a fruit salad mix: assertions of the wishful thinkers; hopes of the crazed; the quest of genuinely aggrieved generations who feel that wrongs need to be rectified (the ... More >>
Greasing The Revolving Door: Palantir Recruits Down Under
Wednesday, 13 May 2020, 1:20 pm | Binoy Kampmark
When he announced at the end of April that he would be retiring, thereby vacating the federal seat of Eden-Monaro, the Australian Labor Party’s Mike Kelly welled up. He noted persistent “health issues” from his time in the service of the Australian ... More >>
Patriotic Vaccines: The Divided Coronavirus Cause
Monday, 11 May 2020, 4:15 pm | Binoy Kampmark
When it comes to the politics of medicine and disease, the United States has always attempted to steal the limelight, while adding the now faded colouring of universal human welfare. In 1965, Washington pledged financial and technical support to the ... More >>
About Face: The Great Coronavirus Mask Debate
Saturday, 9 May 2020, 5:22 pm | Binoy Kampmark
When the novel coronavirus started to get stroppy and make its now global impression, one theme seemed to be common. Facemasks were, at least initially, a conceit, a sort of fashion or extra-medical accessory. To use it was a mark of vanity. Rushing out ... More >>
Muting Justice: Rescheduling Julian Assange’s Hearing
Wednesday, 6 May 2020, 2:43 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“When we think of the repression of journalists, we automatically evoke foreign lands. We rarely, however, evoke or remember our own dissidents.” Peter Oborne, Middle East Eye , May 5, 2020 More >>
Pandemic Revisionism: The George W. Bush Whitewash
Tuesday, 5 May 2020, 3:05 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful. And so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people. And neither do we.” President George W. Bush, Aug. 5, 2004 Hatred is disorientating, and becomes, over time, a ... More >>
The Rohingya In Malaysia: Coronavirus And Alibis For Paranoia
Monday, 4 May 2020, 3:11 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Rounding up undocumented workers, migrant and refugees is part of a brutal order of things in Malaysia. When matters economic are going well, authorities turn the blindest of eyes. The money pours in; development goals are being met. During times ... More >>
Brutal Choices: Anders Tegnell And Sweden’s Herd Immunity Goal
Sunday, 3 May 2020, 5:03 pm | Binoy Kampmark
If the title of epidemiological czar were to be created, its first occupant would have to be Sweden’s Anders Tegnell. He has held sway in the face of sceptics and concern that his “herd immunity” approach to COVID-19 is a dangerous, and breathtakingly ... More >>
Scuttling New START: Trump’s China Distraction
Saturday, 2 May 2020, 6:53 am | Binoy Kampmark
“If we want to preserve strategic stability using arms control as a counterpart of that, as a tool in that toolkit, then China should be in as well.” - US Defence Secretary Mark Esper, Defense News , Feb 26, 2020 For a person keen on throwing babies ... More >>
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 >>
