Binoy Kampmark - Latest News [Page 68]
Snubs, Bumps and Donald Trump in Britain
Thursday, 6 June 2019, 2:16 pm | Binoy Kampmark
He may not be popular in Britain, but he still has shavings of appeal. For a country that has time for Nigel Farage, pro-Brexit enthusiast and full-time hypocrite (he is a member of the European Parliament, the very same institution he detests), President ... More >>
Warring Against Sources
Wednesday, 5 June 2019, 3:02 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“What’s gone on this morning sends clear and dangerous signals to journalists and newsrooms across Australia. This will chill public interest reporting.” More >>
Cults of Impeachment: The Mueller Report & Trump
Monday, 3 June 2019, 1:38 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It is a giddy intoxicant, and making all who partake fall over in puddling nonsense. The Mueller Report is not turning out to be the cleansing agent any of its readers were hoping for. Originally encouraged to identify the cause behind Trumpland and ... More >>
Findings of Torture: The UN Rapporteur and Julian Assange
Sunday, 2 June 2019, 10:20 am | Binoy Kampmark
Another crude and sad chapter, yet more evidence of a system’s vengeance against its challengers. Julian Assange, like they dying Roman emperor Vespasian, may be transforming into a god of sorts, but the suffering of his mortal physical is finding ... More >>
Clubs, Cartels and Bilderberg
Friday, 31 May 2019, 3:25 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“After decades of neoliberalism, we are at the mercy of a cluster of cartels who are lobbying politicians hard and using monopoly power to boost profits.” More >>
Lies in Politics: Boris Johnson, the Law and the EU
Thursday, 30 May 2019, 1:03 pm | Binoy Kampmark
An enduring memory of the 2016 Brexit campaign, so marked by the foppish-haired blusterer, Boris Johnson, was the claim that the European Union was hungrily drawing out from British coffers £350 million a week. It was insufferable, unqualified and dishonest. ... More >>
A Compulsive Matter: Mandatory Voting and its Discontents
Wednesday, 29 May 2019, 12:49 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The session is on Radio National, Australia’s effort at highbrow airings on the wireless. And, to be fair, it often does not disappoint. But on this occasion, there was a general sense of bonhomie amongst the participants on the Big Ideas segment, ... More >>
The Espionage Act and Punishing WikiLeaks
Tuesday, 28 May 2019, 3:03 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The time was 1917, and for anyone keen to impress us about any liberal feelings on the part of President Woodrow Wilson, the following should be said. Having deemed the United States too proud to fight, he proceeded to commit the very same to the ... More >>
The End of Theresa May
Monday, 27 May 2019, 3:08 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The vultures of the British conservative party have gathered, and the individual who seemed to thrive in failure, to gain momentum in defeat, has finally yielded. UK Prime Minister Theresa May will leave the way for change of leadership on June ... More >>
Italian Falls: Jamie Oliver’s Chain Goes into Receivership
Saturday, 25 May 2019, 5:51 pm | Binoy Kampmark
When he appeared as a scruffy Essex lad playing the “we can cook” theme for people of a certain non-culinary demographic in the 1990s, Jamie Oliver was something of a revelation. He was the Naked Chef, positively oozing with enthusiasm and keen to ... More >>
The Espionage Act and Julian Assange
Friday, 24 May 2019, 1:55 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It seemed flimsy from the start, but the US Department of Justice is keen to get their man. What has certainly transpired of late is that Mike Pompeo was being unusually faithful to the truth when director of the CIA: every means would be found to prosecute ... More >>
Monsanto, Scientific Deception and Cancer
Thursday, 23 May 2019, 3:22 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Money may not be able to buy the purest love, but it can buy the best, life-ending cancer. For Monsanto, giant of rule and misrule in matters of genetically modified crops, known for bullying practices towards farmers, things have not been so rosy ... More >>
Challenging Orthodoxies: Alabama’s Anti-Abortion Law
Tuesday, 21 May 2019, 3:22 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It seems like a grand ploy of massive distraction. On the surface, the move by Alabama to place the most onerous restrictions on the granting of an abortion has become a lighting-rod of conviction for Democrat agitators. And not just them. More >>
The Victory of Small Visions
Monday, 20 May 2019, 3:12 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Australian politics since the 1990s has been marked by a dedicated loathing of the “vision thing”. For those keen to see policies lasting beyond the life of the May fly, disappointment lies. Federal governments, at best, have shelf lives of three ... More >>
Bob Hawke: Misunderstood in Memoriam
Friday, 17 May 2019, 2:10 pm | Binoy Kampmark
What a cheeky way of going. Death is rarely a matter of good timing but it can be part of a good career move or, as Robert J. Hawke’s passing might prove, the perfect conclusion to his political party’s attempt to reclaim office. Having shuffled ... More >>
The Christchurch Pledge and a Regulated Internet
Thursday, 16 May 2019, 2:43 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It had to come. A massacre, broadcast in real time and then shared with viral automatism; the inevitable shock, and the counter from the authorities. The Christchurch shootings, inflicting fifty-one deaths upon worshippers at two mosques in quiet New Zealand ... More >>
Modern Merchants of Death: The NSO Group, Spyware and Rights
Wednesday, 15 May 2019, 3:13 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Arms manufacturers of old, and many of the current stable, did not care much where their products went. The profit incentive often came before the patriotic one, and led to such dark suspicions as those voiced by the Nye Committee in the 1930s. Known ... More >>
Maximum Pressure in the Strait of Hormuz
Tuesday, 14 May 2019, 3:29 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Hegemons are never going to sound too sensible when they lock horns or joust in spats of childish anger. Power corrupts, not merely in terms of perspective but language, and making sense about the next move, the next statement, is bound to be challenging. ... More >>
Cleaning out the Nutters
Monday, 13 May 2019, 2:44 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Inimitable to a fault, former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating had been fairly quiet on his party’s policies till an impromptu press intervention last week. Catching two journalists of the ABC off-guard, Keating took little time to land a few blows ... More >>
A Great Flushing Out: Social Media Footprints
Sunday, 12 May 2019, 3:58 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It has been an uninspiring election, punctuated by occasional moments of madness on the part of various candidates. Their sin was to be incautious in their previous use of social media, a form of communication that reveals everything and nothing ... More >>