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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 72]
The Effort to Relabel Julian Assange
Monday, 15 April 2019, 3:11 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“Your honour, I represent the United States government”. The Westminster Magistrates Court had been left with little doubt by the opening words of the legal team marshalled against the face of WikiLeaks. Julian Assange was being targeted by the imperium ... More >>
Clashes of Management: Rugby Aust’s Israel Folau Problem
Sunday, 14 April 2019, 6:19 pm | Binoy Kampmark
There was no hearing, no semblance of trial. But there was swift summary judgment: Israel Folau, a star member of the Australian Rugby Union team, had been banished from the national team. There was only one problem: he was avoiding taking any calls ... More >>
Shredding Asylum: The Arrest of Julian Assange
Friday, 12 April 2019, 11:57 am | Binoy Kampmark
The man seemed like a bearded emissary, a holy figure nabbed in his sleep. He looked similarly pale as to how he did in 2013, but he cut a more shocking figure. Most prisoners would have had room to move in a compound. The Ecuadorean embassy in London ... More >>
Absence of Proof: The Approval Process for Adani
Thursday, 11 April 2019, 7:37 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Much hot air is coming out from the public relations unit of Adani, and the language used is that of a hostage taker seeking to earn a rich and ill-deserved ransom. With the date for the Australian federal election looming, the Indian mining giant received ... More >>
Trump and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps
Wednesday, 10 April 2019, 2:10 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It’s designed to give the US more leg room in the sanction stakes but may end up having its own hemming consequences. The designation by the Trump administration of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organisation ... More >>
Lethal Fluctuations: The Death Penalty in Asia
Monday, 8 April 2019, 2:59 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Malaysian government last year expressed a surprise change of heart on a policy long held dear; it would reconsider the death penalty. The case of Muhammad Lukman, sentenced to death in August for the purchase and sharing of medicinal marijuana, ... More >>
Night Parrot Confections
Thursday, 4 April 2019, 12:58 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Discoveries of natural flora, fauna and phenomena are not necessarily straightforward things. The discoverer may wish to conceal the source. The discoverer may also have various motivations. In certain grave instances, the entire claim might be fabricated. ... More >>
Terms of Asylum and Distraction: Moreno’s Assange Problem
Wednesday, 3 April 2019, 4:36 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Political asylum is an accepted if often ignored right. It is also at the mercy of those interests that grant it. Ecuador’s repeated insistence on conditioning Julian Assange’s stay in its London abode is tantamount to corroding the idea of asylum ... More >>
The Slovak and Ukrainian Elections
Tuesday, 2 April 2019, 2:56 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The structures of politics have become so rigid, so distant, and ultimately so irrelevant to those who vote for them that a trend through countries can now be confirmed. Brittleness has set it. The part and election strategists have few answers, they, who saw the ... More >>
Unnecessary Expansions: The Australian War Memorial
Monday, 1 April 2019, 3:23 pm | Binoy Kampmark
War is not merely a matter of sowing death, much of it needless; it entails preserving a rationale to perpetuate it. The mistake often made about reading, consulting and listening to the harrowing tales of those who have perished in battle or those who ... More >>
Angles of Tolerance: Yusuf Islam in Christchurch
Saturday, 30 March 2019, 4:40 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Let’s not be too churlish about this; but then again, let us not be ignorant. The singer once known as Cat Stevens (in pre-conversion state), and known as Yusuf Islam to others, made a considerable impression on the stage in Christchurch. The slaughter ... More >>
Golan Heights and Israel
Friday, 29 March 2019, 4:25 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Any measure of annexation is based on the extension of a military’s boots. Diplomats tend to be silenced before the noise of tanks, weaponry and garrisons. Countries may claim to possess territory but can only dream in the absence of military weight. ... More >>
Michael Jackson, Convenient Freak
Thursday, 28 March 2019, 3:14 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The comedian Dave Chappelle put it like this: why were accusations of inappropriate conduct directed at Michael Jackson always so superbly timed? “Listen Michael,” goes Chappelle’s mock white executive voice, “we need you to jerk off another ... More >>
A Privileged Education: The US College Admissions Scandal
Wednesday, 27 March 2019, 2:25 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The oldest idea of history; the perennial problem of station: education. Get the child as far as possible so that he or she can be propelled, as if from a trebuchet across the ramparts of life. Nasty obstacles – one being a lack of intellect – ... More >>
Reining in the Yemen Conflict
Sunday, 24 March 2019, 3:50 pm | Binoy Kampmark
We keep hearing it. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is firm on the view that the Yemen conflict should conclude. “We all want this conflict to end,” he never tires of saying . “We all want to improve the dire humanitarian situation.” Then comes ... More >>
Disinviting Jordan Peterson
Sunday, 24 March 2019, 3:48 pm | Binoy Kampmark
He has sent so many cliques and groups into titters of anger, and the indignant have attempted to turn on him. The university environment should be the last place where dangerous ideas, and views, are stifled and stomped upon. In actual fact, we are ... More >>
Globalising the Christchurch Shootings
Friday, 22 March 2019, 10:36 am | Binoy Kampmark
Never let a bloody and opportune crisis pass. In New Zealand, there is talk about gun reform after attacks on two Christchurch mosques left fifty dead. There have been remarks made in parliament about unchecked white supremacy growing with enthusiastic ... More >>
Saving the Planet One Child at a Time
Monday, 18 March 2019, 4:43 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Children’s crusades do not necessarily end well. During the years of armed missions to the Holy Land, when Jerusalem meant something to the sacredly inclined in Europe, children were encouraged to take to the rough and dangerous road as it wound its ... More >>
The Dangers of Values: The Christchurch Massacre
Sunday, 17 March 2019, 6:59 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The argument that the Christchurch shooter, suspect Brenton Tarrant, or the views of Australia’s Senator Fraser Anning, seemingly holding a lone torch, are somehow not representative of the broader whole, be it Australia or New Zealand, is a self-deflecting ... More >>
Death in New Zealand: The Christchurch Shootings
Saturday, 16 March 2019, 2:39 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Five weapons were said to have been used, all inscribed with symbols, numbers and insignia. The individual charged with the shootings at two Christchurch mosques that left 49 dead was an Australian with, it is alleged, a simple purpose: inflict death, ... More >>
