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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 Most Selfish of Virtues: Alan Bennett’s Lady in the Van
Thursday, 21 February 2019, 2:35 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It does seem specific. A middle class concern centred on a man and an elderly woman, a sort of surrogate, irritating mother type of indulgent wisdom and uncertain past, seemingly irritating yet, on some level, fulfilling. Alan Bennett writes prose that ... More >>
Size Matters: The Demise of the A380
Tuesday, 19 February 2019, 2:52 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The aircraft business has always been a dear affair. More than other forms of transport, it remains susceptible to oscillating costs (materials, fuel), ever at the mercy of the uncontrollable. The Airbus A380 was meant to be a giant’s contribution to ... More >>
Death by Video: Morrison Combats Refugees By Film
Tuesday, 19 February 2019, 9:25 am | Binoy Kampmark
Caught in the backwater of the world’s existence, Australia struggles for relevance in various ways. It might show itself a leader in creating a sovereign fund (too late for that now); it might demonstrate, in various ways, a singular approach to ... More >>
Refugees as Business: The Paladin Group Contract
Sunday, 17 February 2019, 11:09 am | Binoy Kampmark
Despair breeds profits; disturbances supply opportunity. The genius and venal nature of human nature will always see a possible buck from an impossibly cruel situation. Globally, a study should be done about how many billions goes into the supply of ... More >>
The Morrison Government’s Refugee Problem
Friday, 15 February 2019, 12:50 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The passage of amendments to the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) by the Australian House of Representatives and the Senate this week was less a case of celebration than necessitous deliverance. The mental wellbeing of asylum-seekers on Manus Island and Nauru, or ... More >>
Means of Control: Russia’s Attempt to Hive Off the Internet
Thursday, 14 February 2019, 10:02 am | Binoy Kampmark
Such measures were always going to come on the heels, and heavily so, of the utopians. Where there is Internet Utopia, Dystopia follows with dedicated cynicism. Where there are untrammelled means of searching, there will be efforts to erect signposts, usually ... More >>
Football, Refugee Rights and Hakeem al-Araibi
Tuesday, 12 February 2019, 12:56 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“Al-Araibi’s case has become a crucial test of world football’s commitment to human rights.” So observed the director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights at Monash University, Sarah Joseph, in a piece last month. “Is this commitment ... More >>
Unity and Exceptionalism: Trump’s State of Union Flurries
Monday, 11 February 2019, 2:11 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“Trump is hated by everyone,” comes one unnamed former official in an account to Vanity Fair , one supposedly sourced after the President’s State of the Union Address. Another claimed that all was wretched in the White House: “It’s total ... More >>
Sharp Manias: Knife Crime in London
Wednesday, 6 February 2019, 11:20 am | Binoy Kampmark
A bleak London assailed by daily news about Brexit negotiation, prospects of food shortages and higher prices in the event of a no-deal with the European Union, provides the perfect apocalyptic backdrop for headlines. The city is ailing; the residents ... More >>
The Monitoring Game: China’s Artificial Intelligence Push
Sunday, 3 February 2019, 5:30 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It’s all keen and mean on the artificial intelligence (AI) front in China, which is now vying with the United States as the top dog in the field. US companies can still boast the big cheese operators, but China is making strides in other areas. ... More >>
Censorship Tendencies in Social Media
Wednesday, 30 January 2019, 9:40 am | Binoy Kampmark
It is all a rather sorry tale. Molly Russell, another teenager gorged on social media content, sharing and darkly revelling, took her own life in 2017 supposedly after viewing what the BBC described as “disturbing content about suicide on social media.” ... More >>
Everybody Else’s Business: Coup Fever in Venezuela
Sunday, 27 January 2019, 12:13 pm | Binoy Kampmark
This could have been seen as audacious. Instead, it had the smell of a not so well concealed sponsorship, the backing of a meaty foreign hand. Venezuelan opposition leader and President of the National Assembly Juan Guaidó decided to take a quick ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Shutting Down in Trumpland
Friday, 25 January 2019, 1:48 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It is a political idiosyncrasy that most political systems avoid: the state, as if suffering a stroke, operating at only partial capacity, incapable of paying certain employees and incapable of fronting certain services. And so it is in the United ... More >>
Eyeing the White House: The Democratic Field
Tuesday, 22 January 2019, 12:23 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Not so much hunting season as declaratory season in US politics. The US presidential candidates from the Democratic side are making promises spiced with forced excitement in anticipation of the 2020 elections. This early morning of the public holiday of ... More >>
Spy Theories and the White House: Donald Trump and Russia
Saturday, 19 January 2019, 11:15 am | Binoy Kampmark
The level of absurdity in US politics has now reached such vertigo inducing levels as to render all manner of things permissible. Contact with the unwashed implies collaboration; discussion with the enemy implies assent. To go to a dinner party ... More >>
No-Confidence Survivor: Theresa May and Brexit
Friday, 18 January 2019, 11:08 am | Binoy Kampmark
Theresa May’s prime ministership remains one of torment, drawn out, and weakened daily. But does it really matter? If it is true to claim that people deserve the government they elect, then there is something madly representative of the debacle ... More >>
Trump, Bolton and the Syrian Confusion
Wednesday, 16 January 2019, 3:23 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It’s a messy, though typical picture. US President Donald Trump wants to pull out forces in Syria. When announced in December, jaws drooped and sharp intakes of breath were registered through the Washington establishment. Members of the military industrial ... More >>
Ice Matters: A Meditation on Snow
Monday, 14 January 2019, 10:44 am | Binoy Kampmark
Most speak of floods in the age of climate change, when the cooked and the roasted take precedence over the snowed in and the freezing, and the parliaments of lost islands shall be convened in the sea. Comparatively cruel fates should never be entertained, ... More >>
Dances of Disinformation
Monday, 14 January 2019, 9:12 am | Binoy Kampmark
Is there such a plane of blissful, balanced information, deliberated and debated upon? No. Governments mangle; corporations distort. Interest groups tinker. Wars must be sold; deception must be perpetrated. Inconsistencies must be removed. There ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Donald Trump, Mexico and the Democrats
Thursday, 10 January 2019, 3:54 pm | Binoy Kampmark
New year occasions, given the pleasant fiction it entails, are times to change. Resolutions are made by that delightful species Homo sapiens, hope packaged for quick delivery to those who promise change. The weak will become stronger; the strong will show ... More >>
