Scoop has an Ethical Paywall
Binoy Kampmark
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.
Binoy Kampmark - Latest News [Page 84]
Orthodox Christmas, Oaks and Casual Cruelties
Wednesday, 10 January 2018, 11:54 am | Binoy Kampmark
The man, gristle and all, perched on his stick, a statue lost in a mess of dirt ridden clothes, his face obscured by the casting shadow of the sheltering building in the southern Serbian town of Bujanovac. An eye half-shut, the other suspiciously attentive, ... More >>
Parallel Worlds: Trump, Nuclear Buttons and Korean Diplomacy
Saturday, 6 January 2018, 10:49 am | Binoy Kampmark
It has been said that what is required in dealing with the Trump administration is less an army of diplomats than keen and attentive psychiatrists. Those psychiatrists would have had dreams of splendour contemplating how a statement about having access ... More >>
Gangs, Race and Melbourne
Wednesday, 3 January 2018, 9:13 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Two’s a company; three’s a crowd. More? This issue is preoccupying political and policing figures in the city considered by the Economist Intelligence Unit the most liveable in the world, bettering a whole host of other seemingly more appropriate ... More >>
Ilya and Emilia Kababov at the Tate Modern
Tuesday, 2 January 2018, 10:07 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Installation art deserves its reputation in many quarters as trumped up and pretentious, an exaggeration dressed up as a profound truth. History is ignored, and all is deemed modern and defiant. It also seems, often, to be a terrible misuse of gallery space. More >>
Trump versus the FBI
Monday, 1 January 2018, 1:06 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The attempt to tease, weave and develop a narrative against President Donald J. Trump over a Russian connection began almost immediately after his victory in November last year. This was meant to be institutional oversight and probing, but in another ... More >>
Cost and Indulgence: Gloating over New Year’s Celebrations
Friday, 29 December 2017, 3:20 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The gloating over the forthcoming New Year celebrations has already commenced. The first big city to feature on the roundups in each news segment as the year is ushered in tends to be Sydney, self-proclaimed global city in the antipodes, ever keen to ... More >>
Extraterrestrial Fascinations: The Pentagon and UFOs
Wednesday, 27 December 2017, 4:25 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Conspiracies in the extraterrestrial department have always constituted the residue of superstition in a secular age. Chase away a Christ figure, or ward off God, and the mind still wanders, hoping to be bewitched. If something cannot be explained, ... More >>
The Politics of Manus Island
Tuesday, 26 December 2017, 2:20 pm | Binoy Kampmark
In what has been a nightmare at Christmas, the plight of refugees relocated to other sites on Manus Island after the closure of the facility at Lombrum Naval Base has worsened. The latest scenes at East Lorengau Transit Centre, where 300 men have been ... More >>
Sanctions Fever: The Trump Administration and Human Rights
Sunday, 24 December 2017, 11:13 am | Binoy Kampmark
It’s the season to be jolly, and the Trump administration has been busy doling out gifts. Sanctions seem to be top of the pile, derived from that trove of options outlined in the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. The law, initially ... More >>
Normalising Uber: The CJEU Ruling
Friday, 22 December 2017, 9:14 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It was something of a clanger for the ride hailing service that has made authorities across the globe sceptical and stroppy. Uber has lobbied, cajoled, and bullied its way into the transport markets of the globe, while still claiming to be a humble, ... More >>
Journeying to the DMZ
Thursday, 21 December 2017, 7:28 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Atrocity tourism and what might be termed the tourism of divisive obstacles (fences, barbed wire, mine fields) can be great money earners. Former concentration and extermination camps in Europe bring in currency even as visitors shake with stunned grief and moral ... More >>
Preconditions to Conditions: Rex Tillerson on North Korea
Monday, 18 December 2017, 2:03 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The worst of times, and the best of times. This must be a sentiment that filters through the Trump administration as it discusses, disagrees and fights itself on how best to deal with Kim Jong-un and the North Korean situation. With a transactional ... More >>
Neutral Athletes: Russia, Drugs and the Olympics
Sunday, 17 December 2017, 2:03 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Being a moralist in the Olympics doesn’t carry you very far. Turn one way, and there are enterprising drug cheats; turn another, there are wads of cash in envelopes finding their inexorable way to an official’s accounts. The challenge of the Olympics ... More >>
The "Me Too Movement," Sexual Politics, & Unnatural Justice
Friday, 15 December 2017, 9:00 am | Binoy Kampmark
The overthrow of iniquitous power relations is a point many would celebrate. But such overthrows are themselves marked by the contradiction of their origins. Any revolution must, by its very nature, suffer inconsistency, defeats and weaknesses. More >>
The Fall of Sam Dastyari: The Allures of Foreign Influence
Friday, 15 December 2017, 8:53 am | Binoy Kampmark
Gazing at the politics of a vassal state is interesting in one acute, and jarring sense. Voices of presumed independence are often bought; political opinions that seem well informed are, in fact, ventriloquised. The origin is always elsewhere. More >>
Pakistan, US Drones, and Idle Threats
Monday, 11 December 2017, 8:11 am | Binoy Kampmark
Should US drone operators and the officers responsible for them be concerned by the latest sentiments from the Pakistani Ministry of Defence? The head of the Pakistan Air Force, Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman, made the most pointed remarks yet that ... More >>
The Fate of the Pine Gap Pilgrims
Sunday, 10 December 2017, 10:35 am | Binoy Kampmark
It barely registered a murmur across the Australian press, though it caused the traditional ripples over the protester fraternity. Christian activists, collectively known as the Pine Gap Pilgrims, had received sentences pursuant to the Defence (Special Undertakings) ... More >>
Milo in Australia: Yiannopoulous, Free Speech and Violence
Thursday, 7 December 2017, 5:01 pm | Binoy Kampmark
To what limit protest? Naturally, this was exactly what colourful agitator and former senior editor for Breitbart News Milo Yiannopolous wanted: outrage, insensible anger, and heady adoration. Without any of these, he would vanish, a figure charged on a ... More >>
Hopes and Nightmares over Crypto Currencies
Tuesday, 5 December 2017, 7:12 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The crystal ball gazers, astrologers and tea leave readers have been suffering a lingering fever of late. Bitcoin recently romped through the $10,000 barrier, an event that sent speculators swooning and conservative voices into a gloomy mood of ... More >>
Holding Uber Accountable: Litigating over Data Hacks
Monday, 4 December 2017, 10:43 am | Binoy Kampmark
It sent patrons and users into fits of puzzled anger. It numbed a good many more who had placed mistaken faith in its operations. Rapacious, predatory Uber, a ride-hailing company famed for its international ruthlessness, had behaved accordingly. Last week, ... More >>
