Binoy Kampmark - Latest News [Page 88]
Punishing the Media: CIA Fantasies & William J. Casey
Thursday, 28 September 2017, 9:40 am | Binoy Kampmark
“Unauthorized disclosures of classified information have become a cancer which undermines presidential authority to conduct foreign policy, our national security process, and our intelligence capabilities.” - William J. Casey, Director of the ... More >>
Angela Merkel: The Ikea Politician
Monday, 25 September 2017, 7:41 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“The recipe for her success, which she has only latterly discovered, is that she’s been able to develop an image as someone who is tuned in to the German soul.” Oskar Niedermayer, Sep 22, 2017 More >>
Benjamin Netanyahu, Penguins & the UN
Monday, 25 September 2017, 10:15 am | Binoy Kampmark
“That’s why Israel’s policy regarding the nuclear deal with Iran is very simple: Change it or cancel it. Fix it or nix it.” - Benjamin Netanyahu, UN General Assembly Address, 2017 More >>
The Intolerance of Tolerance: Tony Abbott’s Head Butt
Monday, 25 September 2017, 9:55 am | Binoy Kampmark
“This was a violent and criminal act, nothing whatsoever to do with the point of view of those of us who favour a yes vote.” - Senator George Brandis, Australian Attorney-General, Sep 22, 2017. More >>
Brexiting Hard: Boris Johnson Goes to War
Friday, 22 September 2017, 7:35 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Times was none too pleased, riled and concerned. Contributors to The Spectator were wondering whether an imminent implosion was about to take place. Who would profit from this act of suicide, this ritual of Tory party cannibalism? The Labour leader, ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: The Genuine Article in Australian Politics
Tuesday, 19 September 2017, 3:59 pm | Binoy Kampmark
He was there with his entourage, a face unmoved bar the occasional muscle flex. “There’s Malcolm Turnbull!” exclaimed drinking companions at the Curtin on Melbourne’s famed Lygon Street, the artery of culinary matters Italian. More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Donald Trump at the UN
Tuesday, 19 September 2017, 3:55 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It seems to have reached a point of near exhaustion. What will the President of the United States do next? The money was on some diplomatic mayhem, a series of insults, and a trashing of various aspects of the organisation some Americans regard as a ... More >>
Manning at Harvard: The Fears of Veritas
Friday, 15 September 2017, 7:38 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“I have an obligation to my conscience – and I believe to the country – to stand up against any efforts to justify leaks of sensitive national security information.” Michael Morrell, former Deputy Director, CIA, Sep 14, 2017 More >>
Damaging Damages: Rebel Wilson’s Defamation Case
Friday, 15 September 2017, 12:50 pm | Binoy Kampmark
There is very little to be gained pondering whether celebrity journalism should be protected with the zeal that some of its advocates do. A person with the dirt-directed fanaticism of a Piers Morgan is not to be treasured and his court losses in defamation ... More >>
Steve Bannon’s Crystal Ball: A Split in the GOP
Thursday, 14 September 2017, 9:26 am | Binoy Kampmark
Rarely does the virus speak so formidably to the condition he is a product of. The soiling, devastating strategist Steve Bannon, despite exiting the Trump administration, remains within it (symbolically at least), moving about with effect and influence. ... More >>
Energy Chaos in Australia: Closing the Liddell Power Station
Tuesday, 12 September 2017, 1:17 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Australia is having an energy crisis. A country with such abundant resources is incapable it seems, of handling matters of reliable supply, either in terms of affordability, or in terms of delivery. The situation has been further muddied by the inability ... More >>
Visions of Europe: Macron in Athens
Tuesday, 12 September 2017, 9:33 am | Binoy Kampmark
The myth can have a greater effect than an untruth, and those who are in the business of manufacturing and building them never go out of business. France’s President Emmanuel Macron has, for months, busily promoted a new myth: that of being European ... More >>
Shooting at Hurricane Irma: The Seriousness of Humour
Monday, 11 September 2017, 3:49 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It has all the ingredients of screwball stand up comedy, the necessary corrective to end-of-the-world scenarios. “And there she was, Irma, blowing herself through the room… And I shot her.” But humour is in scant supply for authorities who ... More >>
Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Prizes, & The Rohingyas
Monday, 11 September 2017, 9:32 am | Binoy Kampmark
Scratch the skin of a saint, claimed George Orwell, and you are bound to find a sinner with an extensive resume. Such resumes are evaluated in these modern times by accolades, awards, and summits. The Noble Peace Prize tends to be crowning affirmation that ... More >>
Taking Aim: WikiLeaks, Congress, & Hostile Agencies
Thursday, 7 September 2017, 10:10 am | Binoy Kampmark
Various scribbles have started to pepper the conversation started by the adventurous Mike Pompeo after he branded WikiLeaks a hostile intelligence agency before the Center for Strategic and International Studies. (This would have generated a wry smile of ... More >>
Beggars for War: The US, North Korea, and Bankruptcy
Wednesday, 6 September 2017, 9:58 am | Binoy Kampmark
The statement before members of the United Nations Security Council was both brash and high strung. The US ambassador had clearly decided that firm words were needed to understand the continuing military advances of North Korea. To do so, Nikki Haley, ... More >>
Lacking Transparency: Israeli Drones and Australian Defence
Tuesday, 5 September 2017, 1:27 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“Give us the chance to compete, to see our capabilities, to compare, to see the benefit we can bring with our [drone] system.” Shaul Shahar, Israel Aerospace Industries Vice-President, March 2, 2017 More >>
Unnerving the Donald: North Korea’s Sixth Nuclear Test
Monday, 4 September 2017, 1:02 pm | Binoy Kampmark
We are now into reckless territory with the latest North Korean nuclear test – in all probability a genuine hydrogen weapon – sending the ever reckless US President Donald Trump into a true state of belligerent adolescence. More >>
The Flawed Institution: Australian Marriage ...
Monday, 4 September 2017, 10:12 am | Binoy Kampmark
It’s a pretty curious thing to see: marriage being defended at all. Like slavery, and not necessarily inconsistent with it, marriage is an institution. It embraces codes. It imparts obligations, duties, and rights. And it creeps up on you. More >>
The Korean Powder Keg
Friday, 1 September 2017, 2:07 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It was famously dubbed the European power keg, a term deemed appropriate by such strategists as German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Such figures feared the imminent release of violence in the Balkans, the sort that just might unravel the grand European ... More >>