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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 90]
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 >>
The Myth of the Liveable City
Thursday, 31 August 2017, 2:17 pm | Binoy Kampmark
In 2016, the Melbourne-based Herald Sun claimed with some consternation that Melbourne was “set to lose its status as the world’s most liveable city.” That particular, somewhat meaningless status is granted by that great myth maker, the Economist Intelligence ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Resting Sea Shepherd
Tuesday, 29 August 2017, 5:11 pm | Binoy Kampmark
What a colourful run this outfit has had. Branded in 2013 by Judge Alex Kozinski of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit as pirates, the Sea Shepherd crew will be hanging up their hooks while rethinking their whale protection strategy. ... More >>
Disaster in the Sea Lanes: Bruising the US Navy
Monday, 28 August 2017, 1:46 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“That gives us great cause for concern that there’s something out there that we’re not getting at.” Admiral John Richardson, New York Times , Aug 21, 2017 More >>
Loving the Bollard: Turnbull’s Anti-Terror Tool Kit
Monday, 28 August 2017, 9:40 am | Binoy Kampmark
It has been a week of bollards. And defence barriers. And hedges and vegetation. No, not the radio garden hour, or the herbaceous borders special featured on prime time television, delivered by a bearded man with a facial forest so vast it could ... More >>
The Departure of the Ideologues in the White House
Monday, 28 August 2017, 9:35 am | Binoy Kampmark
Troubling times, indeed, if we are noting the ecstasy of Wall Street traders at the departure of a White House official. What troubles the financiers and banksters would surely delight Main Street. But this was not any ordinary cheer, nor ordinary celebration. ... More >>
Lying about Citizenship: Australian Politicians
Saturday, 26 August 2017, 8:07 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It was nothing short of fabulous. Before the public, the political lie is deemed an imperative, instinctively cultured to repel anything that might appear, let alone resemble, truth. Never, whatever you do in political garb, reveal the game, convey ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: The Rise of the Killer Robot
Thursday, 24 August 2017, 4:19 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“As companies building the technologies in artificial intelligence and robotics that may be repurposed to develop autonomous weapons, we feel especially responsible in raising this alarm.” Open Letter to the UN on Autonomous technology, August ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Trump and Afghanistan
Wednesday, 23 August 2017, 1:40 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The story continues with dispiriting relentlessness. The remark by Samuel Beckett in The Unnamable comes to mind: “I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” With the sense of incapacity about going on, yet doing so with a drone’s dedicated commitment, ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Statues in Defeat
Tuesday, 22 August 2017, 4:27 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Statues of historical weight tend to represent heroism – of sorts. It might be of the doomed variety, and often is. Rebellious causes assume the visage of a stony form, to gaze soullessly across promenades or parks, often ignored by many who have ... More >>
Target Finding for the Empire: The NSA and Pine Gap
Monday, 21 August 2017, 7:53 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“The tasking we get at Pine Gap is look for this particular signal coming out of this particular location. If you find it, report it, and if you find anything else of interest, report that as well.” David Rosenberg, former NSA Team leader, weapon’s ... More >>
The Burka Comes to Parliament: Pauline Hanson’s Panto
Saturday, 19 August 2017, 1:33 pm | Binoy Kampmark
In few environments could this work. A member of Parliament (barely breathing, but still a parliament) running within a Muslim minority country (a small minority, at that) with mocking intent, dons a burka, sits in the stands, and receives appropriate ... More >>
Bullying Venezuela: Trump’s Unvarnished Threat
Friday, 18 August 2017, 1:23 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Whether he holds good on it is beside the point. President Donald J. Trump’s great value to US foreign policy is its lack of artifice and sophistication, a bullying force of nature that alters with the next burst of adolescent acne and the breaking ... More >>
Aust: Breaking the Seal: Child Abuse and the Confessional
Wednesday, 16 August 2017, 3:50 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The only surprise was that it did not come sooner. Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has gotten on with the gruesome task of making 85 recommended changes to the law that will provide some measure of ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Australia’s Citizenship Crisis
Tuesday, 15 August 2017, 5:24 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“You know, when you nominate for Parliament, there is actually a question, you’ve got to address that section 44 question.” Australian Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Money Laundering in Chief
Monday, 14 August 2017, 2:41 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Australian banker is a smug species, arguably more than his international peers. Caught off guard by the financial disasters of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Australian banking system has become an expression of a classic oligopoly, manipulating ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Death on Manus - Avenging the King of Iran
Monday, 14 August 2017, 2:35 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“The only responsible and humane thing for our government to do is immediately evacuate every single man on Manus, every single family and child on Nauru to safety on Australia.” Daniel Webb, Human Rights Law Centre, Aug 7, 2017 More >>
Backward Steps: The Australian Recycling Sham
Monday, 14 August 2017, 11:36 am | Binoy Kampmark
The green conscience received a setback last week with revelations that the Australian recycling industry is not what it seems. The middle class sensibility here is simple and dismissive: bin it and forget about it. Place the sorted items in the appropriate ... More >>
