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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 96]
Ignored Ironies: Women, Protest and Donald Trump
Monday, 23 January 2017, 12:25 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The USA has Urinary Trump Infection. Protest sign, San Francisco Women’s Rally, Jan 21, 2017 More >>
The Birth of Trumpland: Notes on an Inauguration
Saturday, 21 January 2017, 10:52 pm | Binoy Kampmark
With the country ridden by woe and revulsion; with the discontent so profound and vicious, the Trump presidency began. It did so by way of comparison – of the chalk-cheese variety. In 2008, when the shining armour of Knight Obama took centre stage, there ... More >>
Donald Trump and the History of an Alliance
Friday, 20 January 2017, 3:04 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It should be a point of some delicious reflection for peace activists who have fought for decades against the nature of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. It brought the US deep into West European affairs, turning European states into garrisons. It ... More >>
Scoundrels of Patriotism: The Freeing of Chelsea Manning
Friday, 20 January 2017, 2:12 pm | Binoy Kampmark
He might have had a sharp attack of conscience, but President Barack Obama decided, in the flickering days of his administration, to do good by Chelsea Manning, forever linked to WikiLeaks and the disclosure of US military war logs and 250,000 state ... More >>
Binoy Kampmark: Health Fears Ahead of Trump’s Inauguration
Tuesday, 17 January 2017, 4:51 pm | Binoy Kampmark
“Ain’t going to let no ego maniac turn me around, turn me around, keep on walking, keep on talking going to build ourselves a brand-new world.” Joan Baez, San Francisco, Jan 15, 2016 More >>
Zygmunt Bauman and the Rootless Condition
Friday, 13 January 2017, 1:02 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Modernity, as the late Zygmunt Bauman noted in his magisterially provocative Modernity and the Holocaust (1989) has not necessarily entailed enlightenment, the liberation from immaturity. Since the cave dweller existence, humanity has retained traditional ... More >>
Squeeze and Wiggle: Transport Chaos in London
Tuesday, 10 January 2017, 9:01 am | Binoy Kampmark
It has the air of being a well minted yet distinctly first world problem: inconvenienced commuters in one of the world’s first true megalopolises, gnashing their teeth as they are pushed and grounded together during the rush hour. All because of a strike ... More >>
Pollution, Dementia and the Modern Condition
Monday, 9 January 2017, 9:11 am | Binoy Kampmark
London. The journey from Tooting to the British Library tends to be a crowded affair at the best of times. More >>
Tony Abbott, Israel and Australian Foreign Policy
Thursday, 5 January 2017, 12:00 pm | Binoy Kampmark
He is one of Australia’s truly singular politicians, relentlessly zealous, hewn from the granite of an older fanaticism. Despise him, loathe him, but consider him for one fundamental point: he has escaped the management artists, the curbing focus ... More >>
The Trouble with Mary: The Fourth Series of Sherlock
Tuesday, 3 January 2017, 9:26 pm | Binoy Kampmark
There was much fanfare for the first episode of series 4 of the BBC’s Sherlock , which graced British television screens on New Year’s Day with its fair share of shock and delivery. It promises to be the first of three episodes, dangling the ... More >>
Carrie Fisher: Hollywood In-Breeding & the Velocity of Being
Thursday, 29 December 2016, 12:43 pm | Binoy Kampmark
There was always going to be a good deal of thick drama around Carrie Fisher, by her own confession, a product of Hollywood in-breeding. Her parents, Debbie Reynolds and the crooner Eddie Fisher, provided ample material for the gossip columns in a ... More >>
Cities of Death: History, Pollution and China’s Smog
Wednesday, 28 December 2016, 2:32 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Cities are the monsters of civilization, the accrual of various factors of organisation that stress development and advancement. The latter two terms are often impossible to gauge except by comparison with other cities or States. We are left with the consequences ... More >>
Invalidating the Snoopers’ Charter - Binoy Kampmark
Wednesday, 28 December 2016, 2:25 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Deemed by the Home Office an exemplar of legislation balancing security and freedoms, the UK Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA), otherwise known as the Snoopers’ Charter, did not impress the EU Court of Justice. The case had been brought ... More >>
Drama in UN Security Council: Israel’s Illegal Settlements
Wednesday, 28 December 2016, 11:38 am | Binoy Kampmark
Christians following the Gregorian calendar are getting busy to celebrate Christmas, but the business of diplomacy continued in the United Nations. In the Security Council, anticipation about a particular resolution was greater than usual. More >>
Steve Biko at 70 - Binoy Kampmark
Friday, 23 December 2016, 3:31 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Commemorating birthdays in the aftermath of a person’s death tends to be a false exercise. At best, it reminds us about an era that will have, almost certainly, vanished. This goes for whatever that era entailed – brutality, or peace; tranquillity or ... More >>
The Berlin Truck Attack and the Refugee Question
Thursday, 22 December 2016, 4:22 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The hard-nosed neo-cons were certainly showing little interest in linking arguments, examining evidence, or even considering elementary logic in the aftermath of the Berlin truck attack near the Gedächtniskirche. With the bodies fresh in the morgue, ... More >>
The Hack of all Hacks: Yahoo and Information Security
Tuesday, 20 December 2016, 4:51 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It took place in August 2013. It was a hack of unprecedented scale, impetuous, audacious, and, if we are to believe Yahoo, undetected at the time. The result of that effort across 1 billion accounts was a profitable use of material to spammers and cyber ... More >>
From White to Black: The Colours of Brexit - Binoy Kampmark
Monday, 19 December 2016, 10:27 am | Binoy Kampmark
While the shattering Brexit vote of June had a deservedly chilling impact in Brussels and other European capitals, the grey suits have been busy pushing various lines on the consequences Britain faces for leaving the European Union. The technocrats ... More >>
The CIA, Presidential Elections, and the Russian Connection
Monday, 19 December 2016, 10:18 am | Binoy Kampmark
Intent and causation are important features in the course of history. The former envisages motive and hope, irrespective of outcome; the latter envisages consequence. Often, these get muddled in the jumbled process of reasoning. An intervention in ... More >>
Trump, Waste and the Military Industrial Complex
Thursday, 15 December 2016, 4:09 pm | Binoy Kampmark
That particular fighter never had good press. Even before Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strategic Fighter attracted the ire of Donald Trump via his usual, belching medium, Twitter, the project was flailing in a swamp to the value of $400 billion. More >>
