Condescension and Climate Change: Australia and the Failure of the Pacific Islands Forum
It was predictably ugly: in tone, in regret, and, in some ways, disgust. Australia emerged from the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting isolated, the true […]
Articles by Dr Binoy Kampmark
God, Guns and Video Games
The din struck by videos of the gaming variety; its forced causal link (always alleged, never proved) to altering conduct, continues its relentless march across […]
Australia’s Pacific Play: Denying Climate Change and Boosting China’s Threat
Australia has always nursed a contradictory, repressive relationship with its Pacific neighbours. Being a satrap of great powers, it has performed the role of gate […]
CPAC Down Under
It was a time for Australian conservatives to be boring, and bore each other. CPAC, otherwise known as the Conservative Political Action Conference, had arrived […]
Conspiracy, Death and Jeffrey Epstein
Within minutes of news about his death in a Manhattan jail cell Saturday morning, theories spread with pestilential vigour. Was Jeffrey Epstein murdered? Accepting the […]
Mobility and Maginot Lines: China Hysteria Down Under
The blinkered security establishment is standard fare in politics. From Washington to Manila, we hear of terrors and concerns which tend to more spectral than […]
Caught in the Strait
It is clear that the United Kingdom could not have thought this through. Was it a touch of the Suez jitters, the haunting syndrome of […]
Cheering a New Arms Race: The End of the INF
US President Donald Trump is a master of the withdrawal method. That said, it is often forgotten that the United States remains that most fickle […]
The Retainer Solution: The European Union, Libya and Irregular Migration
There is a venom in international refugee policy that refuses to go away: officials charged with their tasks, passing on their labours to those who […]
Publishing Stolen Material: WikiLeaks, the DNC and Freedom of Speech
It may well be a finding of some implication should Julian Assange find his way into the beastly glory that is the US justice system. […]
Militarising Australia: Talisman Sabre and the US Military Build Up
Deemed the Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations strategy, the military method is a US Marine special, still spanking new, featuring “the amphibious landing of troops on […]
Permissible Deviance: Facebook’s FTC Fine
It was something of a shrug moment. One of the world’s largest digital platforms had been fined $5 billion for privacy violations by the Federal […]
Contractual Disputes: Replacing Monster Chefs on MasterChef
The show is pompous, condescending and shallow. It was designed to mock the lowly non-cook, the ignorant, and, from high culinary summitry, grace the winner […]
Top End Travels: The Tiwi Islands, the Catholic Church and King Joe of Melville Island
Darwin, Northern Territory Lush mangroves, the spray of emerald water from the Timor Sea, the sense of the untainted: the journey to the Tiwi Islands, […]
Olive Reincarnations and Elvis on Mars: Boris Johnson Becomes British PM
The BBC World Service took its listeners to the English cathedral town of Ely, set in picturesque Cambridgeshire, during the course of a hot July […]