Ukraine is a pawn in the US struggle against Russia (more…)
Binoy Kampmark
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Terms of condescension: The language of Australia’s “Pacific Family”
When will this nonsense on familial connection between Australia and the Pacific end? In 2018, Australia’s then Pentecostal Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, drew upon a term that his predecessors had not. On November 8 that year, he announced that Australia’s engagement with the region would be taken to another level, launching a “new chapter in relations with our Pacific family.” (more…)
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The brutality of “Bulldozer Justice” in India
It looks all too eerily similar as a method: the expulsion of individuals from their home, the demolition of said home and the punishing of entire families. All excused by a harsh reading of local regulations. But this method, used by Israeli authorities for years against vulnerable Palestinians, has become a weapon of choice for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat. (more…)
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Convenient omissions: The Ukraine-EU candidacy show
Instances of sympathy are rarely excuses to throw out the rule book. In the case of the European Union, throwing out the rule book about admission has tended to be a feature of enlargement. Credentials of candidate states have been, when needed, boosted or cooked for the occasion. Others, whatever the progress, have been ignored. For a collective that really ought to tidy the stables before admitting more occupants, the enthusiastic glee with which Ukraine’s symbolic candidacy has greeted stayed true to form. (more…)
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Deadly games: The labour casualties of Qatar’s World Cup
A sordid enterprise, nasty, crude and needless. But the World Cup 2022 will be, should anyone bother watching it, stained by one of the highest casualty rates amongst workers in its history, marked by corruption and stained by a pharisee quality. The sportswashers, cleaning agent at the ready, will be out in force, and the hypocrites dressed to the nines. (more…)
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Binoy Kampmark: Julian Assange in Ithaka
“Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is where you’re destined for”. P. Cavafy, trans. Edmund Keeley (more…)
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A Spanish court calls: Mike Pompeo, we want you
On June 3, Judge Santiago Pedraz of Spain’s national court, the Audienca Nacional, issued a summons for former CIA director and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to testify in an ongoing investigation into the conduct of private security firm UC Global and its founder, David Morales. (more…)
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Fighting the first UK-Rwandan refugee flight
June 10 bore witness to a valiant effort on the part of refugee groups and a trade union to stop what promises to be the first journey of many as part of the UK-Rwanda plan. Their attempt to seek an injunction failed to convince the High Court. Next Tuesday, the first flight from the UK to Rwanda filled with asylum seekers will, unless the Court of Appeal rules otherwise, take off. Some 31 people of Iraqi and Syrian background have been told they will be on board with one-way tickets. (more…)
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Dear times and costly cricket: Australia’s Sri Lankan Tour
For a country experiencing its worst economic crisis since gaining independence in 1948, the picture of a touring team pampered and fussed over might cause consternation. But the Australian cricket tour to Sri Lanka has only been met by praise from the country’s cricket officials, where logic is inverted, and the gaze of responsibility averted. Not even a shortage of foreign currency, precipitating a dramatic fall in medicines and fuel, along with demonstrations that have left nine dead and 300 injured, prompted second thoughts. (more…)
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New Brooms, old stories: The Australian Labor Party and Julian Assange
After having a few lunches with Australia’s then opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, John Shipton felt reason to be confident. Albanese had promised Assange’s father that he would do whatever he could, should he win office, to bring the matter to a close. (more…)
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Platinum jubilees and republican questions
The platinum jubilee will bore and cause some to yawn. It might certainly agitate the republican spleen in the fourteen countries where Queen Elizabeth II remains a constitutional head of state. But the question remains: How does the institution this figure represents endure, if it should at all? (more…)
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Biden in Tokyo: Killing strategic ambiguity
Could it have been just another case of bumbling poor judgment, the mind softened as the mouth opened? A question was put to US President Joe Biden, visiting Tokyo and standing beside Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida: “You didn’t want to get involved in the Ukraine conflict militarily for obvious reasons. Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?” The answer: “Yes. That’s a commitment we made.” (more…)
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Political appointments and downgrading the Australian Human Rights Commission
The international standards body on human rights has found that the Australian Human Rights Commission should be downgraded in its standing. (more…)
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The extradition of Julian Assange ‘to a country that conspired to murder him’
It was a dastardly formality. On April 20, at a hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court, Julian Assange, beamed in via video link from Belmarsh Prison, his carceral home for three years, is to be extradited to the United States to face 18 charges, 17 based on the US Espionage Act of 1917. (more…)
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Stumbles and fictions: The Australian election campaign begins
That a figure like Scott Morrison comes across as competent, able and free of imbecility after a day of electioneering in Australia suggests a broader sickness in politics. (more…)
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AUKUS in the hypersonic missile wonderland
As this idiotic, servile venture proceeds, Australian territory, sites and facilities will become every more attractive for assault in the fulness of time. (more…)
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Homicidal drives: US dreams of killing Putin
The US imperium will dispose of leaders and prominent figures it does not like, even if it fails along the way. (more…)
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Wars do not merely make truth a casualty but kill off intellectual inquiry
The Australian National University officially announced the suspension of all ties and activities with Russian institutions on March 3. (more…)
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The Ukraine War and the ‘Good Refugee’
“These people are not people we are used to… these people are Europeans.” Kiril Petkov, Bulgarian Prime Minister, Associated Press, March 1, 2022 (more…)
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Advertising and election gimmicks: New submarines in the ‘I don’t think, I know’ era.
In an election year pledges are made to be broken; promises are made to seduce, not convince. When the subject matter involves fictional submarines, even greater care should be taken. (more…)
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Antarctica: Where China and Russia get the blame again!
A frozen continent. Another potential frontier for conflict and competition. Antarctica is a part of the world where real politician meets scientist; the desire for finding exploitable resources meets environmental expectations and fears. (more…)
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Australia’s doomed koalas
In a country expert in killing off mammal species at a rate exceeding that of others (to be fair, there are so many more to destroy, with more to come), Australians now face the prospect that the koala, one of its most singularly recognisable animals, has its days numbered. (more…)
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The US is seeking revenge for its failure in Afghanistan by starving the people
Nation states are habitually doomed to defeat their best interests. Conditions of mad instability are fostered. Arms sales take place, regimes get propped up or abandoned, and the people under them endure and suffer, awaiting the next criminal regime change. (more…)
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Blinken’s visit to the colony
It must be a sure handicap to be saddled with such a name when piloting a large government department, but US Secretary of State Antony Blinken shows no sign of that bothering him. It has, however, become a hallmark of a policy babble that is markedly devoid of foresight and heavily marked by stammering confusion. (more…)
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Treadmarks on the taxpayer: Australia’s $3.5 billion tank folly
The last batch were kept in blissful quarantine, untouched by conflict. But better to feed the US military machine than act on global warming.
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Baa humbug: Australia’s trade triumph breeds a British backlash
Celebrations are likely to be short-lived. Australia overestimates the benefits of the agreement, while British farmers remain justifiably worried.
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Jailed Danish politician exemplifies growing anti-refugee populism
Denmark’s former immigration minister has been jailed for separating refugee couples — but her actions did not lack parliamentary approval.
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Beijing Winter Olympics boycott is a hollow gesture
A boycott of the Winter Olympics serves no real purpose — history shows that Olympic boycotts in the name of human rights abuses are ineffectual.
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Where there are tailings, no grass grows: Serbians protest against Rio Tinto
Australian mining giant Rio Tinto is at the centre of a new controversy — this time, over a lithium mine and processing plant in Serbia.
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Hawkish US Global Posture Review speaks obscurely and carries a big stick
The US’s national defence strategy calls for regional policing in the Indo-Pacific. The fixation is on China and the spotlight is on Australia. (more…)