The conduct of live-fire exercises by the People’s Liberation Army Navy Surface Force (the Chinese “communists”, as they are called by the analytically strained) has recently caused much murmur and consternation in Australia. It’s the season for federal elections, and the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, thinks he’s in with more […]
Author: Binoy KAMPMARK
Fiendish Experiments: Trump’s Guantánamo Bay Migrant Detentions
Guantánamo Bay has been a fiendish experiment in US law for decades. The fiendishness lies in the subversion. Operating as a naval base in Cuba, this contentious facility has been the site and location for the cruelties of paranoia and empire, a place where such laws as due process are […]
Israel’s Annexation Drive: The West Bank And Expelling Palestinian Refugees
It has the feeling of a ghastly ending, one pushed along by desperation and eagerness. First, levelling Gaza and turning it to an uninhabitable moonscape, with the promise of a territory free of Palestinians. Then, displacing and destroying the already precarious holdings of Palestinian residents in the West Bank, all […]
Gloominess And Magical Thinking: The Comical, Frightening Mike Burgess
Never allow intelligence chiefs to speak publicly. Their prerogative lies in lying, their reassurance, cool deception. While the attractions of transparency are powerful, the result of a garrulous spook is always going to be unreliable. In Australia, a comically looking individual by the name of Mike Burgess terrorises and terrifies […]
Cowardice And Cancellation: Creative Australia And The Venice Biennale
Cowardice is the milk that runs in the veins of many event organisers, especially when it comes to those occasions that might provoke the unmanaged unexpected. The same organisers will claim to be open minded, accommodating to stirring debate, and open to what is trendily termed in artistic lingo as […]
Far From Benign: The US Aid Industrial Complex
The US aid program began in earnest in the early stages of the Cold War, with an intention to beat off the contenders from the Soviet bloc in the postcolonial world. President Harry S. Truman proposed, in his 1949 inaugural address, “a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific […]
Cutting The Ghost Budget: Elon Musk Versus The Pentagon
The rampaging antics of a querulous, sociopathic tech oligarch as he busies himself identifying which government departments to raid, trim, if not abolish altogether, understandably concerns those in the business of government. And there is much to be concerned about with Elon Musk’s merrily psychotic scything as chief of the […]
A Thief’s Mentality: Trump, Real Estate and Dreams of Ethnic Cleansing
President Donald J. Trump likes teasing out the unmentionable, and the Israel-Palestinian situation was hardly going to be any different. With a touch of horror and the grotesque, he offered a solution to the issue of what would happen to Gaza at the conclusion of hostilities. In a White House […]
Why Fly in Europe? The Dark Triumph Of The Ryanair Effect
It has had a rebarbative, blighting effect across the entire aviation industry. The Ryanair model, for want of a better term, prides itself on minimal, no-frills service for eye popping prices. The Irish-based low-cost carrier was intended to revolutionise European air travel by offering a budget option for the eager […]
Trump, Tariffs And Russia: A Very Muddled Policy
It has become something of a fixation in the Donald Trump war chest of options that cowing, discomforting and baffling his various counterparts on the international scene with tariffs is bound to work at every corner. Certainly, when it comes to allies, the potency of such announcements is magnified. Nation […]
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