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Author: Binoy Kampmark

  • AUSTRALIA

    The shadow of responsibility: Australian war crimes allegations in Afghanistan

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 24 November 2020
    21 Comments

    The discussion in Australia as to how such atrocities are to be approached is telling. The call for responsibility has varied by degrees. Most tend to some variant of the rotten apple theory: a few particularly fruits that may be isolated and extruded from the barrel. Culpability can thereby be confined, preserving the integrity of other military personnel and, importantly, political decision makers.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The US presidential election: democracy, threats and transition

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 10 November 2020
    7 Comments

    With Joe Biden securing the electoral college votes necessary to win the White House, the concern is whether the transition of power will be one marked by paroxysms of rage and disruption. Donald Trump is promising not to go quietly.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Human rights and pandemic lockdowns

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 08 September 2020
    11 Comments

    The Buhler arrest stirred a range of responses from across the political divide, many troubled. Legal representatives and human rights advocates were similarly disturbed by what they regarded as a lack of proportion and restraint in police action.

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  • MEDIA

    Google fights Australia’s proposed news code

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 20 August 2020
    2 Comments

    Google likes playing the equality-for-all card in the news business. This, from a company that behaves, across the provision of its services, monopolistically and ruthlessly.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Lawsuits over climate crisis risk

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 30 July 2020
    2 Comments

    On July 22, Katta O'Donnell filed an action in the Federal Court in Victoria hoping to make good her promise to put the government on trial for ‘misconduct’. The action notes that, ‘At all material times there has existed a significant likelihood that the climate is changing, and will continue to change, as the result of anthropogenic influences.’ Australia was ‘materially exposed and susceptible’ to the risks posed by climate change.

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  • MEDIA

    Lancet and the perils of peer review

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 16 June 2020
    5 Comments

    When a distinguished journal is caught unawares in its editorial judgment, others will cheer at the burning house. The academic business is a tough one, and at its core is an exaggerated virtue that often conceals core defects.

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  • MEDIA

    Looking back on Alan Jones

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 15 May 2020
    12 Comments

    Alan Jones has never shied away from controversy. Relentlessly pounding various positions for decades, he has remained, till his recent announcement that he would be retiring, immoveable. He ducked accusations; he prevailed in the face of storms and juggernauts. At Sydney radio station 2GB, he maintained a degree of authority from the fear of politicians.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Right to Know still has a long way to go

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 16 April 2020
    4 Comments

    The opacity of the Australian public service, and its disposition to secrecy, has left journalists in a bind. Leaks constitute the oxygen of the secret state, but publishing that material remains a dangerous affair.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    COVID-19, democracy and voting

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 31 March 2020
    4 Comments

    In Australia, every politician from Canberra to the Northern Territory is insisting on isolation measures and avoiding close contact, keeping to distances of 1.5 to 2 metres. When it comes to the very practice of democracy and political representation, the social distancing imperative has been approached with confusing inconsistency.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Protecting civil liberties in a time of COVID-19

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 10 March 2020
    6 Comments

    Authorities can also be fearful, paranoid at the unruly nature of their subjects. Public health emergencies have been declared in various countries and while these are deemed necessary, they come with the exercise of broad, muscular powers.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    ABC raid legitimised by Federal Court

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 20 February 2020
    3 Comments

    The Australian Federal Police raid on the 5th of June last year shook the Fourth Estate and, according to managing director David Anderson, ‘was seen for exactly what it was: an attempt to intimidate journalists for doing their jobs.’ It saw an unprecedented closing of ranks between journalists across the political spectrum, pursuing a campaign that came to be known as The Right to Know. Convincing the courts about this principle would prove to be something else.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    What Auschwitz means for the modern state

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 03 February 2020
    11 Comments

    This is cosmically far from saying that these are equivalent matters to the death camps of the Holocaust. But if we are to be serious about acknowledging the depravity of Auschwitz, we can at least take the lead from Katz on starting the conversation on why such events take place and do remain chillingly relevant.

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