Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site
Forgot your password?
Subscribe

Author: Binoy Kampmark

  • INTERNATIONAL

    The failure of an idea: The Russian sanctions regime

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 22 March 2023
    3 Comments

    Any sanctions regime produces uneven effects. Economic sanctions imposed on Russia are not only unlikely to end the conflict in Ukraine, but they are having unintended consequences, encouraging Moscow to be more resourceful and leading to a shift in global energy markets. 

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Conjurer of the Infinite: Memories of Mama

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 15 February 2023
    1 Comment

    Mama was a master of the kitchen, revered for her culinary magic and domestic miracles. Her cooking was an unsurpassed conjurer of traditional Bosnian pita, a sublime miracle that drew the infinite from the minimal. Mama's death left a void of ignorance, indifference, and inability that hovered over the village, mourning the loss of an unassailable figure.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    How traditional owners won court battle against gas giant Santos

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 08 December 2022
    3 Comments

    Dennis Tipakalippa, a Manupi elder, insisted that he and fellow elders were not consulted over the environmental plan developed by Santos for the Barossa Gas Project off the Tiwi Islands. The Federal Court agreed, finding that Santos had not identified or consulted relevant traditional owners. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Scott Morrison and the Bell inquiry

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 30 November 2022
    1 Comment

    In 2020 and 2021, Scott Morrison secretly had himself appointed to administer the health, finance, treasury, home affairs and industry, science, energy and resources ministries. The newly elected Prime Minister Anthony Albanese charged Former High Court judge Virginia Bell with the task of investigating the affair.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Amoral putting: The LIV Golf circuit comes to Adelaide

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 24 November 2022
    5 Comments

    LIV Golf chief executive officer Greg Norman, financed by the pockets of the House of Saud via Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, continues the corporate march across the putting greens of the planet. Complementing the Saudi Kingdom’s funding, South Australia's Major Events Fund is contributing $40 million and in doing so, Premier Malinauskas has linked his government with a regime with a notorious human rights record. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia's OPCAT problem

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 17 November 2022
    1 Comment

    Australia’s ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT) came about as a reaction to the abuses recorded at the Northern Territory’s Don Dale youth prison. To monitor compliance with OPCAT, UN independent inspection teams are permitted to conduct unannounced visits to any place where people are deprived of liberty. But on October 24, a Corrective Services NSW spokesperson announced that inspection teams were ‘refused entry without incident’.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Camouflaged protests: The Qatar World Cup

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 25 October 2022
    2 Comments

    With the likes of David Beckham and Tim Cahill openly supporting the FIFA Men's World Cup in Qatar next month, what of those troubled sporting figures wishing to take an ethical, moral stand against a tournament’s organisers? To that end, a new, disingenuous form of protest has emerged, one of virtuous self-promotion that eschews substantive effect.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Sadness and forgetting: Queen Elizabeth II, monarchy and empire

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 20 September 2022
    7 Comments

    When more nuanced commentary around the passing of Queen Elizabeth II came to the fore, it was hard to avoid the difficult realities of the British monarchy and an institution that has not, through its history, delighted those conquered in its name. With Elizabeth II, it was notable that she let an opportunity to engage the topic of empire in Britain’s collective memory go begging.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Holy fools and flawed titans: The legacy of Mikhail Gorbachev

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 08 September 2022
    3 Comments

    Greatness for the Soviet Union’s last leader, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, was not to be found at home. Commentary on his passing is as much a statement of positions, endorsed by admiring beneficiaries, and loathed by those who fell off the train of history.  The millions who delighted seeing the collapse of the Soviet Union and, as a result, a power vacuum and weaker Russia, toast him, eyes filled with emotion. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    The Morrison shadow government and the romantics of convention

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 01 September 2022
    8 Comments

    The most striking note in the tempestuous outrage regarding Scott Morrison’s self-appointment (technically, appointment with the Governor-General’s approval) to five ministerial portfolios other than his own, is the search for the illegal. Such a search is fruitless in a system that thrives on the principle of convention, perennially uncodified and therefore susceptible to breach.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Farewell Uncle

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 17 August 2022
    1 Comment

    Uncle Boda was a figure who managed to tease out an image at one mention with his humble and unambitious doctor’s practice, for which he worked for years to obtain. He had read medicine in India, and to this day it remains unclear how long he spent trying to earn his degree.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    The UK decision to extradite Assange

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 19 July 2022
    3 Comments

    The only shock about the UK Home Secretary’s decision regarding the extradition of Julian Assange was that it did not come sooner. In April, Chief Magistrate Senior District Judge Paul Goldspring expressed the solemn view that he was ‘duty-bound’ to send the case to Priti Patel to decide on whether to extradite the WikiLeaks founder to the United States to face 18 charges, 17 grafted from the US Espionage Act of 1917, and one based on computer intrusion.

    READ MORE