Criminalising Journalism: Australia’s National Security Craze
There has been a lot of noise made in Australia about the need for broader protections when it comes to the fourth estate and the way it covers national security…
Dr Binoy Kampmark
Killing Koalas: The Promise of Extinction Down Under
The British conservationist Gerald Durrell once remarked that the koala was “the most boring of animals”. Its brain size, proportionally the smallest of any mammal, evolved to cope with its…
The Kafkaesque Imperium: Julian Assange and the Second Superseding Indictment
The Kafkaesque Imperium has taken yet another absurd step towards mean absurdity with another superseding indictment against Julian Assange. This move by the US Department of Justice seems to have…
A Trendy Rage: Boycotting Facebook and the Stop Hate for Profit Campaign
Rage can be that most trendy of things, and social media rage has become modish. If you dislike something, scream it in a certain number of characters and post it…
Indicting Hashim Thaçi: The Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor’s Office Gets Busy
When it comes to the touchy, violent matter of Kosovar affairs, history keeps company with the devils of nationalism and vengeance. Serbia remains scornful of the aspirations of the territory,…
Bolton’s Memoir Bolts from the Stable
President Donald Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton would have been confident. His indulgent The Room Where it Happened: A White House Memoir pitted him against the administration in…
Obvious Maladies: Prepublication Reviews and Trump’s Bolton Problem
Again, they cheered, and again, the Schadenfreude chorus sounded off key. It was another atrocious week for US President Donald Trump, whose efforts to prevent the publication of his former…
Reverse Logic: Trump Sanctions the International Criminal Court
The decision by the Trump administration to sanction members of the International Criminal Court defies logic, in so far as there is any logic to sanctions. As a policy tool,…
The Conviction of Maria Ressa: Press Freedom in the Philippines
It has long been said that countries in Southeast Asia take a dim view of the fourth estate. Various legal measures have been deployed against those irritable scribblers over the…
Sticks, Stones and Death in Galwan Valley
Things along the Indian-Chinese border in the Himalayas have rarely lacked interest, notably along the secretive, heavily patrolled 3,488 km Line of Actual Control. Neither China nor India have ever…
The Narrative of the Leakers: Collateral Murder and the Assange Indictment
When the superseding indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia against Julian Assange on May 23, 2019, there was one glaring omission. It…
Trump at West Point: Un-Policing the World
Donald Trump claims to be the law-and-order president of the United States. There does not seem much sign of this as the stitching of the Republic gets undone. Protestors have…
Corrupt Propositions: AstraZeneca, Public Institutions and the Coronavirus Vaccine Drive
Putting your destiny into the hands of a drug company is much like seeking reassurances from an opportunistic pimp. The returns are bound to mixed, dressed up in deceptive language. …
Open Wounds: Sweden Drops the Olof Palme Case
It’s the sort of thing that ruffled the image of a composed and tranquil existence. In some countries, doing away with political leaders is a periodic affair, deemed necessary to…
Altars of Hypocrisy: George Floyd, Protest and Black Face
Be wary what you protest about. The modern moral constabulary are out, and they are assisted by their Silicon Valley friends in the Social Media club. Should you dare take…
Radical Reforms: Disbanding Police Forces in the US
“I’ve been saying for the last several years … American policing is at a crossroads.” Mike Cutone, former Massachusetts officer, June 5, 2020 If you can envisage the commencement of…
Let’s Burn the Whole Thing Down: Death, Protest and George Floyd
Mobs are unruly, headless things. The message is the action. The platform is often violence. But what is happening across the United States cannot simply be labelled as a looting-leads-to-shooting…
Sinister Flatulence: Trump versus Twitter
Sawing off the branch you sit on can hardly be the best of policies. But that all depends on the nature of the branch. US President Donald Trump has huffed…
Battles over Barley: Australia, China and the Tariff Wars
It promised to be bruising to both dignity and wallet. However brazen Australian politicians have been drumming up support for an international inquiry into the origins of the novel coronavirus,…
Why Thinking Makes it So: Donald Trump’s Obamagate Fixation
The “gate” suffix has been wearing thin since the break-in scandal that gave it its birth. Since Watergate, virtually anything dubious and suggestive, and much more besides, is suffixed. Which…
Inglorious Bastardry: Hacking for Vaccines
If you cannot discover or create something, best steal it. It has been the operating principle for everything from wealth to technology. With the efforts to discover a vaccine to…
The Mouse Roars: Australia, China and a Coronavirus Independent Inquiry
Australia matters little when it comes to international muscle. It is the retainer and pretender of power, a middle-distance runner who runs out of puff on the final stride. The…
The Liabilities of History: The Dangers of Pandemic Compensation
Smug assertions of liability in history are often incautious things. They constitute a fruit salad mix: assertions of the wishful thinkers; hopes of the crazed; the quest of genuinely aggrieved…
Patriotic Vaccines: The Divided Coronavirus Cause
When it comes to the politics of medicine and disease, the United States has always attempted to steal the limelight, while adding the now faded colouring of universal human welfare. …
Tara Reade, the Democrats and Joe Biden’s Woman Problem
The Me Too movement was meant to be more than a howl or rage with a trending hash tag. It was a surge that threatened to pulverise all before it,…
Muting Justice: Rescheduling Julian Assange’s Hearing
“When we think of the repression of journalists, we automatically evoke foreign lands. We rarely, however, evoke or remember our own dissidents.” Peter Oborne, Middle East Eye, May 5, 2020…
Pandemic Revisionism: The George W. Bush Whitewash
“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful. And so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people. And neither do we.” President George…
The Rohingya in Malaysia: Coronavirus and Alibis for Paranoia
Rounding up undocumented workers, migrant and refugees is part of a brutal order of things in Malaysia. When matters economic are going well, authorities turn the blindest of eyes. The…
Brutal Choices: Anders Tegnell and Sweden’s Herd Immunity Goal
If the title of epidemiological czar were to be created, its first occupant would have to be Sweden’s Anders Tegnell. He has held sway in the face of sceptics and…
Harvard’s Fossil Fuels Formula: Engagement before Withdrawal
“Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it,” urged the Earl of Chesterfield in a letter of advice to his son penned in 1749. …
Pandemic Delays: Postponing the Assange Extradition Hearing
“Mr Assange will be facing a David and Goliath battle with his hands tied behind his back.” Edward Fitzgerald QC, lawyer for Julian Assange, April 27, 2020 Julian Assange must…
Despots and Disease: Gossiping over Kim Jong-Un
Illness can often fall into the category of the obsessive, becoming a sport for mugs, sufferers and observers alike. The following often feature: the hypochondriac, the speculator of disease, the…
An Odd Little Commemoration: ANZAC Mythology during Coronavirus
War commemorations nurse a dirty secret, though it is one displayed with a peacock flourish. The victors bring out the celebratory paraphernalia and talk about noble ideas; the defeated, quite…
Climbing the Revenue Mountain: Google, Facebook and the Publishers’ Right
They are rather good at raking in the cash; rather poor at sharing it. Google and Facebook have radiated, strafed and shrivelled hundreds of news outlets across the globe with…
Donald Trump’s Governor Problem: Debates on Opening Up the Economy
Things are getting dizzy in the White House on what, exactly, is being done to “open the economy”. Cranky advocates for the financial argument over the restrictions of public health…
The Coronavirus Liability Craze: Holding China Accountable
Politicians, as any political class, will nurse their favourite prejudice. And when there is a crisis, those prejudices will be fanned and praised to the heavens. For some politicians, who…
Cutting the Funding: The WHO, Trump and the Coronavirus Wars
The US president is in a warring mood. Having declared himself a president at war, a meaningless gesture given that the US is always, somewhere in the world, at war,…
The Fire Fauci Brigade
The intemperate volcano that is the US President has done much to burn its way through prominent appointments. As the title of former GOP strategist Rick Wilson’s book goes, Everything…
Hell is Other People: Pandemic Lifestyles and Domestic Violence
In No Exit, the translated title of Jean-Paul Sartre’s play, Huis Clos, three deceased characters find themselves in a room, ostensibly in Hell, in what transpires as a permanent wait. …
Worshiping and Defiling Britain’s NHS
Tories worshipping Britain’s National Health System are akin to fanatical carnivores who suddenly extol the virtues of vegans. Has the grave response to COVID-19 signalled a change of heart? In…
Julian Assange: One Year In Belmarsh
It should not be a matter of distinction, but Julian Assange is a figure who is becoming the apotheosis of political imprisonment. This seems laughable to those convinced he is…
The Coronavirus State: New Zealand and Authoritarian Rumblings
It’s all about the lever of balance. Laws made for public protection, within which public health features prominently, provide grounds for derogation authorities can exploit. Like plasticine, the scope of…
A Victory for the Fogeys: Bernie Sanders Drops Out
Champagne corks will be popping in the Trump Empire, for good reason. Whatever happens come November, the exit of Senator Bernie Sanders from the US presidential race will be a…
Julian Assange and Lockdown Injustice
Scribes of the Julian Assange case must surely gawk with a sense of horrified wonder at each proceeding unfolding at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London. Assange is in a…
Banal Terrors: Pandemics and the Ordinary Business of War
The twaddle of framing the confrontation of the coronavirus as a “war” has proven to be a cheapening, misguided exercise. France’s president Emmanuel Macron has deemed COVID-19 the “invisible, elusive…
Coronavirus Socialism for the Wealthy
When capitalism screeches to a halt and starts its old business of killing off the adventurous but weakened, the enterprising but foolish, those who initially benefited, shed tears. Losses mount,…
University Bailouts, Funding and Coronavirus
In a set of stable circumstances, funding higher education should be a matter of automatic persuasion. If you want an educated populace, the tax payer should muck in. In some…
Boastful Pay Cuts: The Coronavirus Incentive
It has become a source of pride. Highly salaried executives – often, it should be said, receiving pay very much disconnected from the value of their work – making voluntary…
Signing in and Dropping Out: Coronavirus and the Virtual University
It was made with little thought but a good deal of high-minded urgency: Evacuate your office, take what you can, and prepare for the virtual world. Fill in a form,…
The Swedish Alternative: Coronavirus as a Grand Gamble
As draconian lockdowns, punitive regimes and surveillance become the norm of the coronavirus world, Sweden has treaded more softly in the field. This is certainly in contrast to its Scandinavian…
An Inglorious Opportunity: Coronavirus and Emergency Powers
There has been a hurried spate of cancellations and suspensions of elections across the globe because of the risk posed by COVID-19. The trend is unsurprising. In the age of…
Barbaric Decisions: Coronavirus, Refusing Bail and Julian Assange
“To expose another human being to serious illness, and to the threat of losing their life, is grotesque and quite unnecessary. This is not justice, it is a barbaric decision.”…
Coronavirus and the Prison Industrial Complex
The legacy of the coronavirus pandemic, at least in so far as responses are concerned, is thickening by the day. Behavioural changes are being urged, language is rapidly evolving (spot…
Business as Usual: Coronavirus, Iran and US Sanctions
Never discount the importance of venality in international relations. While pandemics should provide the glue for a unified front in response – we keep being told of fighting this horrendous…
The Pandemic Surveillance State
In anticipation of the post-COVID-19 world, bold statements are being made on how we will, as a race, be wiser, even kinder; cautious, and reflective. If history is ever a…
Moralising Hoarding, Panic Buying and Coronavirus
Hoarding as moral aberration and ethical breach: the term has recently become the subject of scorn in coronavirus chatter. In terms of mental disorders, it is “characterized by persistent difficulty…
Viral Reactions: The Smugness of Celebrity Self-Isolation
The rush to elevate self-isolation to Olympian heights as a way to combat the spread of COVID-19 has gotten to the celebrities. Sports figures are proudly tweeting and taking pictures…
Surf the Internet Instead: Britannic Herd Immunity and Coronavirus
Epidemiologist William Hanage was more than perplexed by the plan. “When I heard about Britain’s ‘herd immunity’ coronavirus plan,” he reflected in The Guardian, “I thought it was satire.” Much…
The Taliban Scores a Coup
It threatened to disappear under the viral haze of COVID-19, but February 29 saw representatives from the US and Taliban, loftily acknowledged as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, sign the…
The Release of Chelsea Manning
Chelsea Manning’s release last Thursday by order of Virginia District Court judge Anthony Trenga had an air of oddness to it. “The court finds Ms. Manning’s appearance before the Grand…
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