Incompetent politicians and diplomats are on the level with ill-prepared generals fighting current wars with dated methods. They err, they stumble, and they may well be responsible for the next idiotic slander, misfire or misunderstanding. UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is synonymous with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s idea of groping […]
Author: Binoy KAMPMARK
Compulsory Voting And Its Antipodean Ills
Time and time again, we are told that making people vote improves representation and representativeness. Herding them on pain of penalty will somehow keep politics honest, and ensure that those in Parliament, or whatever chamber it may be, will be kept accountable. Imagine how awful it is to have a […]
Hemispheric Gangsterism: The US Embargo Against Cuba Turns 60
It all seems worn, part of an aspic approach to foreign policy. But US President Joe Biden is keen to ensure that old, and lingering mistakes, retain their flavour. Towards Cuba, it is now 60 years since President John F. Kennedy’s Presidential Proclamation 3447 imposed an embargo on all trade […]
With Intent To Harm: The CIA, Schizophrenia And Denmark’s Children
It has become common fare to read ghoulish stories of child abuse in institutions supposedly created to care for the vulnerable. Orphanages, homes, religious orders have tended to feature, along with their assortments of innumerable sadists and pederasts. But in December, another institution caused ripples for its alleged role in […]
Serbia Stomps On Rio Tinto’s Lithium Mining Project
On the face of it, there seems to be little in the way of connection between the treatment of Novak Djokovic by Australian authorities and the cooling of the Serbian government towards Rio Tinto. The Anglo-Australian mining giant was confident that it would, at least eventually, win out in gaining […]
Off To The Supreme Court: Assange’s Appeal Continues
With December’s High Court decision to overturn the lower court ruling against the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States, lawyers of the WikiLeaks founder immediately got busy. The next avenue of appeal, strewn less with gold than obstacles, would be to the Supreme Court. The central question remained: […]
Nostalgia at the AUKMIN Talks: Britain’s Forces Eye Australia
Give the man credit where it’s due. Few could possibly be congratulated for selling the sovereignty of a country in full view of its citizenry, but Peter Dutton, former Queensland copper turned sadistic Home Affairs minister turned Defence Minister, is very capable of it. Australia promises to become a throbbing […]
Surrender, Accommodation And RATs
The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test has been the mainstay of COVID-19 testing. But reliance upon such a regime, which requires the administration of middlingly competent personnel at appropriate testing sites, has caused its fair share of global disruption. The dreaded queue, where one waits for hours only to be […]
Arise, Pandemic Profiteers
History’s annals are filled with war profiteers and hustlers for the opportunistic return. They come in the form of hoarders, arms manufacturers and wily business folk making a steal on slaughter and mayhem. But the other conflict – that of battling a pandemic – has also shown that profits exist […]
One Drinks Party Too Many: Boris Johnson And Breaching Lockdowns
It might not be quite within the bounds of good taste to compare military calculations of a bridge too far – the title used in Cornelius Ryan’s work on the disastrous Allied airborne operation during the Second World War – with the latest foolish, mendacious and buffoonish efforts of UK […]
Dangerous Precedents And Hypothetical Threats: The Deportation Of Novak Djokovic
Australia’s treatment of Novak Djokovic, the tennis world number one, has been revelatory. Unintentionally, this has exposed the seedier, arbitrary and inconsistent nature of Australia’s border policies. The approval by the Australian Federal Court of the Immigration Minister Alex Hawke’s decision to re-cancel the prominent Serb’s visa left the country […]
Enduring Stain: The Guantánamo Military Prison Turns Twenty
Anniversaries for detention centres, concentration camps and torture facilities are not the relishable calendar events in the canon of human worth. But not remembering them, when they were used, and how they continue being used, would be unpardonable amnesia. On January 11, 2002, the first prisoners of the absurdly named […]
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