On November 30, the French baguette was formally added to the United Nations’ Intangible Cultural Heritage list. The bureaucrats had finally gotten hold of a glorified bread stick, adding it to their spreadsheet list of cultural items worthy of preservation. A delighted French President took the moment to gloat at the French Embassy in Washington. “In these few centimetres passed from hand to hand lies the spirit of French know-how,” stated a glowing Emmanuel Macron. The list, for which UNESCO is responsible for observing, includes some 678 traditions from 140 countries. The Slovenians have beekeeping, for instance; Tunisia has harissa;…
Author: Dr. Binoy Kampmark
The US military industrial complex has made news with another eye-wateringly expensive product, a near totemic tribute to waste in a time of crisis. The $700 million B-21 Raider stealth bomber was unveiled by Northrop Grumman Corp. and the United States Air Force on December 2 at Airforce Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. There was much slush and fudge about the project, with its release being treated as something akin to the Second Coming. Those in public relations were kept particularly busy. Social media was shamelessly used to advertise the event, which was livestreamed. “Join now for our live reveal…
Gérard Araud was not mincing his words. As France’s former ambassador to Washington, he had seen enough. At a November 14 panel hosted by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft titled “Is America Ready for a Multipolar Word?”, Araud decried the “economic warfare” being waged by the United States against China, expressing the view that Europe was concerned by the evident “containment policy” being pursued. Araud is very much the diplomat establishment figure, having also served as French representative to the United Nations from 2009 to 2014. But despite his pedigree, he was most keen to fire off a few…
The unflinching US effort to extradite and prosecute Julian Assange for 18 charges, 17 of which are chillingly based upon the Espionage Act of 1917, has not always stirred much interest in the publisher’s home country. Previous governments have been lukewarm at best, preferring to mention little in terms of what was being done to convince Washington to change course in dealing with Assange. Before coming to power, Australia’s current Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had made mention of wishing to conclude the Assange affair. In December 2019, before a gathering at the Chifley Research Centre, he described the publisher as…
When lost to climatic disaster and environmental turbulence, where does a whole nation go? History speaks about movements of people, whether induced by human agency or environment, finding sanctuary and refuge on other terrains, or perishing altogether. In the case of the Pacific Island state of Tuvalu, the response is seemingly digital or, as its officials prefer to call it, creating the Digital Nation. This particular entity, according to its government, will operate in the increasingly fashionable idea of the metaverse, a 3D virtual space marked by avatars of ourselves roaming through immersive experiences. This does not sound particularly useful…
It did not take much. The initial promises of protest from a number of footballers and their teams at the Qatar FIFA World Cup were always suspect and hollow. There was Denmark’s less than impressive form of camouflaged protest via merchandise, supposedly defiant with its logo free monochrome colours. There was the barely threatening promise that armbands about love would be worn. Then came Australia’s own uniquely celluloid performance: videos from the players claiming sympathy with the various efforts made by Qatar in improving the record on human rights in various areas yet frowning about the fact that more could…
It has been one noisy time for the paladins of big tech. Jobs have been shed by the thousands at Meta, Amazon and Twitter; FTX, the second largest cryptocurrency company, has collapsed. Then came the conviction of Elizabeth Holmes, founder of the healthcare company Theranos, for fraud. Pursuing the steps of the college drop-out turned billionaire, Holmes claimed that her company had remarkable technology, capable of diagnosing a number of medical conditions from a mere drop of blood. The ruse of the blood analyzer known as the Theranos Sample Processing Unit (TSPU), Edison or minilab, worked – at least for…
Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, the most famous 52-year-old brat of the world football federation, has not been much in the news of late. Such creatures of authority do their best (and worst) work in the shadows. But given that the FIFA Men’s World Cup is upon us, he thought it wise to address a few issues that had irked his pure, troubled self. They were addressed to the naysayers and critics, those critical of Qatar’s human rights record, its approach to sexual minorities, its lamentable labour safety record, its successful bribing efforts to secure the bid in the first…
Poor, silly, protuberant Mike Pompeo. The stocky, irritated former CIA director and former Secretary of State is rather upset that those who worked under him dared wag their tongues about Julian Assange. The wagging so happened to relate to contemplated plans of abduction and assassination, something the US executive formally disallows though permits via various devious mechanisms. It’s not every day that officials of the Central Intelligence Agency open up about their operations but on the occasion of the Yahoo! News report, it was clear that Assange had driven a number to sheer distraction. Had these security types caught the…
Wars tend to bury facts. What comes out of them is often a furiously untidy mix of accounts that, when considered later, constitute wisps of fantasy and presumption. Rarely accepted in the heat of battle is the concept of mistake: that a weapon was wrongly discharged or errantly hit an unintended target; a deployment that went awry; or that the general was drunk when an order was given. Wars invite ludicrous tall tales and lies with sprinting legs. In the Ukraine War, where accurate information has almost ceased to be relevant (unless you believe the sludge from any one side),…
It all speaks to scale: the attorney generals of 40 states within the US clubbing together to charge Google for misleading users. On this occasion, the conduct focused on making users assume they had turned off the location tracking function on their accounts even as the company continued harvesting data about them. The $391.5 billion settlement was spearheaded by Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum and Nebraska Attorney General Doug Petersen. “For years Google has prioritized profit over their users’ privacy,” stated Rosenblum. “They have been crafty and deceptive. Consumers thought they had turned off their location tracking features on Google,…
Peter Malinauskas, the South Australian Premier, has been the latest convert to the LIV Golf circuit, showing little to no awareness about where the lion’s share of funding is coming from. When confronted with that, he paddles away the prospect of being compromised. With LIV Golf Adelaide, scheduled for April 21-23 next year, he has made an undeniable statement on priorities. The press release from the premier’s office claimed that the rights to host the LIV Golf event had been “hotly contested” (governments across the world are gagging for it – queue up and wait your turn). It would take…
To get to where they are, imperial powers will deceive, dissimulate and distort. The US imperium, that most awesome of devilish powers, has tentacled itself across the globe, often unbeknownst to its own citizens. In a report released by the New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center of Justice titled Secret War: How the US Uses Partnerships and Proxy Forces to Wage War Under the Radar, there is little to shock, though much to be concerned about. The author of the report contends that the list of countries supplied by the Pentagon on US military partnerships is a savagely…
It’s a grotesque, ceremonial observance, marked by a degree of unpardonable acceptance. The First World War, which killed millions, extirpated classes in Europe, and destroyed monarchies, established a mawkish ritual that serves to continue, rather than prevent war. The more one grieves for the slaughtered and the brain frozen folly, the more one hopes for the next round of bloodletting, criminal stupidity. No surprise, then, that the occasion of commemorations are now filled with the anticipation for another war waged by the enfeebled of thought. There is the horrendous bloody unfolding of the Ukraine conflict, but other powers would also…
A trolley load of books, chapters and treatises have been written on the subject of sovereignty. Usually, the concept entails control and power, the latter a corollary of the former. In international law, sovereignty finds some form of expression in the Montevideo Convention of 1933 but can hardly be seen as exhaustive. In truth, the concept is a fruit-salad and medley, an “organized hypocrisy”, as Stephen D. Krasner describes it. All of this leaves some room for the pantomime element sovereignty might allow: the eccentric who declares his own principality; the refusenik determined to avoid the taxing authorities; the clerical…
Soon, the US government may be making waves regarding another extradition request for a figure connected with that oft exaggerated notion of national security. While the high profile and insidious effort to extradite Julian Assange from the United Kingdom continues, the case of former US pilot, Marine Corps major and flight instructor Daniel Edmund Duggan has crossed the radar of reporters and international lawyers. On October 21, Duggan was arrested by Australian authorities in the New South Wales town of Orange at the request of Washington. He appeared in Orange Local Court and was refused bail. After his formal tenure…
They are falling like ninepins, and the Tories have now given the weary people of Britain yet another prime minister. And what a catch: stupendously wealthy, youthful – the youngest in two centuries – and a lawbreaker. As Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government of Boris Johnson, he was fined for breaches during the partygate scandal, despite telling the Commons that he had attended no illegal gatherings. The statement released in response to the fine was ice cool, belying the fact that he had become the first Chancellor ever charged with an offence while in office. “I understand that…
While the levels of schadenfreude will be going through the roof given the unfolding farce in British politics, the resignation of Liz Truss as UK Prime Minister was troubling in one vital respect. True, her juvenile salad understanding of economics, which involved spending billions on tax cuts and energy subsidies, was lamentable. To cope with the beast of aggressive inflation, she was advocating a policy that would feed it. Then came the not-very-invisible hand of the market, which decided to throttle her government and its policies with petulance. While the vigilantes of the market have, depending on the occasion, burst…
How do you bury responsibility for a decision inspired by a pilfered idea? Blame someone else, especially if that person came up with the idea to begin with. This tried method of distraction was used with invidious gusto by US President John F. Kennedy, who recast his role in reaching an agreement with the Soviet Union during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. The stationing of Soviet nuclear-capable missiles in Cuba, and the response of the Kennedy administration, took the world to the precipice of nuclear conflict. Its avoidance, as things transpired, involved dissimulation, deception and good, old-fashioned defamation. In…
For a time, the confused and muddled approach from Australian football (soccer to some) did much of a side-step regarding the human rights imbroglio and Qatar’s hosting of the FIFA World Cup. There was ample cash and participation in one of the world’s biggest tournaments on the line. There was FIFA’s reluctance that footballing sides show any political streak; such figures, it was hoped, should best focus on kicking a ball on a pitch. And then there was the sport itself. Here was a chance to take football to the desert reaches and build new bastions. Qatar, for its part,…
Bogeyman politics tends to be flatly unimaginative. The image of the nuclear-mad Russian President, counting his diminishing options, has caught the imagination of press and propaganda outlets across the West. Will Mad Vlad go the distance and deploy a nuclear weapon in Ukraine? Certainly, his rhetoric suggests the possibility. Vladimir Putin has promised to “make use of all weapon systems available to us” in the event Russia’s territorial integrity is threatened. Moving Russian doctrine away from using nuclear weapons to defend the state’s existence to defending “territorial integrity” suggests an expeditious revision. But let us not simply focus on the…
Ethics and Eric Schmidt are rare bedfellows. The former Google/Alphabet CEO/Chairman exudes a sense of predatory self-interest, always making the point that what he wants aligns with what is supposedly good for the United States. He has splashed money on numerous projects, including such artificial intelligence outfits as Rebellion Defense, all the time maintaining uncomfortably close ties to the government advisory circuit. For years, he has been hectoring the Department of Defense to uncritically embrace AI, in other words, machine-learning technology. “You absolutely suck at machine learning,” Schmidt boldly told General Raymond Thomas in July 2016, head of US Special…
It was telling. Of the mainstream Australian press gallery, only David Crowe of the Sydney Morning Herald turned up to listen to Jennifer Robinson, lawyer extraordinaire who has spent years representing Julian Assange. Since 2019, that representation has taken an even more urgent note: to prevent the WikiLeaks founder from being extradited to the United States, where he faces 18 charges, 17 confected from the archaic Espionage Act of 1917. In addressing the Australian National Press Club, Robinson’s address, titled “Julian Assange, Free Speech and Democracy”, was a grand recapitulation of the political case against the WikiLeaks founder. Followers of…
“When are you going to govern? The only thing you have governed for the past year is your own survival.” Jess Phillips, Labour MP, October 20, 2022 British politics has revealed hidden depths, each one being sought as each prime minister succumbs. The announcement by Liz Truss that she would be resigning came after a mere 45 days in office. In terms of duration, this would make her the shortest serving PM since the Tory George Canning, who died of tuberculosis in August 1827 after holding office for 119 days. The sequence of events from the moment Truss entered Downing…
Sports stars are often adored like dumb show animals, suitably pretty, happily disposed to the cause they are paid for. For the FIFA Men’s World Cup being held in Qatar next month, football can count on the face of former English star David Beckham as its prized animal. This month, the principle-free player signed a 10-year contract worth £150 million to be the state’s culture and tourism ambassador. For a Gulf state with an appalling human rights record, be it in terms of mistreating migrant workers, discriminating against women and criminalising homosexuality, this was quite a coup. In a promotional…
Time for some dark amusement. Rising water levels are being recorded in Victoria and New South Wales. Homes and businesses have been inundated before swelling rivers. And Australia’s former Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, is being advertised in his latest private engagement as a global visionary of vast influence. The snake oil merchants on this occasion are not from his office but hail from the Worldwide Speakers Group, a motley, miscellaneous tribe of uneven quality that includes such members as former US Vice-President Mike Pence and former US Speaker Newt Gingrich. “After extensive research and due diligence,” Morrison stated, “I am…
“The Tory Party is like a knight dying in his armour.” Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday, Oct 16, 2022 Liz Truss is proving to be the architect of her own spectacular demise. She laid the mines in a fit of drunken ecstasy and decided to skip across them with an almost childish arrogance that has stunned her own party members. Along the way, a few have gone off, doing her what can only be regarded as terminal political damage. The effort to shift sole responsibility for the abysmal economic plan on tax cuts outlined in the “mini-Budget” to her…
As a prince, the new British monarch developed some curious attitudes to architecture. He also proved to be a dedicated meddler behind building projects he did not like. Combined, this led to a number of interventions that cast a shadow over his accession to the throne. What will Charles III do when it comes to the next grand building proposal to interrupt the London skyline? On the evening of May 30, 1984, the then Prince Charles told leading architects assembled at Hampton Court to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Royal Institute of British Architects how exactly he felt about…
Demographic angst is a terrifying thing, especially to leaders concerned about poor returns from horizontal folk dancing. Viktor Orbán of Hungary is particularly apprehensive that precious Hungarian blood is not being propagated, facing dilution, if not disappearance, from hordes of swarthy immigrants from the Middle East and Africa. In Italy, the country’s imminent first female prime minister is much of that same view. Giorgia Meloni speaks about being a “woman, mother [and] Christian” with messianic purpose: to defend “God, country and family”. The stress is on mother virtue rather than female rights, the latter only being relevant when it comes…
On the latest slimed path Julian Assange has been made to trod, a few things have presented themselves. The rusty sword of Damocles may be suspended above him (he, we are informed, has contracted COVID-19), but there are those, in the meantime, willing to defend him with decent conviction against his dispatch to the United States, where he is certain to perish. From the side of decent conviction and steadfastness came the October 8 protests across a number of cities, attended by thousands. A human chain numbering some 7,000 persons formed around the Houses of Parliament in London demanding the…
