It has gotten tongues wagging in the diplomatic corps of Beijing, Washington and distant Canberra. The opening session of the two-day summit between China and the United States in Anchorage, Alaska was ill-tempered. “We do not seek conflict,” insisted White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan from the outset, “but we welcome stiff competition, and we will always stand up for our principles, for our people, and for our friends.” There was little doubt that what followed was stiff. Particular concern was expressed regarding claims of economic coercion exerted by Beijing towards US allies, with Australia featuring. US Secretary of…
Author: Dr. Binoy Kampmark
Sensible, ideal, wonderful – if you happen to be in the European Union. This is the air of confidence surrounding the March 17 proposal for a digital COVID immunity passport, or what is officially being called the Digital Green Certificate. The Digital Green Certificate is actually a bundle of three: vaccination certificates stating the brand of vaccine used, data and place of inoculation and number of doses administered; negative test certificates (either a rapid antigen test or a NAAT/RT-PCR test); and medical certificates for those who have recovered from COVID-19 in the last 180 days. The measure is discrimination made…
Forget the global university rankings of any list. The global university promotion exercise is filled with snake oil and perfumed refuse, an effort to corrupt the unknowing and steal from the gullible. The aim here is to convince parents, potential students and academics that their institutions of white collar crime are appealing enough to warrant enrolment and employment at. Writing in 2019, Ellen Hazelkorn, who has had an eye on the rankings system for some years, observed that 18,000 university-level institutions could be found across the globe. “Those ranked within the top 500 would be within the top 3% worldwide.…
The Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is fast becoming a subject of notoriety. First, will States obtain it? Second, will they use it? The first answer has generally been affirmative, given the vaccine’s ease of storage and relative cheapness. The second is becoming increasingly difficult. Orders have been made and supplies – some of them anyway – furnished, but vials and batches are not being used. Countries are either restricting or suspending the jab. AstraZeneca finds itself mounting what can only be a round-the-clock communications battle trying to dissuade officials not to put the brakes on. Various artillery pieces have been marshalled…
The hallmark of any institution is the ability to withstand ironic dysfunction. The United States under the stewardship of that unintentional comic George W. Bush made John Bolton ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton had loathed the body, wishing for it to implode under its own weight. The parliamentary chamber of the European Union, between 1999 and 2020, hosted that most anti-EU of proponents, the bilious Nigel Farage. Hatred for European institutions did not stop the little Englander from drawing a salary and being rather cavalier with his expenses. The Organisation for Economic Development is the latest institution to encounter…
The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue has had its fits and starts, but nothing encourages such chats than threats, actual or perceived. In 2017, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono felt that it was time that a strategic dialogue between Japan, the United States, Australia and India should be revived. The Quad, as it was termed, was on the way to becoming a more serious forum, having had its tentative origins in the cooperative efforts of the four countries in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami. Formally launched in 2007, the initiative petered out. The evolution of such a forum typically begins at…
By now, anybody speaking about vaccine equality and equity of access must surely be coming across as slightly deranged. In the field of COVID-19, traditional proprietorial instincts remain. Add to this the disparity in terms of manufacture, bureaucracy and the nasty flavour of politics, and we would all be entitled to long draughts of cynicism. The COVAX (COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility) scheme, supposedly a levelling measure in ensuring global equitable and cheap access to vaccines, risks looking like a rhetorical bauble. Co-led by Gavi, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations (CEPI) and the World Health Organization (WHO), these…
The European Union has been keeping up appearances in encouraging the equitable distribution of vaccines to combat SARS-CoV-2 and its disease, COVID-19. Numerous statements speak to the need to back the COVAX scheme, to ensure equity and that no one state misses out. And EU member states could be assured of a smooth vaccine rollout, led by the EU apparatus, humming with needle jabbing efficiency. Negotiating as a bloc, lower prices could be assured, along with an appropriate supply of vaccines across the 27 member states. These initial hopes have been shredded. While the vaccination programs in Israel, the United…
Every power worth its portion of salt in the Levant these days seems to be doing it. On February 25, President Joe Biden ordered airstrikes against Syria. The premise for the attacks was implausible. “These strikes were authorized in response to recent attacks against American and Coalition personnel in Iraq,” claimed Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, “and to ongoing threats to those personnel.” More specifically, the strikes were in retaliation for rocket attacks in northern Iraq on the airport of Erbil that left a Filipino contractor working for the US military dead and six others injured, including a Louisiana National Guard…
The Australian Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, was unconvincing in his efforts to summon up courage. The Australian government had been left reeling in the wake of Facebook’s decision to scrap and block Australians from sharing and posting news items on hosted pages. The company’s target of opprobrium: the News Media Bargaining Code. The Code’s ostensible purpose is to address the inequalities in the news market place by pushing digital giants and news outlets into reaching commercial deals. Failing to do so will lead to final offer arbitration between the parties, where the independent arbitrator selects one of the deals on offer. …
It was a fittingly poor conclusion to a tournament that risked being cancelled, run to ground, or even rendered stillborn. The tennis world number one, Novak Djokovic, had captured his eighteenth grand slam against would-be usurper Daniil Medvedev, whose winning streak of twenty matches was conclusively blotted. The victory was achieved before a crowd filled with vocal Serbian supporters, flags fluttering, a number sporting the šubara, a rather odd thing to wear given the warm temperature (symbolism will resist climate) and the šajkača cap with insignia associated with the Chetnik irregulars who fought in the Second World War under the…
Creepy and ruthless Facebook has again impressed with its steely indifference to civic responsibility, as if a company established by a sociopath could ever be a model of human improvement. On February 18, Mark Zuckerberg’s antisocial company took aim at Australia by blocking those in that country from sharing local and international content. As the company notice to those trying to share material went: “In response to Australian government legislation, Facebook generally restricts the posting of news links and all post from news Pages in Australia. Globally, the posting and sharing of news links from Australian publications is restricted.” As…
The Queen Victoria Market in Australia’s second largest city, Melbourne, is usually a thriving affair. Like any ancient agora, people travel to meet there, purchase fresh produce, and natter. The fruit and vegetable vendors are all colour, a profusion of smells and noise. The meat market heaves with patrons keen to snap up deals; the deli dazzles with kaleidoscopic seduction. The noise, usually towards the latter part of the day, is a din of offers. “One-dollar bag! One-dollar bag!” Over the course of the latest lockdown in Victoria – its third since the coronavirus pandemic began – calls for the…
Few could have been slack-jawed at the first significant foreign policy speech of US President Joe Biden. It can easily be filed under the “America is back” label. Back as well, as if the previous administration had been incapable of it, was a promise for that practice unflatteringly called jaw-jaw. “Diplomacy,” the President states from the outset, “is back at the centre of our foreign policy.” Doing so naturally meant much cap doffing to the US State Department, that long time enunciator of Washington’s imperial policies. President Donald Trump had held a rather different view of the department he generally…
Who knew what? In many cases of sexual assault in politics, events take place behind bolted doors, the perpetrator and victim bound by ties of power, seediness and suppression. The victim is left with an odious and onerous task: to report the event. The risks can be considerable. Careers can be ruined. Retaliation from the political tribe can be remorseless. Parliaments present a paradox. Encrusted with surveillance, crawling with security, safety would surely be guaranteed for all who work within their walls. But the environment of power, ambition and conspiracy lends itself to hierarchies, asymmetries, and inequalities. Politicians find themselves…
Governments have an almost crippling trouble appreciating conflicts of interest. Since tentacle-heavy lobby groups decided to move into the world’s capitals to make the case for their clients, the revolving door has become the sickening feature of politics. Former bureaucrats, public service officials and elected representatives find few problems with joining the very lobby groups that once pressured them to change policy. This seamless movement of sewerage makes accountable governance a hag and transparency a bed-bound dream. The indifference shown by political wonks and private sector lobbyists to this practice is reflected in an abundant literature that is enchanted by…
In the first month of 2020, Forbes was all excited about fresh opportunities for plunder and conquest. Titled “2020: The Year We Will Conquer Mars”, the contribution by astrophysicist Paul M. Sutter was less interested in the physics than the conquest. A potentially very crowded scene was described. Various countries would send their cluttering devices to “orbit, rove, sample, dig, and probe as much of that precious red dirt as they can, delivering untold (scientific) wealth and scope out potential future landings sites.” This year is already proving ferociously busy, with orbiters and rovers being deployed to map and extract…
It began as a shudder through the scientific and public health establishments. A new variant of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 had been found, mutating in South African climes, potentially outwitting human responses to it. Vaccines such as Oxford-AstraZeneca’s would have to be brushed up. Rollouts would have to be reconsidered. The South African variant has been given a few designations: 501Y.V2 or B.1.351. Within it lies a mutation –N501Y – which suggests a greater degree of contagiousness. Another, E484k, might bypass the human immune system, thereby blunting the effectiveness of the vaccines. A study on the effectiveness of the Pfizer…
With changes of presidential administrations, radical departures in policy are always exaggerated. Continuity remains, for the most part, a standard feature. It is precisely that continuity being challenged by groups fearful of the continuing prosecution of Julian Assange. The effort by the US Justice Department to extradite Assange from the UK on eighteen charges based on the Espionage Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act met a stumbling block in the courts on January 4 this year. The decision by District Judge Vanessa Baraitser proved exceedingly unsympathetic to the press and to Assange in general, but found his “the…
It’s looking a touch quixotic, but the News Media Bargaining Code has become Australia’s weapon of choice in attempting to redistribute proceeds from big tech into the coffers of a withering fourth estate. It has now reached a point of sufficient concern for Google as to become threatening, winding its way to a Senate Committee Inquiry before going to Parliament for a vote. The Code aims to remunerate news media businesses for content they generate that is subsequently found through searches on digital platforms. The body behind its drafting, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, states that it would “address…
Clever diplomacy rarely involves total commitment or unqualified fidelity to any one state. Treacherous waters require careful navigation, an understanding of shifty and shifting allegiances. The goal for the prudent statesperson is the pursuit of self-interest without alienation. In that regard, Papua New Guinea is proving increasingly interesting, finding itself between playground thugs with varying degrees of form. It has refused to cold shoulder the People’s Republic of China, signing to its Belt and Road Initiative. It also continues to accept the patronising largesse from Australia, a country increasingly hostile to Beijing’s ambitions in the Asia-Pacific. Last week, the Australian…
International tribunals tend to be praised, in principle, by those they avoid investigating. Once interest shifts to those parties, such bodies become the subject of accusations: bias, politicisation, crude arbitrariness. The United States, whose legal and political personnel have expended vast resources on the machinery of international courts and jurisprudence, remains cold to the International Criminal Court. The sceptics have tended to win out in Washington, restraining any consent to its jurisdiction. The Trump administration made a point of imposing sanctions on court staff, specifically targeting chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, whose entry visa to the US was revoked. The moves…
It has happened again. This time, a diligent worker, having followed all the protocols given to him, had returned a positive result for COVID-19. The 26-year-old had been serving as a resident support officer in the Australian Open quarantine program in Melbourne, Victoria. Yet for all that, he still could not avoid contracting the virus. Not knowing so, he visited no less than 14 exposure sites, including various supermarkets and stores, before showing symptoms. A discouraging pattern is emerging from Australia’s hotel quarantine system. In January, 2.5 million residents across the Greater Brisbane area in the state of Queensland faced…
The coronavirus student, a species brought forth in the world of education by a pandemic that has killed over 400,000 people in the United States and 100,000 in the United Kingdom, is a troubled creature. When universities and schools across the globe were given varying and often contradictory messages on the safety of continuing in class teaching and participation, the seeds of confusion and fear were sown. The broadest, most acceptable solution, at least in terms of safety, was moving learning to an online format. One evident issue, notably in higher education, is the attractions offered by remote or virtual…
It’s the sort of stuff that should have been sorted years ago in Australia: a murderous, frontier society ill disposed to the indigenous populace; the creation of a convict colony that was itself an act of invasion rather than settlement; the theft of land and its rapacious plunder. Even some of the rough colonists were not oblivious to such a crude record. Henry Parkes, in planning the Centenary celebrations as New South Wales premier in 1888, was asked by a fellow politician what he would be doing for the poor and needy for the occasion. Wealthy landed citizens had been…
The Biden administration’s first White House press secretary is keen that things will be done differently under her guidance. The jaw dropping, sniping sessions between the press and government that were characteristic of the Trump administration were going to cease. “When the President asked me to serve in this role,” Jen Psaki outlined in her first press briefing on January 20, 2021, “we talked about the importance of bringing truth and transparency back to the briefing room, and he asked me to ensure we are communicating about policies across the Biden-Harris administration and the work his team is doing every…
Not exactly Thermopylae. Not even close. The hundred thousand who have now been taken by COVID-19 in Britain were not determined warriors holding up the forces of a mighty empire to save their land. They were the innocent victims of infection, mismanagement and miscalculation. Central to the policy which led to such losses was a practised bumbling which has become the ne plus ultra of Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative government. In recording 100,000 deaths from COVID-19, Britain became the fifth country, and of those the smallest, to pass six figures. Over half of the numbers were recorded…
This is a man who decries the use of experts. He prefers things rough, ready, pungent with vernacular promise and populist feeling. To be in the front seat of a taxi, no less, is considered a right. But former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott, made a trade envoy of Brexiting Britain to much consternation and now fellow of the right wing Australian think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs, is clear: the coronavirus regulatory world is despotic. In a video presentation for the IPA, an organisation claiming with decidedly arbitrary taste that the quality of Australian life has declined by…
Pity the public health official tasked with convincing those beyond convincing that a pandemic crisis is worthy of serious consideration. This is further complicated in instances where such officials feel the need to play court jester, appeaser or silent sufferer. When she was made coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, Deborah Birx was taking the position with a hefty resume, heavily credentialed by such achievements as being the US global AIDS coordinator during the Obama administration. Former US Secretary of State John Kerry had said of her in 2014 that she “embodies the best of what it means…
It was never meant to be like this. After the Indian cricketing team met misery and disaster in the first test match at Adelaide, registering a paltry 36 in its second innings, little hope was had for the touring side. Australia threatened rout and massacre. The Border-Gavaskar trophy seemed within the home side’s grasp. And the home side had every reason to feel insufferably confident. India’s talismanic wonder and leader, not to mention most threatening batsman, Virat Kohli, was heading home to be with his heavily pregnant wife. But his absence was the first in what would become a series…
