Written By: - Date published: 12:13 pm, December 21st, 2018 - 287 comments
China has apparently been sprung hacking hundreds of western businesses and Government agencies, including some here in NZ. Should we be worried?
Written By: - Date published: 9:41 pm, December 19th, 2018 - 37 comments
In Washington last week Winston Peters urged America to involve itself more in the Pacific, in a speech the Prime Minister was apparently unaware of. Referring to Africa, John Bolton outlined what that involvement would mean – American interests first and only. Dangerous with the neocons in charge of the playpen.
Written By: - Date published: 10:22 pm, December 8th, 2018 - 62 comments
I like my Huawei phone. Apparently the US National Security Agency can’t break its encryption. That’s presumably the “security” issue why Spark is being blocked from using Huawei, and why Meng Wanzhou is held hostage in Canada at the behest of US neocons.
Written By: - Date published: 2:52 pm, November 29th, 2018 - 29 comments
The GCSB ban on Spark’s use of Huawei technology means this government has gone from “honest broker” to poodle in a very short time. Pressure has been applied by the US and others, apparently fearing we are the “soft underbelly” of the Five Eyes spy network. Maybe its time we got out of that too – it was designed for war.
Written By: - Date published: 5:46 pm, November 28th, 2018 - 134 comments
I can’t think of the number of countless times that I have seen scare stories about someone wanting to take over this society and/or the world. Sometimes they are even correct about intent, but usually they are not. Usually the difference between what is insinuated and whatever facts are known makes those making such insinuations just look like attention-seeking nuts.
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, November 27th, 2018 - 50 comments
It’s high time this government woke up to the intelligence gathering capacity and ambition of China in New Zealand.
Written By: - Date published: 8:07 am, November 26th, 2018 - 108 comments
A number of prominent academics and researchers have signed an open letter to Jacinda Ardern urging her to take the allegations of Chinese involvement in crimes against Professor Anne Marie Brady seriously and to make a clear statement in defence of academic freedom in New Zealand.
Written By: - Date published: 10:35 pm, November 20th, 2018 - 82 comments
China certainly has interfered in New Zealand politics, most notably by the offer of a free trade deal which delivered huge benefits to our economy. Party and government officials all stressed to us that they were grateful for New Zealand’s support for their accession to the World Trade Organisation, the rule-based trade body. The US and Australia in contrast want to build a military base on Manus Island north of Papua.
Written By: - Date published: 6:17 pm, September 18th, 2018 - 83 comments
A quick smorgasbord of reported news from Syria, to China and Sweden, to antisemitism and (hidden behind the links) an interview with (hopefully) the first woman who will serve as President of the USA.
Updated
Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, September 13th, 2018 - 67 comments
Fonterra has just reported an after tax loss of $196 million for the 2018 year. It’s never had an annual loss in its history.
Written By: - Date published: 7:52 am, August 6th, 2018 - 2 comments
Google is planning a launch of its eponymous spectacular search engine in which it allows censorship from the Chinese state. Some U.S. politicians aren’t happy about it. Principles are, in the words of the words of my tailor, funny; you loosen a bit here, you loosen a bit there, you find your trousers fall down. […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, July 19th, 2018 - 42 comments
You would think that while Jacinda Ardern takes time out to properly introduce baby Neve to the world opposition leader Simon Bridges would be striding throughout the country like a colossus and really make a name for himself. But of late he has been rather invisible.
Written By: - Date published: 9:03 am, July 16th, 2018 - 116 comments
Some things that President Trump won’t do as when meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.
Written By: - Date published: 1:56 pm, July 9th, 2018 - 27 comments
The speed of the growing trade war between the United States and China will hit New Zealand. Our long term diplomatic arc, such that it is, was to follow a modernist impulse set after World War Two: that economic growth and democracy matched deep human impulses for freedom and prosperity together. China has never assented […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, June 30th, 2018 - 57 comments
Not all the current government’s fault, but the arrival of the fuel tax this weekend heralds a number of very sharp rises in what we have to pay in order to run a car.
Written By: - Date published: 11:22 am, June 27th, 2018 - 13 comments
The United States Supreme Court decision to upheld Trump’s travel ban is but the latest example of bad news for international human rights we have had over recent times.
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, June 21st, 2018 - 61 comments
It’s time to see the strong possibility of a second term of Donald Trump as United States President. What would The World Look Like?
Written By: - Date published: 7:28 am, June 15th, 2018 - 154 comments
Eugenie Sage has been criticised for granting OIO consent to the foreign buy out of a water bottling company and a piece of sensitive land. But from the looks of the details that have been released she may have had no choice.
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, June 13th, 2018 - 36 comments
What was the game plan behind the Trump-Kim Jong Un meeting in Singapore yesterday?
Written By: - Date published: 12:01 pm, June 8th, 2018 - 93 comments
What follows isn’t satire or parody. Apparently.
Written By: - Date published: 9:49 am, June 6th, 2018 - 39 comments
Perhaps the idea that it’s necessary to have national objectives and realistic plans to achieve them, is overrated. Seems to be working for Trump.
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, May 23rd, 2018 - 7 comments
On Thursday 31 May at the University of Auckland, the Fabians are hosting Max Harris on the topic “Is it time for an independent foreign policy?” What would be the costs of a really independent foreign policy, over the benefits of salving our conscience with greater national independence? And where does Trade fit in?
Written By: - Date published: 7:53 am, May 17th, 2018 - 17 comments
Donald Trump has had a few months of being lucky with some luck Foreign Affairs wins and good economic news. But his wreckage-trail of his consequences is becoming longer and clearer.
Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, May 12th, 2018 - 11 comments
In spite of all the sharp intakes of breathe going on across media outlets, there will be no war between Iran and Israel. Here’s why.
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, May 9th, 2018 - 36 comments
Algorithms are a form of fascism – yet a fascism from data manipulation rather than from the state. Are they a threat to our democracy?
Written By: - Date published: 11:38 am, May 8th, 2018 - 60 comments
2018 marks several anniversaries of Karl Marx whose significance for the critique of capitalist society is hard to diminish. But what now for his beliefs?
Written By: - Date published: 4:10 pm, April 11th, 2018 - 17 comments
It’s really easy to get cranky right now and believe the world is retreating into to a sad Cold War binary in which Russia and its allies are always in high tension with the United States and its allies. A new Cold War.
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, April 7th, 2018 - 14 comments
Does being incoherent work sometimes? With the President of North Korea visiting China for the first time, meeting with the South Korean President for the first time, and preparing to meet with the Japanese President and with the President of the United States, was Trump’s approach actually right for the circumstances?
Written By: - Date published: 2:14 pm, March 23rd, 2018 - 66 comments
Make no mistake: this is the single biggest anti-trade act the world has seen since the Iranian revolution’s nationalisation program from 1979.
Written By: - Date published: 10:24 am, March 20th, 2018 - 79 comments
The world has changed dramatically since Barak Obama was President of the United States.
Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, December 21st, 2017 - 24 comments
Matt Nippert has made further revelations about Jian Yang including that he lobbied on behalf of an unsuccessful applicant for a security sensitive job with the New Zealand Defence Force and that he disclosed to Auckland University but not to Immigration that he had worked for a PLA University.
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