Britain is just over a month away from an election that looks like it will go down to the wire. And the recent leaders’ debate has displayed some very impressive leaders of progressive minor parties who may hold the balance of power after the election has been completed. In particular Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon may be able to determine who the next Prime Minister will be.
The California drought gives us a case study in how the effects of climate change are going to play out.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Labor Government’s majority is on a knife edge after recent revelations that Labor MP Billy Gorton had criminal convictions he did not declare to the Labor Party and after a former partner alleged that he had subjected her to sustained domestic violence.
In which NZ, along with many other countries, flunks the first test of the Paris climate change talks.
How are other nations going to react to our spying on them? Key’s response when the question arose in Korea was very typical of him – bullshit and bluster. So far Brazil, Fiji, and Latin American countries have all proved him wrong.
Another chapter of the secret draft TPP agreement has been leaked.
Cotton On’s act of provocation is matched in its cynicism only by the company’s contempt for the negotiation process. While attempting to feign an understanding of how the new law actually works, Cotton On simultaneously may also have breached the newly amended sections 4 and 32 of the ERA
In the NZ herald today, Terence O’Brien has been questioned about the recent revelations of spying to get Minister’s jobs after politics. Despite […]
More embarrassment for the Government as it is revealed that the GCSB spied on internet communications involving diplomats competing with Tim Groser in his bid to be elected as the Director General of the World Trade Organisation.
The Liberal National Party Coalition in Australia want to overturn a requirement for corporations with a turnover of $100 million to disclose tax information on the grounds that kidnapping will occur even though the rich’s ostentatiousness is plain to see without the information being published. And in America it has been estimated that Wall Street’s bonus pool is twice the amount paid to full time American employees living on the minimum wage.
Keith Locke has created a “Not in our name” petition.
Yesterday the mask slipped and John Key admitted the real reason our deployment to Iraq is only for two years: so he can win an election.
Key’s attempt to play cute with the semantics of surveillance is part of an international strategy. Here’s Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept.
I have been reading Neil Sheenan’s “A fiery peace in a cold war” on the development of the US ICBM forces in the 50s. At the same time I’ve been reading last week’s Economist, including a feature on the current developing arms race in nuclear weapon systems. Quietly falling into another insane arms race.
The next time that John Key says that we spy so as to keep NZ safe from terrorism, could some journalist please please ask him if the PM of the Solomon Islands is a terrorist?
Julian Assange to be allowed to answer to accusations…
Thinking authorities in the west have yet discover the difference between their arse and their elbow…
A further piece on the peoples’ revolution within Northern Syria.
I’d love to share these two posts with you and pick your brains on what you think!
Selwyn Manning’s new EveningReport site got off to a massive start last night with a long, interesting interview with Nicky Hager. Take home quote (courtesy Russell Brown): “The GCSB is not a New Zealand operation, in any practical sense”. Watch the video…
The Sunday Star Times has reported on the set up and reach of the Waihopai Spy Base. Key’s statement that the GCSB does not have the physical capability to conduct mass surveillance appears to be not true.
For any accounts from the TPP protest marches today.
For details of protest action nearest to you check out the itsourfuture website.
Nicky Hager and the Herald have reported that the GCSB has been collecting data en masse from New Zealand’s pacific neighbours and handed it over to the Americans for inclusion in xkeystore.
National’s justification for going to war against ISIS suffers from two fundamental problems, it is supporting an Iraqi regime that is corrupt and working against the best interests of all of its people, and there is no plan to convert Iraq into a sustainable state.
The attack on banking services for Mega is a high profile example of the politicisation of banking. We’re on a very slippery slope here…
Despite the best efforts of Mike Hosking, the poll numbers tell us that Kiwis have lost their historical appetite for this kind of misadventure.
Too little, too late, but a victory the environment (and for sanity) none the less.
After the formal speeches on the Iraq deployment John Key set off on an extraordinary spittle-flecked rant against Labour. His “get some guts line” is going to haunt him for the next 3 years.
A petition to oppose sending troops to Iraq has gained over 9,000 signatures in its first 24 hours. You can sign the petition here.
The first three speeches from yesterdays session in Parliament on sending troops to Iraq – John Key, Andrew Little, Russel Norman. Little’s speech is cogent, Norman’s is brilliant.
John Key’s frothing exhortation to Andrew Little in Parliament to “get some guts” reminds one of opera’s famous Duke of Plazatoro “who led his regiment from behind, he found it less exciting.” Key’s not going to Iraq – our soldiers are the ones in danger.
Back in 2003, John Key had an interesting take on whether it was appropriate to send troops to Iraq.
