International

Jared Savage still trying for more inches

Written By: lprent
Date published: - 12 comments

I realise that journalists have to show some column inches sometimes to justify their existence on the payroll. However the “Investigations editor” Jared Savage at the the NZ Herald appears to be overdoing that. The latest is Jared’s attempt to puff up three routine immigration letters in 2005. He really must be desperate for those extra inches. There doesn’t appear to be anything about it that holds much public interest apart from a simple desire to smear. Hardly journalism.

 

Phil Goff: Contemporary China Research Centre

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 9 comments

It isn’t that often that we put up speeches by politicians. They’re usually aimed at the general public and don’t really get into the guts of the issues in the way that our activist commenters like to argue at – they tend to be political and in this site preaching to the converted.  However this speech by Phil Goff is exceptional. It was made at a centre looking at China, and looks at the benefits and risks of our current and future relationships with that country. Worth reading

Bryan Gould: An impartial press

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 34 comments

Ed Miliband is competent, has the support of his party, but has abysmal poll ratings. The right-wing British press has played a significant role. For instance a messy bacon sandwich. In New Zealand, we all know that the British press is notoriously biased and that our own press may have their own allegiances but are reasonably  impartial. Which is why there are some disturbing features about the press treatment of the supposed “scandal” (as it is regularly referred to) of Donghua Liu and David Cunliffe.

NRT: Fixing Christchurch

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 5 comments

Labour has announced another part of its package to fix Christchurch: an immediate crash home-building plan. The market has failed, so the government has to step in. Its that simple. As for why the market has failed, there’s the ongoing insurance problems of course, but perhaps this also has something to do with it. Living costs in ChCh are exceeding wages and the construction industry is pocketing the difference. Labour is also changing the rules about exploiting overseas labour.

Polity: TPP deal on rocks. Surprise!

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 10 comments

John Key is abandoning hope of a TPP deal. As it stands at present there is nothing in it for New Zealand. Of course the usual ugly swamp that is US internal politics is making the deal descend into a mire.

Expect nothing to happen for another year or two, and maybe the damn thing will never happen.

John Key: a tale of two ‘truths’

Written By: karol
Date published: - 34 comments

John Key claimed he didn’t know about the big shift in the US-NZ surveillance relationship in 2009.  Now he claims he always likes to be fully briefed on intelligence matters. Robert David Steele points the way from  such anti-democratic governance & misinformation, to an open source everything revolution.

Polity: Free trade fundies

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 2 comments

The great tragedy in New Zealand trade policy came in the 1990s when we almost literally gave away the farm, dismantling most of our tariffs unilaterally to “demonstrate” how much fun life is with no tariffs. You can’t get much more fundie than that.  And now – quelle surprise – we have basically no cards to play when negotiating with other countries. Who would have thought it?

NRT: Shifted

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 21 comments

Yesterday, we learned that the government was reviewing its future contribution to peacekeeping missions, with an eye to turning us into an American footstool. As I pointed out, this would be a major shift in our foreign policy, and one we need to stop. Unfortunately, we’re too late: Cabinetagreed to the change last October. In secret, without consulting the people on behalf of which those troops will be deployed.

NRT: A major shift in our foreign policy

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 33 comments

No Right Turn points to potential unacceptable changes in the basis of our foreign policy and the deployment of our armed forces. A secret review of peacekeeping keeping roles revealed by an OIA request recommends that rather than going on UN missions to support peace and keep combatants apart, we’ll be taking an active and direct role in America’s wars, against the wishes of the international community and even against the wishes of our own citizens.

NRT: UK police spied on politicians

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 4 comments

Police and security forces often seem to consider themselves to be beyond the law. Their propensity towards excessive surveillance of people who are following peaceful and legal paths towards societal change without any evidence is rather legendary amongst activists on the left. The impression that most activists have is that some police just don’t like their politics. However surveillance of a councillor in the UK after they have been elected and while they are monitoring police activities as part of their job does mark a new low.

Iraq and Syria

Written By: mickysavage
Date published: - 77 comments

The situation in Syria and Iraq is becoming dire as two separate civil wars rage on. This raises as an issue National’s and John Key’s attitude to the war in Iraq which has clearly destabilised any hope of civilised rule. He is now claiming to be an internationalist and to only be interested in multilateral action. But has this always been the case?

TPP – the expensive vanity project of NZ diplomacy

Written By: lprent
Date published: - 51 comments

Wayne Mapp is worried about the possibility of Labour backing away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). If National and MFAT would like support from the free-trade advocates inside Labour, then I’d suggest that they get off their padded arses and provide some solid information not only to us, but also to the public. But all I have heard so far is some psuedo-religious Randian rants about free-trade that are about as convincing to business people as statements about the imminent arrival of the Rapture.

President Abbott goes viral

Written By: Mike Smith
Date published: - 7 comments

Meet Australia’s President of the United States, Prime Minister Tony Abbott, the instigator of a wink-related scandal. He sometimes puts his foot in his mouth and other times chooses to say nothing at all. 665,777 page views.

Compulsory voting and an explicit “none of the above”

Written By: lprent
Date published: - 171 comments

I was listening to Wallace Chapman interviewing Professor David Farrell, from University College, Dublin this morning on Radio New Zealand on compulsory voting which he was strongly in favour of. At one point the discussion veered on to the issue of “none of the above”. I think that this is the key to compulsory voting. Add “none of the above” and “I don’t know”

Key-Fletcher nexus: anti-democratic ‘Intelligence communities’

Written By: karol
Date published: - 47 comments

Campbell Live pointed to a massive, integrated shift in NZ governance under John Key’s watch. This enhances the power of international trade and commerce, incorporating the GCSB the US, & 5 Eyes . At the centre of this shift, is the murky relationship between John Key & Ian Fletcher.

Death by remote drone

Written By: mickysavage
Date published: - 202 comments

John Key has not received any advice about the legality of drone killing and is totally comfortable with the extra judicial killing of civilians by remote drone.

The smoke & mirrors of the surveillance-military-economic-complex

Written By: karol
Date published: - 29 comments

There are a range of issues, which are part of a GCSB-intelligence-surveillance-military-complex. Some significant elements seem to be posing as diversions from other parts of the complex, and the way all parts hang together. What will he offer Obama to advance NZ’s position in the TPPA?

The politics of private dinners

Written By: karol
Date published: - 225 comments

Whether it’s Judith Collins, Michael Woodhouse or the Cabinet Club/s, National Party fundraisers, target the wealthy base they represent.  In the process, boundaries are blurred between mainstream politics, exclusive private spaces & personal relationships.

NRT: A disease the world over

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 30 comments

New Zealand isn’t the only place currently seeing a cash-for-access scandal. In Australia, the federal Treasurer has a similar arrangement to the National Party, selling access to a donors by membership of a “club”. And in the UK, the co-treasurer of the Conservative Party has said publicly that £250,000 gets you a private dinner with the Prime Minister.

The drone strike killing of a Kiwi

Written By: redfed
Date published: - 282 comments

The Government is completely indifferent to the killing of innocent children and New Zealand citizens because it is part of the war against terrorism. But the extra judicial killing of innocent adults and children is by definition a terrorist act.

Environment on the edge

Written By: karol
Date published: - 41 comments

On Al Jazeera NewsHour this morning, there were two reports on environmental issues in different parts of the planet: stories of the tension between pursuit of economic “growth” and the destruction of the environment. In both countries, there are attempts to develop renewables, without changing the whole system.

From slum-house to mega-man: Mana-TIP connections

Written By: karol
Date published: - 405 comments

There’s a lot of media attention on the negotiations between Mana & The Internet Party (TIP).  Mana aims to link with some other parties. Some high profile people are scheduled to speak to Mana.  Is Dotcom’s focus on his poor childhood genuine or a PR strategy? [Update#2: Sunday, NZ Herald – green light for negotiations]

September 18th

Written By: Bill
Date published: - 46 comments

The 18th of September 2014 is a big day.

On that day, people living in Scotland will decide if they want to become citizens in a nation that will have reclaimed its sovereignty.

Tim Watkin is wrong

Written By: Ben Clark
Date published: - 21 comments

Tim Watkin recently had a post over at Pundit, saying about why a 15% gap between Labour and National matters. His crux point is that in no MMP election has a party led by 15% and not formed the government. Unfortunately for Tim, this is demonstrably wrong.

The image is the story …

Written By: karol
Date published: - 15 comments

Images from today’s mainstream media news: tales of class, crime, drugs, disasters…… and jet-setting beneficiaries.

NRT: Privatization is theft

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 33 comments

A government is carrying out a crash-program of privatization without a mandate. It is desperate to sell, so it sets the price of the shares artificially low, and loses $1.5 billion in a single day. No, this isn’t New Zealand (yet) – its the UK:

Whales 1 Japan 0

Written By: mickysavage
Date published: - 12 comments

The International Court of Justice has ruled that the Japanese yearly slaughter of whales is not for the purposes of scientific research and is illegal.

NRT: Blowback

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 6 comments

“The vast scale of online surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden is changing how businesses store commercially sensitive data…”  “A survey of 1,000 business leaders from around the world has found that many are questioning their reliance on “cloud computing” in favour of more secure forms of data storage as the whistleblower’s revelations continue to reverberate.”

A bunch of 14 year olds show up Tony Abbott

Written By: mickysavage
Date published: - 17 comments

Recently Australian PM Tony Abbott decided to speak to a group of 14 year olds who were visiting Parliament. Unluckily for him this particular group of 14 year olds were very sophisticated and asked him a series of questions which neatly skewered four of his main policy positions.

NRT: One way of fixing it

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 3 comments

No Right Turn looks at one reason why Yahoo moved from the UK to Dublin. Escaping the ubiquitous and ever increasing surveillance requirements of paranoid security agencies who appear to only be interested in protecting elites rather than citizens. As it is, it is preferable to site site servers offshore away from silly unenforceable laws. They’ll just go to locations that offer the best server security.

Corporates for TPP

Written By: karol
Date published: - 47 comments

Big (US) Pharma has been the leading lobbyist that has shaped the TPP, followed by corporates in the following industries; Hollywood, automobile, textiles, dairy. This makes the TPP a major threat to the interests and well-being of Kiwis. Good reasons to take part in next Saturday’s Day Of Action (29 March 1pm) across NZ.

Taiwan

Written By: Bill
Date published: - 9 comments

Taiwanese legislature occupied. Could be news…

Tony Abbott is an idiot

Written By: mickysavage
Date published: - 90 comments

Tony Abbott’s Liberal Government has acted to undermine New Zealand’s push for a United Nations declaration that it is in the interest of humanity that nuclear weapons never be used again under any circumstances.  Having the option of killing millions of human beings and devastating major urban centres either by way of a first strike or a retaliatory strike is obviously something he thinks should be preserved.

Officials’ dinners off in China

Written By: Mike Smith
Date published: - 36 comments

Fran O’Sullivan thinks that the only reason why Collins is still a Minister was Key’s need to save face in his impending visit to China. I think Key may have got a better reception from Xi Jinping if he had followed the Chinese leader’s example of taking a hard line on  dinner-table corruption and sacked Collins.