Res Publica takes aim at modern day ‘tankies’. Pro-authoritarian leftist, who can apologise for any authoritarian regime provided that it is intellectually cloaked in the ‘correct’ rhetoric and a veneer of geo-politics. In their view, modern day tankies are only good at reducing the left’s credibility to rubble in real-time.
In a recent interview Helen Clark managed to neatly summarise current world problems and express a desire for New Zealand to maintain its independent foreign policy.
Yesterday’s press conference involving Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky suggests that the United States is now solidly aligned with Russia against the Western World and Western values.
A fascinating expose from Michael Hudson on the causes and implications of the recent rise in the price of gold. When Nixon took the US dollar off the standard in 1971 you could get an ounce for $35. Not now; Hudson explains why.
Trump’s opening bid for peace towards Ukraine was that the United States would gain access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals.
Well it didn’t take that long: from one SecDef to another in a matter of a month. It’s time for a rethink on Ukraine and much else.
Update: Hegseth’s speech video
U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump makes more things possible in the Middle East than the Biden administration.
New Zealand is set to update sedition and espionage laws, making these as harsh as those of other Western states that are now gearing up for war with Russia and China.
With extensive use of internal documents, Maire Leadbeater’s excellent exposition of the various iterations of the security intelligence services tells a story of constant make-work in search of an adversary defined only by ideology.
The West, “will stand by the Israeli regime until they exterminate the last Palestinian”, says Mohammad Seyed Marandi, an American-Iranian academic. Despite being appalled at my government, I winced as a New Zealander to hear my country described as part of the Axis of Genocide.
New Zealand’s decision to stay away from the event in Nagasaki paying tribute to victims of the city’s 1945 nuclear bombing called outrageous.
Don Brash is now publicly standing together with Helen Clark to protest against the subservience of recent New Zealand governments to America’s anti-China policy.
The destruction on 23 May of a key part of Russia’s nuclear defence means the Doomsday clock is ticking closer to midnight. A Ukrainian/NATO drone attack on the Armavir radar station north of Georgia attcked a Voronezh-DM radar which is designed to detect incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Questioned by Senator Van Hollen re US response to China’s February 2024 offer of no-first-use, Assistant Secretary Bonnie Jenkins told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee they would have to think about it, but at this point had no intention of changing to a no-first use policy.
Israel should not have bombed the Iranian consulate buildings in Damascus. Iran should not have fired 300 missiles at Israel in response. Neither of these actions should have happened, but they now have. The world now watches to see if there is further retaliation and escalation of violence, or if calmer and wiser heads prevail.
US Undersecretary of State Bonnie Jenkins is in Wellington this week with a hard sell for us on AUKUS Pillar 2 wunderwaffen maybes. We should say tai hoa.
Testifying to the Defence Select Committee last week, Air Marshal Short said Australia was “reshaping” its Defence Force for “a singular threat from a singular direction.” This was described as being an obvious reference to China.
In March 2023, former Australian prime minister Paul Keating attracted significant media attention when he described AUKUS as a manifestation of the United States’s campaign to encircle China with hostile military allies and partners.
CNN reports that the US has named the ongoing operation against Houthi in Yemen “Operation Poseidon Archer, suggesting a more organized and potentially long-term approach.” New Zealand has joined it – cue the slippery slope.
But the ones that run US foreign policy are. Matthew Hooton in a typical smear wants to label Helen Clark as anti-American because she warned that involving us in attacking Houthis was a ”slippery slope.” She’s not and he’s wrong.
A bright star in the firmament of justice has gone out. One of the greatest journalists of our era has passed away. John Pilger was always on the side of the oppressed.
It is not clear exactly who persuaded Luxon to put Zelensky on his Xmas calling list. It might have been Albo or MFAT, no doubt on orders from the US, who are desperate to keep the illusion of victory alive until after the US Presidential election.
We are further away from peace in parts of the world than a decade ago. But pessimism about peace isn’t a foregone conclusion.
“Jewish people exterminating men, women and children in a concentration camp is _______.”
How do you finish a sentence like that?
Unlike the other four Eyes, New Zealand voted for a UNGA resolution calling for a humanitarian truce in Gaza. The US had previously vetoed a ceasefire resolution. Finally on RNZ, Ben Strang asked whether Israel’s response to HAMAS is also a “war crime?’
The new government is leaving it to the old government to carry the ball on Gaza. Both governments have dropped it. The 5Eyes formula of “Israel’s right to defend itself” does not extend any right to the indiscriminate bombing, and refusal to allow any water, food or fuel to innocents in Gaza.
Alexander Gillespie complains that kiwis are not being given answers on foreign policy in the election. Given the state of flux in the world, and the questions he poses, it is probably just as well. The answers might all be dangerous.
New security-state documents show Wellington aligning its military with the “rules-based international order” while preparing Kiwis for war with key trading partner China, writes Mick Hall.
Belief in capricious gods would explain the perplexing habit of governments with intelligent and informed people to embrace policies which are manifestly an example of self-destructive stupidity. Clever people doing stupid things.
Gerald Hensley was David Lange’s chief of staff when New Zealand’s nuclear free policy was adopted. He opposed what happened then and opposes it still. He now argues we should prepare for war with China.
On 20 March 2003 the US invaded Iraq, on the basis that it had and could use weapons of mass destruction. That was a lie. Australia joined President Bush ‘coalition of the willing’, New Zealand did not. The drums of war beat strong then, they are doing so again now. This time China is the target.
Veteran Indian diplomat MK Bhadrakumar describes the resumption of diplomatic relations between Shi’ite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia brokered by China as a “Suez moment” in the history of the Middle East. Peace in Yemen is only one of the possible benefits.
Historian Malcolm McKinnon in Thursday’s DominionPost states that “caution is needed when crafting victory over Russia as the primary war aim in Ukraine.” Truer words were never spoken, as western hysteria rejects calls for peace and escalates to wider war.
Trudeau got a 10-minute stand-up with Xi followed by a public shirt-fronting, Albanese a 32-minute sit-down, and Jacinda Ardern a 50-minute formal bilateral. In the carefully calibrated world of the diplomatic dance-card, that says something. New Zealand would be foolish not to take advantage of what is on offer from China.
If we fail to support Ukraine’s struggle we all lose far more than self rule for 44 million people.
We’re sending 120 troops to Britain to ‘train’ raw recruits for the Ukraine killing grounds. For the Defence Generals, it’s an overseas trip to aid retention. For the Ukrainian conscripts, it’s a prelude to early death. It is cynical and criminal: we should be arguing for the war to stop, not keep it going ”to the death of the last Ukrainian.”
