International

Categories under International

Trump Hacked.

Written By: - Date published: 7:54 pm, October 28th, 2020 - 8 comments

Had to laugh, albeit with a resigned anger, when I saw this in my emails today. This afternoon, the official Trump campaign website was hacked and defaced.

The boy from Matamata

Written By: - Date published: 8:28 am, October 28th, 2020 - 43 comments

Trump deputy chief of staff Chris Liddell, who is also a Kiwi, has announced his candidacy to be head of the OECD.  The Greens have announced their opposition because he has been part of inhumane decisions and also decisions that undermine international institutions.  The right back him because he is a kiwi.  What should Labour do?

Justice Coney Barrett appears to be a climate change denier

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, October 28th, 2020 - 10 comments

Newly appointed Republican and Trump supported Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett is not convinced that humans are changing the world’s climate.  Meanwhile China and Japan are convinced and have announced dates by which time they intend to be carbon neutral.

Melbourne gets on top of Covid

Written By: - Date published: 8:36 am, October 27th, 2020 - 15 comments

Yesterday the city of Melbourne recorded its first day of no new reported covid infections in nearly five months. At the same time in America the White House has effectively said that control is too difficult and that it is giving up.

The Trump Biden debate

Written By: - Date published: 2:02 pm, October 23rd, 2020 - 21 comments

Discussion post for this afternoon’s live US Presidential debate.

The NZ Defence Force and extreme fire events

Written By: - Date published: 6:08 am, October 7th, 2020 - 19 comments

This Guest Post by The Scud looks at the issues with the NZ Defence Force’s capability in responding to extreme fire events and climate change.

The Trump Covid game

Written By: - Date published: 2:17 pm, October 6th, 2020 - 10 comments

Let’s imagine a scenario where you are the President of the United States and it is in the middle of a pandemic.  You then contract the virus yourself.  How would you rate compared to Donald Trump?

New Zealand, Biden, Trump, and Australia

Written By: - Date published: 3:47 pm, October 5th, 2020 - 6 comments

If Donald Trump is re-elected in 30 days’ time, he will be vindicated and emboldened.  What will the implications be for New Zealand?

Trump’s not so bad: the holding our breath edition

Written By: - Date published: 11:17 am, October 4th, 2020 - 79 comments

An occasional series

Why Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Death Matters Here

Written By: - Date published: 8:28 am, September 20th, 2020 - 27 comments

RBG’s death was an important event for women here because it happened on the anniversary of Women’s Suffrage Day 126 years ago.  On this day in New Zealand we celebrate women being able to vote, the women who won further victories of political liberation, and many got together to recount our female heroes enabled by that right and all those rights that followed.

What just happened with Israel?

Written By: - Date published: 7:21 am, September 16th, 2020 - 40 comments

Just two months before election day, Donald Trump appears to have won a diplomatic coup in the Middle East. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have normalised relations with the state of Israel.

Assange’s torture and the death of journalism

Written By: - Date published: 9:28 pm, September 6th, 2020 - 60 comments

On the eve of Assange’s extradition hearing in London, award-winning freelancer Jonathan Cook has written a scathing indictment of corporate journalism’s collusion in ignoring his official torture. I posted an example of that here last year, where Richard Harman denied Assange was a journalist at a panel convened at Parliament by the British High Commissioner.

Hitting the political spot

Written By: - Date published: 9:20 am, September 3rd, 2020 - 20 comments

Markey accomplished what no Democrat or Republican had ever done: He defeated a Kennedy in Massachusetts.

What are the lessons here for lefties in New Zealand?

How Trump Has Changed New Zealand’s future

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, September 2nd, 2020 - 28 comments

Post Trump how is the world order looking?

US v China: new Cold War or new Opium War?

Written By: - Date published: 10:27 am, August 25th, 2020 - 23 comments

The Trump administration has declared war on China, and there is much speculation in the punditry as to whether or not this is a new Cold War similar to that waged post World War 2 against Russia. In my opinion, the 19th century Opium Wars may offer a more appropriate analogy, albeit with a likely different outcome.

Is New Zealand or the United States the Covid cot case?

Written By: - Date published: 9:39 am, August 22nd, 2020 - 28 comments

This week Donald Trump has defended the US’s abysmal handling of Covid 19 by claiming that the disease is out of control in New Zealand.  And National’s rhetoric continues to match what he is saying.

Here comes the vaccine

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, August 21st, 2020 - 46 comments

Australian Prime Minister Scott Malcom has indicated he’s getting close to the deal of a lifetime for Australians with a letter of intent from Astra Zenica, who are in third stage clinical trials.  Will New Zealand benefit?

What Might A Democratic Party-Dominated U.S. Foreign Policy Do?

Written By: - Date published: 1:02 pm, August 19th, 2020 - 24 comments

Inasmuch as tiny, distant New Zealand need worry about the foreign policy of the United States, it’s worth a drill into what a Democratic Party dominated United States foreign policy might look like.

Brady under review by Canterbury University

Written By: - Date published: 7:59 pm, August 17th, 2020 - 99 comments

Canterbury University is conducting a review of statements made to the Justice Select Committee by Professor Anne-Marie Brady alleging covert military transfer to China which complainants from other Universities under attack said “contained manifest errors of fact and misleading inferences.” The University would do well to broaden its review to encompass the NATO-funded Canterbury SSANSE which Brady heads. The military-purpose link there is explicit.

The top seven things Covid has changed

Written By: - Date published: 7:45 am, August 14th, 2020 - 47 comments

Covid has fundamentally changed society for the better in surprising ways.

Joe Biden’s Four Surprising Vectors for Success

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, August 14th, 2020 - 15 comments

He’s old, boring, uninspiring, and offends no-one: surely he’ll fail miserably as President? But he has a stronger chance than any Democrat President since LBJ of getting very strong domestic reforms done.

Biden/Harris

Written By: - Date published: 8:50 am, August 12th, 2020 - 53 comments

Joe Biden announces his VP pick.

Tick Tock Tik-Tok

Written By: - Date published: 5:37 pm, August 2nd, 2020 - 5 comments

Trump has announced he will ban Tik-Tok from the United States. It’s Chinese-owned so there. Or maybe he will force it to be sold to Americans.Don’t think security is the issue; kids used it to stuff up his Tulsa rally. And it is good for mockery, as clips about Trump and Pompeo show. Don’t think that will stop if Americans own it.

Expand Five Eyes

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, August 1st, 2020 - 70 comments

With the growing assertions by the Chinese government across the eastern Pacific including in Hong Kong and our own repudiation of an extradition treaty, there are now calls to expand the Five Eyes intelligence network to include Japan.

Operation Burnham: A disorganised cover-up?

Written By: - Date published: 9:03 pm, July 31st, 2020 - 13 comments

A justified operation, no organised cover-up, but serious failures in senior defence personnel’s denial and misrepresentation, and serious failures by the intelligence agencies in handing over a suspect to torture. The Inquiry called for a review of Defence administration, an Inspector-General of Defence, a Defence Force order on dealing with allegations of civilian casualties, and an “effective detention policy.”

Payne snubs Pompeo on China regime change

Written By: - Date published: 12:52 pm, July 30th, 2020 - 15 comments

Australia’s Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds traveled to the US this week to meet face-to-face with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Minister Mark Esper. In what was clearly meant as a follow-up to recent speeches on China by the Americans, Payne firmly declined to join Pompeo in in his call for regime change in China.

Will Jami Lee spill the beans on National’s donations?

Written By: - Date published: 7:36 am, July 29th, 2020 - 45 comments

Jami-Lee Ross is threatening today to attempt to table details of National’s 2017 donations in Parliament.

Hong Kong principles

Written By: - Date published: 9:49 pm, July 28th, 2020 - 38 comments

According to our Prime Minister, today’s announcement that New Zealand is suspending extradition arrangements with Hong Kong is because of our principles. But it is not immediately clear what these principles are, other than falling into line with our Five Eyes spying partners. Some history is important.

Pandemic: a flourishing enterprise. Business needs to get real.

Written By: - Date published: 9:49 am, July 28th, 2020 - 40 comments

A few weeks ago we were at 14 million cumulative confirmed cases of Covid-19 worldwide. A million more cases in just 4 days. Now a few weeks later, we are at 16 million confirmed cases worldwide. The lobbyists and business groups affected by our blocked borders need to get real. We won’t be opening our borders until we get a widely used vaccine later next year (at the earliest). It is too expensive to do so.

Folly of the year

Written By: - Date published: 7:55 am, July 26th, 2020 - 41 comments

What is the strangest recent proposal for development in New Zealand?

COVID-19: A human adapted virus

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, July 24th, 2020 - 23 comments

It has been obvious about COVID-19 that it is very well adapted to humans. It has evolved a good entry system to the humans, often has mild symptoms, long pre-symptomatic infectious period, and doesn’t kill many of its hosts. What has been less obvious is where it came from. It looks more like South East Asia rather than China.