Written By: - Date published: 4:32 pm, March 20th, 2022 - 194 comments
New Zealand’s sanctions on Russia have not stopped the war in Ukraine. They may have made our parliamentarians feel better, and Tony Blinken was quick to congratulate us on falling into line with the US “high-impact sanctions.” The language is combative, but the evidence shows sanctions do not work. They can have significant blow-back effects, particularly if not combined with effective diplomacy.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, March 17th, 2022 - 351 comments
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelinsky has made a direct appeal broadcast to the United States Congress. That will sort out the Putin supporters from the rest. And with climate change beckoning it is time to pick a side.
Written By: - Date published: 8:59 am, March 15th, 2022 - 117 comments
In six months time the world could be in a very precarious position.
Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, March 7th, 2022 - 107 comments
However much infighting there was on the Spanish Republican side between leftists, Communists, anarchists and others, you could be confident that the Nazis were on the other side. In the Ukraine it is not so simple.
Written By: - Date published: 11:20 am, March 4th, 2022 - 65 comments
New Zealand’s time as high end ingredients producer to the world has arrived. But it has big costs.
Written By: - Date published: 11:35 am, March 2nd, 2022 - 230 comments
The Russian armed forces obviously didn’t expect much resistance. I get the distinct impression that they had believed their own ridiculous propaganda (always a characteristic of dumb-arse dictatorships) and expected the Ukrainians to fall weeping in gratitude at their liberation. That clearly didn’t happen. What next…
Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, March 1st, 2022 - 18 comments
We will probably never get over the feeling that somehow, if enough people just banded together, it would all get better again, like we did when the United Nations charter was struck.
Written By: - Date published: 8:27 am, February 28th, 2022 - 254 comments
Vladimir Putin, obviously hurting because some of his personal ill gotten wealth has been frozen has upped the ante by raising the spectre of the use of Nuclear Weapons.
Written By: - Date published: 7:59 am, February 26th, 2022 - 76 comments
Currently in this world there are two significant protests occurring, both similar but at the same time completely different.
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, February 25th, 2022 - 47 comments
Russia hasn’t lost an intervention in quite some time.
Written By: - Date published: 7:56 am, February 25th, 2022 - 266 comments
Russia has invaded a neighbouring state with no more justification than an vague appeals to the same arguments that underpinned 19th century gunboat diplomacy. It was unacceptable in 1938, and is just even more unacceptable now. We should hep deal with this now without trying to appease an aggressor before we wind up with a future conflict that kills, maims, and displaces people in job lots of millions.
Written By: - Date published: 8:03 pm, February 24th, 2022 - 61 comments
Why should we in New Zealand give a damn about Ukraine? My answer is: China.
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 pm, February 16th, 2022 - 4 comments
Today February 15th is the 80th anniversary of the fall of Singapore in 1942, described by many as Britain’s worst military disaster. It was a massive strategic fail, and its effect is still powerful today, most notably with Australia’s lockstep with the US. Current British strategists don’t seem to have learnt a thing.
Written By: - Date published: 4:44 pm, February 7th, 2022 - 31 comments
The meeting between Putin and Xi Jinping is likely to set the geopolitical direction for the 21st century. If ‘divide and rule’ was the mantra for the US’s hegemonic rule in the 20th century, ‘unite and share’ looks like setting the tone for the 21st. Co-operation rather than competition is the mantra, and “friendship between the two states has no limits.” A truly remarkable turnaround.
Written By: - Date published: 12:32 pm, January 26th, 2022 - 59 comments
The entity making the most money out of threatening the Ukraine is the Russian Federation government itself. Follow the money.
Written By: - Date published: 2:54 pm, January 16th, 2022 - 17 comments
Russian peacekeepers are already leaving Kazakhstan having nipped the ‘colour revolution’ in the bud. Blinken clearly didn’t have a clue when he said Russians never leave the house. Russian intelligence was superb. Now we wait for Russia’s response to US likely refusal to pull back from its borders. One thing I’d bet on – no invasion of Ukraine.
Written By: - Date published: 10:40 pm, January 8th, 2022 - 22 comments
When I heard US Secretary of State Blinken’s take-away line from his D.C. press conference on RNZ’s news bulletin today on events in Kazakhstan ‘I think one lesson in recent history is that once Russians are in your house, it’s sometimes very difficult to get them to leave’ I wondered what the Iraqis would think.
Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, August 31st, 2021 - 76 comments
With the last flights coming out of Kabul, it’s time to review whether this US attitude to the world is a good idea.
Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, July 18th, 2021 - 41 comments
The Guardian has reported on claims of a leaked Russian Government paper which on the face of it confirms Russian support for the Trump 2016 election at the highest level.
Written By: - Date published: 9:32 pm, June 8th, 2021 - 3 comments
June 8 is the anniversary of Aotearoa’s 1987 nuclear-free legislation. NZOnScreen is running a retrospective of our proud history, the Nuclear-free Collection. It is well worth a watch. I particularly liked the movie “Nuclear Reaction,” with Big Norm seeing off the French, Big Dave seeing off the Americans, and Kiwi Keith also clear about where we stood. The nuclear risk is worse now than it has ever been.
Written By: - Date published: 10:25 pm, April 20th, 2021 - 19 comments
Following her speech to the NZ China Council, Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta wanted to be very clear that in speaking out about issues with other countries, New Zealand would not be doing it in concert with Five Eyes partners. She expressed a view that New Zealand did not agree with Five Eyes remit encroaching beyond intelligence, and that this had been communicated to Five Eyes partners. Good.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 pm, February 20th, 2021 - 41 comments
In February 2002 I was at a union-NDP conference in Ottawa watching US television in my hotel room. Back home I reported on the conference to the Labour Party caucus and stated as an aside that the US was going to war with Iraq. Helen Clark stood up straightaway and said “we won’t be going with them.” Jacinda Ardern needs to do the same now.
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, January 23rd, 2021 - 24 comments
Revolt? Revolution? Pain in the ass? Depends, like comedy, on timing. And which side of history you end up on.
Written By: - Date published: 9:05 am, December 20th, 2020 - 30 comments
Donald Trump has spent the past week stuffing up the vaccine roll out in some states, fighting attempts to cancel the Trump wall and blaming China for Russian hacks on American institutions and corporations.
Written By: - Date published: 10:03 pm, June 9th, 2020 - 37 comments
Skripal’s relatives don’t believe it, Jacinda Ardern doesn’t believe it, Paul Buchanan doesn’t believe it, and I never believed it. But a story planted in the UK Sunday Times that the Skripals are here lets our media rerun the assassination attempt that failed, even though the most deadliest poison in the world was involved. Stuff website has a British Minister from Theresa May’s time rerunning the old lies,as does the NZ Herald. Fits in nicely with the SIS anti-Russian history.
Written By: - Date published: 9:50 am, November 17th, 2019 - 38 comments
The last week in US politics has seen the Trump Impeachment Hearing go public, Trump confidant Roger Stone convicted of lying to Congress, Alex Jones ask for the Presidential pardon to be used to free him, and details revealed of multiple meetings between Trump and Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas who are charged with campaign rule violations. Trump says he does not know them. Just another week in the Trump Presidency …
Written By: - Date published: 2:09 am, September 19th, 2019 - 21 comments
France President Macron’s remarkable and wide-ranging speech to French ambassadors after France hosted the recent G7 conference in Biarritz is well worth a read. He lays it all out – so much better than Trump’s tweets or BoJo’s bluster.
Written By: - Date published: 10:04 am, September 16th, 2019 - 30 comments
The war that Saudi Arabia and its allies has been waging against the Houthi side in the civil war in Yemen took a interesting turn yesterday. Houthi claimed an attack on Saudi oil processing facilities using drone strikes. It is likely to significantly reduce the output of the Saudi exports for a while as the […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:01 am, September 11th, 2019 - 26 comments
This has been rumoured for some time now. It’s good news – peace now has a chance, as Trump has woken up to the fact that a shooting war would not be good for his re-election. Also Bolton’s hard-line strategy was failing everywhere.
Written By: - Date published: 4:43 pm, August 27th, 2019 - 9 comments
US’s recent test of an intermediate range missile shows that the reasons given for its withdrawal from the INF treaty were spurious. It also shows up the gullibility of our MFAT, who voted against a Russian proposal for dialogue late last year in the UN on the grounds that it was a “sidestep.”
Written By: - Date published: 2:57 am, July 21st, 2019 - 25 comments
Hamish Rutherfurd writes that Winston Peters’ trip to the US to secure a trade deal is far-fetched and a waste of time. I agree. But if Peters has his agenda, so will Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence, John Bolton and Dan Coats have theirs. He was scheduled to meet them all. No wonder the 9th floor are worried.
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