It appears that the government of Syria is being formally removed from office this week.
The Russians and Iranians are leaving, the prison where POW were "killed" will be "liberated", and the suburbs of Damascus began falling as soon as the regimes military left to form a "cordon around the capital" (possibly to enable a runner).
Hopefully this might facilitate Gulf states assisting with a rebuild and a return of some of the refugees. And that might have a positive impact on Lebanon and its future.
'In comments released this morning, Geir O. Pedersen, the United Nations' special envoy to Syria, says today "marks a watershed moment in Syria’s history".
The country has endured nearly 14 years of civil war, facing "relentless suffering and unspeakable loss," he says.
He adds: "this dark chapter has left deep scars, but today we look forward with cautious hope to the opening of a new one—one of peace, reconciliation, dignity, and inclusion for all Syrians."
Barbara Plett Usher
reporting from Damascus
I think many people are going to be keeping a low profile for the next few days.
You also have this rejoicing, with many people feeling that there has been a very authoritarian regime for decades.
It was significant that one of the first things the rebels did was go to the prison to release the inmates, among them probably many political dissidents who had been detained and tortured. That was one of the many prisons infamous for that.
There's the possibility of change; maybe there's the possibility of a political solution.
Mass internal migration and its economic destruction ensue
Little of that has occurred with the advance so far. And given Damascus suburbs are falling and the army has developed a cordon outside it – not that likely there either.
Worst Middle East Christmas in a century.
The ME had it easier in WW1, the carnage in Iraq and Syria (failed state) and Libya (failed state) has been next level.
The U.N. special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, seeks urgent talks in Geneva to ensure an “orderly political transition,” saying the situation is changing by the minute. He met with foreign ministers and senior diplomats from eight key countries including Saudi Arabia, Russia, Egypt, Turkey and Iran on the sidelines of the Doha Summit.
The Arab League (Egypt) and Turkey need to step up – given Turkey has agendas, this is best done by UNSC mandate.
1.UN administration
2.UN development to establish the path to governance (by election) and a fund for a rebuild.
In Gaza, the genocide grinds relentlessly on. More than 1400 families have now been completely erased from the Civil registry with over 3700 families now having only one survivor. Gaza has more child amputees than any other place on Earth.
In the North, ethnic cleansing in preparation of Israeli settlement is in it's ninth week. Food and medical aid are non existent with famine and disease rampant. In the last 60 days in the North nearly 4000 Palestinians are dead or missing with another 10 000 missing.
Eyewitness testimonies have revealed that up to 650 bodies of Palestinians have been lying in the streets for two consecutive months due to the prevention by the Israeli military of allowing rescue, emergency and paramedic crews from accessing the bodies, the Gaza government media office stated. Stray dogs have been devouring the bodies scattered in the streets and the corpses have still not been identified…
At Kamal Adwan Hospital, the director of the ICU was killed as he entered the front door of the hospital. The director of the hospital, Abu Safiya, who has himself been badly wounded and lost his son while he helped his father at the hospital, was once again leading prayers for a dead colleague that had been deliberately targeted by the IDF.
Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Yemen are the few countries that have had the courage to stand in the way of this outrageous western supported and encouraged, genocide. Unsurprisingly and so coincidentally after the Lebonese ceasefire, the dirty war in Syria has been reignited as a means to finally cut the support lines to Lebanon and Palestine.
Your characterisation of the rebranded AL Quaeda affiliates, otherwise known as headchoppers as some kind of liberation force for Syria is perverse in the extreme.
It is notable that, as Jon Elmer and Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada explain, Israel played video of Hayat Tahrir al Sham fighters almost immediately after the fighting began. This although Israel bans any depiction of enemy fighters and their abilities shown on Israeli media. The inference being that THS are not enemies. Israel has given significant aid to the headchoppers in the past and is engaged in outrageous atrocities in Gaza so no surprise there.
You should provide a link to identify the significant aid to THS from Israel.
Your characterisation of the rebranded AL Quaeda affiliates, otherwise known as headchoppers as some kind of liberation force for Syria is perverse in the extreme
No I wrote this
Hopefully this might facilitate Gulf states assisting with a rebuild and a return of some of the refugees. And that might have a positive impact on Lebanon and its future.
The Turks seem to want the return of refugees to Syria. It is obvious Gulf states are more likely to provide aid (Syria and Lebanon) with the removal of Iranian presence, than with it still there.
There will be wider fears that Syria could plunge into an even more calamitous state, with various factions battling each other for control. In an already desperately unstable and volatile region, that could feed more dangerous unrest.
But for now at least, many Syrians both inside and outside the county are united by a hope that many felt they might never experience again – that they might be able to return to their homes, long lost in the bitter war that Assad's violent repression of protest and dissent originally triggered.
I did. Its in the video. Israel has never denied non lethal aid nor surgery for the many flavors of al Quaeda fighters. The current crop are already pledging allegiance to Israel in the form of normalization when they take control of the Syrian state.
From the above video, at about 6 13, AP reports that Syria was offered sanctions relief in exchange for turning its back on Lebanon, Palestine and Iran. They refused but I guess the message is that the Syrian govt is only a pariah so long as it opposes Washington.
At around 8 13 Times of Israel reports from US backed Syrian fighters on the benefits of Israeli attacks on Iranian and Syrian fighters involved with actual opposition to al Quaeda. This is where the Israeli airforce got the monika of al Quaeda's airforce.
This includes expressions of gratitude to Israel.
From 10 10 Timber Sycamore and the CIA financed by Saudi pouring cash and weapons into Syria.
According to Hassan Hassan, a Syrian expert on armed groups in the Levant, al-Julani wants to brand HTS as a credible governing entity in Syria and a possible partner in global counterterrorism efforts.
HTS is currently labelled a “terrorist” organisation by the United Nations, Turkiye, the US and European Union. Al-Julani has said this designation is unfair since his group has renounced its past allegiances in favour of a national one.
Not credible unless he renounces barbaric violence too, of course! However realpolitik allows incremental improvement so western labelling ought to be flexible.
Oh right. A one time leader of Al Quaeda in Syria to be ethically cleansed as a freedom fighter without ever having to face any kind of judiciary for his crimes??!
This is just typical of US imperialism. Rebrand and shove down the memory hole. I mean, 2011, who can even remember that far back any more. Maybe Fukuyama was right and we really have reached the end of history?? Nothing in the past has any meaning anymore so long as you're on board with the rules based order?? Just make Te Tiriti mean whatever because it's so far in the past!!
Here's how Jo Moir, RNZ Political Editor, framed the issue:
Karen Chhour, the minister in charge of the boot camp programme, told RNZ, "it's extremely disappointing that the Greens have chosen to spread misinformation about the tragic death of a young person… Tamatha Paul should be ashamed of herself."
Now whether it is information or not depends on what the Green MP wrote on social media and Jo helpfully includes a screenshot of that in her account:
Waking to the news that a rangatahi has died in the newly established boot camps set up by this abusive government.
Jo also told us the teen died in a crash in Tirau; but not that the boot camp is in Tirau. So the truth of the Green MP's claim hinges on whether it is or not.
It's a schrodinger's cat situation: she's not actually lying about his death until the news media observe the location of the boot camp and report it to us. So we're all in limbo with Bomber wondering if her claim is misinformation. The truth is out there – we just need someone to go find it. Jo Moir wrote "the Green Party is standing by the social media post". Are they really that stupid? Chloe needs another lying Green MP like a hole in the head. I bet she's hoping the crash did really happen in the boot camp in Tirau.
[I don’t think it’s ironic that you’re pivoting articles abut spreading misinformation to spread misinformation yourself.
Now whether it is information or not depends on what the Green MP wrote on social media and Jo helpfully includes a screenshot of that in her account:
The Green MP [Tamatha Paul] never wrote that; she shared another social media post on Instagram.
I bet she’s [Chlöe Swarbrick] hoping the crash did really happen in the boot camp in Tirau.
I bet you do. Your bias against the Green Party and its MPs is on display here again. I could explain how low and stupid your last sentence is, but it’s self-evident. You’ve been warned to lift your game but you’re unwilling to do so, so off to boot camp for you for a week – Incognito]
It is ironic that Miss Trunchbull Karen Chhour accuses others of politicising young offenders when it is her party's policy, in exhuming military style bootcamps, to literally do just that, politicise young offenders for political gain. ACT have very specific set of headline grabbing projects which they use to market themselves with.
In light of the two from the bootcamp who absconded at the tangi of the one who died turning straight to car conversion, one question which you didn't consider is, was the deceased driving the car which hit the tourist bus? Was that car a stolen car? Or perhaps the kid was not really being supervised in transition properly as we had been led to believe.
Mark Mitchell's Men have been very quiet on the circumstances of this very political accident. Maybe to protect the coalition government???
I look forward to your response after you have served your ban.
The US federal debt to GDP ratio in 2024 is expected to be around 123%:
U.S. Treasury: The debt to GDP ratio in 2024 is 123%, based on a debt of $35.46 trillion and an average GDP of $28.82 trillion.
Trading Economics: The government debt to GDP ratio is expected to reach 124.30% by the end of 2024.
The US government debt to GDP ratio has averaged 65.70% from 1940 to 2023. The all-time high was 126.30% in 2020, and the record low was 31.80% in 1981.
This is using total debt to GDP, as shown here.
From 106% debt to GDP in 2019, to 126% in 2020 under Trump.
The US GDP is US$29 trillion. Its public debt alone is US$33.1 trillion. No one talks realistically about paying it back, or even whether it makes sense as a ratio to anything.
The NZ GDP is about US$260 million. Our public debt is US$175 million or thereabouts. For a small country like us or Denmark or Fiji or similar, that really matters.
The left need to forget trading on the 'success' of getting us through the pandemic, and start describing what an actual successful economy looks like. At the moment all Labour and the Greens are doing is talking about taxes and patching up a few public institutions.
Many including myself don't want National+NZF+Act's extraction economy which is finite and dumb. But I don't see any party charting something different.
The left need to forget trading on the 'success' of getting us through the pandemic, and start describing what an actual successful economy looks like. At the moment all Labour and the Greens are doing is talking about taxes and patching up a few public institutions.
The path towards that will not be by ceding the debt narrative to people like the columnist, Luxon and Willis.
1.patching up public institutions, maintaining their purpose in a modern democratic society, is a core job.
2.being spooked by debt levels is a methodology of those who want private sector capital dominance in the order of economic society.
3.any functioning government requires a tax base.
The term for this is prerequisite.
What sort of national economy we should have now, soon, or in the future is dependent on the world environment around us. This is less easy to predict than usual (even without the necessary factoring in of GW).
Government debt under Labour/Greens/NZF fell from 21.6% of GDP to 18.6% between 2016 and 2019. Then along came Covid when, encouraged and supported by the Nats, government spending under Labour to keep businesses/the economy from crashing, and also due to the Covid fall in GDP, caused Government debt to GDP to rise to 39.3% of GDP.
Obviously, Damien and co. still haven't grasped the concept of they're still alive to write crap like this.
This research paper might provide an explanation for the thought patterns of Damien and David (US-centric but broadly applicable).
But what might explain the libertarian focus on liberty to the exclusion of other moral concerns? Recent work in moral psychology suggests that moral attitudes arise, at least in part, from low-level “dispositional traits” [23], emotional reactions [8], [24], social function [17], and the moralization of preferences [10]. These moral attitudes have, in turn, been found to be associated with ideological self-identification [3], [9].
Are you suggesting in this comment that the Government actions during the Covid scare kept people alive who might have died id we hadn't had the horrendous shutdowns we endured?
Professor McCullough of the University of Auckland would say that the evidence is that our death rate from Covid was just like the rest of the world. We just delayed it by a little bit.
Have a look at his comment, and the graph that goes with it which suggests that our over the top reaction did nothing to limit the incidence of Covid deaths.
There would have been roughly 18,000 more dead New Zealander's if we had adopted the UK (Boris) approach to Covid rather than Jacinda's.
And during most of the Covid years because NZ had secure borders we all went to the cricket and rugby and blissfully travelled around our marvelous country while other countries couldn’t do this. The economy also continued to function well. The NZ Covid response was exemplary.
I travelled around WA last year, which also had secure borders including from other states, and the WA people I talked to said they had a great time during Covid just like NZ.
"we all went to the cricket and rugby and blissfully travelled around our marvelous country while other countries couldn’t do this. The economy also continued to function well. The NZ Covid response was exemplary."
Shall I just say that your memories of the time diverge from my own.
Having family and friends in Germany and UK and usually calls every week, I can remember what their restrictions were compared to ours here in NZ. They couldn't believe it when I showed pictures of me at a crowded stadium or going shopping in town like nothing ever happened etc.
The last lockdown in Auckland was definitely problematic though. Something Wellington or South Island didn't have to go through.
Take a look at all the time we spent in level 1. I certainly didn't go to the cricket or rugby, because I can't stand either sport, but was well aware that we were living in a parallel universe to most of the planet. My UK and Europe friends were pretty pissed off at our situation.
Oh, and I highly recommend visiting Queenstown when the borders are closed and Auckland's in lockdown. You will never see the town that empty
I just used the sports events as examples Kay-your dislike for then isn’t a helpful debating point.
I live in Wanaka-while (as you say) Wanaka and Queenstown were blissfully quiet during Covid, dozens and dozens of tourist-related businesses were going bust. The government's help only went so far.
The countries I chose ARE our peers in terms of income/head.
GDP (PPP) per capita figures for the countries I chose, in US dollars, are Singapore 127K, Australia 62K, Kuwait 58K, New Zealand 52K, South Korea 50K and Japan 46K.
I didn't include Vietnam or other low income countries.
Can you please tell us who this group of "High Income Countries" you are talking about comprises?
And, considering the numbers I have quoted what is it that makes you think that high income countries are New Zealand's peers? Sounds a bit conceited on our part as our record over the last five years certainly doesn't make me think it qualifies now or will qualify in the next few years as being in the "rich" bracket.
Have a look at what Professor McCulloch demonstrates. It can be summed up by the heading
"The IMF confirms that Labour Leader Chris Hipkins Put New Zealand Bottom of Asia Pacific Economies in 2023."
He gives his opinion of the last Government as
"Whatever new PM Chris Luxon's faults, anything is an improvement on Chris Hipkins & the country's Worst Finance Minister Ever, Grant Robertson, as well as former PM Ardern, who divided the country and destroyed NZ's social fabric with her "holier than thou" moralizing, more than any PM before her."
"Whatever new PM Chris Luxon's faults, anything is an improvement on Chris Hipkins & the country's Worst Finance Minister Ever, Grant Robertson, as well as former PM Ardern, who divided the country and destroyed NZ's social fabric with her "holier than thou" moralizing, more than any PM before her."
Sounds like the balanced nuanced and considered position of an academic …
As people are still dying from Covid, may I suggest you go to one the funerals so you can tell everyone there that its fine, we are just average in the greater scheme of things and your desire for a sausage roll outranks Nana's desire to keep breathing.
I mean, you're totally comfortable here saying your asinine sociopathic shit. How about you walk the talk? Take it to the real world and see how that flies.
Indeed they are, as I may have mentioned before, my elderly neighbour (early 80s, so not too old) broke her hip & was taken to hospital, to recover she was then put in a resthome as the hospital didn't have room, she caught covid, & died, all within a fortnight. Before her hip surgery she was independent, lived by herself, kept an amazing garden & had a busy social life & was a great neighbour.
Are you suggesting in this comment that the Government actions during the Covid scare kept people alive who might have died…
Don't know about 'scare', but the Covid-19 pandemic killed Kiwis – the number of deaths prevented (and caused) by our pandemic response can only be estimated.
Aotearoa New Zealand’s early use of lockdowns and other restrictions helped prevent widespread COVID-19 infection until most of the population was vaccinated and the virus had become less deadly.
In the first two years of the pandemic, Aotearoa New Zealand had far fewer COVID-19 cases than most other countries and protected many vulnerable communities (including older people, disabled people, immunocompromised people).
Aotearoa New Zealand also had one of the lowest rates of COVID-19 deaths per head of the population when compared to other OECD countries.
From early 2020 to early 2023, the country actually experienced ’negative’ excess mortality, meaning there were fewer deaths in that time period than what would have been expected during a ’normal’ year.
Nāku te rourou nāu te rourou ka ora ai te iwi
COVID-19 showed us the capacity of New Zealanders, individually and collectively, to rise to a challenge that proved bigger and more complex than was initially anticipated. As we travelled the country hearing from people about their experiences, we were repeatedly struck by the extraordinary effort, commitment and selflessness shown throughout the pandemic.
Who is Grant and what is the article you are talking about?
Edit. I’ve just realised you mean Damien Grant.
I certainly don’t think we needed to let more people die. On the other hand I do think we could have done vastly better than we did if we had followed the Taiwanese approach. It helped that their VP was a world authority on such diseases.
if only we could govern with hindsight. The Government made discissions and lead , thats what we hire them for, have a bunch of cur dogs running round attacking what is a part of history is pathetic.
and try moving the end point of the comparison, or use the time-lapse facility. Statistics were possibly a bit unreliable in the early months, and the situation now is that vaccination has generally improved regardless of country – but overall NZ and Taiwan both did very well in saving lives..
[This is the second time, please stick to one e-mail address here, thanks – Incognito]
ALL insurance is corrupt. insurance companies sell you a promise, then do their best to break that promise. thats how they make a profit. living overseas, insurance can be one of the biggest costs.
Depends on the type of company. If they're "mutual", meaning they're owned by the policy-holders, then cover is provided at or near cost, and any profits are returned to the policy-holders. That ain't so bad. It's when they're owned by "investors" looking to make a profit or dividend that you get the kind of sharp practice that United seems to have been indulging in.
I agree with you but their malice goes further than that.
I had a commercial light truck back out of a parking space into me. Driver acknowledged fault and his company had insurance. Long story short, because they denied liability, I was without a vehicle for 9 months and had to chase up police reports, CC footage etc to get things sorted.
Thanks for the link and raising awareness of this site generally.
Wow, the money UnitedHealth Care donated to Kamala Harris. >$770,000. Compared to Trump's poultry $144,000.
Seeing as they spent $10M on lobbying last year, it's easy to see how they can monopolise the health system. Owning the insurance company, the pharmaceuticals companies, the claims processors and the health providers would be a Levy wet dream.
Over a decade of mechanised warfare that included chemical weapons, incendiaries, and barrel bombs waged on Syrians by a murderous despot resulting in more than a half million civilian casualties, the incarceration, rape, torture and murder of tens of thousands in a prison system operated like a human abattoir and the forced internal displacement of millions with millions more fleeing their country but .. but… Jalwani!
The one algorithm to rule over all on neo planet X.
Musk speak and direction.
All power to Musk.
And those he anoints.
Musk satellites, phone payments/social media data, Musk AI … and the journey to Panopticon Society … is this the Deep State domestic population control via partnership with enabled corporate (Microsoft monopoly being just the beginning) oligarchy?
When great wealth is in the hands of a few, related to supremacy in power (technology), national governance is manged consent, as in the days when only those men with property could vote.
At what point is this a return to the authority of those like gods (Sumer and planet X), patriarchy over the body of those of women on earth?
You get the feeling Israel and the US has an involvement in this coup. No doubt there's a sizeable piece of Syria Israel claims historically and this is their first foray into taking it for settlement building.
Shame about the Palestinians.They've lost Syria as a conduit and really are alone now without help from Iran ,Hezbollah and the Houthis.They are about to be slaughtered
Hezbollah's weakness (after their support for Hamas), Russia being distracted in Ukraine (and waiting for Trump's inauguration) and Iran wary of the sanctions Trump applied last time … so Turkey gave the greenlight for regime change.
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This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters and Bob HensonFlames from the Palisades Fire burn a building at Sunset Boulevard amid a powerful windstorm on January 8, 2025 in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The fast-moving wildfire had destroyed thousands of structures and ...
..Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.The Regulatory Standards Bill, as I understand it, seeks to bind parliament to a specific range of law-making.For example, it seems to ensure primacy of individual rights over that of community, environment, te Tiriti ...
Happy New Year!I had a lovely break, thanks very much for asking: friends, family, sunshine, books, podcasts, refreshing swims, barbecues, bike rides. So good to step away from the firehose for a while, to have less Trump and Seymour in your day. Who needs the Luxons in their risible PJs ...
Patrick Reynolds is deputy chair of the Auckland City Centre Advisory Panel and a director of Greater Auckland In 2003, after much argument, including the election of a Mayor in 2001 who ran on stopping it, Britomart train station in downtown Auckland opened. A mere 1km twin track terminating branch ...
For the first time in a decade, a New Zealand Prime Minister is heading to the Middle East. The trip is more than just a courtesy call. New Zealand PMs frequently change planes in Dubai en route to destinations elsewhere. But Christopher Luxon’s visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, January 5, 2025 thru Sat, January 11, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
The decade between 1952 and the early 1960s was the peak period for the style of music we now call doo wop, after which it got dissolved into soul music, girl groups, and within pop music in general. Basically, doo wop was a form of small group harmonising with a ...
The future teaches you to be aloneThe present to be afraid and coldSo if I can shoot rabbits, then I can shoot fascists…And if you tolerate thisThen your children will be nextSongwriters: James Dean Bradfield / Sean Anthony Moore / Nicholas Allen Jones.Do you remember at school, studying the rise ...
When National won the New Zealand election in 2023, one of the first to congratulate Luxon was tech-billionaire and entrepreneur extraordinaire Elon Musk.And last year, after Luxon posted a video about a trip to Malaysia, Musk came forward again to heap praise on Christopher:So it was perhaps par for the ...
Hi,Today’s Webworm features a new short film from documentary maker Giorgio Angelini. It’s about Luigi Mangione — but it’s also, really, about everything in America right now.Bear with me.Shortly after I sent out my last missive from the fires on Wednesday, one broke out a little too close to home ...
So soon just after you've goneMy senses sharpenBut it always takes so damn longBefore I feel how much my eyes have darkenedFear hangs in a plane of gun smokeDrifting in our roomSo easy to disturb, with a thought, with a whisperWith a careless memorySongwriters: Andy Taylor / John Taylor / ...
Can we trust the Trump cabinet to act in the public interest?Nine of Trump’s closest advisers are billionaires. Their total net worth is in excess of $US375b (providing there is not a share-market crash). In contrast, the total net worth of Trump’s first Cabinet was about $6b. (Joe Biden’s Cabinet ...
Welcome back to our weekly roundup. We hope you had a good break (if you had one). Here’s a few of the stories that caught our attention over the last few weeks. This holiday period on Greater Auckland Since our last roundup we’ve: Taken a look back at ...
Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partnerSometimes I feel like my only friendIs the city I live in, The City of AngelsLonely as I am together we crySong: Anthony Kiedis, Chad Smith, Flea, John Frusciante.A home is engulfed in flames during the Eaton fire in the Altadena area. ...
Open access notablesLarge emissions of CO2 and CH4 due to active-layer warming in Arctic tundra, Torn et al., Nature Communications:Climate warming may accelerate decomposition of Arctic soil carbon, but few controlled experiments have manipulated the entire active layer. To determine surface-atmosphere fluxes of carbon dioxide and ...
It's election year for Wellington City Council and for the Regional Council. What have the progressive councillors achieved over the last couple of years. What were the blocks and failures? What's with the targeting of the mayor and city council by the Post and by central government? Why does the ...
Over the holidays, there was a rising tide of calls for people to submit on National's repulsive, white supremacist Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill, along with a wave of advice and examples of what to say. And it looks like people rose to the occasion, with over 300,000 ...
The lie is my expenseThe scope of my desireThe Party blessed me with its futureAnd I protect it with fireI am the Nina The Pinta The Santa MariaThe noose and the rapistAnd the fields overseerThe agents of orangeThe priests of HiroshimaThe cost of my desire…Sleep now in the fireSongwriters: Brad ...
This is a re-post from the Climate BrinkGlobal surface temperatures have risen around 1.3C since the preindustrial (1850-1900) period as a result of human activity.1 However, this aggregate number masks a lot of underlying factors that contribute to global surface temperature changes over time.These include CO2, which is the primary ...
There are times when movement around us seems to slow down. And the faster things get, the slower it all appears.And so it is with the whirlwind of early year political activity.They are harbingers for what is to come:Video: Wayne Wright Jnr, funder of Sean Plunket, talk growing power and ...
Hi,Right now the power is out, so I’m just relying on the laptop battery and tethering to my phone’s 5G which is dropping in and out. We’ll see how we go.First up — I’m fine. I can’t see any flames out the window. I live in the greater Hollywood area ...
2024 was a tough year for working Kiwis. But together we’ve been able to fight back for a just and fair New Zealand and in 2025 we need to keep standing up for what’s right and having our voices heard. That starts with our Mood of the Workforce Survey. It’s your ...
Time is never time at allYou can never ever leaveWithout leaving a piece of youthAnd our lives are forever changedWe will never be the sameThe more you change, the less you feelSongwriter: William Patrick Corgan.Babinden - Baba’s DayToday, January 8th, 2025, is Babinden, “The Day of the baba” or “The ...
..I/We wish to make the following comments:I oppose the Treaty Principles Bill."5. Act binds the CrownThis Act binds the Crown."How does this Act "bind the Crown" when Te Tiriti o Waitangi, which the Act refers to, has been violated by the Crown on numerous occassions, resulting in massive loss of ...
Everything is good and brownI'm here againWith a sunshine smile upon my faceMy friends are close at handAnd all my inhibitions have disappeared without a traceI'm glad, oh, that I found oohSomebody who I can rely onSongwriter: Jay KayGood morning, all you lovely people. Today, I’ve got nothing except a ...
Welcome to 2025. After wrapping up 2024, here’s a look at some of the things we can expect to see this year along with a few predictions. Council and Elections Elections One of the biggest things this year will be local body elections in October. Will Mayor Wayne Brown ...
Canadians can take a while to get angry – but when they finally do, watch out. Canada has been falling out of love with Justin Trudeau for years, and his exit has to be the least surprising news event of the New Year. On recent polling, Trudeau’s Liberal party has ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Much like 2023, many climate and energy records were broken in 2024. It was Earth’s hottest year on record by a wide margin, breaking the previous record that was set just last year by an even larger margin. Human-caused climate-warming pollution and ...
Submissions on National's racist, white supremacist Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill are due tomorrow! So today, after a good long holiday from all that bullshit, I finally got my shit together to submit on it. As I noted here, people should write their own submissions in their own ...
Ooh, baby (ooh, baby)It's making me crazy (it's making me crazy)Every time I look around (look around)Every time I look around (every time I look around)Every time I look aroundIt's in my faceSongwriters: Alan Leo Jansson / Paul Lawrence L. Fuemana.Today, I’ll be talking about rich, middle-aged men who’ve made ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 29, 2024 thru Sat, January 4, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
Hi,The thing that stood out at me while shopping for Christmas presents in New Zealand was how hard it was to avoid Zuru products. Toy manufacturer Zuru is a bit like Netflix, in that it has so much data on what people want they can flood the market with so ...
And when a child is born into this worldIt has no conceptOf the tone of skin it's living inAnd there's a million voicesAnd there's a million voicesTo tell you what you should be thinkingSong by Neneh Cherry and Youssou N'Dour.The moment you see that face, you can hear her voice; ...
The Green Party has welcomed the provisional ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, and reiterated its call for New Zealand to push for an end to the unlawful occupation of Palestine. ...
The Green Party welcomes the extension of the deadline for Treaty Principles Bill submissions but continues to call on the Government to abandon the Bill. ...
Complaints about disruptive behaviour now handled in around 13 days (down from around 60 days a year ago) 553 Section 55A notices issued by Kāinga Ora since July 2024, up from 41 issued during the same period in the previous year. Of that 553, first notices made up around 83 ...
The time it takes to process building determinations has improved significantly over the last year which means fewer delays in homes being built, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “New Zealand has a persistent shortage of houses. Making it easier and quicker for new homes to be built will ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden is pleased to announce the annual list of New Zealand’s most popular baby names for 2024. “For the second consecutive year, Noah has claimed the top spot for boys with 250 babies sharing the name, while Isla has returned to the most popular ...
Work is set to get underway on a new bus station at Westgate this week. A contract has been awarded to HEB Construction to start a package of enabling works to get the site ready in advance of main construction beginning in mid-2025, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“A new Westgate ...
Minister for Children and for Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence Karen Chhour is encouraging people to use the resources available to them to get help, and to report instances of family and sexual violence amongst their friends, families, and loved ones who are in need. “The death of a ...
Uia te pō, rangahaua te pō, whakamāramatia mai he aha tō tango, he aha tō kāwhaki? Whitirere ki te ao, tirotiro kau au, kei hea taku rātā whakamarumaru i te au o te pakanga mo te mana motuhake? Au te pō, ngū te pō, ue hā! E te kahurangi māreikura, ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says people with diabetes and other painful conditions will benefit from a significant new qualification to boost training in foot care. “It sounds simple, but quality and regular foot and nail care is vital in preventing potentially serious complications from diabetes, like blisters or sores, which can take a long time to heal ...
Associate Health Minister with responsibility for Pharmac David Seymour is pleased to see Pharmac continue to increase availability of medicines for Kiwis with the government’s largest ever investment in Pharmac. “Pharmac operates independently, but it must work within the budget constraints set by the government,” says Mr Seymour. “When this government assumed ...
Women’s Rights Party Co-leader Jill Ovens says the questions are odd, given there are no safety measures currently in place, and the use of puberty blockers (GnRH) to treat conditions related to “gender distress” is not a registered use of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Mason, PhD candidate in Conservation Biology, Deakin University Milosz Maslanka/Shutterstock Around the world, humans routinely kill carnivores to protect livestock and game, increase human safety and conserve native wildlife. Unfortunately, killing carnivores often creates new problems including population booms of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanne Orlando, Researcher, Digital Literacy and Digital Wellbeing, Western Sydney University According to the latest reports, TikTok has restored services in the United States after “going dark” on Saturday evening US time. The company turned off its services ahead of a nationwide ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Bellanta, Professor of Modern History (Australian Catholic University), Visiting Professor of Australian Studies (Seoul National University), Australian Catholic University New South Wales Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice and Police Museum, Museums of History New South Wales With almost all menswear ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Blazevich, Professor of Biomechanics, Edith Cowan University Watch any match at this year’s Australian Open and you’ll see balls curving in the air or bouncing higher or lower than expected. Players such as Novak Djokovic, Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff are ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Ogden, Associate Professor in Global Studies, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Getty Images On the eve of Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, the world is braced for more of what has been described as his instinct for “weaponised chaos”. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Freshwater poll for The Financial Review, conducted January 17–19 from a sample of 1,063, gave the Coalition a 51–49 lead, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Diana Piantedosi, Sociology PhD Candidate, School of Humanities and Social Sciences (La Trobe University); Honorary Fellow, School of Health and Social Development (Deakin University), La Trobe University MS Australia/tompaulbyrnes.com Laura (Radha Mitchell) is an ambitious investment banker living in London with ...
We round up everything coming to streaming services this week, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, ThreeNow, Neon and TVNZ+. If you love thought-provoking locally-made documentaries: M9 Season 2 (TVNZ+, January 20) The second season of the groundbreaking M9 sets out to inspire, empower and entertain by asking ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Barton, Senior lecturer, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University Studio Nut/Shutterstock When British TV doctor Michael Mosley died last year in Greece after walking in extreme heat, local police said “heat exhaustion” was a contributing factor. Since than ...
Shane Reti’s demotion is a reminder that the best experience for being a minister is being a minister, writes Henry Cooke. First published in Henry Cooke’s politics newsletter, Museum Street. Shane Reti – or “Doctor Shane”, as Judith Collins would always call him – is a lovely man. The first time ...
An Al-Jazeera Arabic special report translated by The Palestine Chronicle staff details how Israel’s military strategy in Gaza, aimed at dismantling Hamas and displacing Palestinian civilians, has failed after 470 days of conflict.ANALYSIS:By Abdulwahab al-Mursi On May 5, 2024, nearly seven months into Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on ...
If there’s one thing this country loves, it’s holding onto stopgap structures for decades past their original use-by date. Mat Brown takes a look at 10 of his favourites. Auckland’s Te Wero Bridge has endured (more or less) for over a decade, yet it was only supposed to be a ...
From matcha IPAs to koshu wines, sake making classes and brewery resorts, there’s plenty to try if you know where to look. Japan’s food is famous everywhere, but the country’s drinks culture is a bit of a hidden gem. There’s a whole world here beyond what you might expect – ...
Sometimes a long drop is just the beginning of a turd’s journey.When you’re sitting on a loo with a view, with slow mosquitoes bumbling around your cheeks and someone outside testing the integrity of the door’s latch and hinges, it may not occur to you that this particular hole ...
"I'm looking forward to sitting down with Minister Watts to work through how best we collaborate and build an authentic and enduring partnership - to make a positive difference for all New Zealanders," LGNZ President Sam Broughton said. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rochelle Steven, Lecturer in Environmental Management, Murdoch University Home gardens can provide vital habitat for Australian birds. But there’s more to it than just planting certain types of shrubs and flowering trees. After decades of encouragement to include native plants in ...
A major demotion for one minister saw several others pick up new roles, explains Stewart Sowman-Lund for The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
Analysis - The prime minister has taken a close hard look at the varying skills of his ministers, resulting in a portfolio allocation imbalance following Sunday's reshuffle, Jo Moir writes. ...
The CEO, Paul Ash, responds to the Meta decision to ditch fact-checkers, among other changes that come just ahead of Trump’s return, along with the recent activity of Elon Musk.One of the most resounding of New Year resolutions this month came from Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and chair of the ...
Painful penetrative sex isn’t just a medical symptom. It’s a brick wall, a monster, an unwanted third partner in the bed. The Spinoff Essay showcases the best essayists in Aotearoa, on topics big and small. Made possible by the generous support of our members. My friends sometimes describe me as the ...
Comment: Annus horribilis. While the vast majority of us weren’t forced to take Latin at school, thanks to Queen Elizabeth’s 1992 speech, we all pretty much know that these two words literally translate into ‘horrible year’. That’s what 2024 was. Good riddance to 2024 and welcome 2025 (or 2569 in the Buddhist ...
Comment: It’s hard to imagine a more tragic way to start a new year than the news of child homicide. In fact, two children were separately killed by homicide in New Zealand in just the first week of 2025.At the hands of close relatives and people known to them.As that ...
Comment: The incoming Trump administration is likely to introduce new tariffs on China that will reverberate across the multilateral economic system. Such a policy would change the calculations of countries like New Zealand that rely on the global trading system in their relations with Asian superpower.Donald Trump’s tariff policy matters ...
Comment: It was an anniversary holiday like no other. It had started out normally with extra visitors in town, festivities to mark the occasion, people visiting friends, playing sport, or watching the boat races and horse races. But by 9.30pm residents were in a state of shock, their familiar surroundings ...
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Auckland Transport is being reminded that transport is a public service rather than a marketing exercise, after it spent millions advertising its own campaigns in 2024.The agency has confirmed that from January 1, 2024 to December 31, 2024, it spent $3.5 million on advertising and media placements for all of ...
And so to a new year of one of the most fragile and unpredictable industries in New Zealand: publishing. The books trade, made possible in the first instance by the imaginations and anxieties of authors, and made real by the nice people who stand behind the counter at the nation’s ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Coates, Program Director, Housing and Economic Security, Grattan Institute Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock Having compulsory super should help create a comfortable and stress-free retirement. But Australia’s super system is too complex for retirees to navigate. This can leave them stressed and ...
It appears that the government of Syria is being formally removed from office this week.
The Russians and Iranians are leaving, the prison where POW were "killed" will be "liberated", and the suburbs of Damascus began falling as soon as the regimes military left to form a "cordon around the capital" (possibly to enable a runner).
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cwy8xzxe0w7t
Hopefully this might facilitate Gulf states assisting with a rebuild and a return of some of the refugees. And that might have a positive impact on Lebanon and its future.
It will get far worse should that regime really fall. Worse than Iraq.
Al Jazeera reports the Assad family have fled Syria.
Retribution and anomie follow in sticky red.
Presumably the military take over. Turkey must now be sorely tempted to take Aleppo and carve Syria's North off.
Mass internal migration and its economic destruction ensue.
Worst Middle East Christmas in a century.
… and this gives a sense of who the successful warring factions in Syria are aligned to:
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/opposition-fighters-damascus-gates-now-116562473
Barbara Plett Usher
reporting from Damascus
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cwy8xzxe0w7t
Little of that has occurred with the advance so far. And given Damascus suburbs are falling and the army has developed a cordon outside it – not that likely there either.
The ME had it easier in WW1, the carnage in Iraq and Syria (failed state) and Libya (failed state) has been next level.
The Arab League (Egypt) and Turkey need to step up – given Turkey has agendas, this is best done by UNSC mandate.
1.UN administration
2.UN development to establish the path to governance (by election) and a fund for a rebuild.
It has been worse than Iraq for a long time already.
So many refugees, a lot more damage to infrastructure.
In Gaza, the genocide grinds relentlessly on. More than 1400 families have now been completely erased from the Civil registry with over 3700 families now having only one survivor. Gaza has more child amputees than any other place on Earth.
In the North, ethnic cleansing in preparation of Israeli settlement is in it's ninth week. Food and medical aid are non existent with famine and disease rampant. In the last 60 days in the North nearly 4000 Palestinians are dead or missing with another 10 000 missing.
At Kamal Adwan Hospital, the director of the ICU was killed as he entered the front door of the hospital. The director of the hospital, Abu Safiya, who has himself been badly wounded and lost his son while he helped his father at the hospital, was once again leading prayers for a dead colleague that had been deliberately targeted by the IDF.
Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Yemen are the few countries that have had the courage to stand in the way of this outrageous western supported and encouraged, genocide. Unsurprisingly and so coincidentally after the Lebonese ceasefire, the dirty war in Syria has been reignited as a means to finally cut the support lines to Lebanon and Palestine.
Your characterisation of the rebranded AL Quaeda affiliates, otherwise known as headchoppers as some kind of liberation force for Syria is perverse in the extreme.
It is notable that, as Jon Elmer and Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada explain, Israel played video of Hayat Tahrir al Sham fighters almost immediately after the fighting began. This although Israel bans any depiction of enemy fighters and their abilities shown on Israeli media. The inference being that THS are not enemies. Israel has given significant aid to the headchoppers in the past and is engaged in outrageous atrocities in Gaza so no surprise there.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/israel-attacks-north-gaza-hospital-fifth-time
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7EUps7wU4j4&t=1s&pp=2AEBkAIB
You should provide a link to identify the significant aid to THS from Israel.
No I wrote this
The Turks seem to want the return of refugees to Syria. It is obvious Gulf states are more likely to provide aid (Syria and Lebanon) with the removal of Iranian presence, than with it still there.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czxdd2r2191o
I did. Its in the video. Israel has never denied non lethal aid nor surgery for the many flavors of al Quaeda fighters. The current crop are already pledging allegiance to Israel in the form of normalization when they take control of the Syrian state.
From the above video, at about 6 13, AP reports that Syria was offered sanctions relief in exchange for turning its back on Lebanon, Palestine and Iran. They refused but I guess the message is that the Syrian govt is only a pariah so long as it opposes Washington.
At around 8 13 Times of Israel reports from US backed Syrian fighters on the benefits of Israeli attacks on Iranian and Syrian fighters involved with actual opposition to al Quaeda. This is where the Israeli airforce got the monika of al Quaeda's airforce.
This includes expressions of gratitude to Israel.
From 10 10 Timber Sycamore and the CIA financed by Saudi pouring cash and weapons into Syria.
Also,
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/06/in-secret-program-israel-armed-and-funded-rebel-groups-in-southern-syria/
And on supply of actual hardware.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-chief-acknowledges-long-claimed-weapons-supply-to-syrian-rebels/
Not disagreeing, but it's possible that not all islamic fundamentalists are head-choppers. The warlord seems more intent on regime-building: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/12/4/who-is-abu-mohamad-al-julani-the-leader-of-hayat-tahrir-al-sham-in-syria
Not credible unless he renounces barbaric violence too, of course! However realpolitik allows incremental improvement so western labelling ought to be flexible.
Oh right. A one time leader of Al Quaeda in Syria to be ethically cleansed as a freedom fighter without ever having to face any kind of judiciary for his crimes??!
This is just typical of US imperialism. Rebrand and shove down the memory hole. I mean, 2011, who can even remember that far back any more. Maybe Fukuyama was right and we really have reached the end of history?? Nothing in the past has any meaning anymore so long as you're on board with the rules based order?? Just make Te Tiriti mean whatever because it's so far in the past!!
On TDB yesterday Bomber posed an extremely difficult question: https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2024/12/07/how-is-it-misinformation-if-the-teen-died-during-transition-to-the-community-phase-of-the-boot-camp-programme-blood-is-still-on-the-hands-of-the-government/
He's worried about this RNZ story: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/535892/greens-accused-of-spreading-misinformation-over-teen-s-bootcamp-death
Here's how Jo Moir, RNZ Political Editor, framed the issue:
Now whether it is information or not depends on what the Green MP wrote on social media and Jo helpfully includes a screenshot of that in her account:
Jo also told us the teen died in a crash in Tirau; but not that the boot camp is in Tirau. So the truth of the Green MP's claim hinges on whether it is or not.
It's a schrodinger's cat situation: she's not actually lying about his death until the news media observe the location of the boot camp and report it to us. So we're all in limbo with Bomber wondering if her claim is misinformation. The truth is out there – we just need someone to go find it. Jo Moir wrote "the Green Party is standing by the social media post". Are they really that stupid? Chloe needs another lying Green MP like a hole in the head. I bet she's hoping the crash did really happen in the boot camp in Tirau.
[I don’t think it’s ironic that you’re pivoting articles abut spreading misinformation to spread misinformation yourself.
The Green MP [Tamatha Paul] never wrote that; she shared another social media post on Instagram.
I bet you do. Your bias against the Green Party and its MPs is on display here again. I could explain how low and stupid your last sentence is, but it’s self-evident. You’ve been warned to lift your game but you’re unwilling to do so, so off to boot camp for you for a week – Incognito]
Mod note
It is ironic that
Miss TrunchbullKaren Chhour accuses others of politicising young offenders when it is her party's policy, in exhuming military style bootcamps, to literally do just that, politicise young offenders for political gain. ACT have very specific set of headline grabbing projects which they use to market themselves with.In light of the two from the bootcamp who absconded at the tangi of the one who died turning straight to car conversion, one question which you didn't consider is, was the deceased driving the car which hit the tourist bus? Was that car a stolen car? Or perhaps the kid was not really being supervised in transition properly as we had been led to believe.
Mark Mitchell's Men have been very quiet on the circumstances of this very political accident. Maybe to protect the coalition government???
I look forward to your response after you have served your ban.
Our debt to GDP went from 31.8% (2019) to 45.77% (2023).
https://www.statista.com/statistics/436529/national-debt-of-new-zealand-in-relation-to-gross-domestic-product-gdp/
Public debt to GDP in the USA went from 80% (2019) to 100% (2020) in the USA under Trump. Falling to 96% in 2021.
https://usafacts.org/articles/federal-debts-deficits-and-the-effect-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-on-both/
AI says
The US federal debt to GDP ratio in 2024 is expected to be around 123%:
This is using total debt to GDP, as shown here.
From 106% debt to GDP in 2019, to 126% in 2020 under Trump.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-to-gdp
Just so you know, what a turnip the libertarian (better off if more of us died) writing in Stuff is, on all matters economics.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360513485/damien-grant-new-zealand-ashamed-about-what-happened-covid-years
Why is comparing NZ debt to GDP levels to that of the USA useful at all?
1.to compare the impact of COVID on debt levels of nations, in response to the column by Grant.
2.to demonstrate that National's claim of a particular problem for them in government, is no different than many other nations post COVID.
The US GDP is US$29 trillion. Its public debt alone is US$33.1 trillion. No one talks realistically about paying it back, or even whether it makes sense as a ratio to anything.
The NZ GDP is about US$260 million. Our public debt is US$175 million or thereabouts. For a small country like us or Denmark or Fiji or similar, that really matters.
The left need to forget trading on the 'success' of getting us through the pandemic, and start describing what an actual successful economy looks like. At the moment all Labour and the Greens are doing is talking about taxes and patching up a few public institutions.
Many including myself don't want National+NZF+Act's extraction economy which is finite and dumb. But I don't see any party charting something different.
Should that be billion? And public debt at 67% of GDP seems on the high side?
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/year-end/financial-statements-2024
Yes and either way the US isn't useful.
The figure of net core crown debt $175B was reported as 42.5% net core crown debt to GDP.
Thanks – Ad's figures didn't add up, both being in “US$”. Yours make sense.
Oh, your distraction is premised on
1.not caring about relativity to other nations
(some nations have higher debt than the USA)
or wanting it limited to only small nations
You mention Denmark, which is undergoing an export boom (40% increase in exports after 2020 – pharmaceuticals …).
AI Overview
OECD
Europe
https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/government-debt-to-gdp?continent=europe
G20
https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/government-debt-to-gdp?continent=g20
Oz, its debt to GDP
20% in 2019, to 25% in 2020, to 36% in 2021. It is now 43.8%.
https://tradingeconomics.com/australia/government-debt-to-gdp
The path towards that will not be by ceding the debt narrative to people like the columnist, Luxon and Willis.
1.patching up public institutions, maintaining their purpose in a modern democratic society, is a core job.
2.being spooked by debt levels is a methodology of those who want private sector capital dominance in the order of economic society.
3.any functioning government requires a tax base.
The term for this is prerequisite.
What sort of national economy we should have now, soon, or in the future is dependent on the world environment around us. This is less easy to predict than usual (even without the necessary factoring in of GW).
Government debt under Labour/Greens/NZF fell from 21.6% of GDP to 18.6% between 2016 and 2019. Then along came Covid when, encouraged and supported by the Nats, government spending under Labour to keep businesses/the economy from crashing, and also due to the Covid fall in GDP, caused Government debt to GDP to rise to 39.3% of GDP.
https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/government-debt-to-gdp
Silly me, I took the clickbait and read it. Hold your nose and try not to scream, swear etc. if you make the decision to.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360513485/damien-grant-new-zealand-ashamed-about-what-happened-covid-years
Obviously, Damien and co. still haven't grasped the concept of they're still alive to write crap like this.
This research paper might provide an explanation for the thought patterns of Damien and David (US-centric but broadly applicable).
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3424229/
"they're still alive to write crap like this."
Are you suggesting in this comment that the Government actions during the Covid scare kept people alive who might have died id we hadn't had the horrendous shutdowns we endured?
Professor McCullough of the University of Auckland would say that the evidence is that our death rate from Covid was just like the rest of the world. We just delayed it by a little bit.
Have a look at his comment, and the graph that goes with it which suggests that our over the top reaction did nothing to limit the incidence of Covid deaths.
https://www.downtoearth.kiwi/post/ooops-the-royal-commission-report-on-covid-missed-out-the-graph-of-confirmed-covid-deaths-showing
Now do apples and oranges.
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/covid?country=USA~BRA~DEU~OWID_WRL~NZL~SWE&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+population=true
You have included various countries who ended up worse off than we did.
Try selecting countries like Japan, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Burkina Faso instead of the countries you have cherry picked and we will look dreadful.
The only relevant comparison is the world as a whole. We were just average.
There would have been roughly 18,000 more dead New Zealander's if we had adopted the UK (Boris) approach to Covid rather than Jacinda's.
And during most of the Covid years because NZ had secure borders we all went to the cricket and rugby and blissfully travelled around our marvelous country while other countries couldn’t do this. The economy also continued to function well. The NZ Covid response was exemplary.
I travelled around WA last year, which also had secure borders including from other states, and the WA people I talked to said they had a great time during Covid just like NZ.
"we all went to the cricket and rugby and blissfully travelled around our marvelous country while other countries couldn’t do this. The economy also continued to function well. The NZ Covid response was exemplary."
Shall I just say that your memories of the time diverge from my own.
Having family and friends in Germany and UK and usually calls every week, I can remember what their restrictions were compared to ours here in NZ. They couldn't believe it when I showed pictures of me at a crowded stadium or going shopping in town like nothing ever happened etc.
The last lockdown in Auckland was definitely problematic though. Something Wellington or South Island didn't have to go through.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/437359/timeline-the-year-of-covid-19-in-new-zealand
Take a look at all the time we spent in level 1. I certainly didn't go to the cricket or rugby, because I can't stand either sport, but was well aware that we were living in a parallel universe to most of the planet. My UK and Europe friends were pretty pissed off at our situation.
Oh, and I highly recommend visiting Queenstown when the borders are closed and Auckland's in lockdown. You will never see the town that empty
I just used the sports events as examples Kay-your dislike for then isn’t a helpful debating point.
I live in Wanaka-while (as you say) Wanaka and Queenstown were blissfully quiet during Covid, dozens and dozens of tourist-related businesses were going bust. The government's help only went so far.
Arse.
The only relevant comparison is with countries with comparable income, health systems and reporting.
Here are some figures for what you might consider to be comparable countries.
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/covid?country=NZL~OWID_WRL~AUS~SGP~KOR~JPN~KWT&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+population=true
Like your ones they have been cherry picked of course. I would think that Japan and Singapore would be more like us than Brazil and the USA though.
According to the World Bank we're a high-income country.
Our cumulative death toll was a third of our high-income country peers.
The countries I chose ARE our peers in terms of income/head.
GDP (PPP) per capita figures for the countries I chose, in US dollars, are Singapore 127K, Australia 62K, Kuwait 58K, New Zealand 52K, South Korea 50K and Japan 46K.
I didn't include Vietnam or other low income countries.
https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/
It's helpful to look at remote island nations too, when doing any comparitive analysis.
This "only relevant comparison is with countries with comparable income, health systems and reporting." is part of revisionist history.
Sure, if we had closed borders earlier and had no one returning … then zero cases like the Cook Islands.
Because world-average comparison good, peer-average comparison bad,….right?
/
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/covid?country=NZL~OWID_WRL~High-income+countries&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+population=true
Can you please tell us who this group of "High Income Countries" you are talking about comprises?
And, considering the numbers I have quoted what is it that makes you think that high income countries are New Zealand's peers? Sounds a bit conceited on our part as our record over the last five years certainly doesn't make me think it qualifies now or will qualify in the next few years as being in the "rich" bracket.
Have a look at what Professor McCulloch demonstrates. It can be summed up by the heading
"The IMF confirms that Labour Leader Chris Hipkins Put New Zealand Bottom of Asia Pacific Economies in 2023."
He gives his opinion of the last Government as
"Whatever new PM Chris Luxon's faults, anything is an improvement on Chris Hipkins & the country's Worst Finance Minister Ever, Grant Robertson, as well as former PM Ardern, who divided the country and destroyed NZ's social fabric with her "holier than thou" moralizing, more than any PM before her."
https://www.downtoearth.kiwi/post/the-imf-confirms-that-labour-leader-chris-hipkins-put-new-zealand-bottom-of-asia-pacific-economies-i?postId=0a304d5b-1fb0-452a-9a49-2ff140677c1b&utm_campaign=a63311aa-6cb5-4cf1-8f3f-2284398d352e&utm_source=so&utm_medium=mail&utm_content=a3c8094a-5b09-4028-b5c2-9a66071b3689&cid=632643ad-c0f6-4de1-b74e-f34ebdc1ad74
Sounds like the balanced nuanced and considered position of an academic …
Our rate is much lower than in Europe and the Americas and higher than the lower rate areas, Africa (young population) and Asia.
Brazil, USA and the EU each had more than recorded in all of Asia.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/health/covid-africa-deaths.html
China recorded 120,000 in a nation of 1.4B.
Our figure is around that of Oz, not as good as Japan or Singapore.
https://data.who.int/dashboards/covid19/deaths?m49=554&n=c
apples and
orangesapples.Yes Alwyn – Following a kick to the head from a horse, I take advice on plagues from macro-economists too.
Now, how many dead people would have been acceptable to you?
5,000?
10,000?
20,000?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/499516/new-zealand-s-covid-19-response-saved-20-000-lives-research
As people are still dying from Covid, may I suggest you go to one the funerals so you can tell everyone there that its fine, we are just average in the greater scheme of things and your desire for a sausage roll outranks Nana's desire to keep breathing.
I mean, you're totally comfortable here saying your asinine sociopathic shit. How about you walk the talk? Take it to the real world and see how that flies.
Please chill and leave the personal insults, thanks.
Indeed they are, as I may have mentioned before, my elderly neighbour (early 80s, so not too old) broke her hip & was taken to hospital, to recover she was then put in a resthome as the hospital didn't have room, she caught covid, & died, all within a fortnight. Before her hip surgery she was independent, lived by herself, kept an amazing garden & had a busy social life & was a great neighbour.
Don't know about 'scare', but the Covid-19 pandemic killed Kiwis – the number of deaths prevented (and caused) by our pandemic response can only be estimated.
https://www.health.govt.nz/strategies-initiatives/programmes-and-initiatives/covid-19/managing-covid-19-in-new-zealand
Did you read grants article, he pretty much says we should have let many more die foe the economies sake, atleast he's honest unlike ypu. Alwyn
" grants article"
Who is Grant and what is the article you are talking about?
Edit. I’ve just realised you mean Damien Grant.
I certainly don’t think we needed to let more people die. On the other hand I do think we could have done vastly better than we did if we had followed the Taiwanese approach. It helped that their VP was a world authority on such diseases.
if only we could govern with hindsight. The Government made discissions and lead , thats what we hire them for, have a bunch of cur dogs running round attacking what is a part of history is pathetic.
At least I said at the time that I thought our approach should be to follow the example of Taiwan. What did you propose?
We largely did follow an approach similar to Taiwan. For the results on a consistent basis (comparison with pre-covid mortality) see:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores-projected-baseline?time=earliest..2021-01-03&country=NZL~USA~TWN
and try moving the end point of the comparison, or use the time-lapse facility. Statistics were possibly a bit unreliable in the early months, and the situation now is that vaccination has generally improved regardless of country – but overall NZ and Taiwan both did very well in saving lives..
[This is the second time, please stick to one e-mail address here, thanks – Incognito]
Mod note
So is Reti in the back pocket of United Health? How else can we explain his actions which help this type of predatory corporation?
Oh look private health insurance is corrupt – who would have thought
ALL insurance is corrupt. insurance companies sell you a promise, then do their best to break that promise. thats how they make a profit. living overseas, insurance can be one of the biggest costs.
Depends on the type of company. If they're "mutual", meaning they're owned by the policy-holders, then cover is provided at or near cost, and any profits are returned to the policy-holders. That ain't so bad. It's when they're owned by "investors" looking to make a profit or dividend that you get the kind of sharp practice that United seems to have been indulging in.
I agree with you but their malice goes further than that.
I had a commercial light truck back out of a parking space into me. Driver acknowledged fault and his company had insurance. Long story short, because they denied liability, I was without a vehicle for 9 months and had to chase up police reports, CC footage etc to get things sorted.
Thanks for the link and raising awareness of this site generally.
Wow, the money UnitedHealth Care donated to Kamala Harris. >$770,000. Compared to Trump's poultry $144,000.
Seeing as they spent $10M on lobbying last year, it's easy to see how they can monopolise the health system. Owning the insurance company, the pharmaceuticals companies, the claims processors and the health providers would be a Levy wet dream.
More than 48,000 people died in the USA from gun related violence in 1991 (the most recent available data).
A rich prick who exploits the unfair health care system in the USA gets gunned down and suddenly gun deaths are news.
I know this is not the way to sort out the problem, but I can see it happening again. It’s a symptom of a dysfunctioning system.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
Today in 1972 Whetu Tirikātene-Sullivan became first Māori woman Cabinet minister.
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/whetu-tirik%C4%81tene-sullivan-becomes-first-m%C4%81ori-woman-cabinet-minister
Fuck this is sad.
@itsnooralkhatib
Locals in Syria report that some prisoners they released didn’t know that Hafez Assad is dead.
He died in 2000
They thought Saddam Hussein’s army released them from prison.
He died in 2006.
I am heartbroken, in tears.
They’ve been stuck in prison for more than 40 years.
https://x.com/itsnooralkhatib/status/1865449248298278983
Thousands of stories to be told.
https://bsky.app/profile/maitelsadany.bsky.social/post/3lcr3nnb65k2r
https://bsky.app/profile/patrickzaki.bsky.social/post/3lcr3s7b7z22h
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tal_al-Mallohi
https://bsky.app/profile/maitelsadany.bsky.social/post/3lcqyxuqu7s2q
Gosh
I look forward to the wonderful stories of Syria now becoming a truly pluralist,LBGT friendly democracy
Is there some way Jawlani can be given a blanket pardon for his murders?
https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/washingtondc/news/press-releases/up-to-10-million-reward-offered-for-information-on-the-leader-of-the-al-nusrah-front
Why don't you have a lovely cup of tea and commiserate with your framed portrait of Vladimir Vladimirovich.
Need a break?
Over a decade of mechanised warfare that included chemical weapons, incendiaries, and barrel bombs waged on Syrians by a murderous despot resulting in more than a half million civilian casualties, the incarceration, rape, torture and murder of tens of thousands in a prison system operated like a human abattoir and the forced internal displacement of millions with millions more fleeing their country but .. but… Jalwani!
For shame, you despicable human.
/
Please don’t.
The path of Musk oligarchy.
The one algorithm to rule over all on neo planet X.
Musk speak and direction.
All power to Musk.
And those he anoints.
Musk satellites, phone payments/social media data, Musk AI … and the journey to Panopticon Society … is this the Deep State domestic population control via partnership with enabled corporate (Microsoft monopoly being just the beginning) oligarchy?
When great wealth is in the hands of a few, related to supremacy in power (technology), national governance is manged consent, as in the days when only those men with property could vote.
At what point is this a return to the authority of those like gods (Sumer and planet X), patriarchy over the body of those of women on earth?
You get the feeling Israel and the US has an involvement in this coup. No doubt there's a sizeable piece of Syria Israel claims historically and this is their first foray into taking it for settlement building.
Well it's very good of course for both
Shame about the Palestinians.They've lost Syria as a conduit and really are alone now without help from Iran ,Hezbollah and the Houthis.They are about to be slaughtered
Oh but but Assad!!
Erdogan wanted a deal Assad would not give.
Hezbollah's weakness (after their support for Hamas), Russia being distracted in Ukraine (and waiting for Trump's inauguration) and Iran wary of the sanctions Trump applied last time … so Turkey gave the greenlight for regime change.