"Like most of the world's government's, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's administration has neither condemned nor endorsed the US drone strike which killed Soleimani, only calling for a de-escalation of hostilities. Jon Stevenson, a New Zealand journalist who has spent years covering conflict and politics in the Middle East, felt that was not enough. "I am concerned that there has been a lack not just of political leadership but of moral leadership by Western politicians. They need to step up now and make it clear to the Trump administration that they're very concerned," he said." https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/406940/iran-s-embassy-calls-on-nz-to-promote-peace-and-security
I've been dismayed by the lack of western moral leadership since the Nixon era, so I agree with Jon. I also agree with the call from the Iranian embassy.
As regards neither condemning nor condoning the drone strike, I'm agnostic. If the general was indeed about to launch terrorist strikes, Trump was right to take him out. Trouble is, we only have Trump's word for that. Okay, he seems to have gotten Putin on board, which suggests that the intelligence shared was persuasive. Even so, unless Trump shares it with Ardern & Peters he can't complain if they stand on the sidelines watching.
Any helpful foreign policy initiative would have to direct Iran onto the path of peaceful coexistence – a fact that the Iranian embassy would do well to note. Provocation works both ways, and denuclearising has to be real, not fake…
Or, do you mean that Putin recognises that it is not in Russia's interests , or that of most of the world , to have an all out war in that region, and that de escalation is better than further insanity?
Less than a year ago Iran was declared to be compliant with the terms of the JCPOA treaty
What evidence are you aware of(I don't mean the unspecified claims of certain "intelligence" reports) that he was engaged in conspiracies to attack the US?
Was Suleimani's support of the Palestinians enough to declare him a terrorist?
I know who I think are the world's biggest terrorists.
Haven't had a chance to examine your links yet. It's a moot topic and I agree that Trump ought to disclose his evidence re the general's terrorist organising. At that top level of geopolitics the tradition is to do so only with other relevant leaders and intelligence chiefs. Sharing that info with the public is routinely avoided.
I read your OM comment and your source thoroughly.No mention of Suleiman in that BBC source
Are you assuming rather than stating that intelligence prior to the Suleiman killing was shared and discussed with Putin ?
I have come across no such report .
The tradition of secret intelligence reports has been widely used in the past for very dodgy purposes and I wouldnt put much store by it. Remember Key and his secret advice about imminent jihadist threats to justify further surveillance .Lying bastards, and we shouldn't fall for it every time.
It is not unusual for Russia and the US to share intelligence re terrorism
Famously Russia attempted to warn Obama about the Tsarnaev brothers in 2013
We read our own inferences into news reports. BBC tells us about the understanding developed between Trump & Putin in regard to intelligence sharing and looming terrorist attacks. BBC tells us they talked on the phone a few days before the assassination. Doesn't tell us why or what about. So we can deduce that from what promptly happened.
A possible scenario: "Hey Putin, I'm about to take out some Iranian general who is organising a terrorist attack. It'll make me look like a terrorist too, goddam it, but life ain't a bowl of peaches." "Bugger! He may be Shia, but he's been useful. Give me the details of what he was planning."
Do you see the BBC more or less of a master at directing opinion and sly suggestions or any less intent on 'crafting' "news" than all the other big media players?
It is possible that everyone, including the Iranian government, are actually pleased to see the end of Suleiman. He, as part of the Revolutionary Guards, essentially was operating a parallel Iranian foreign policy to that of the Iranian government, a much more aggressive policy than the government would really like. That was probably complicating things for all the relevant governments with influence in the region, including Russia.
If the Iranian response is as limited as at present, it would indicate that the Iranians are not going to do that much to "avenge" Suleiman. To me that shows they want to put his form of foreign policy behind them.
This is all sheer speculation on my part, but from what I read, a lot of Iranians in government would like to see the Revolutionary Guards influence, both within and without Iran, curtailed. They have generally made life for the government of Iran, in the conventional sense of governing, a lot more difficult than it otherwise would be.
Wheels within wheels. Wayne's point is a good one. Roman history informs us that the inconvenience of successful military leaders often had emperors rearranging the chess board. Younger folk would get the point from Game of Thrones too.
Had a history of Mossad on my bookshelf for a few years ("Every Spy a Prince", I think). The Israelis had the model of factions within revolutionary Iran all competing together, extremists and moderates, building that model from a couple of defectors and agents.
That basically directed their foreign policy to Iran for a couple of decades. Dunno about now.
Good one. To be honest, it's never occurred to me to go looking for a history of Mossad. But I did get an eye-opening glimpse into that recently, courtesy of a book from the New Plymouth library by an investigative journalist who had compiled all the evidence that Mossad organised 9/11 using Arab stooges. He even had quotes from retirees that documented the origin of the scenario back around '79.
I paid attention to the Iran situation in the early years of the revolution. I remember learning how the mullahs eliminated the leftists. I was somewhat sympathetic to them from a nationalist perspective (inasmuch as the CIA took out Mossadegh in '53) but their ruthlessness proved they were merely fundamentalists so I got bored & ignored them after that.
If they were smart, they'd liberalise by allowing the secular option to become available to Iranians. The racist regime in South Africa yielded to the future, as did the communists, but no, these turkeys still want to pretend that it's the 7th century AD.
Interesting commentary from the New Yorker, which suggests Suleimani was doing the bidding of the Iranian govt, rather than forming his own separate power base
I suspect that Wayne had the Stalin model in mind. No apparent independent power base via deliberate effort towards creating that, but a de facto one produced by results, mana, reputation.
Pragmatists use levers that are available. The cleverest learn from experience that operating in the middle between powers that be, serving both sides ad hoc, in accord with what the situation requires, catalyses necessary progress. Partisans render themselves impotent by painting themselves into their corner.
Assad is Alawite. "Alawite doctrine incorporates Islamic, Gnostic, neo-Platonic, Christian and other elements and has, therefore, been described as syncretic." [Wikipedia] So the Shia orthodoxy can only perform regional liaison via a competent independent player. A general in the revolutionary guard with a track record of military success has the mana to do such liaison. The dead one had fought the Taliban with success, so Putin & Assad valued his expertise.
People I've talked to who have family in Iran, say the biggest hand up the Revolutionary Guards got was the sanctions imposed by the US. In that it not only has it made them more powerful in a political sense, but in economic terms as well.
So if we really want to curtail the Revolutionary Guards, then sanctions need to be looked at.
Suleiman was a revered and enormously popular person and will be a martyr, at least in the eyes of his many followers. This may not sit well with the theocratic leadership (government) but it won’t necessarily stop his followers from trying to avenge him. There are too many factions and splinter groups and it is not the most cohesive of societies.
My hypothesis will be tested by the extent of the overall reaction by Iran in the coming weeks.
Icognitio makes the point that the various elements who were Suleiman's loyal supporters will undertake numerous terrorist type actions against US interests. That is possible. But if that gets out of hand, the Iranian government will try to curtail it.
As for the scale of support, even if only 10% of Iranians supported the Revolutionary Guards, that is still 10 million people. Many of the other 90% fear the Guards, who have for decades been a repressive and violent faction within Iran. They have killed literally tens of thousands of Iranians.
However, I think it is already clear that the Iranian government is trying to limit the scale of reaction. No doubt there is intense diplomacy going on, particularly with various European nations.
Actually, I did not specify the type(s) of revenge. It is quite telling that you made that assumption. Many seem to look down on this ‘enemy’ as if they are some backwards barbarians stuck in the 7th century AD. It might explain the level of flippancy in and of their comments.
Perhaps they proved they aren't barbarians by getting revenge in a non-violent manner? I know, too great a break with tradition to be feasible, but it seems to have happened in the rocket attack.
Then again, the Iranian regime is apparently telling its people that they killed 80 American terrorists. Do you believe them?
You think describing America as the Great Satan is a form of contemporary sophistication?? Focus on the Great Satan successfully distracts everyone's attention from all the little Satans. Seems rather discriminatory! 😉 But did you have another form of revenge in mind?
Not your usual insightful analysis but more flippancy.
Do I base my whole thinking on one rocket attack and an alleged 80 casualties?
You think, talk, and act as a Westerner without religion, myths, symbols, and heroes. Your only tool is your cool rationality. No wonder you are puzzled, but don’t worry, you are not alone.
We can certainly hope Iran will choose to turn away from escalation. But Iran has form for liking their revenge served cold with a side of plausible deniability.
Like Hezbollah, Iran has appeared to attack soft targets thousands of miles from its borders. In 2012 Khameini vowed to “punish the perpetrators” of a hit against an Iranian nuclear chemist, the fourth Iranian nuclear scientist Israel was believed to have assassinated over a two-year span. Amid fears of retaliation in Israel or on U.S. soil, attacks instead took place as far afield as Georgia, India, and Thailand—where a series of bomb blasts wounded nine Israeli diplomats—and in Bulgaria, where another explosion killed five Israeli tourists, the Wall Street Journal reports. Iran has denied that it perpetrated any of the bombings.
This is very long and not the easiest style but it's well worth reading and I think you have the stamina for it .It gives a different perspective on Suleimani , one that is valuable as a counterpoint to the "official " view
I've cited his analysis on other topics in the past here once or twice: he's always worth reading. This one is sufficiently deep that a second reading may be required, for more leisurely contemplation, and I admit to just scanning some paragraphs.
His problem as a communicator in this article is that of coming to a point. It's as if he knows there's one there somewhere but he can't quite crystallise it. Ain't enough to bemoan the banalities of US foreign policy, or the ham-fisted use of US military force. We learnt that when LBJ was president in the 1960s, and have had to be reminded by every president since for reasons that remain obscure!
"It may, perhaps, be a bit of a stretch to suggest that he wanted peace with the Americans, but there is strong evidence in support of his actively working towards mutually-beneficial co-operation with his latter-day fatal adversary where appropriate and where this could actually be in some measure attained."
If so, then we must draw the conclusion that he wasn't serious enough to make it obvious to US leaders and other relevant world leaders. Perhaps because his own leaders prevented him doing so! Religious nutters tend to be useless at geopolitics.
We've all become inured to this kind of thing. It's always "too expensive" or "we're working on it" or "it's very difficult", but the result is the same and the longer it goes on the more entrenched as nornal and acceptable it becomes. Even discussion about the cause of the problem is limited to whether the correct "need score" was applied.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal grows, with whistleblower Brittany Kaiser releasing further internal documents from Cambridge Analytica.
Very good interviews on on Democracy Now! yesterday. "“The Great Hack”: Big Data Firms Helped Sway the 2016 Election. Could It Happen Again in 2020?" and a must watch for anyone concerned about 'meddling in elections'
This is the big story – forget Russia, Comey, Hillary, DNC. All bit players, CA would have to be the big one.
Labour’s KiwiBuild programme will build 100,000 high quality, affordable homes over 10 years, with 50% of them in Auckland. Standalone houses in Auckland will cost $500,000 to $600,000, with apartments and townhouses under $500,000. Outside Auckland, houses will range from $300,000 to $500,000.
We will be dropping the target of 100,000 houses over ten years. Instead of the target, we will focus on building as many homes as we can, as fast as we can, in the right places.
A fresh attack has been launched at Baghdad, with rockets falling near the US embassy in Iraq.
Iraqi military officials have confirmed to AAP that two rockets have fallen inside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses government buildings and foreign missions.
The Gulag was one of the darkest chapters in Russia’s past. The Russian government is airbrushing it away.
We set out to find as many living survivors as we could. They told us their stories, some for the first time. They are Generation Gulag.https://t.co/aCfuFd79Y1
Stalin, who sent millions to Gulag camps, has never been more popular in Russia. 70% of Russians say they approve of his legacy.
This is the result of a Kremlin campaign, spearheaded by Vladimir Putin, to rewrite Soviet history.
The Generation Gulag project started with a conversation between Coda journalists @antelava & @katia_patin. They wanted to hear from the eyewitnesses of Soviet authoritarianism about what it’s like to see their past being rewritten.
In Russia, authorities have imprisoned prominent Gulag historians and forced Gulag museums to register as “foreign agents.” Last year in southern Russia, police officers dressed up in KGB uniforms — in celebration of the Soviet “heroes” who rounded up millions of Russians.
Almost half of young Russians say they have never heard of the Stalin-era purges, known as the Great Terror.
Olga Shirokaya’s father was arrested and executed at the height of the purge in 1938. In a second wave of mass arrests, Olga was sent to a camp in 1950:
Olga’s Shirokaya was a child when Stalin’s purges reached a fever-pitch. It was 1938. Her father was arrested and executed. Twelve years later, Olga, now a young woman, was sent to the camps herself. The KGB accused her of “self-indoctrination.”
As an infant, ballet dancer Azari Plesetsky was sent to a special Gulag camp for the wives and children of Stalin’s “enemies of the people.”
“The most unpleasant and shameful part is that many people today try to forget about these wounds and not reopen them. But we must reopen them,” Azari Plesetsky told our journalist @oksanabaulina
Russian authorities aren’t invested in coming to terms with the horror of the Gulag. Instead, “they want it to become part of the tapestry of the past that has no special significance, no special meaning and no special lessons,” said author @anneapplebaum
Distorting the past is serving regimes around the world. As part of our disinformation coverage, we’re tracking how governments do it.
Here, @isocockerell looks at how China tried to re-engineer the history of Muslims in the country.
In the next few weeks, we will share the stories and the messages Gulag survivors have for us about our era.
But we don’t want to stop here. Share your own family’s story from the Gulag using the hashtag #GenerationGulag
To #stayonthestory of rewriting history, matters of disinformation, and more, subscribe to our newsletter now: eepurl.com/c7_NSz
"But it got crazier still. Enter J K Rowling, the author, who expressed support for Forstater on Twitter. At this point the Twitterati decided Rowling was a far juicier target than Forstater, and turned on her like a swarm of angry wasps."
"The Forstater-Rowling story encapsulated two of last year's dominant themes: the neo-Marxist Left's intolerance of dissent, and the crucial role of the ironically misnamed "social" media in howling down anyone who dares to question approved ideology."
"It also highlighted the sheer aggressiveness of minority-group activists in attacking anyone who challenges them. The standard tactic is to demand that the dissenter be sacked, regardless of whether their personal views have any bearing on their ability to do their job."
Stuff's cultural analyst wonders if the left learnt anything in 2019. Dunno why. People learn by themselves most of the time. They only do it collectively at school or university. Not all leftists are pc drones, so he's generalising – putting up a straw man to wave at Stuff readers under the false assumption that they will be impressed.
"The so-called "bathroom battles" are evolving into a key issue in the American culture wars." It could be resolved by creating a third category, neither male nor female. Public toilets with the third option wearing the sign Whatever…
Whats funny to me is that JK Rowling was the wokest of woke celebrities, remaining in Europe check, bring in the refugees double check, declaring Dumbledore to be gay (after the books were sold of course) triple check, announcing that Hermione was never specified as white (ignoring all the official illustrations, being described as going very brown in the sun and turning white) quadruple check
Yet supporting a (oops nealy forgot to add it) cis-gendered woman and suddenly its all over in the blink of eye
Why these celebrities continue to pander to nutbars on twitter is beyond me
Why these celebrities continue to pander to nutbars on twitter is beyond me
Mr du Fresne muttered something about “freedom of expression” but apparently the Left has been taken over and is dominated by a fringe of “nutbars” whose “aim is to intimidate people into silence” (regardless of whether they are Left or Right).
Mr du Fresne’s tacit concern is that it will lose the Left votes; he reminds me of a commenter here
I'm not interested in votes as much as the idea that celebrities (especially extremely wealthy ones) pander to groups that just seem to be waiting for them to stumble so they can tear them down
Maybe subconscious feelings of guilt over just how much money they have so they feel a need to be punished for it…
"The report sets out the details of Ross’s allegations about the Inner Mongolia Rider Horse Society (NZ) Ltd. Government members are concerned about the circumstances surrounding the involvement of a which is “owned by a China-based entity and controlled by a Chinese foreign national. “ We also note that Inner Mongolia Rider Horse Industry (NZ) Ltd carries out the business of exporting horses to China from New Zealand,” the report says."
“Government members believe it is noteworthy that a former Minister (alleged to be Todd McClay) less than a year before the donation was received, met with the founder of Inner Mongolia Rider Horse Industry (NZ) Ltd, Mr Lang Lin, in China in July 2016. The former Minister has been quoted in the media as saying the local electorate meeting was where Mr Lang indicated “that Inner Mongolia Rider Horse Industry (NZ) Ltd would like to support the National Party”.”
Since the invasion is by inner Mongolians, not outer, we can expect a more civilised outcome. So is it all about racing, or pet food? If the former, Winston may have perceived the threat. Although one of the Mongol companies wants to back the Nats, the other may be in talks with Winnie, in the hope of supporting the govt. Capitalists usually fund both sides to create a win/win outcome no matter what happens. The Mongols may be demonstrating that they know how to play the game.
…and you hoover up government subsidies in the process
The Herald reported on Wednesday that the 21-year-old fourth year student from China who is pursuing a double degree had her enrolment terminated for not telling the university about the change in her mental condition.
She was allegedly raped at an Auckland mental health unit in late October and tried to take her own life a month later.
"F**k what an utter lack of compassion and decency," one said on Facebook.
Another said: "The University of Auckland all you needed to do was let the girl have a damn break cos LORD KNOWS the pressure of university can mess with your mental health.
"Expulsion seems pretty extreme. Could've given her some time to get better and once she felt fit, return to her studies. From my understanding, this girl's family have spent upward of $100k sending their daughter to your school so WASSUP?"
A simple matter of key performance indicators. The previous government imposed KPIs on universities relating to student completion rates, the current government hasn't removed them, so the managerialists running the universities have a very strong incentive to assess whether an individual student is an asset or a liability from a KPI perspective, and act accordingly. This student had fallen into the "liability" category, hence the expulsion. People work to the KPIs they're given, with consequences that are often unintended by the people imposing the KPIs.
Another NZ university demonstrating its committment to "pastoral care". Been a bit of that over the last year or so.
PM is right – completion rates are a KPI. Brought in because when universities became mass education, they were a relatively safe haven from WINZ harrassment about perennial unemployment because uni funding was "bums on seats", period. So the same student would take the same paper many, many times because there was no such thing as "academic requirements". If you failed, it didn't affect your ability to enrol again next year.
" Kiwis should make a New Year’s resolution to move their bank accounts to Kiwibank, or one of the other wholly owned New Zealand banks, said Social Credit Leader Chris Leitch "
The big four Aussie owned banks dragged over $6 billion in profit out of the back pockets of Kiwis last year – four times more profit than the 10 largest companies on the NZ Stock Exchange.
Fair enough…I take it that you feel this way because the big 4 banks are making a profit operating in NZ. If customers move to Kiwbank, do you want Kiwibank make a profit out of the back pockets of their customers?
"Had even a quarter of that massive profit gone instead to Kiwibank, through Kiwis having moved their accounts last year, dividends to the Government would have provided over $1.5 billion dollars extra for health care and education"
Who would disagree with more money for the essential services kiwis want too see supported instead of the profits used too benefit the Australian economy.
"On Tuesday, Esper had said that the "exquisite intelligence" on the threat posed by Soleimani that drove the US military to target him in a drone strike would be shared only with the Gang of Eight — a group of eight lawmakers made up of congressional leaders from both parties as well as the Intelligence Committee chairs — saying "most Members (of Congress) will not have access to that.""
So those two guys were part of the eight? If so, the disclosure seems to have failed to impress them as adequate. Is this just a grey area of the constitution? President thinks he can assassinate as long as he doesn't declare war (because only congress can)?
No, neither of them are on the "gang of eight" for intelligence. Those are McTurtle and Schumer (party leaders in the Senate), McCarthy and Pelosi (party leaders in the House), Burr and Warner (Repug chair on Dem vice-chair on Senate intelligence committee), Schiff and Nunes (Dem chair and Repug ranking member on the House intelligence committee).
In general terms, I think there's very little patience for the "we have the intelligence but we can't tell it to you, just trust us" line. The Iraq WMD debacle probably removed trust for that kind of line for any president, let alone the current administration that lies much more frequently than it says anything resembling truth.
Speaking of waves of the future, Boris Johnson’s resounding victory in Britain’s general election earlier this month marks another significant change I’ve been waiting to see. The change in question isn’t the Conservative victory—the Tories won the last four British elections, after all—but the strategy Johnson used to deal out a savage defeat to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, which was exactly the same strategy Donald Trump used to win his come-from-behind victory in 2016. Like Trump, Johnson realized that his nation’s leftward party had abandoned its working class voters in order to pander to the comfortable classes. He went to the working class voters Labour had abandoned and spoke to them about the issues that concerned them—above all, an end to the open borders and free trade agreements that drove down working class wages in order to boost middle class salaries and investment class profits—and found them more than willing to listen.
To judge from his comments at the time, Trump stumbled onto that strategy by accident, and it took him a while to figure out what was happening and how to keep doing it. Johnson, with three years of hindsight to figure that out, didn’t have to rely on trial and error. His campaign was admirably precise; it focused on the issues that mattered to working class Britons—above all, on drawing a line under the delaying tactics of the Remainer minority and giving Britain the Brexit it voted for. When the other parties protested “But what about the issues that matter to the comfortable classes?” he rolled his eyes and kept on talking about Brexit.
Now he’s sitting comfortably in No. 10 with a bigger majority than Margaret Thatcher had, and he’s doubling down on the same strategy; discarding the austerity policies (austerity for the poor, that is, and kleptocracy for the rich) that came in with Thatcher, and gearing up to reorient Britain’s social welfare policies toward providing benefits directly to the poor and away from providing well-paying government jobs to the middle class. While plenty of pundits and media personalities are still busy duplicating the mistake of the Democrats over here, and doing their level best not to learn the obvious lessons of their loss, a significant number of writers and thinkers—some of them within the Labour fold—have grasped the implications of the election and begun to talk about it."
It does seem to be something afflicting english speaking left wing parties. In NZ Labour does appear to be more interested in the middle class leaving the working class wide open to be scooped up (will Bridges step up to take them or will the Greens be able to do it) but it does ask the question as to why its happening, why are left wing parties more interested in the middle class and academics than the working class
Speaking of who was the last Labour MP not to be university educated or from the middle class?
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Yesterday's Horizon poll showing support for a "Yes" vote in this year's cannabis referendum sliding into the majority for the first time in a year looked like good news for reformers – and it probably is. But the result warrants some scrutiny.The poll is the fifth in a series commissioned ...
For almost a week now, every one of us who isn’t an essential worker has been confined to their bubble. We are allowed to go shopping for groceries, to visit the doctor, and to get a bit of exercise if we stay local. The reason we are doing this is ...
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...
In the absence of a vaccine or a cure for a deadly disease, staying home in your bubble is what you do, the concept is not new. To the best of my knowledge last time we did this in NZ was for polio, in the years before a vaccine came ...
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...
This has been a terrible summer for Hector’s dolphins. The first indication was very low numbers of dolphin sightings during late spring and early summer. The Otago University Marine Mammal Research Team has carried out routine dolphin surveys at Banks Peninsula for more than 30 years. In all that time, ...
On March 17, Finance Minister Grant Robertson was quick out of the blocks with an economic rescue package to help businesses through the inevitable recession resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Robertson had pulled together a scheme in short order that so far seems to have saved many jobs. In his ...
The purpose of the lockdown is to save lives, by reducing the spread of covid-19. We won't know if its really working for another week, but given the devastation that will result if it doesn't - 14,000 dead is the optimistic scenario - its definitely worth trying. But pausing the ...
. . March 30: Day five of living in lock-down… Woke up still in darkness. Alarm hadn’t gone off. Turn to radio clock; it’s a few minutes after 6am… I lie there in the dark, waiting to drift off to sleep… but it ain’t happening. Clock ticks over to 6.55 ...
The story of Les Gray, the public sector psychologist who told the truth about his use of cannabis and set off a storm, has a special place in the lore of cannabis reform in New Zealand.When Paul Shannon interviewed Gray for the 'Dope and Hope' issue of Planet magazine in ...
by Phil Duncan For Marxists, a key concern about social trends is their context – not just their causes, but why they happen when they do. Events and phenomena have causes, but they also are time or period-specific. While much of the left have capitulated recently to postmodernism, most notably ...
Since the lockdown began, we've all suddenly been reminded who the actually essential workers in our society are: not the people at the top who pay themselves the big bucks and rort the perks, but the people at the bottom they screw over and squeeze: cleaners, warehouse staff, truck drivers ...
Kia ora! As I've watched nearly all my remaining work vanish over the past couple of days, it has occured to me that one good way to keep me away from arguing with fools on Twitter all the time (in the knowledge that all we're really doing is processing our ...
Aotearoa New Zealand has committed to trying to extirpate the virus that causes COVID-19 from its shores. To do that, as a society we’ve moved to “Level 4”. That means adapting to unprecedented restrictions on our personal freedoms, particularly to our rights to move freely and associate with friends and ...
When the Prime Minister declared a state of emergency last week, she handed the police powers to enforce it. And almost immediately, we started hearing about heavy-handed, arbitrary "enforcement" by police who (at best) cared more about order than law, or (more likely) had no idea what the rules were ...
. . Lock Down: Day 4 – A photo essay with observations . March 29: Usual wake up routine as RNZ snaps on my radio-clock. Jim Mora’s voice slowly enters my conciousness; there’s talk of a second wave of covid19 taking hold in South Korea; the week in Parliament – ...
Yesterday, New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 related death on the West Coast. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the only fatality, with the virus now being found in every region of the country.However despite the significant danger, people are still unfortunately breaching lockdown rules.There’s really only one main very ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... ‘Misinformation kills’: The link between coronavirus conspiracies and climate denialGrist / Rob Kim / Stringer / CSA Images Scientific ...
The kids did surprisingly well today – meltdown count was about 3, and mostly fairly short ones. (And a fourth while I was writing.) Game-wise I had a go at Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark. It’s a fairly standard RPG with turn-based combat and what they call a “mature storyline” (it ...
by Don Franks Hi David, Nice hearing from you, I’m glad to hear you’re getting by okay in these grim times. You asked how’s it going for us back here in New Zealand. You would have heard that the whole country is locked down and with breaks for exercise and ...
. . Lock Down: Day 3 – A photo essay with observations . March 28: First day of the first weekend in Lock Down. It feels like it’s been weeks since only Level 3 was declared last Tuesday, only four days ago. Woke up this morning to RNZ; coffee; toast, ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Mar 22, 2020 through Sat, Mar 28, 2020Articles Linked to on FacebookSun, Mar 22, 2020In Just 10 Years, Warming Has Increased the Odds of Disasters by Chelsea Harvey, ...
I’m here in lockdown with my flatmate and her two girls (6 and 2) and it. is. a time. They’re usually really active so to start with the only boardgame in the house is the copy of Guess Who that the 6 year old got for her birthday. Flatmate commented ...
The CV-19 (COVID) pandemic has seen the imposition of a government ordered national quarantine and the promulgation of a series of measures designed to spread the burden of pain and soften the economic blow on the most strategically important and most vulnerable sectors of society. The national narrative is framed ...
. . Lock Down: Day 2 – A photo essay with observations . March 27 – Day 2 of our Strange New World. The Park and Ride near my suburb, usually filled with hundreds of vehicles, had just… four; . . Another drive into Wellington City on a highway nearly ...
Fortune's Children: Under extraordinary pressure, the leader of the Government and the leader of the Opposition will each show us what they are made of. Have they been blessed with intelligence, grace, wit, poise, toughness, empathy and humour – and in what measure? More importantly, to what extent have they ...
If you’ve ever had the misfortune of having to rent a property on the open market in New Zealand, which is one of the most expensive in the entire world, you’ll likely be keenly aware of just how arrogant and entitled landlords and their real estate agents can be.Unfortunately for ...
Society-wise, aside from the specific morbidity shall we say of the medically-oriented aspects of this COVID-19 crisis, what is unfolding before the world is in more than one way an instructive study of humanity and reactions to a high intensity, high stress environment in real time. Friends, we are at ...
Right now low waged and insecure workers are feeling the economic brunt of the looming #Covid19 Recession. In response legal advocate Toby Cooper* and hospitality and worker’s rights advocate Chloe Ann-King, are putting together a series of legal blogs about your employment rights:In this legal blog we outline some ...
by Equipo Jurídico Pueblos and Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (25/03/2020) An escape plan in question On the night of March 21st and the early morning of the 22nd, the forces of the Colombian state stormed into the Modelo prison in Bogotá, murdering 23 prisoners and injuring 83, in response to the ...
When the government banned semi-automatic weapons in response to a terrorist atrocity, gun-nuts were outraged. Mired in toxic American gun culture, they thought owning weapons whose sole purpose was killing people was some sort of "constitutional right", a necessity for "defending themselves" against the government. Now, the Court of Appeal ...
Just before midnight on Wednesday March 25, Aotearoa New Zealand entered a countrywide alert level four lockdown. For at least the next four weeks, everyone who isn’t an essential worker is confined to their bubble. We are doing this to stop the explosive growth in people contracting and dying from ...
. . Lock Down: Day 1 – A photo essay with observations . Day one of the Level 4 nationwide lock-down (or, DefCon 4 as I sometimes cheekily call it) started at 11.59PM on 25 March. For a moment, most of the nation held it’s collective breath. In that brief ...
Broad, Sunlit Uplands: How those words fired my young imagination! Or, perhaps, it is more accurate to say: how those words fused, in my young mind, with the image printed on every packet of Fielder’s Cornflour. Always fascinated by history, especially modern history, I cannot hear Churchill’s wonderfully evocative words, even ...
. . 24 March 2020 9.46AM Number of covid19 cases in Aotearoa New Zealand: 102 . As of 11.59 on Thursday, most of New Zealand will go into “lock down”. People will be expected not to travel to work; not to socialise; and to stay home. I will not be ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections A respected research group, Project Drawdown, finds that deploying solutions consistent with meeting the Paris climate targets would cost tens of trillions of dollars globally. But crucially, those outlays would also yield long-term savings many times larger than the up-front costs. The new 2020 Drawdown ...
It will pass. What happens next? Not immediately, but longer term. There are many opinions, fewer certainties. Will it “change everything!” as many confidently, and contradictorily predict? In this post I look at how foresight can help bound some of the uncertainties so you can more objectively consider the future. ...
We’ve been meaning t write something on Cuba and the coronavirus but have just discovered a very good article on the subject in the US left publication Jacobin. The article looks at how Cuba, a poor country but one where capitalism has been done away with, is leading the way ...
In 2018, El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey - two British citizens who had purportedly been stripped of their citizenship by the British government - were captured while fighting for Isis in Syria. The British government then conspired to hand them over to the US, and agreed to provide evidence ...
Transformers: The disaster of the Great Depression was transformed into a new and fairer society by the democratic socialism of the First Labour Government. The disaster of the Covid-19 Pandemic offers a similar transformative possibility to the Labour-NZ First-Green Government. Seize the time, Jacinda! You will never have a better ...
Tamper with The System? Well, we already are. But there's a difference between accidentally trickling sand into a precision gearbox versus formulating a plan to alter it on the fly with improvements in mind. One action is more or less innocently unscrupulous, the other amenable to earning an easy ...
Associate Prof George Thomson, Louise Delany, Prof Nick WilsonWhile it is possible that New Zealand can use intense public health controls to eradicate COVID-19 from the country – we must also plan for other scenarios where thousands of New Zealanders are sick – including many urgently hospitalised.1 Better resilience ...
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or being ...
We're about to do something unprecedented as a nation. We hope that by taking this extraordinary action before a single life in New Zealand has been lost to the deadly novel virus we will save tens of thousands of lives. Our lives. We'll do it together, in households, in isolation ...
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”So writes the author of Ecclesiastes, a book in the Old Testament that’s counted as a ‘wisdom’ book and written as if by an unnamed king of Jerusalem. But who would have thought there would be a time ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says getting New Zealanders back home and other travellers out of the country is "a nightmare for our embassies, consuls, and staff around the world".Speaking to NewstalkZB's Mike Hosking, the Foreign Minister said that he gave a clear message to people travelling overseas that they ...
The domestic travel ban has been lifted for stranded foreign tourists trying to get to international airports to fly home, after the Coalition Government announced a plan to help the tens of thousands of foreigners stranded here. Foreign Minister Rt. Hon. Winston Peters spoke with RNZ's Susie Ferguson said foreign ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters believes the country is rediscovering its resilience and self-reliance through its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.He says he is heartened that the mass majority of New Zealanders are following lockdown rules and that the government looking at the future, including paying to keep much ...
New Zealand can emulate the success of the US after the Great Depression by exploiting our own resources to turn the economy around quickly, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. Mr. Peters told Magic Talk that New Zealand has an opportunity to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic a "superior, ...
All 45 New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel are either on their way back to New Zealand, or already in the country, according to Defence Minister Ron Mark."Twenty-eight personnel arrived back in New Zealand last week and are in isolation at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base in ...
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...
We know people are feeling anxious about COVID-19. While the situation is serious, New Zealand has a world-class health system and we’re well-prepared to keep New Zealanders safe. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging New Zealanders overseas to stay where they are amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are reaching a point where the best option for most New Zealanders offshore is to shelter in place, by preparing to safely stay where they are.” "This includes following the instructions ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging the tens of thousands of New Zealanders travelling overseas to consider sheltering in place, in light of COVID-19. “Since 18 March, we have been warning New Zealanders offshore that the window for flying ...
Ground-breaking law has passed that will decriminalise abortion and ensure women and pregnant people seeking abortions have compassionate healthcare. ...
The Green Party says that the measures announced by the Government today will help families and businesses to prioritise our collective health and wellbeing in the response to COVID-19. ...
As New Zealanders brace for a global downturn due to Covid-19, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says his Coalition Government’s rescue package "more significant" than any other he's seen around the world. The Coalition is to reveal a multi-billion-dollar stimulus plan on Tuesday afternoon designed to cushion the economic blow ...
The Government will be introducing legislation to make changes to the Companies Act to help companies facing insolvency due to COVID-19 to remain viable and keep New Zealanders in jobs. The temporary changes include: Giving directors of companies facing significant liquidity problems because of COVID-19 a ‘safe harbour’ from insolvency ...
The Government’s plan to cushion the blow of COVID-19 by supporting incomes, jobs and businesses, and position the economy to recover has been backed by another international report. International credit rating agency Moody’s today reaffirmed its highest Aaa credit rating on New Zealand, saying the economy is expected to remain ...
National sports organisations have been given certainty of funding to ensure they can remain viable through the COVID-19 pandemic, Sport and Recreation Minister Grant Robertson announced today. “The global spread of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on sport and recreation in New Zealand, including the cancellation or postponement of ...
Changes have been made to allow butchers to process pork, only for supply to supermarkets or other processors or retailers that are open, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has announced. “We carefully weighed the risk of allowing butchers to open their shops for retail customers, but the risk of spreading COVID-19 ...
Essential workers who take leave from work to comply with public health guidance are being supported with a leave scheme to ensure they will continue to receive income, say the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Iain Lees-Galloway and Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni. A number of essential businesses ...
A Government WhatsApp channel has been launched to help make information more easily accessible and shareable in the fight against COVID-19. Govt.NZ, which is free to use on any mobile device, will carry information and news for the public, businesses, healthcare providers, not for profits and local government. It can ...
The Government has announced a plan to enable the safe, orderly exit of tens of thousands of stranded foreign nationals from New Zealand during the current COVID-19 Alert Level 4 restrictions, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters has said. “When we moved into lockdown a week ago, the ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says the Government is delivering on its commitment to support general practice doctors and nurses, and pharmacies on the front-line of our fight against COVID-19. "For us to overcome COVID-19, we need community health services such as general practice and community pharmacy to step up ...
Justice Susan Thomas has been appointed Chief High Court Judge, Attorney-General David Parker announced today. She replaces Justice Geoffrey Venning who has resigned from the position. David Parker paid tribute to Justice Venning, who he said had stewarded the High Court very capably over the last five years. “On behalf ...
Businesses can start applying to their banks for loans under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme set up to support the New Zealand economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re moving quickly to protect New Zealand businesses, jobs and the economy during this unprecedented global economic shock,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. ...
Work is underway looking at measures to speed up consents for development and infrastructure projects during the recovery from COVID 19, to provide jobs and stimulate our economy. Environment Minister David Parker said the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious global crisis that will have a wide ranging and lasting impact ...
Advance payments will be made to transport construction industry contractors to retain the workforce and ensure it is ready to quickly gear up to build projects which will be vital to New Zealand’s COVID-19 economic recovery, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. He said keeping the workforce required to build ...
The Government has tasked a group of industry leaders to seek out infrastructure projects that are ready to start as soon as the construction industry returns to normal to reduce the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones say. The Infrastructure ...
Work to scale up the health system in preparation for COVID-19 was today outlined by Health Minister David Clark, as he reported back to the new Epidemic Response Committee. “We are well placed to contain the spread of COVID-19. We have taken early and decisive action at our borders, and ...
The Government is refining its COVID-19 essential business guidance to include the distribution of news publications for communities which are hard to reach. The Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Kris Faafoi, said the move was in recognition of the importance for New Zealanders who might be harder to ...
The Government is ensuring supermarkets can open on Easter Sunday so we can buy groceries, but stay closed on Good Friday allowing workers to take a break. This provides a balanced approach and ensures we avoid large queues that two days closure may cause. “Supermarkets will be able to open ...
Following the successful conclusion of the Building Partner Capacity (BPC) mission at Taji, New Zealand defence personnel are returning to New Zealand from Iraq, in accordance with the Cabinet decision made in June 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “New Zealand is very ...
The State of National Emergency to help stop the spread of COVID-19 has been extended for a further seven days, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare said. The initial declaration on March 25 lasted seven days and can be extended as many times as necessary. “Since we went into isolation ...
New Zealand’s ability to go hard and go early in the fight against COVID-19 has been underpinned by strong Government finances and the growing economy heading into this global pandemic, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Treasury today released the Crown financial statements for the eight months to the end ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says 36 new intensive care beds at Christchurch Hospital’s new Hagley building are being fast tracked so they are available for treatment of COVID-19 patients. The Ministry of Health is working with contractor CPB and Canterbury DHB to enable access to the hospital’s ICU, ...
The Government has fast-tracked up to $1 million to help Air New Zealand move urgent freight to and from New Zealand, with the first flight to Shanghai leaving tonight, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says it’s crucial that trade in vital goods such as medical supplies and ...
New Zealand will temporarily remove tariffs on all medical and hygiene imports needed for the COVID-19 response. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi said today that the New Zealand Customs Service will apply tariff concessions to all diagnostic reagents and testing ...
Minister of Finance Grant Robertson has clarified that the changes to the wage subsidy scheme announced yesterday mean that employers should be passing on the full subsidy to workers, except in the case where the person’s normal income is less than the level of the subsidy. “We still want employers ...
Medical face masks from the national reserve supply are now being distributed to District Health Boards, while at the same time local production is being ramped up. Yesterday more than 640,000 masks were sent to DHBS – that is an immediate two week supply, with more to follow in coming ...
The Government has made modifications to the wage subsidy scheme to ensure people don’t lose their jobs during the national lockdown. These changes will soften the impact of COVID-19 on workers, families and businesses, and position them to exit the lockdown and look to recovery, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. ...
Farmers whose herds were culled in response to the outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis will be able to minimise the tax treatment of their income in some circumstances. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash says Cabinet has agreed to change the law. It means farmers may be eligible to spread their income over ...
A $27 million dollar package, effective immediately, is being provided to social sector services and community groups to ensure they can continue to provide essential support to communities as we stay at home as a nation to stop the spread of COVID-19, Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni announced. “At ...
“The guilty plea today will provide some relief to the many people whose lives were shattered by what happened on March 15,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. “These guilty pleas and conviction bring accountability for what happened and also save the families who lost loved ones, those who were injured, ...
The Prime Minister is holding daily press conferences to update New Zealanders on the Government's response to COVID-19. Links to videos and transcripts of these updates below. These transcripts also include All of Government press conferences led by Director Ministry of Health's Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. 25 March: Live update from the Prime ...
Frontline Police numbers have broken through the 10,000 mark for the first time in history as officers step forward to keep the community safe during the COVID19 lockdown. “Two Police graduations in Auckland and Wellington in the past week have been conducted in unprecedented circumstances,” Police Minister Stuart Nash said. ...
Urgent legislation has been passed to support the package of economic and social measures needed to recover from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. “The COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Social Assistance Urgent Measures) Bill will cushion New Zealanders from the worst economic impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak,” said Revenue Minister ...
From tomorrow, Government support for farmers and growers affected by drought will be expanded and extended across the country, with access to Rural Assistance Payments (RAPS) available throughout the North Island, parts of the South Island and the Chatham Islands, Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced. “These challenging conditions have ...
Parliament has passed amendments to legislation that give the Secretary of Education stronger powers to act in the fight to limit the spread of COVID-19, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “They are part of a suite of changes passed under the COVID-19 Response (Urgent Management Measures) Legislation Bill,” Chris ...
Canada, Australia, Chile, Brunei and Myanmar have joined forces with New Zealand and Singapore by committing to keep supply chains open and remove any existing trade restrictive measures on essential goods, especially medical supplies, in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker today welcomed ...
Immediate freeze on rent increases Tenancies will not be terminated during the lock-down period, unless the parties agree, or in limited circumstances Tenants who had previously given notice can stay in their if they need to stay in the tenancy during the lock-down period Tenants will still be able to ...
As New Zealand unites to lock-down in the fight against COVID-19, the Finance Minister is urging all businesses and workers to stay connected over the next four weeks. “We understand the extreme pressure many businesses are under right now. I know most business owners think of their workers as family ...
A State of National Emergency has been declared across the country as the Government pulls out all the stops to curtail the spread of COVID-19. “Today we put in place our country’s second ever State of National Emergency as we fight a global pandemic, save New Zealanders’ lives and prevent ...
Mr Speaker I wish to make a Ministerial Statement under Standing Order 347 in relation to the recent declaration of a State of National Emergency. Having considered the advice of the Director Civil Defence Emergency Management, the Minister of Civil Defence declared a State of National Emergency for the whole of ...
People needing to travel on domestic flights, trains and Cook Strait ferries to get home before the country moves into level 4 lock-down tomorrow night will be able to continue using the passenger services until midnight on Friday, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said today. Domestic passenger services, particularly ferries, have ...
The Government, retail banks and the Reserve Bank are today announcing a major financial support package for home owners and businesses affected by the economic impacts of COVID-19. The package will include a six month principal and interest payment holiday for mortgage holders and SME customers whose incomes have been ...
Medical centres across the country are condensing services, moving online, and ushering in pandemic plans. Josie Adams assesses what it’s like to access and provide essential medical care under alert level four.On Monday, Sandra Russell woke up before dawn and drove to Milford to get her blood tested. She has ...
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, some of New Zealand’s best writers tell us what they’ve been up to in the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, writer and doctor Glenn Colquhoun, with the second of his Letters to Hone Tūwhare and his Travelling Band of Constant Companions. ...
ANALYSIS:By Haiqing Yu of RMIT University and Michael Keane of Curtin University China has gradually emerged out of its shadow of despair as the epicentre where the coronavirus pandemic started. Now, there is face saving required – as well as agenda-setting in the global power play. China played ...
Tech giant Google has released a giant global data set which shows how different countries are locking down, and which NZ regions are most compliant with its lockdown.A giant set of reports released by Google, created using its anonymised cellphone location data reveals the scale of human behaviour change the ...
Comedian Penny Ashton writes on the necessity of the arts, especially during lockdown.On March 22, everyone’s favourite fiscal bloodhounds, the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union, sent out a tweet in response to Creative New Zealand’s announcement that it will dedicate an emergency response package to helping New Zealand’s artists, in the ...
Wellington writer Philippa Swan’s new novel TheNight of All Souls is an homage to Pulitzer-winning and all-round fabulous American writer Edith Wharton. Wharton died in 1937 but, Swan writes, she’s very much of the moment. Nobody does social distancing like Wharton did. While Wharton was still comparatively young, she created the ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The ...
Normally heaving year-round, Queenstown has ground to an eerie halt as Covid-19 cases rise and tourism income plummets, reports Paul Taylor. On a hill behind Queenstown's coronavirus Covid-19 community testing centre, the resort's iconic Skyline gondola sits motionless. More than 17 million people are estimated to have ridden the gondola ...
Are we drinking more in the lockdown? Hard to know, writes David Slack, but we’re certainly having to get creative about it. Almost every phone call I’ve answered this week has begun the same way: “You still off the drink, then?” Fair question. What a time to be not drinking. ...
Kiwi clinical psychologist Desiree Dickerson is stuck with her family in Spain and has written a guide in Nature: "Seven tips to manage your mental health and well-being during the Covid-19 outbreak." It’s Day 17 of the Covid-19 lockdown in Spain. In a small village on the Mediterranean coast, about ...
"Will our ills be cured? Will our feet carry us? For how long?": a short story set in Henderson by West Auckland writer Serie Barford.I learned to drive a tractor when I was a kid feeding out hay with my cousins on a dairy farm down the line. I ...
Without active testing in the community our Covid-19 picture isn’t complete, an epidemiologist says. David Williams reports. There are worse places to be self-isolating than Whakatāne, in the Bay of Plenty, says Bridget Robson, who lives on a two-acre block and keeps chickens. “We live in a beautiful part of ...
How do you hold a funeral service with the country in lockdown? Where there’s a will – and a tech-savvy uncle – there’s a way, Erin Kavanagh-Hall discovered.I was floating somewhere in the Cook Strait when I heard my grandfather’s funeral had been cancelled.I should elaborate. It was a Monday, ...
‘Stay in your bubble’ didn’t exist 100 years ago, but our ancestors would want us to know how essential it is to do so, says Jai Breitnauer.It was a warm but slightly grey January day in 2019 when I pulled the car over to the side of SH1, just south ...
David Clark’s misadventure in mountain biking was a stupid, but ultimately forgivable offence. The bigger problem is the continued uncertainty around what is and isn’t appropriate activity in lockdown, as Sam Sachdeva writes. Given the pressure he and his Cabinet colleagues are under, it is little surprise Health Minister David ...
Assessing the economic impact of Covid-19 requires a new approach to a problem economists have not encountered in modern times, writes Dr Kirdan Lees Covid-19 has presented quite a problem for economists. Containment policies that seek to flatten the Covid-19 curve or eliminate the virus, restrict economic activity. All governments ...
Every day at 1pm New Zealand’s Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield announces precise figures on the number of confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 in the country. He is working on the best information available, and during this week the level of community transmission was put at around ...
Most of New Zealand's MPs are in lockdown just like the rest of us, confined to their neighbourhoods and stuck in their bubbles. Checkpoint called a few to ask them what they're doing. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Deery, Lecturer in Early Childhood Education, University of Melbourne “Stupid coronavirus!” I heard my six-year-old mumble while talking in her sleep. Earlier that day her swimming and basketball lessons were cancelled, a birthday party postponed, and she had to race with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith University “Zoombombing” in case you haven’t heard, is the unsavoury practice of posting distressing comments, pictures or videos after gatecrashing virtual meetings hosted by the videoconferencing app Zoom. With hundreds of millions ...
Analysis - A leading epidemiologist says health authorities 'really have no idea' of the extent of community spread, Parliament's Epidemic Response Committee gets its teeth into what's going on during the lockdown and the horrendous economic imp ...
The fifth in our new series of charts, graphics and data visualisations by Chris McDowall, covering the Covid-19 epidemic within New Zealand. We’ll publish the latest set each day on The Spinoff.This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff MembersInformation about confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 ...
The Finance Minister says struggling companies will be able to put some debt into hibernation, under new legislation unveiled today. Watch the latest government update here. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Lund, Commissioning Editor, The Conversation Editor’s note: The following is current as at April 3, 2020. Things are changing quickly so best to keep an eye on the latest information from WA Health, as well as the federal government.This article ...
During the challenges associated with lockdown, the Māori Party are congratulating Ngāti Ruanui and South Taranaki on the decision of the Court of Appeal, announced today, to stop Trans-Tasman Resources plans for risky seabed mining off the South ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling What does the COVID-19 pandemic sound like? For this episode, Dallas Rogers – a senior lecturer in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney – asked academic colleagues from all over ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sven Gallasch, Lecturer in Law, Swinburne University of Technology “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion,” wrote Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (published in 1776), “but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the ...
Environment Minister David Parker has directed officials to find ways to fast-track consents for infrastructure and development projects. He says his goal is to help create a pipeline of projects so that some can start immediately once Covid-19 restrictions are lifted “so people can get back into work as fast ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin Spain and Switzerland top cases, countries converging. Chart by Keith Rankin.Spain and Switzerland top cases, countries converging. Chart by Keith Rankin.Of the larger European countries, Italy is now in third place for known cases per person in the population. Spain has overtaken Switzerland for ...
Contact tracing is a crucial part of the Covid-19 puzzle and technology might prove essential to scaling up New Zealand's tracing capacity, Marc Daalder reports With the lockdown reducing physical contact between members of the public and testing ramping up, the only missing piece of the Covid-19 puzzle is contact tracing. ...
Insolvency laws will be temporarily changed to allow troubled companies to trade while technically insolvent Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced changes to the Companies Act to allow companies to put their debts into "hibernation". Robertson said companies facing liquidity problems would have "safe harbour" from their normal insolvency duties ...
Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Ruanui and Te Kaahui o Rauru are celebrating the decision of the Court of Appeal, announced today, to stop Trans-Tasman Resources plans for risky seabed mining off the South Taranaki Bight. The Court of Appeal found that there ...
Bernard Hickey talks to Kiwibank Chief Economist Jarrod Kerr about a massive spike in US jobless claims, and they talk about an inspiring Kiwi app to fight Covid-19 globally. Guest, Pie Funds chief executive Mike Taylor also joins them to talk about the massive market swings and hopes for recovery. Bernard zooms out ...
Political commentators from the left and right sides of the political divide are questioning the powers being exercised by police during the nation-wide “lockdown”. The Asian Invasion 2019 blog draws attention to the warning sounded by former UK Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption when he challenged Covid-19 actions by British ...
Pacific Media Watch The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) has strongly condemned the shoot-to-kill order by President Rodrigo Duterte this week as a ‘dangerous’ opening to target and kill anyone in a public space. “We are raising the alarm in the international community on President ...
The Reserve Bank looks set to start buying council bonds as well as Government bonds to unfreeze financial markets and allow councils to defer rates and jointly invest in infrastructure with the central Government, Dileepa Fonseka reports In what would be another unprecedented move to calm financial markets and help ...
Four PhD students engaged a clinical psychologist to help them navigate an uncertain time in their studies. They share their findings here.As four PhD students from Massey University’s Joint Centre for Disaster Research we, like many others, can’t stop reading and talking about the unfolding events that have gripped our ...
The SpinoffBy Ashleigh Rushton, Lisa McLaren, Marion Tan & Sara Harrison
Covid-19 testing of the wider population is on the cards as World Health Organisation research shows people are most contagious within their first few days of being infected Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says Covid-19 carriers are highly infectious when they show few signs of carrying the virus. People were ...
Z Energy is the latest company to cut its dividend payout and start talking to its banks about strengthening its finances. Chief executive Mike Bennetts said the company, the largest fuel retailer in the country, had been battered by a range of issues over the past 18 months, and was ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Kang, Associate professor, University of Technology Sydney Young people in Australia are among the fastest-growing group to contract COVID19. According to the Department of Health, there are now more cases in Australia among people aged 20 – 29 years than any ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cassandra Pattinson, Research Fellow, The University of Queensland Getting a good night’s sleep can be difficult at the best of times. But it can be even harder when you’re anxious or have something on your mind – a global pandemic, for example. ...
Journalist and Great Barrier Island resident Lindsay Wright reflects on outer gulf pandemic preparedness. Hardy locals can tough it out but Auckland bach owners and boaties should keep their distance. Aotea Great Barrier, the easternmost island in the Hauraki Gulf, are undergoing a Covid-19-inspired population flood. Great Barrier has scenery that makes ...
The Pharmaceutical Society of New Zealand is delighted that the government has moved quickly to provide an initial financial support package for pharmacy. The $15 million package was paid this week to pharmacy contract holders. Pharmaceutical Society president ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening.The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference and are "as of 9am" of the day. There were 71 new cases of Covid-19 in ...
A new poem by Wellington poet and bookseller Ash Davida Jane. washed up! it gets tiring pushing the fire alarm every nightbut things keep catching on fireor sometimes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Foster, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney Our earliest vertebrate (animals with backbones) ancestors laid eggs, but over millions of years of evolution, some species began to give birth to live young. There is a traditional dichotomy in vertebrate reproduction: species ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Foster, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney Our earliest vertebrate (animals with backbones) ancestors laid eggs, but over millions of years of evolution, some species began to give birth to live young. There is a traditional dichotomy in vertebrate reproduction: species ...
Welcome to the second edition of our lockdown Top 10s. A reminder that this chart has nothing to do with sales or launches or the publishing cycle; these are just books the Unity team love – and this week it’s westerns, full of big skies and long rides and showdowns.AUCKLANDAll ...
Wellington Mayor Andy Foster’s plan to cover revenue shortfalls through borrowing without cutting low priority spending is immoral, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . “Businesses and households across the country are meeting financial challenges ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin John Brophy, Emeritus Professor of Creative writing, University of Melbourne “Katrina, I had in mind a prayer, but only this came,” Bruce Dawe wrote to his infant daughter, new-born, in intensive care, her life in the balance, declaring as poets must ...
The shock closure of Bauer NZ – and with it all of the country’s current affairs magazines – is a stark reminder of the fragile state of local media, writes Mel Bunce, the author of a book on the subject.It is a dark week for journalism in New Zealand, with ...
Join Leonie Hayden as she works through the first four weeks of Scotty Morrison’s Māori Made Easy.Rāmere/FridayWe made it to the end of week one e te whānau. It wasn’t that hard! In fact it was… Māori made easy.To end our week of pronunciation practice we’re going to revisit everything we ...
India faces more challenges battling Covid-19 than any other country in the world. With 1.3 billion inhabitants, hundreds of different languages spoken, and an estimated 80% of the workforce daily wage earners currently without jobs, it could be a recipe for disaster.I’ve been living in India for more than three ...
By Sri Krishnamurthi of Pacific Media Watch The Vanuatu government is using the Covid-19 to impose draconian measures and authoritarian rule by end of last month. Wholesale censorship of all Covid-19 related content has been instituted. Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) took the extraordinary step to ...
People with lower credit scores increased their borrowing upon news of the lockdown, while those with higher scores dropped away. March data from the credit-reporting agency Centrix, which runs credit checks on behalf of banks, finance companies, online lenders, and buy now pay later schemes, showed credit inquiries dropped sharply ...
Small business owners say commercial rent relief is desperately needed if they are to survive past the Covid-19 disruptions. While the wage subsidy helped with staff costs, there is currently no government assistance for commercial rent - which typically accounts for 40 percent of a firm's fixed costs. Landlords and ...
SkyCity is making 200 staff redundant as part of cost cutting because of the Covid-19 virus. The casino operator said it had no choice but to cut the size of the workforce given that once business resumes it will be at much reduced level. Chief executive Graeme Stephens said it's ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Glikson, Earth and paleo-climate scientist, Australian National University At several points in the history of our planet, increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have caused extreme global warming, prompting the majority of species on Earth to die out. In ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand. Today’s contentMedia Henry Cooke (Stuff): There’s no easy way for Government to save media drowning. But a fast fix is ...
Just after midday a cyclist was killed on a straight road on a clear day, after being hit by a van in North Canterbury. Lucinda Rees from NZ School Speeds is asking for the mandatory cyclist/vulnerable road user passing gap, which is in consultation, ...
By Indra Singh in Suva Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama says that if Fijians continue to disregard the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic directives from authorities, a nationwide 24-hour curfew could be imposed. His comments come as Fiji yesterday recorded its two latest coronavirus cases, taking the total to seven. Bainimarama said ...
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, some of New Zealand’s best writers tell us what they’ve been up to in the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, Ōtaki author Renée.Yes, a few cyclists out and about. I remember my first bike bought from Farmers around 1942, five shillings a ...
Internal memos from NZ’s biggest magazine company, which announced its sudden closure yesterday, state they were lobbying to change a ban on publication. But the minister responsible, Kris Faafoi, has doubled down on rejecting that position, calling those internal communications ‘contradictory’ to what they said to him directly.Magazine publishing giant ...
Up to 100,000 foreigners could be seeking to leave the country in coming weeks, now the Government has relaxed domestic travel restrictions for them. ...
The loss of a loved one can be difficult in the best of times. But it’s even more painful when the planes are grounded.Late on Saturday night, three days into New Zealand’s level four lockdown, Harish got a call from his sister in India telling him that his father had ...
Health Minister David Clark has flouted the Government's advice to exercise locally after confirming he drove to a park to go mountain biking on Thursday. ...
Covid-19 cases top 1m; Trump brags he's #1 on Facebook and says he knows about the virus because a 'friend' got it; UK testing scandal grows; Cats more vulnerable to virus than dogsTicking up to a million cases: A gruesome landmark was passed today when we go over one million ...
“So do not fear, I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” Isaiah 41:10 COVID-19 - Lock down: one week on Welcome to the latest Policy Watch ...
Workers at the Port of Lyttelton are resisting the introduction of casual cargo handlers due to concerns about COVID19. RMTU South Island Organizer John Kerr says there is concern about a Lyttelton Port Company (LPC) proposal to "bring in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Strangio, Associate Professor of Politics, Monash University One of Australia’s preeminent historians, Stuart Macintyre, once observed of John Curtin, the Labor Party leader revered for navigating this nation through the dangers of the second world war, that he would have ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoff Hanmer, Adjunct Professor of Architecture, University of Adelaide New research the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that SARS CoV 2, which causes the disease known as COVID-19 coronavirus, is more stable on plastic and stainless steel than on cardboard or ...
Open mike 09/01/2020 
. . April 3: Day 9 of living in lock-down… Another late-start to my work day. Everything is temporarily upended as clients are shuffled around so we can minimise our “bubble” by reducing the number of people we help. One of my colleagues has been removed from his clients; his ...24 mins ago
We must root out the traitors among us! ...16 hours ago
In order to meet our 2050 carbon target and do our bit to avoid making the Earth uninhabitable, New Zealand needs to decarbonise our economy, replacing fossil fuels with electricity in the energy, industrial and transport sectors. The good news is that it will mean cheaper power for all of ...23 hours ago
As Aotearoa enters week two of lockdown, it’s clear we’re all still working out what our “bubbles” look like and how to stay in them to stop the spread of Covid-19. New to the government’s Covid-19 website is some good guidance for people living in apartment blocks. Recent decades have ...1 day ago
Yesterday was the day the consequences of the lockdown suddenly got very real for many. Firms have been closing and laying people off since the outset of the quarantine but this has mostly been happening out of the public eye. The mass closure of a number of iconic New Zealand ...1 day ago
Resuming Normal Service: The Republican Party's nominee for in 1920, Warren Harding, promised the American people: “not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration”. If she wishes to remain our prime minister, then Jacinda Ardern will offer New Zealanders the same.HOW EDUCATED AMERICA snickered when the ...1 day ago
by Daphna Whitmore A third of the world is under lockdown and a clear assessment of this measure to curb the spread of COVID-19 is urgently needed. With any high-stakes decisions it has to be asked what are we dealing with here? Are the measures warranted? Will they achieve their ...1 day ago
I haven’t done a huge amount in the last few days. I’m reading The Poppy War and I’ve sort of poked at a couple of games – I started SOMA but I’m a wimp and I quit while in the first room after the brain scan. I might try it ...2 days ago
Much has been written about the importance of discretion in an emergency situation, and the concerns raised by the potential for it to be exercised arbitrarily. Given the quality of the discussion, there seemed little point in adding to it at any length. In particular, I point to the evidence ...2 days ago
46 Articles Physical science of global warming & effects Global response of evapotranspiration ratio to climate conditions and watershed characteristics in a changing environment Greenhouse effect: the relative contributions of emission height and total absorption Observations & observational methods of global warming & effects Climate change induced a ...3 days ago
Image credit: Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ... 3 days ago
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...3 days ago
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...4 days ago
Yesterday, New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 related death on the West Coast. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the only fatality, with the virus now being found in every region of the country.However despite the significant danger, people are still unfortunately breaching lockdown rules.There’s really only one main very ...5 days ago
The CV-19 (COVID) pandemic has seen the imposition of a government ordered national quarantine and the promulgation of a series of measures designed to spread the burden of pain and soften the economic blow on the most strategically important and most vulnerable sectors of society. The national narrative is framed ...7 days ago
Society-wise, aside from the specific morbidity shall we say of the medically-oriented aspects of this COVID-19 crisis, what is unfolding before the world is in more than one way an instructive study of humanity and reactions to a high intensity, high stress environment in real time. Friends, we are at ...1 week ago
Right now low waged and insecure workers are feeling the economic brunt of the looming #Covid19 Recession. In response legal advocate Toby Cooper* and hospitality and worker’s rights advocate Chloe Ann-King, are putting together a series of legal blogs about your employment rights: In this legal blog we outline some ...1 week ago
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or being ...1 week ago
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says getting New Zealanders back home and other travellers out of the country is "a nightmare for our embassies, consuls, and staff around the world". Speaking to NewstalkZB's Mike Hosking, the Foreign Minister said that he gave a clear message to people travelling overseas that they ...23 hours ago
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...7 days ago
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The scale of what we face right now is unlike anything we have ever seen before. Overcoming it is our common purpose. ...1 week ago
The Government will be introducing legislation to make changes to the Companies Act to help companies facing insolvency due to COVID-19 to remain viable and keep New Zealanders in jobs. The temporary changes include: Giving directors of companies facing significant liquidity problems because of COVID-19 a ‘safe harbour’ from insolvency ...21 hours ago
Medical centres across the country are condensing services, moving online, and ushering in pandemic plans. Josie Adams assesses what it’s like to access and provide essential medical care under alert level four.On Monday, Sandra Russell woke up before dawn and drove to Milford to get her blood tested. She has ...32 mins ago
ANALYSIS: By Haiqing Yu of RMIT University and Michael Keane of Curtin University China has gradually emerged out of its shadow of despair as the epicentre where the coronavirus pandemic started. Now, there is face saving required – as well as agenda-setting in the global power play. China played ...2 hours ago
Normally heaving year-round, Queenstown has ground to an eerie halt as Covid-19 cases rise and tourism income plummets, reports Paul Taylor. On a hill behind Queenstown's coronavirus Covid-19 community testing centre, the resort's iconic Skyline gondola sits motionless. More than 17 million people are estimated to have ridden the gondola ...6 hours ago
Are we drinking more in the lockdown? Hard to know, writes David Slack, but we’re certainly having to get creative about it. Almost every phone call I’ve answered this week has begun the same way: “You still off the drink, then?” Fair question. What a time to be not drinking. ...6 hours ago
Kiwi clinical psychologist Desiree Dickerson is stuck with her family in Spain and has written a guide in Nature: "Seven tips to manage your mental health and well-being during the Covid-19 outbreak." It’s Day 17 of the Covid-19 lockdown in Spain. In a small village on the Mediterranean coast, about ...7 hours ago
"Will our ills be cured? Will our feet carry us? For how long?": a short story set in Henderson by West Auckland writer Serie Barford. I learned to drive a tractor when I was a kid feeding out hay with my cousins on a dairy farm down the line. I ...7 hours ago
Without active testing in the community our Covid-19 picture isn’t complete, an epidemiologist says. David Williams reports. There are worse places to be self-isolating than Whakatāne, in the Bay of Plenty, says Bridget Robson, who lives on a two-acre block and keeps chickens. “We live in a beautiful part of ...7 hours ago
David Clark’s misadventure in mountain biking was a stupid, but ultimately forgivable offence. The bigger problem is the continued uncertainty around what is and isn’t appropriate activity in lockdown, as Sam Sachdeva writes. Given the pressure he and his Cabinet colleagues are under, it is little surprise Health Minister David ...7 hours ago
Assessing the economic impact of Covid-19 requires a new approach to a problem economists have not encountered in modern times, writes Dr Kirdan Lees Covid-19 has presented quite a problem for economists. Containment policies that seek to flatten the Covid-19 curve or eliminate the virus, restrict economic activity. All governments ...16 hours ago
Most of New Zealand's MPs are in lockdown just like the rest of us, confined to their neighbourhoods and stuck in their bubbles. Checkpoint called a few to ask them what they're doing. ...17 hours ago
During the challenges associated with lockdown, the Māori Party are congratulating Ngāti Ruanui and South Taranaki on the decision of the Court of Appeal, announced today, to stop Trans-Tasman Resources plans for risky seabed mining off the South ...20 hours ago
Environment Minister David Parker has directed officials to find ways to fast-track consents for infrastructure and development projects. He says his goal is to help create a pipeline of projects so that some can start immediately once Covid-19 restrictions are lifted “so people can get back into work as fast ...20 hours ago
Contact tracing is a crucial part of the Covid-19 puzzle and technology might prove essential to scaling up New Zealand's tracing capacity, Marc Daalder reports With the lockdown reducing physical contact between members of the public and testing ramping up, the only missing piece of the Covid-19 puzzle is contact tracing. ...20 hours ago
Insolvency laws will be temporarily changed to allow troubled companies to trade while technically insolvent Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced changes to the Companies Act to allow companies to put their debts into "hibernation". Robertson said companies facing liquidity problems would have "safe harbour" from their normal insolvency duties ...21 hours ago
Bernard Hickey talks to Kiwibank Chief Economist Jarrod Kerr about a massive spike in US jobless claims, and they talk about an inspiring Kiwi app to fight Covid-19 globally. Guest, Pie Funds chief executive Mike Taylor also joins them to talk about the massive market swings and hopes for recovery. Bernard zooms out ...21 hours ago
Political commentators from the left and right sides of the political divide are questioning the powers being exercised by police during the nation-wide “lockdown”. The Asian Invasion 2019 blog draws attention to the warning sounded by former UK Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption when he challenged Covid-19 actions by British ...21 hours ago
The Reserve Bank looks set to start buying council bonds as well as Government bonds to unfreeze financial markets and allow councils to defer rates and jointly invest in infrastructure with the central Government, Dileepa Fonseka reports In what would be another unprecedented move to calm financial markets and help ...21 hours ago
Covid-19 testing of the wider population is on the cards as World Health Organisation research shows people are most contagious within their first few days of being infected Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says Covid-19 carriers are highly infectious when they show few signs of carrying the virus. People were ...22 hours ago
Z Energy is the latest company to cut its dividend payout and start talking to its banks about strengthening its finances. Chief executive Mike Bennetts said the company, the largest fuel retailer in the country, had been battered by a range of issues over the past 18 months, and was ...22 hours ago
Journalist and Great Barrier Island resident Lindsay Wright reflects on outer gulf pandemic preparedness. Hardy locals can tough it out but Auckland bach owners and boaties should keep their distance. Aotea Great Barrier, the easternmost island in the Hauraki Gulf, are undergoing a Covid-19-inspired population flood. Great Barrier has scenery that makes ...22 hours ago
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening. The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference and are "as of 9am" of the day. There were 71 new cases of Covid-19 in ...23 hours ago
Vodafone says its continuing to see significant increases in calls and data on its networks after the first week of level 4 lockdown. ...23 hours ago
People with lower credit scores increased their borrowing upon news of the lockdown, while those with higher scores dropped away. March data from the credit-reporting agency Centrix, which runs credit checks on behalf of banks, finance companies, online lenders, and buy now pay later schemes, showed credit inquiries dropped sharply ...1 day ago
Small business owners say commercial rent relief is desperately needed if they are to survive past the Covid-19 disruptions. While the wage subsidy helped with staff costs, there is currently no government assistance for commercial rent - which typically accounts for 40 percent of a firm's fixed costs. Landlords and ...1 day ago
SkyCity is making 200 staff redundant as part of cost cutting because of the Covid-19 virus. The casino operator said it had no choice but to cut the size of the workforce given that once business resumes it will be at much reduced level. Chief executive Graeme Stephens said it's ...1 day ago
Up to 100,000 foreigners could be seeking to leave the country in coming weeks, now the Government has relaxed domestic travel restrictions for them. ...1 day ago
Health Minister David Clark has flouted the Government's advice to exercise locally after confirming he drove to a park to go mountain biking on Thursday. ...1 day ago
Covid-19 cases top 1m; Trump brags he's #1 on Facebook and says he knows about the virus because a 'friend' got it; UK testing scandal grows; Cats more vulnerable to virus than dogs Ticking up to a million cases: A gruesome landmark was passed today when we go over one million ...1 day ago
"Like most of the world's government's, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's administration has neither condemned nor endorsed the US drone strike which killed Soleimani, only calling for a de-escalation of hostilities. Jon Stevenson, a New Zealand journalist who has spent years covering conflict and politics in the Middle East, felt that was not enough. "I am concerned that there has been a lack not just of political leadership but of moral leadership by Western politicians. They need to step up now and make it clear to the Trump administration that they're very concerned," he said." https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/406940/iran-s-embassy-calls-on-nz-to-promote-peace-and-security
I've been dismayed by the lack of western moral leadership since the Nixon era, so I agree with Jon. I also agree with the call from the Iranian embassy.
As regards neither condemning nor condoning the drone strike, I'm agnostic. If the general was indeed about to launch terrorist strikes, Trump was right to take him out. Trouble is, we only have Trump's word for that. Okay, he seems to have gotten Putin on board, which suggests that the intelligence shared was persuasive. Even so, unless Trump shares it with Ardern & Peters he can't complain if they stand on the sidelines watching.
Any helpful foreign policy initiative would have to direct Iran onto the path of peaceful coexistence – a fact that the Iranian embassy would do well to note. Provocation works both ways, and denuclearising has to be real, not fake…
Hi Dennis
What information do you have that Putin is "on board" with the killing of Suleiman?
It was Suleiman , on a trip to Moscow, who persuaded Russia to enter the fray in Syria
Russia is a long time ally with Iran , and has decried the assassination of Suleiman
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/qasem-soleimani-killing-russia-warns-united-states-of-grave-consequences/
Or, do you mean that Putin recognises that it is not in Russia's interests , or that of most of the world , to have an all out war in that region, and that de escalation is better than further insanity?
Less than a year ago Iran was declared to be compliant with the terms of the JCPOA treaty
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2019-04/news/iaea-says-iran-abiding-nuclear-deal
The US withdrew from this treaty a month later .For what reason, if not provocation?
Suleiman worked with the US against the Taliban, and was hugely successful in defeating ISIS
When assassinated, he was on a diplomatic mission seeking to ease hostilities between Saudi, Iran and Iraq
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/01/06/soleimani-peace-mission-assassinated-trump-lie-imminent-attacks/
What evidence are you aware of(I don't mean the unspecified claims of certain "intelligence" reports) that he was engaged in conspiracies to attack the US?
Was Suleimani's support of the Palestinians enough to declare him a terrorist?
I know who I think are the world's biggest terrorists.
Our 5 Eyes partner
Too difficult to edit what with all that nbsp carry on to delete
Correction: Iran was still complying with the IPCOA treaty a year after Trump withdrew
Here's a very recent article about Iran's compliance
https://newrepublic.com/article/156140/iran-not-abandoned-nuclear-deal
Hi Francesca, it was yesterday OM#8 I discussed that, but here's the source again: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50941754
Haven't had a chance to examine your links yet. It's a moot topic and I agree that Trump ought to disclose his evidence re the general's terrorist organising. At that top level of geopolitics the tradition is to do so only with other relevant leaders and intelligence chiefs. Sharing that info with the public is routinely avoided.
I read your OM comment and your source thoroughly.No mention of Suleiman in that BBC source
Are you assuming rather than stating that intelligence prior to the Suleiman killing was shared and discussed with Putin ?
I have come across no such report .
The tradition of secret intelligence reports has been widely used in the past for very dodgy purposes and I wouldnt put much store by it. Remember Key and his secret advice about imminent jihadist threats to justify further surveillance .Lying bastards, and we shouldn't fall for it every time.
It is not unusual for Russia and the US to share intelligence re terrorism
Famously Russia attempted to warn Obama about the Tsarnaev brothers in 2013
(Boston Bombers)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-explosions-boston-congress/russia-warned-u-s-about-boston-marathon-bomb-suspect-tsarnaev-report-idUSBREA2P02Q20140326
But it seems only Israel was informed about Suleiman prior to his assassination
We read our own inferences into news reports. BBC tells us about the understanding developed between Trump & Putin in regard to intelligence sharing and looming terrorist attacks. BBC tells us they talked on the phone a few days before the assassination. Doesn't tell us why or what about. So we can deduce that from what promptly happened.
A possible scenario: "Hey Putin, I'm about to take out some Iranian general who is organising a terrorist attack. It'll make me look like a terrorist too, goddam it, but life ain't a bowl of peaches." "Bugger! He may be Shia, but he's been useful. Give me the details of what he was planning."
Iran is a long term ally to Russia , the US is a long time adversary
Russia stands by its allies
I would very much doubt the US would tip Putin off on a strike on Russia's long time ally and not expect Putin to pass that news on
The BBC is a master at directing opinion and sly suggestions, I'd be very careful of deducing anything from their crafted "news"
Do you see the BBC more or less of a master at directing opinion and sly suggestions or any less intent on 'crafting' "news" than all the other big media players?
Dennis used the BBC as a stand up source.
I'm wary of all major media
It is possible that everyone, including the Iranian government, are actually pleased to see the end of Suleiman. He, as part of the Revolutionary Guards, essentially was operating a parallel Iranian foreign policy to that of the Iranian government, a much more aggressive policy than the government would really like. That was probably complicating things for all the relevant governments with influence in the region, including Russia.
If the Iranian response is as limited as at present, it would indicate that the Iranians are not going to do that much to "avenge" Suleiman. To me that shows they want to put his form of foreign policy behind them.
This is all sheer speculation on my part, but from what I read, a lot of Iranians in government would like to see the Revolutionary Guards influence, both within and without Iran, curtailed. They have generally made life for the government of Iran, in the conventional sense of governing, a lot more difficult than it otherwise would be.
So the US officials who proposed this course of action may have been doing their Iranian counterparts a favour? Generous.
Wheels within wheels. Wayne's point is a good one. Roman history informs us that the inconvenience of successful military leaders often had emperors rearranging the chess board. Younger folk would get the point from Game of Thrones too.
Had a history of Mossad on my bookshelf for a few years ("Every Spy a Prince", I think). The Israelis had the model of factions within revolutionary Iran all competing together, extremists and moderates, building that model from a couple of defectors and agents.
That basically directed their foreign policy to Iran for a couple of decades. Dunno about now.
Good one. To be honest, it's never occurred to me to go looking for a history of Mossad. But I did get an eye-opening glimpse into that recently, courtesy of a book from the New Plymouth library by an investigative journalist who had compiled all the evidence that Mossad organised 9/11 using Arab stooges. He even had quotes from retirees that documented the origin of the scenario back around '79.
I paid attention to the Iran situation in the early years of the revolution. I remember learning how the mullahs eliminated the leftists. I was somewhat sympathetic to them from a nationalist perspective (inasmuch as the CIA took out Mossadegh in '53) but their ruthlessness proved they were merely fundamentalists so I got bored & ignored them after that.
If they were smart, they'd liberalise by allowing the secular option to become available to Iranians. The racist regime in South Africa yielded to the future, as did the communists, but no, these turkeys still want to pretend that it's the 7th century AD.
Iran's a fascinating country – liberal in many ways, but ruled by a paranoid and totalitarian theocracy.
Basically, I suspect the main reason the regime gained and maintains power is the USA – the shared external aggressor.
As for mossad doing 911 – yeah, nah. The penalty for failure would be insane, and their boy was in the WH anyway.
@McFlock
This guy makes the same point, and that the assassination of Suleiman has reinforced the regime's position.
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/iran-price-riots-collective-effervescence-200108090421877.html
on the other hand…
Interesting commentary from the New Yorker, which suggests Suleimani was doing the bidding of the Iranian govt, rather than forming his own separate power base
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-meaning-of-qassem-suleimanis-death-in-the-middle-east
I suspect that Wayne had the Stalin model in mind. No apparent independent power base via deliberate effort towards creating that, but a de facto one produced by results, mana, reputation.
Pragmatists use levers that are available. The cleverest learn from experience that operating in the middle between powers that be, serving both sides ad hoc, in accord with what the situation requires, catalyses necessary progress. Partisans render themselves impotent by painting themselves into their corner.
Assad is Alawite. "Alawite doctrine incorporates Islamic, Gnostic, neo-Platonic, Christian and other elements and has, therefore, been described as syncretic." [Wikipedia] So the Shia orthodoxy can only perform regional liaison via a competent independent player. A general in the revolutionary guard with a track record of military success has the mana to do such liaison. The dead one had fought the Taliban with success, so Putin & Assad valued his expertise.
People I've talked to who have family in Iran, say the biggest hand up the Revolutionary Guards got was the sanctions imposed by the US. In that it not only has it made them more powerful in a political sense, but in economic terms as well.
So if we really want to curtail the Revolutionary Guards, then sanctions need to be looked at.
Interesting comment, thanks.
Suleiman was a revered and enormously popular person and will be a martyr, at least in the eyes of his many followers. This may not sit well with the theocratic leadership (government) but it won’t necessarily stop his followers from trying to avenge him. There are too many factions and splinter groups and it is not the most cohesive of societies.
The killing has probably united the Iraqi people and the Iranians more than Suleimani could have dreamed of .
However, they still have to take into account the sentiments of their people
I do not think the mass outcry of the general populace was faked
And which arm of the govt are you referring to ?
The Supreme Leader Khameini or some of the many different elements that make up the political system there
Are you saying that Suleiman's defeat of ISIS in Syria and Iraq was a policy that the Iranian govt would not be in favour of ?
My hypothesis will be tested by the extent of the overall reaction by Iran in the coming weeks.
Icognitio makes the point that the various elements who were Suleiman's loyal supporters will undertake numerous terrorist type actions against US interests. That is possible. But if that gets out of hand, the Iranian government will try to curtail it.
As for the scale of support, even if only 10% of Iranians supported the Revolutionary Guards, that is still 10 million people. Many of the other 90% fear the Guards, who have for decades been a repressive and violent faction within Iran. They have killed literally tens of thousands of Iranians.
However, I think it is already clear that the Iranian government is trying to limit the scale of reaction. No doubt there is intense diplomacy going on, particularly with various European nations.
Actually, I did not specify the type(s) of revenge. It is quite telling that you made that assumption. Many seem to look down on this ‘enemy’ as if they are some backwards barbarians stuck in the 7th century AD. It might explain the level of flippancy in and of their comments.
Perhaps they proved they aren't barbarians by getting revenge in a non-violent manner? I know, too great a break with tradition to be feasible, but it seems to have happened in the rocket attack.
Then again, the Iranian regime is apparently telling its people that they killed 80 American terrorists. Do you believe them?
You think describing America as the Great Satan is a form of contemporary sophistication?? Focus on the Great Satan successfully distracts everyone's attention from all the little Satans. Seems rather discriminatory! 😉 But did you have another form of revenge in mind?
Not your usual insightful analysis but more flippancy.
Do I base my whole thinking on one rocket attack and an alleged 80 casualties?
You think, talk, and act as a Westerner without religion, myths, symbols, and heroes. Your only tool is your cool rationality. No wonder you are puzzled, but don’t worry, you are not alone.
We can certainly hope Iran will choose to turn away from escalation. But Iran has form for liking their revenge served cold with a side of plausible deniability.
burn
https://twitter.com/dvglasgow/status/1214520422122885121
Dennis
This is very long and not the easiest style but it's well worth reading and I think you have the stamina for it .It gives a different perspective on Suleimani , one that is valuable as a counterpoint to the "official " view
From our very own Curwen Ares Rolinson
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2020/01/08/death-is-as-nothing-compared-to-vindication-on-soleimani-and-the-soleimani-doctrine-in-2018-and-the-present/
I've cited his analysis on other topics in the past here once or twice: he's always worth reading. This one is sufficiently deep that a second reading may be required, for more leisurely contemplation, and I admit to just scanning some paragraphs.
His problem as a communicator in this article is that of coming to a point. It's as if he knows there's one there somewhere but he can't quite crystallise it. Ain't enough to bemoan the banalities of US foreign policy, or the ham-fisted use of US military force. We learnt that when LBJ was president in the 1960s, and have had to be reminded by every president since for reasons that remain obscure!
"It may, perhaps, be a bit of a stretch to suggest that he wanted peace with the Americans, but there is strong evidence in support of his actively working towards mutually-beneficial co-operation with his latter-day fatal adversary where appropriate and where this could actually be in some measure attained."
If so, then we must draw the conclusion that he wasn't serious enough to make it obvious to US leaders and other relevant world leaders. Perhaps because his own leaders prevented him doing so! Religious nutters tend to be useless at geopolitics.
Well thanks for doing me the courtesy of reading that article
We've all become inured to this kind of thing. It's always "too expensive" or "we're working on it" or "it's very difficult", but the result is the same and the longer it goes on the more entrenched as nornal and acceptable it becomes. Even discussion about the cause of the problem is limited to whether the correct "need score" was applied.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/118655632/73yearold-faces-long-wait-for-social-housing-in-christchurch
The Cambridge Analytica scandal grows, with whistleblower Brittany Kaiser releasing further internal documents from Cambridge Analytica.
Very good interviews on on Democracy Now! yesterday. "“The Great Hack”: Big Data Firms Helped Sway the 2016 Election. Could It Happen Again in 2020?" and a must watch for anyone concerned about 'meddling in elections'
This is the big story – forget Russia, Comey, Hillary, DNC. All bit players, CA would have to be the big one.
At least 65 countries.
https://twitter.com/HindsightFiles
So is kiwibuild still a thing?
https://www.labour.org.nz/housing
Build 100,000 affordable homes across the country
Labour’s KiwiBuild programme will build 100,000 high quality, affordable homes over 10 years, with 50% of them in Auckland. Standalone houses in Auckland will cost $500,000 to $600,000, with apartments and townhouses under $500,000. Outside Auckland, houses will range from $300,000 to $500,000.
Yup
https://www.labour.org.nz/housing_reset
This is apparently not uncommon???
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12299087
Of course Poots and co are trying to stuff this down the memory hole.
Stalin, who sent millions to Gulag camps, has never been more popular in Russia. 70% of Russians say they approve of his legacy.
This is the result of a Kremlin campaign, spearheaded by Vladimir Putin, to rewrite Soviet history.
The Generation Gulag project started with a conversation between Coda journalists @antelava & @katia_patin. They wanted to hear from the eyewitnesses of Soviet authoritarianism about what it’s like to see their past being rewritten.
In Russia, authorities have imprisoned prominent Gulag historians and forced Gulag museums to register as “foreign agents.” Last year in southern Russia, police officers dressed up in KGB uniforms — in celebration of the Soviet “heroes” who rounded up millions of Russians.
Almost half of young Russians say they have never heard of the Stalin-era purges, known as the Great Terror.
Olga Shirokaya’s father was arrested and executed at the height of the purge in 1938. In a second wave of mass arrests, Olga was sent to a camp in 1950:
Olga’s Shirokaya was a child when Stalin’s purges reached a fever-pitch. It was 1938. Her father was arrested and executed. Twelve years later, Olga, now a young woman, was sent to the camps herself. The KGB accused her of “self-indoctrination.”
As an infant, ballet dancer Azari Plesetsky was sent to a special Gulag camp for the wives and children of Stalin’s “enemies of the people.”
“The most unpleasant and shameful part is that many people today try to forget about these wounds and not reopen them. But we must reopen them,” Azari Plesetsky told our journalist @oksanabaulina
Russian authorities aren’t invested in coming to terms with the horror of the Gulag. Instead, “they want it to become part of the tapestry of the past that has no special significance, no special meaning and no special lessons,” said author @anneapplebaum
Distorting the past is serving regimes around the world. As part of our disinformation coverage, we’re tracking how governments do it.
Here, @isocockerell looks at how China tried to re-engineer the history of Muslims in the country.
In the next few weeks, we will share the stories and the messages Gulag survivors have for us about our era.
But we don’t want to stop here. Share your own family’s story from the Gulag using the hashtag #GenerationGulag
To #stayonthestory of rewriting history, matters of disinformation, and more, subscribe to our newsletter now:
eepurl.com/c7_NSz
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1214944184089661454.html
https://codastory.com/series/generation-gulag/
[Held up in Moderation because it exceeded the link limit]
"But it got crazier still. Enter J K Rowling, the author, who expressed support for Forstater on Twitter. At this point the Twitterati decided Rowling was a far juicier target than Forstater, and turned on her like a swarm of angry wasps."
"She was attacked as transphobic – 2019's most tiresome buzzword – and condemned as a terf, or trans-exclusionary radical feminist. The author's leftist credentials (Rowling campaigned against Brexit and once donated £1 million to the British Labour Party) were no protection." https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/118556579/has-the-left-learned-anything-from-the-lessons-of-2019
"The Forstater-Rowling story encapsulated two of last year's dominant themes: the neo-Marxist Left's intolerance of dissent, and the crucial role of the ironically misnamed "social" media in howling down anyone who dares to question approved ideology."
"It also highlighted the sheer aggressiveness of minority-group activists in attacking anyone who challenges them. The standard tactic is to demand that the dissenter be sacked, regardless of whether their personal views have any bearing on their ability to do their job."
Stuff's cultural analyst wonders if the left learnt anything in 2019. Dunno why. People learn by themselves most of the time. They only do it collectively at school or university. Not all leftists are pc drones, so he's generalising – putting up a straw man to wave at Stuff readers under the false assumption that they will be impressed.
"The so-called "bathroom battles" are evolving into a key issue in the American culture wars." It could be resolved by creating a third category, neither male nor female. Public toilets with the third option wearing the sign Whatever…
I read that this morning and I can’t be bothered unpacking this piece by Karl du Fresne.
In case you wonder, he wasn’t “wondering”; it was entirely rhetorical (and a highly manipulative rant IMO).
He's a sour dickhead, is as far as I can be bothered going.
Whats funny to me is that JK Rowling was the wokest of woke celebrities, remaining in Europe check, bring in the refugees double check, declaring Dumbledore to be gay (after the books were sold of course) triple check, announcing that Hermione was never specified as white (ignoring all the official illustrations, being described as going very brown in the sun and turning white) quadruple check
Yet supporting a (oops nealy forgot to add it) cis-gendered woman and suddenly its all over in the blink of eye
Why these celebrities continue to pander to nutbars on twitter is beyond me
Mr du Fresne muttered something about “freedom of expression” but apparently the Left has been taken over and is dominated by a fringe of “nutbars” whose “aim is to intimidate people into silence” (regardless of whether they are Left or Right).
Mr du Fresne’s tacit concern is that it will lose the Left votes; he reminds me of a commenter here
I'm not interested in votes as much as the idea that celebrities (especially extremely wealthy ones) pander to groups that just seem to be waiting for them to stumble so they can tear them down
Maybe subconscious feelings of guilt over just how much money they have so they feel a need to be punished for it…
Once again he gets it:
So the Mongols have invaded Aotearoa. Not kidding, I can cite evidence provided by Richard Harman. I did a check to see if he had a take on Iran, and was surprised to not encounter his paywall. https://www.politik.co.nz/2019/12/11/the-politics-of-electoral-law-reform/
"The report sets out the details of Ross’s allegations about the Inner Mongolia Rider Horse Society (NZ) Ltd. Government members are concerned about the circumstances surrounding the involvement of a which is “owned by a China-based entity and controlled by a Chinese foreign national. “ We also note that Inner Mongolia Rider Horse Industry (NZ) Ltd carries out the business of exporting horses to China from New Zealand,” the report says."
“Government members believe it is noteworthy that a former Minister (alleged to be Todd McClay) less than a year before the donation was received, met with the founder of Inner Mongolia Rider Horse Industry (NZ) Ltd, Mr Lang Lin, in China in July 2016. The former Minister has been quoted in the media as saying the local electorate meeting was where Mr Lang indicated “that Inner Mongolia Rider Horse Industry (NZ) Ltd would like to support the National Party”.”
Since the invasion is by inner Mongolians, not outer, we can expect a more civilised outcome. So is it all about racing, or pet food? If the former, Winston may have perceived the threat. Although one of the Mongol companies wants to back the Nats, the other may be in talks with Winnie, in the hope of supporting the govt. Capitalists usually fund both sides to create a win/win outcome no matter what happens. The Mongols may be demonstrating that they know how to play the game.
Auckland University, you suck
…and you hoover up government subsidies in the process
A simple matter of key performance indicators. The previous government imposed KPIs on universities relating to student completion rates, the current government hasn't removed them, so the managerialists running the universities have a very strong incentive to assess whether an individual student is an asset or a liability from a KPI perspective, and act accordingly. This student had fallen into the "liability" category, hence the expulsion. People work to the KPIs they're given, with consequences that are often unintended by the people imposing the KPIs.
Another NZ university demonstrating its committment to "pastoral care". Been a bit of that over the last year or so.
PM is right – completion rates are a KPI. Brought in because when universities became mass education, they were a relatively safe haven from WINZ harrassment about perennial unemployment because uni funding was "bums on seats", period. So the same student would take the same paper many, many times because there was no such thing as "academic requirements". If you failed, it didn't affect your ability to enrol again next year.
" Kiwis should make a New Year’s resolution to move their bank accounts to Kiwibank, or one of the other wholly owned New Zealand banks, said Social Credit Leader Chris Leitch "
The big four Aussie owned banks dragged over $6 billion in profit out of the back pockets of Kiwis last year – four times more profit than the 10 largest companies on the NZ Stock Exchange.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2020/01/08/kiwis-should-move-their-accounts-to-a-nz-owned-bank-social-credit
Fair enough…I take it that you feel this way because the big 4 banks are making a profit operating in NZ. If customers move to Kiwbank, do you want Kiwibank make a profit out of the back pockets of their customers?
"Had even a quarter of that massive profit gone instead to Kiwibank, through Kiwis having moved their accounts last year, dividends to the Government would have provided over $1.5 billion dollars extra for health care and education"
Who would disagree with more money for the essential services kiwis want too see supported instead of the profits used too benefit the Australian economy.
Interesting. Mike Lee and Rand Paul a wee bit tetchy about getting bullshitted in a classified briefing about the reasons to assassinate Soleimani.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/08/politics/iran-briefing-senators/index.html
"On Tuesday, Esper had said that the "exquisite intelligence" on the threat posed by Soleimani that drove the US military to target him in a drone strike would be shared only with the Gang of Eight — a group of eight lawmakers made up of congressional leaders from both parties as well as the Intelligence Committee chairs — saying "most Members (of Congress) will not have access to that.""
So those two guys were part of the eight? If so, the disclosure seems to have failed to impress them as adequate. Is this just a grey area of the constitution? President thinks he can assassinate as long as he doesn't declare war (because only congress can)?
No, neither of them are on the "gang of eight" for intelligence. Those are McTurtle and Schumer (party leaders in the Senate), McCarthy and Pelosi (party leaders in the House), Burr and Warner (Repug chair on Dem vice-chair on Senate intelligence committee), Schiff and Nunes (Dem chair and Repug ranking member on the House intelligence committee).
In general terms, I think there's very little patience for the "we have the intelligence but we can't tell it to you, just trust us" line. The Iraq WMD debacle probably removed trust for that kind of line for any president, let alone the current administration that lies much more frequently than it says anything resembling truth.
So – https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/407004/national-party-says-nz-should-ignore-iran-s-advice-and-not-pick-a-side-in-tensions-with-the-us. Given that this fucker made his fortune being a mercenary and possible war criminal in Iraq, who needs his advice. Respect the sovereignty of Iraq and bring the troops home!!!!
"
Speaking of waves of the future, Boris Johnson’s resounding victory in Britain’s general election earlier this month marks another significant change I’ve been waiting to see. The change in question isn’t the Conservative victory—the Tories won the last four British elections, after all—but the strategy Johnson used to deal out a savage defeat to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, which was exactly the same strategy Donald Trump used to win his come-from-behind victory in 2016. Like Trump, Johnson realized that his nation’s leftward party had abandoned its working class voters in order to pander to the comfortable classes. He went to the working class voters Labour had abandoned and spoke to them about the issues that concerned them—above all, an end to the open borders and free trade agreements that drove down working class wages in order to boost middle class salaries and investment class profits—and found them more than willing to listen.
To judge from his comments at the time, Trump stumbled onto that strategy by accident, and it took him a while to figure out what was happening and how to keep doing it. Johnson, with three years of hindsight to figure that out, didn’t have to rely on trial and error. His campaign was admirably precise; it focused on the issues that mattered to working class Britons—above all, on drawing a line under the delaying tactics of the Remainer minority and giving Britain the Brexit it voted for. When the other parties protested “But what about the issues that matter to the comfortable classes?” he rolled his eyes and kept on talking about Brexit.
Now he’s sitting comfortably in No. 10 with a bigger majority than Margaret Thatcher had, and he’s doubling down on the same strategy; discarding the austerity policies (austerity for the poor, that is, and kleptocracy for the rich) that came in with Thatcher, and gearing up to reorient Britain’s social welfare policies toward providing benefits directly to the poor and away from providing well-paying government jobs to the middle class. While plenty of pundits and media personalities are still busy duplicating the mistake of the Democrats over here, and doing their level best not to learn the obvious lessons of their loss, a significant number of writers and thinkers—some of them within the Labour fold—have grasped the implications of the election and begun to talk about it."
https://www.ecosophia.net/to-the-shores-of-a-surging-ocean/
It does seem to be something afflicting english speaking left wing parties. In NZ Labour does appear to be more interested in the middle class leaving the working class wide open to be scooped up (will Bridges step up to take them or will the Greens be able to do it) but it does ask the question as to why its happening, why are left wing parties more interested in the middle class and academics than the working class
Speaking of who was the last Labour MP not to be university educated or from the middle class?