NZ headed for a Triple Dip Recession – well this is what happens when you give massive Tax Cuts to the Wealthy and the Average Joe gets F**k All, I work in the retail fresh fruit and vegetable trade and your Average Joe does not have any surplus cash to put fresh fruit and vegetables on the table after they have paid the rent. Re Tax Cuts I get an extra $15.00 per week on a salary of $50k, not enough to put much extra fruit and vegetables on the table. Meanwhile our PM Christopher Luxton gets an additional $18k per annum, equivalent to $346.00 per week if I am correct. It ain't Rocket Science why we have poverty in NZ and the lower socio-economic groups are struggling. This poverty is also a factor driving Crime here in NZ, however most of the Poly's here in NZ have their heads in the sand like Ostrich's.
Not only $18K extra, but he can continue to take off mortgage interest payments of any investment properties he owns off his tax. With a property investment portfolio of $7mi, that's quite a bit of moolah.
Speaking of "when you give massive Tax Cuts to the Wealthy", the gummint saw fit to give "charity" status to billion dollar corporations, which means they don't pay a cent in tax. Two of these corporations are Ngai Tahu and Tainui. We also see these corporations extorting other business that need to re-apply for resource consent and have to pay the Taniwha tens of millions to billions of dollars for the privilege. Guess who ultimately pays for these excesses? Those that can least afford it as the costs are passed on, not absorbed by the business being extorted.
9 dead, hundreds wounded after another wave of device explosions in Lebanon
Israel's defence minister declares 'a new phase in the war'
The Associated Press · Posted: Sep 18, 2024 11:13 AM EDT | Last Updated: 14 minutes ago
Walkie-talkies and solar equipment exploded in Beirut and multiple parts of Lebanon on Wednesday in an apparent second wave of attacks targeting electronic devices,……
There is a growing number of lithium battery fires on aircraft. These incidents range from localized and limited fires to large, uncontrollable in-flight fires…..
Thanks to the Israeli Butchers exploding pagers and two way radios, a huge issue has appeared for the tech and device industry and by obvious implication for users and the authorities.
International supply lines are involved in the production of devices, lines that can now be seen able to be breached for nefarious purposes. Will air carriers get the shakes about mobiles on board? Will any number of businesses look sideways at mobiles on their premises…will mobile users (say Palestine solidarity supporters) themselves become wary…
After todays attacks it doesn't seem like it's sabotage of equipment. It's just too many different types of devices – it's just seems like too wide-ranging a supply line to infiltrate.
In my opinion, it is most likely that they have changed some firmware code controlling battery controllers.
Battery controllers for rechargeable batteries are finicky things, pretty complex code lumps of code to control charging, discharging, and temperature responses. It isn’t that hard to remove safeguards if you read the programming manuals. The last manual I read on a battery controller for Lithium ion batteries was about 200 pages of dense settings.
I have blown up one Lithium ion batteries by accident during charging when I have been writing settings for a battery controller.
I don’t imagine that it is that hard to force a fast discharge causing a high temperatures. Probably targeting one of the families of battery controllers firmware. And modern batteries have extremely high energy densities.
All that would be required is to write code to talk to a controller, get it installed in a pager over the radio as a update, auto-install it, and then provide a online trigger to initiate it.
In my opinion, it is most likely that they have changed some firmware code controlling battery controllers.
Odds that the culprits inserted modified batteries into the supply chain?
What do we know about Wednesday’s walkie-talkie explosions?
The walkie-talkies that exploded had new batteries that had arrived in a recent shipment and had been distributed to a narrower range of Hezbollah members than the pagers, people familiar with the matter said. Hezbollah members said some of the explosions on Wednesday were stronger than those in the pager attack. Lebanon’s health ministry said nine people were killed and more than 300 were wounded in Wednesday’s explosions.
This would make any and every device a potential bomb.
.
B.A.C. did take on ordinary clients, for which it produced a range of ordinary pagers. But the only client that really mattered was Hezbollah, and its pagers were far from ordinary. Produced separately, they contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN, according to the three intelligence officers.
Produced separately, they contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN, according to the three intelligence officers.
Urrgh. The worst possible case. Explode and that will thermally overload the battery which would also burn of explode. I'd guess that they would trigger through a signal from the radio device passed to the battery controller. You'd just have to hook up one of the many extra lines to the controller.
The batteries are also hermetically sealed against leakage from the battery cells. So you wouldn't get a explosive smell trace. The seal is also designed to expand because that is what lithium batteries do as they deteriorate – that would help to make the explosion more violent from containment.
“This might well be the first and frightening glimpse of a world in which ultimately no electronic device, from our cellphones to thermostats, can ever be fully trusted,” Glenn Gerstell, the general counsel of the National Security Agency for five critical years as the cyberwars heated up, said on Wednesday.
“We’ve already seen Russia and North Korea unleash cyberweapons over which they had no control, which indiscriminately damaged random computers around the globe,” he said. “Could other personal and household devices be next?”
If Mr. Gerstell is right, it raises the question of whether these attacks, widely attributed to Israel’s intelligence services, were worth the price in our shared sense of vulnerability. The explosions had little strategic purpose. As one Western diplomat with long experience dealing with the Middle East said, they were hardly about to force Hezbollah’s leaders to give up a cause they have battled over for four decades.
My brain kind of switches off as soon as I read a manual but I do like how people have skills like this. Not for what happened here, but it's interesting.
War is just very sad all round and unbearable in many regards. We are the 1% when compared to so many countries and I wish we spent more time appreciating it – rather than being gaslit into poverty and culture wars by some in power.
If I were in Lebanon I wouldn't want to be carrying around a cellphone in my pocket right now or getting near a television or computer.
I feel that the Israelis have something else planned and I'm sure it won't be pleasant.
But it does raise the question: what else can be tampered with to cause injury and destruction? and what if Putin and Kim Jung Un got hold of the means to do this?
I am sure it is a preemptive strike, either to disrupt Hazbollah plans if they were about to do something, or to prepare for an Israeli invasion, as Ad points out below.
Either way, looking beyond the nastiness of it, it is a very effective strategy in either scenario.
…..International supply lines are involved in the production of devices, lines that can now be seen able to be breached for nefarious purposes….
Will there be any international investigation into how and where these supply lines were breached?
Will any effort be made to identify the operatives who carried out this so called "sensitive operation"?
Will anyone be held accountable?
Like so many other Zionist atrocities before it, will Israel's impunity see this latest atrocity being deliberately and systematically swept under the carpet?
Will the news cycle move on?|
Despite the dire implications of this new form of warfare will this shocking event go uninvestigated?
Where were, and how were, the supply line breaches made?
Is it possible for Russia to call on its Chinese ally to help it launch a similar attack against Ukraine?
15 Nov 2023 — In 2022, the production volume of mobile phones in China amounted to almost 1.6 billion units. China was the largest smartphone producer worldwide.
Well, American top security people are very tight lipped at the moment as to implicating Israel, I’m just following media channel reports so far, but it appears a batch of Taiwanese pagers were sent to a possibly bogus Hungarian company set up by Mossad to do the explosive installs.
Will anyone be held accountable–yes, but not the Israeli butchers!
I'm reading it as a an Israeli controlled front did the deal to supply devices manufactured and sold by a Hungarian company called BAC Consulting, which had a license to use the Taiwanese brand on the pagers.
To add to the mystery here's another story from a former Israeli operative with the 'secret Israeli weapons division’ describing the preparation:
“… we know that those pagers came out of a factory in Hungary, but it might be that those pagers left the factory in their original condition. But then maybe the customs diverted it, a delay for a couple of days because of customs issues, and then the [operations team] took care of [inserting the booby trapped devices]. It might be that the European company is an innocent company”.”
To add to the mystery here's another story from a former Israeli operative…..
“… we know that those pagers came out of a factory in Hungary, but it might be that those pagers left the factory in their original condition. But then maybe the customs diverted it,….”
Fascinating article.
Fascinating?
Sounds, a little more like misdirection to me.
If this wasn't a misdirection, which country's customs service is this anonymous spook alluding to?
Hungary? Lebanon?
Were the customs officers allegedly involved, bribed or coerced by Mosad, and no other customs employees in their dempartment noticed?
The other alternative, the customs officers were ordered to divert these pagers by their government employer?
And nobody in the government bureaucracy's chain of command, who may have been a little bit uncomfortable at this order, got wind of this operation and leaked it?
Really?
Smells like bullshit to me.
Just a little too convenient, and a way bit far fetched.
We have one name: Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono
From the link supplied by Matiri:
"….the single owner of BAC is named as Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono. The company's most recent annual accounts, signed in May of this year, record a balance sheet of slightly more than $320."
$320?
Fancy that. A not for profit electronics company that only makes pagers.
Can we expect that a certain 'Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono', is being sought by interpol for questioning, with her description at every airport?
Probably not.
Israel's impunity makes sure that Western authorities including police and security forces will look the other way.
…..her company’s website – which went offline on Wednesday morning – her work was described as “bridging technology and innovation from Asia”. The firm’s address was registered to a residential-looking two-storey building in Budapest, with its name posted on the glass door on an A4 sheet.
I consider that a handful of ex Mossad and related agency officers know a damn sight more than you or I how Mossad operates. That was the intent of the item I linked to. Nothing more nor less.
You on the other hand have chosen to interpret it as a pro-Mossad piece rather than an educative and factual piece of writing which was both informative and revealing.
"……a handful of ex Mossad and related agency officers know a damn sight more than you or I how Mossad operates…." Anne
I am sure they do. I am also pretty sure that they are very unlikely to tell us.how they operate.
"You on the other hand have chosen to interpret it as a pro-Mossad piece" Anne
No, I just think that their version is unlikely, And I said why.
I think it is unlikely that Customs officers were bribed or coerced to divert a shipment of pagers without it being noticed by someone else. Even more so, if they were ordered to do so by their superiors.
I might add that more and more and evidence is leading back to BAC, rather than border Customs of some unamed country.
However, I would be interested to look at anythiing Mossad comes up with, that they wan to to add, to back up their vierson, that it was Customs.
Which Customs? Of which Country? would be a good start.
But all jokes aside, under international law, boobytrapping civilian devices is a war crime.
The ICC prosecutor Karim Khan may yet be adding another name to his list of alleged war criminals that he has applied to the ICC for arrest warrants for.
AP — The woman whose company was linked to thousands of pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria this week is under the protection of the Hungarian secret services, her mother told The Associated Press on Friday.
Lebanon is a not a signatory to the Rome Statute, but Hungary is.
Presumably if an arrest warrant for Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono is issued, the Hungarian secret service would have to hand her over to the Hague for trial.
So will the weird individual with the Hollywood film star looks, and the double barralled surname, and the padded CV, ever see the inside of a court room?
“Our country takes the case very seriously,” said the prosecutors office from Taipei’s Shilin district in a statement Friday.
While the Taiwanese authorities may be taking this act of terrorism seriously, the authorities of the Western powers, not so much.
The ICC while swift to act to issue an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an approaching freight train load of Western disaproval to any challenge to Israel's impunity, the ICC have become paralysed. A paralysis from which they may never salvage enough credibility to ever issue an arrest warrant against anyone ever again, not even Yahya Sinwar.
9/11 was to provoke the PNAC to action, because they needed regime change to create the vacuum for Islamic State (but Iran backed Shia rule Iraq and Syria now – what a defeat for both al Qaeda and PNAC).
Today the divide is between those who want Israeli permanent rule of the WB and defeat of Israel. Will both lose, if there is a two state peace?
Some good news for Aucklanders with an electricity account, the Entrust dividend of $350 is being paid over the next few days. If you receive it by direct credit, it may be in your bank a/c now. Some people have it credited to their electricity a/c.
I want them to spend more $$$ undergrounding power lines instead of carving out big "V for Vector" cuts in the middle of the street trees to maintain the required clearances for the power lines. It is a tragedy that they did not piggyback off the other works being done on Hendon Ave with the new housing developments there. The street trees are great and an important part of the streetscape.
Pity about the network having $12m foregone infrastructure investment for ticket clippers who do absolutely zero toward the security of electricity supply get reelected.
It looks to me that the exploding communication devices amongst Hezbollah operatives is a preemptive strike.
From what I have read, Hezbollah received the pagers about five months ago. Perhaps the Israelis set this up so they could disrupt Hezbollah's plans if they were about to do something major.
This type of action is within the Israeli MO. For example in the Six Day War the Israelis undertook a preemptive strike against the Egyption air force and took out most of their planes befoe they even got off the ground.
You don't make the move of blinding your enemy unless you're preparing for war.
Israel's 98th Division is now on the border, and is believed to include thousands of troops, including paratrooper infantry units and artillery and elite commando forces specially trained for operations behind enemy lines.
7 October will be the 1-year anniversary. Under 3 weeks from now.
Blinding the enemy in the middle of the fight would be an ace up the sleeve, too.
Israel decided to blow up the pager devices carried by Hezbollah members in Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday out of concern its secret operation might have been discovered by the group, three U.S. officials told Axios.
You don't make the move of blinding your enemy unless you're preparing for war…..
I intend to agree, this has all the hallmarks of a classic, 'softening up operation'
…..the process of preparing a target for an attack by weakening its defenses or capabilities before the main assault occurs. This can involve various tactics, such as:
Artillery Bombardment: Using artillery or air strikes to destroy or damage enemy positions, equipment, or fortifications.
Psychological Operations: Conducting operations aimed at demoralizing the enemy or creating confusion.
Surveillance and Reconnaissance: Gathering intelligence to identify vulnerabilities in the target's defenses.
This attack seems to have combined all four of these various softening up tactics.
Step #1. May not have exactly been an artillery attack, sometimes it's not. But it did involve explosives.
In WW1 and the American Civil War, tunnels were sometimes secretly dug under enemy lines and packed with explosives, That were detonated to soften up a target just before the main assault. This attack is not too disimilar. differing only in not lieterally being an underground operation.
Steps, 2, 3, and 4 are selfe explanatory, and were all achieved by this one assualt.
The Israelis got intell a year before the Oct 7 attack. Those above said it was too ambitious for Hamas to realise. 6 months before they got intell of Hamas training for the attack. Again it was dismissed.
The biggest intelligence and IDF failure in their history.
The attack came 50 years after 1973 (Yom Kippur war – they knew an attack was coming – but the Americans said if they acted first they would not be supplied with arms).
An attack 50 years later fits the black September timing of attacks at "harvest time" because of the nature of the Jewish calendar (Sept/Oct harvest month – and there is historic significance to Oct 7 as well, in 2023 the first sabbath day after sukkoth – ending on the Friday Oct 6).
For mine, this is a pre-empting of any Hezbollah attack on Oct 7 2024, or Sukkoth later in the month.
Bravado 101, a warning that any war will involve stuff Iran has not warned them about. Iran itself, not being a safe place for pro Hamas Arabs to visit.
As our local fan of all things Rainbow (Dec 2016 UNSC decision hate speech against McCully) puts it.
Hezbollah is recognised as a terrorist entity by over 60 countries including the EU, UK, US, the Arab League, and the Gulf Cooperation Council.
People sometimes forget that many Arabs (and Turks) see Iran as having a hegemon ambition, exploiting Israel to pose as leader of the Moslem world. The Arab League (and Turkey) position is now a two state outcome, Iran is the outlier.
There got to be more than what matches the eye here. Hamas have apparently had them for 5 months but it stretches the imagination that no one has changed a battery or tried to fix one and gone ‘ hang on, what’s this ‘ , 5 months and thousands of devices.. makes no sense. Also the sabotaging of household battery walls is just shitfuckery of the highest order.
…but it stretches the imagination that no one has changed a battery or tried to fix one and gone ‘ hang on, what’s this ‘ , 5 months and thousands of devices.. makes no sense.
It was probably code that sets the settings on the battery controller chip (or any power controller chip). Those things come in families and they get used in a wide variety of devices. Almost every device that stores and releases power uses controller chips or boards to make sure that the power in charged or discharged at a safe rate and that their energy store doesn’t overheat.
In lithium-ion type batteries, every one that you plug into a device has a battery controller of a particular type or type family inside the battery casing. It carries the settings allowing safe charging, discharging, and temperatures. You can typically reprogram those settings from code in the device itself.
It is usual to update code on most remote devices via comms. I’ve written a lot of code using internet, wifi, bluetooth, satellite, radio, ethernet, usb, jtag and just straight serial to update devices. Pretty hard to find a nasty even if you actually have the source code and compile it yourself. That is why remote updates or installation need a secure review / build / supply chain.
The internet is full of videos of lithium batteries bursting into fire, (which may be what gave Mossad the idea) Many of these fires have been caused by incorrect charging. ie using a different brand charger for a different brand battery. Proving the point that incorect charging parameters that could possibly be altered remotely, could cause communication devices with these batteries to catch fire.
But Mossad may have wanted more.
Rather than just catching fire, BBC footage shows percussive explosions. Which lends credence to the speculation that a small amount of high explosive had been inserted into these devices.
Adding more weight to the theory that explosives were inserted in these devices.
From AP, despite quoting an anonymous source, to make this report. AP are considered an authoritive journal of record AP. So I give it some weight. But make of it what you will. Personally I don’t think the journos whose names I have left in, are trying to mislead us. Like most journalists I know they are trying to do a good job to the best of their ability. Often under trying circumstances. Often they can’t reveal the identity of their sources.
(Generally, whenever I post a link, I try to mak a point to include the names of real people authors, and journos, I do this because I don't believe the conspiracy theorists that all journalists working in the Mainstream Media are corruptted liars.)
NEW YORK (AP) — Just one day after pagers used by hundreds of members of the militant group Hezbollah exploded, more electronic devices detonated in Lebanon Wednesday in what appeared to be a second wave of sophisticated, deadly attacks that targeted an extraordinary number of people….
…..An American official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Israel briefed the U.S. on the operation — where small amounts of explosives hidden in the pagers were detonated.
Can we expect a blanket ban on all electronic devices being taken on to planes?
The current CAA rules:
You can take a maximum of 15 portable electronic devices with you. If you want to carry more you must get approval from your airline.
It's okay to use your laptop, tablet or cellphone onboard, but please follow onboard crew instructions on when you can cannot use these devices.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 cellphone are prohibited as there have been occasions where they have spontaneously burst into flame causing significant burn injuries.
Earbuds charging pod [case] are a type of power bank they can go in your carry-on bag but must not go in check-in luggage under any circumstances.
After 9/11 when box cutters were used to hijack planes and bring down the Twin Towers, you weren't even allowed to take nail clippers with you on to a plane,
When every portable device is now a potential bomb, will we see the same sort of blanket ban?
1 day ago — Qatar Airways said the PETN bomb "could not be detected by x-ray screening or trained sniffer dogs".
….I have several cell phones, tablets, walkie talkies, laptops, and more, which recent events have me wondering about the safety of.
Is there a way I can determine if someone in the supply chain has tampered with them such that they can be remotely detonated?
In the recent pager detonations I believe it was determined that Pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) was inside the pagers. I haven't heard the same about walkie talkies, but I'm cautiously assuming the mechanism was similar
According to that wikipedia page on PETN[1]:
Both parcels in the 2010 cargo plane bomb plot were x-rayed without the bombs being spotted. Qatar Airways said the PETN bomb "could not be detected by x-ray screening or trained sniffer dogs". The Bundeskriminalamt received copies of the Dubai x-rays, and an investigator said German staff would not have identified the bomb either. New airport security procedures followed in the U.S., largely to protect against PETN.
If these are undetectable by dogs, is there any method to detect explosive chemicals, such as detection strips, that are available to consumers?
Can we expect a blanket ban on all electronic devices being taken on to planes?
Probably.
.
Beirut airport and some Middle East airlines have banned passengers from carrying certain electronic devices following the shock attacks on electronic devices in Lebanon which left 32 dead and thousands badly injured.
Lebanon's aviation authority said on Thursday that all passengers would be barred from carrying walkie-talkies and pagers on flights from Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport.
It’s certainly a massive security breach for Hezbullah and Hamas, I could imagine a handful of devices being swapped for ones with the explosive device, but numbers are in the thousands. Now today we are hearing about other communications devices exploding.
If Israel were to invade southern Lebanon, It would make sense for the Israelis to control the pagers and communication equipment remotely, while intercepting messages and feeding misinformation, not destroying them.
This is something different, it may be part of an internal civil war within Hezbollah and other Palestinian organisations. There will be other regional players involved, not including the US, China, Russia or the UK.
We all know that the US backs Israel, and takes the flak accordingly.
So how is it that Iran gets a free pass. They’re the ones supporting, and arming Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. With Iran’s avowed intent to wipe Israel off the face of the map, is it surprising that Israel takes the fight to their proxies?
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Similar to the cuts and the austerity drive imposed by Ruth Richardson in the 1990’s, an era which to all intents and purposes we’ve largely fiddled around the edges with fixing in the time since – over, to be fair, several administrations – whilst trying our best it seems to ...
String-Pulling in the Dark: For the democratic process to be meaningful it must also be public. WITH TRUST AND CONFIDENCE in New Zealand’s politicians and journalists steadily declining, restoring those virtues poses a daunting challenge. Just how daunting is made clear by comparing the way politicians and journalists treated New Zealanders ...
Dear Nicola Willis, thank you for letting us know in so many words that the swingeing austerity hasn't worked.By in so many words I mean the bit where you said, Here is a sea of red ink in which we are drowning after twelve months of savage cost cutting and ...
The Open Government Partnership is a multilateral organisation committed to advancing open government. Countries which join are supposed to co-create regular action plans with civil society, committing to making verifiable improvements in transparency, accountability, participation, or technology and innovation for the above. And they're held to account through an Independent ...
Today I tuned into something strange: a press conference that didn’t make my stomach churn or the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Which was strange, because it was about the torture of children. It was the announcement by Erica Stanford — on her own, unusually ...
This is a must watch, and puts on brilliant and practical display the implications and mechanics of fast-track law corruption and weakness.CLICK HERE: LINK TO WATCH VIDEOOur news media as it is set up is simply not equipped to deal with the brazen disinformation and corruption under this right wing ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi Acting Secretary Erin Polaczuk is welcoming the announcement from Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden that she is opening consultation on engineered stone and is calling on her to listen to the evidence and implement a total ban of the product. “We need ...
The Government has announced a 1.5% increase in the minimum wage from 1 April 2025, well below forecast inflation of 2.5%. Unions have reacted strongly and denounced it as a real terms cut. PSA and the CTU are opposing a new round of staff cuts at WorkSafe, which they say ...
The decision to unilaterally repudiate the contract for new Cook Strait ferries is beginning to look like one of the stupidest decisions a New Zealand government ever made. While cancelling the ferries and their associated port infrastructure may have made this year's books look good, it means higher costs later, ...
Hi there! I’ve been overseas recently, looking after a situation with a family member. So apologies if there any less than focused posts! Vanuatu has just had a significant 7.3 earthquake. Two MFAT staff are unaccounted for with local fatalities.It’s always sad to hear of such things happening.I think of ...
Today is a special member's morning, scheduled to make up for the government's theft of member's days throughout the year. First up was the first reading of Greg Fleming's Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill, which was passed unanimously. Currently the House is debating the third reading of ...
We're going backwardsIgnoring the realitiesGoing backwardsAre you counting all the casualties?We are not there yetWhere we need to beWe are still in debtTo our insanitiesSongwriter: Martin Gore Read more ...
Willis blamed Treasury for changing its productivity assumptions and Labour’s spending increases since Covid for the worsening Budget outlook. Photo: Getty ImagesMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, December 18 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast above ...
Today the Auckland Transport board meet for the last time this year. For those interested (and with time to spare), you can follow along via this MS Teams link from 10am. I’ve taken a quick look through the agenda items to see what I think the most interesting aspects are. ...
Hi,If you’re a New Zealander — you know who Mike King is. He is the face of New Zealand’s battle against mental health problems. He can be loud and brash. He raises, and is entrusted with, a lot of cash. Last year his “I Am Hope” charity reported a revenue ...
Probably about the only consolation available from yesterday’s unveiling of the Half-Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) is that it could have been worse. Though Finance Minister Nicola Willis has tightened the screws on future government spending, she has resisted the calls from hard-line academics, fiscal purists and fiscal hawks ...
The right have a stupid saying that is only occasionally true:When is democracy not democracy? When it hasn’t been voted on.While not true in regards to branches of government such as the judiciary, it’s a philosophy that probably should apply to recently-elected local government councillors. Nevertheless, this concept seemed to ...
Long story short: the Government’s austerity policy has driven the economy into a deeper and longer recession that means it will have to borrow $20 billion more over the next four years than it expected just six months ago. Treasury’s latest forecasts show the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s fiscal strategy of ...
Come and join myself and CTU Chief Economist for a pop-up ‘Hoon’ webinar on the Government’s Half Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) with paying subscribers to The Kākā for 30 minutes at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream to watch our chat. Don’t worry if ...
In 1998, in the wake of the Paremoremo Prison riot, the Department of Corrections established the "Behaviour Management Regime". Prisoners were locked in their cells for 22 or 23 hours a day, with no fresh air, no exercise, no social contact, no entertainment, and in some cases no clothes and ...
New data released by the Treasury shows that the economic policies of this Government have made things worse in the year since they took office, said NZCTU Economist Craig Renney. “Our fiscal indicators are all heading in the wrong direction – with higher levels of debt, a higher deficit, and ...
At the 2023 election, National basically ran on a platform of being better economic managers. So how'd that turn out for us? In just one year, they've fucked us for two full political terms: The government's books are set to remain deeply in the red for the near term ...
AUSTERITYText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedMy spreadsheet insists This pain leads straight to glory (File not found) Read more ...
The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi are saying that the Government should do the right thing and deliver minimum wage increases that don’t see workers fall further behind, in response to today’s announcement that the minimum wage will only be increased by 1.5%, well short of forecast inflation. “With inflation forecast ...
Oh, I weptFor daysFilled my eyesWith silly tearsOh, yeaBut I don'tCare no moreI don't care ifMy eyes get soreSongwriters: Paul Rodgers / Paul Kossoff. Read more ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bob HensonIn this aerial view, fingers of meltwater flow from the melting Isunnguata Sermia glacier descending from the Greenland Ice Sheet on July 11, 2024, near Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. According to the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE), the ...
In August, I wrote an article about David Seymour1 with a video of his testimony, to warn that there were grave dangers to his Ministry of Regulation:David Seymour's Ministry of Slush Hides Far Greater RisksWhy Seymour's exorbitant waste of taxpayers' money could be the least of concernThe money for Seymour ...
Willis is expected to have to reveal the bitter fiscal fruits of her austerity strategy in the HYEFU later today. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/TheKakaMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Tuesday, December 17 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast ...
On Friday the government announced it would double the number of toll roads in New Zealand as well as make a few other changes to how toll roads are used in the country. The real issue though is not that tolling is being used but the suggestion it will make ...
The Prime Minister yesterday engaged in what looked like a pre-emptive strike designed to counter what is likely to be a series of depressing economic statistics expected before the end of the week. He opened his weekly post-Cabinet press conference with a recitation of the Government’s achievements. “It certainly has ...
This whooping cough story from south Auckland is a good example of the coalition government’s approach to social need – spend money on urging people to get vaccinated but only after you’ve cut the funding to where they could get vaccinated. This has been the case all year with public ...
And if there is a GodI know he likes to rockHe likes his loud guitarsHis spiders from MarsAnd if there is a GodI know he's watching meHe likes what he seesBut there's trouble on the breezeSongwriter: William Patrick Corgan Read more ...
Here’s a quick round up of today’s political news:1. MORE FOOD BANKS, CHARITIES, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SHELTERS AND YOUTH SOCIAL SERVICES SET TO CLOSE OR SCALE BACK AROUND THE COUNTRY AS GOVT CUTS FUNDINGSome of Auckland's largest foodbanks are warning they may need to close or significantly reduce food parcels after ...
Iain Rennie, CNZMSecretary and Chief Executive to the TreasuryDear Secretary, Undue restrictions on restricted briefings This week, the Treasury barred representatives from four organisations, including the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi, from attending the restricted briefing for the Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update. We had been ...
This is a guest post by Tim Adriaansen, a community, climate, and accessibility advocate.I won’t shut up about climate breakdown, and whenever possible I try to shift the focus of a climate conversation towards solutions. But you’ll almost never hear me give more than a passing nod to ...
A grassroots backlash has forced a backdown from Brown, but he is still eyeing up plenty of tolls for other new roads. And the pressure is on Willis to ramp up the Government’s austerity strategy. Photo: Getty ImagesMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
Hi all,I'm pretty overwhelmed by all your messages and emails today; thank you so very much.As much as my newsletter this morning was about money, and we all need to earn money, it was mostly about world domination if I'm honest. 😉I really hate what’s happening to our country, and ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 8, 2024 thru Sat, December 14, 2024. Listing by Category Like last week's summary this one contains the list of articles twice: based on categories and based on ...
I started writing this morning about Hobson’s Pledge, examining the claims they and their supporters make, basically ripping into them. But I kept getting notifications coming through, and not good ones.Each time I looked up, there was another un-subscription message, and I felt a bit sicker at the thought of ...
Once, long before there was Harry and Meghan and Dodi and all those episodes of The Crown, they came to spend some time with us, Charles and Diana. Was there anyone in the world more glamorous than the Princess of Wales?Dazzled as everyone was by their company, the leader of ...
The collective right have a problem.The entire foundation for their world view is antiscientific. Their preferred economic strategies have been disproven. Their whole neoliberal model faces accusations of corporate corruption and worsening inequality. Climate change not only definitely exists, its rapid progression demands an immediate and expensive response in order ...
National has only been in power for a year, but everywhere you look, its choices are taking New Zealand a long way backwards. In no particular order, here are the National Government's Top 50 Greatest Misses of its first year in power. ...
The Government is quietly undertaking consultation on the dangerous Regulatory Standards Bill over the Christmas period to avoid too much attention. ...
The Government’s planned changes to the freedom of speech obligations of universities is little more than a front for stoking the political fires of disinformation and fear, placing teachers and students in the crosshairs. ...
The Ministry of Regulation’s report into Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Aotearoa raises serious concerns about the possibility of lowering qualification requirements, undermining quality and risking worse outcomes for tamariki, whānau, and kaiako. ...
A Bill to modernise the role of Justices of the Peace (JP), ensuring they remain active in their communities and connected with other JPs, has been put into the ballot. ...
Labour will continue to fight unsustainable and destructive projects that are able to leap-frog environment protection under National’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. ...
The Green Party has warned that a Green Government will revoke the consents of companies who override environmental protections as part of Fast-Track legislation being passed today. ...
The Green Party says the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update shows how the Government is failing to address the massive social and infrastructure deficits our country faces. ...
The Government’s latest move to reduce the earnings of migrant workers will not only hurt migrants but it will drive down the wages of Kiwi workers. ...
Te Pāti Māori has this morning issued a stern warning to Fast-Track applicants with interests in mining, pledging to hold them accountable through retrospective liability and to immediately revoke Fast-Track consents under a future Te Pāti Māori government. This warning comes ahead of today’s third reading of the Fast-Track Approvals ...
The Government’s announcement today of a 1.5 per cent increase to minimum wage is another blow for workers, with inflation projected to exceed the increase, meaning it’s a real terms pay reduction for many. ...
All the Government has achieved from its announcement today is to continue to push responsibility back on councils for its own lack of action to help bring down skyrocketing rates. ...
The Government has used its final post-Cabinet press conference of the year to punch down on local government without offering any credible solutions to the issues our councils are facing. ...
The Government has failed to keep its promise to ‘super charge’ the EV network, delivering just 292 chargers - less than half of the 670 chargers needed to meet its target. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Government to stop subsidising the largest user of the country’s gas supplies, Methanex, following a report highlighting the multi-national’s disproportionate influence on energy prices in Aotearoa. ...
The Green Party is appalled with the Government’s new child poverty targets that are based on a new ‘persistent poverty’ measure that could be met even with an increase in child poverty. ...
New independent analysis has revealed that the Government’s Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) will reduce emissions by a measly 1 per cent by 2030, failing to set us up for the future and meeting upcoming targets. ...
The loss of 27 kaimahi at Whakaata Māori and the end of its daily news bulletin is a sad day for Māori media and another step backwards for Te Tiriti o Waitangi justice. ...
Yesterday the Government passed cruel legislation through first reading to establish a new beneficiary sanction regime that will ultimately mean more households cannot afford the basic essentials. ...
Today's passing of the Government's Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill–which allows landlords to end tenancies with no reason–ignores the voice of the people and leaves renters in limbo ahead of the festive season. ...
After wasting a year, Nicola Willis has delivered a worse deal for the Cook Strait ferries that will end up being more expensive and take longer to arrive. ...
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has today launched a Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as the All Out For Gaza rally reaches Parliament. ...
After years of advocacy, the Green Party is very happy to hear the Government has listened to our collective voices and announced the closure of the greyhound racing industry, by 1 August 2026. ...
In response to a new report from ERO, the Government has acknowledged the urgent need for consistency across the curriculum for Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) in schools. ...
The Green Party is appalled at the Government introducing legislation that will make it easier to penalise workers fighting for better pay and conditions. ...
Thank you for the invitation to speak with you tonight on behalf of the political party I belong to - which is New Zealand First. As we have heard before this evening the Kinleith Mill is proposing to reduce operations by focusing on pulp and discontinuing “lossmaking paper production”. They say that they are currently consulting on the plan to permanently shut ...
Auckland Central MP, Chlöe Swarbrick, has written to Mayor Wayne Brown requesting he stop the unnecessary delays on St James Theatre’s restoration. ...
Kiwis planning a swim or heading out on a boat this summer should remember to stop and think about water safety, Sport & Recreation Minister Chris Bishop and ACC and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “New Zealand’s beaches, lakes and rivers are some of the most beautiful in the ...
The Government is urging Kiwis to drive safely this summer and reminding motorists that Police will be out in force to enforce the road rules, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“This time of year can be stressful and result in poor decision-making on our roads. Whether you are travelling to see ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says Health New Zealand will move swiftly to support dozens of internationally-trained doctors already in New Zealand on their journey to employment here, after a tripling of sought-after examination places. “The Medical Council has delivered great news for hardworking overseas doctors who want to contribute ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has appointed Sarah Ottrey to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). “At my first APEC Summit in Lima, I experienced firsthand the role that ABAC plays in guaranteeing political leaders hear the voice of business,” Mr Luxon says. “New Zealand’s ABAC representatives are very well respected and ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced four appointments to New Zealand’s intelligence oversight functions. The Honourable Robert Dobson KC has been appointed Chief Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, and the Honourable Brendan Brown KC has been appointed as a Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants. The appointments of Hon Robert Dobson and Hon ...
Improvements in the average time it takes to process survey and title applications means housing developments can progress more quickly, Minister for Land Information Chris Penk says. “The government is resolutely focused on improving the building and construction pipeline,” Mr Penk says. “Applications to issue titles and subdivide land are ...
The Government’s measures to reduce airport wait times, and better transparency around flight disruptions is delivering encouraging early results for passengers ahead of the busy summer period, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Improving the efficiency of air travel is a priority for the Government to give passengers a smoother, more reliable ...
The Government today announced the intended closure of the Apollo Hotel as Contracted Emergency Housing (CEH) in Rotorua, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. This follows a 30 per cent reduction in the number of households in CEH in Rotorua since National came into Government. “Our focus is on ending CEH in the Whakarewarewa area starting ...
The Government will reshape vocational education and training to return decision making to regions and enable greater industry input into work-based learning Tertiary Education and Skills Minister, Penny Simmonds says. “The redesigned system will better meet the needs of learners, industry, and the economy. It includes re-establishing regional polytechnics that ...
The Government is taking action to better manage synthetic refrigerants and reduce emissions caused by greenhouse gases found in heating and cooling products, Environment Minister Penny Simmonds says. “Regulations will be drafted to support a product stewardship scheme for synthetic refrigerants, Ms. Simmonds says. “Synthetic refrigerants are found in a ...
People travelling on State Highway 1 north of Hamilton will be relieved that remedial works and safety improvements on the Ngāruawāhia section of the Waikato Expressway were finished today, with all lanes now open to traffic, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“I would like to acknowledge the patience of road users ...
Tertiary Education and Skills Minister, Penny Simmonds, has announced a new appointment to the board of Education New Zealand (ENZ). Dr Erik Lithander has been appointed as a new member of the ENZ board for a three-year term until 30 January 2028. “I would like to welcome Dr Erik Lithander to the ...
The Government will have senior representatives at Waitangi Day events around the country, including at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, but next year Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has chosen to take part in celebrations elsewhere. “It has always been my intention to celebrate Waitangi Day around the country with different ...
Two more criminal gangs will be subject to the raft of laws passed by the Coalition Government that give Police more powers to disrupt gang activity, and the intimidation they impose in our communities, Police Minister Mark Mitchell says. Following an Order passed by Cabinet, from 3 February 2025 the ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Justice Christian Whata as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Whata’s appointment as a Judge of the Court of Appeal will take effect on 1 August 2025 and fill a vacancy created by the retirement of Hon Justice David Goddard on ...
The latest economic figures highlight the importance of the steps the Government has taken to restore respect for taxpayers’ money and drive economic growth, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Data released today by Stats NZ shows Gross Domestic Product fell 1 per cent in the September quarter. “Treasury and most ...
Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds and Associate Minister of Education David Seymour today announced legislation changes to strengthen freedom of speech obligations on universities. “Freedom of speech is fundamental to the concept of academic freedom and there is concern that universities seem to be taking a more risk-averse ...
Police Minister, Mark Mitchell, and Internal Affairs Minister, Brooke van Velden, today launched a further Public Safety Network cellular service that alongside last year’s Cellular Roaming roll-out, puts globally-leading cellular communications capability into the hands of our emergency responders. The Public Safety Network’s new Cellular Priority service means Police, Wellington ...
State Highway 1 through the Mangamuka Gorge has officially reopened today, providing a critical link for Northlanders and offering much-needed relief ahead of the busy summer period, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“The Mangamuka Gorge is a vital route for Northland, carrying around 1,300 vehicles per day and connecting the Far ...
The Government has welcomed decisions by the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) and Ashburton District Council confirming funding to boost resilience in the Canterbury region, with construction on a second Ashburton Bridge expected to begin in 2026, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Delivering a second Ashburton Bridge to improve resilience and ...
The Government is backing the response into high pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Otago, Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard says. “Cabinet has approved new funding of $20 million to enable MPI to meet unbudgeted ongoing expenses associated with the H7N6 response including rigorous scientific testing of samples at the enhanced PC3 ...
Legislation that will repeal all advertising restrictions for broadcasters on Sundays and public holidays has passed through first reading in Parliament today, Media Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “As a growing share of audiences get their news and entertainment from streaming services, these restrictions have become increasingly redundant. New Zealand on ...
Today the House agreed to Brendan Horsley being appointed Inspector-General of Defence, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Mr Horsley’s experience will be invaluable in overseeing the establishment of the new office and its support networks. “He is currently Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, having held that role since June 2020. ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government has agreed to the final regulations for the levy on insurance contracts that will fund Fire and Emergency New Zealand from July 2026. “Earlier this year the Government agreed to a 2.2 percent increase to the rate of levy. Fire ...
The Government is delivering regulatory relief for New Zealand businesses through changes to the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act. “The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill, which was introduced today, is the second Bill – the other being the Statutes Amendment Bill - that ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed further progress on the Hawke’s Bay Expressway Road of National Significance (RoNS), with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) Board approving funding for the detailed design of Stage 1, paving the way for main works construction to begin in late 2025.“The Government is moving at ...
The Government today released a request for information (RFI) to seeking interest in partnerships to plant trees on Crown-owned land with low farming and conservation value (excluding National Parks) Forestry Minister Todd McClay announced. “Planting trees on Crown-owned land will drive economic growth by creating more forestry jobs in our regions, providing more wood ...
Court timeliness, access to justice, and improving the quality of existing regulation are the focus of a series of law changes introduced to Parliament today by Associate Minister of Justice Nicole McKee. The three Bills in the Regulatory Systems (Justice) Amendment Bill package each improve a different part of the ...
A total of 41 appointments and reappointments have been made to the 12 community trusts around New Zealand that serve their regions, Associate Finance Minister Shane Jones says. “These trusts, and the communities they serve from the Far North to the deep south, will benefit from the rich experience, knowledge, ...
The Government has confirmed how it will provide redress to survivors who were tortured at the Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital Child and Adolescent Unit (the Lake Alice Unit). “The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care found that many of the 362 children who went through the Lake Alice Unit between 1972 and ...
It has been a busy, productive year in the House as the coalition Government works hard to get New Zealand back on track, Leader of the House Chris Bishop says. “This Government promised to rebuild the economy, restore law and order and reduce the cost of living. Our record this ...
“Accelerated silicosis is an emerging occupational disease caused by unsafe work such as engineered stone benchtops. I am running a standalone consultation on engineered stone to understand what the industry is currently doing to manage the risks, and whether further regulatory intervention is needed,” says Workplace Relations and Safety Minister ...
Mehemea he pai mō te tangata, mahia – if it’s good for the people, get on with it. Enhanced reporting on the public sector’s delivery of Treaty settlement commitments will help improve outcomes for Māori and all New Zealanders, Māori Crown Relations Minister Tama Potaka says. Compiled together for the ...
Mr Roger Holmes Miller and Ms Tarita Hutchinson have been appointed to the Charities Registration Board, Community and Voluntary Sector Minister Louise Upston says. “I would like to welcome the new members joining the Charities Registration Board. “The appointment of Ms Hutchinson and Mr Miller will strengthen the Board’s capacity ...
More building consent and code compliance applications are being processed within the statutory timeframe since the Government required councils to submit quarterly data, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “In the midst of a housing shortage we need to look at every step of the build process for efficiencies ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey is proud to announce the first three recipients of the Government’s $10 million Mental Health and Addiction Community Sector Innovation Fund which will enable more Kiwis faster access to mental health and addiction support. “This fund is part of the Government’s commitment to investing in ...
New Zealand is providing Vanuatu assistance following yesterday's devastating earthquake, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. "Vanuatu is a member of our Pacific family and we are supporting it in this time of acute need," Mr Peters says. "Our thoughts are with the people of Vanuatu, and we will be ...
The Government welcomes the Commerce Commission’s plan to reduce card fees for Kiwis by an estimated $260 million a year, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says.“The Government is relentlessly focused on reducing the cost of living, so Kiwis can keep more of their hard-earned income and live a ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour has welcomed the Early Childhood Education (ECE) regulatory review report, the first major report from the Ministry for Regulation. The report makes 15 recommendations to modernise and simplify regulations across ECE so services can get on with what they do best – providing safe, high-quality care ...
The Government‘s Offshore Renewable Energy Bill to create a new regulatory regime that will enable firms to construct offshore wind generation has passed its first reading in Parliament, Energy Minister Simeon Brown says.“New Zealand currently does not have a regulatory regime for offshore renewable energy as the previous government failed ...
Kick Back has growing concerns about the impact that denying young people access to shelter is having on the mental health and physical safety of the young people we serve. ...
By Litia Cava, FBC News multimedia journalist Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has revealed how arms and ammunition used to conduct the 1987 military coup were secretly brought into Fiji on board a naval survey ship. Speaking at the commissioning of a new research vessel for the Lands and Mineral ...
Youth advocates are worried tighter rules for emergency housing could lead to someone dying due to the impacts on mental health and physical safety for those denied shelter. ...
“We urge the Health Select Committee to extend the date for submissions,” concluded Rev Bush. “There is too much at stake to leave the outcome of this review only in the hands of politicians or those with vested interests.” ...
A separate passport, citizenship and membership of the United Nations are only available to fully independent nations, Winston Peters' office says. ...
By Emma Andrews, Henare te Ua Māori Journalism Intern at RNZ News The New Zealand fuel company Z Energy is swapping out street names for “correct” kupu on service stops around the country, with the help of local hapū. When Z took over 226 fuel sites from Shell in 2010, ...
Summer reissue: Was it a false measurement, a full-blown conspiracy or just some mild incompetence? Mad Chapman uncovers the truth of Maddi Wesche’s final throw. The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Old, Associate Professor, Biology, Zoology, Animal Science, Western Sydney University Dmitry Chulov, Shutterstock At this time of year, images of reindeer are everywhere. I’ve had a soft spot for reindeer ever since I was a little girl. Doesn’t everyone? ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grozdana Manalo, Career Services Manager (Education), University of Sydney hedgehog94/Shutterstock Getting casual work over summer, or a part-time job that you might continue once your tertiary course starts, can be a great way to get workplace experience and earn some extra ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ty Ferguson, Research associate in exercise, nutrition and activity, University of South Australia Peera_Stockfoto/Shutterstock It’s never been easier to stay connected to work. Even when we’re on leave, our phones and laptops keep us tethered. Many of us promise ourselves we ...
The NZ Media Council upheld the complaint under principle four: comment and fact On 5 September 2024, The Spinoff published a brief article titled Made in Palestine, found in 1970s Hastings, which highlighted an upcoming art exhibition featuring photographs of vintage cosmetic products labelled “Made in Palestine.” The piece, described ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kasey Symons, Lecturer of Communication, Sports Media, Deakin University We are well and truly in cricket season. The Australian men’s cricket team is taking centre stage against India in the Border Gavaskar Trophy series while the Big Bash League is underway, as ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Woods, Lecturer, Nursing, Faculty of Health, Southern Cross University FTiare/Shutterstock Summer is here and for many that means going to the beach. You grab your swimmers, beach towel and sunscreen then maybe check the weather forecast. Did you think to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Saman Khalesi, Senior Lecturer and Discipline Lead in Nutrition, School of Health, Medical and Applied Sciences, CQUniversity Australia Dean Clarke/Shutterstock The holiday season can be a time of joy, celebration, and indulgence in delicious foods and meals. However, for many, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia Late Night With The Devil. Maslow Entertainment Marketing is critical to the success of commercial films, and companies will often spend half as much again on top of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Francisco Jose Testa, Lecturer in Earth Sciences (Mineralogy, Petrology & Geochemistry), University of Tasmania The Conversation As a kid, it was tough for me to grasp the massive time scale of Earth’s history. Now, with nearly two decades of experience as ...
Te Pāti Māori has had to adopt a new way of debating, operating and even thinking in Parliament in response to the Government’s “onslaught” against te ao Māori, co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer says.In an end-of-year interview with Newsroom, the Te Tai Hauauru MP reflected on how 2024 has differed from her ...
Opinion: The latest Trends in International Mathematics and Science report was announced earlier this month, yet it didn’t get the flurry of media attention and political hand-wringing that typically accompanies these announcements. This might be because it presented good news, or you could argue, no news; the results paint a ...
NewsroomBy Dr Lisa Darragh, Dr Raewyn Eden and Dr David Pomeroy
At long last, The Spinoff shells out for a nut ranking. The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and sign up to be a member today.It recently came to The Spinoff’s attention ...
I was one of hundreds of people who lost my government job this week. Here’s exactly how it played out. The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and sign up to be a ...
Summer reissue: One anxiously attentive passenger pays attention to an in-flight safety video, and wonders ‘Why can’t I pick up my own phone?’ The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and sign up ...
Summer reissue: Why do those Lange-Douglas years cast such a long shadow 40 years on? The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and sign up to be a member today. First published June ...
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NZ headed for a Triple Dip Recession – well this is what happens when you give massive Tax Cuts to the Wealthy and the Average Joe gets F**k All, I work in the retail fresh fruit and vegetable trade and your Average Joe does not have any surplus cash to put fresh fruit and vegetables on the table after they have paid the rent. Re Tax Cuts I get an extra $15.00 per week on a salary of $50k, not enough to put much extra fruit and vegetables on the table. Meanwhile our PM Christopher Luxton gets an additional $18k per annum, equivalent to $346.00 per week if I am correct. It ain't Rocket Science why we have poverty in NZ and the lower socio-economic groups are struggling. This poverty is also a factor driving Crime here in NZ, however most of the Poly's here in NZ have their heads in the sand like Ostrich's.
Not only $18K extra, but he can continue to take off mortgage interest payments of any investment properties he owns off his tax. With a property investment portfolio of $7mi, that's quite a bit of moolah.
Luxon only has 6 pads now sold one in Onehunga.
The poor bugger how will he survive?
Speaking of "when you give massive Tax Cuts to the Wealthy", the gummint saw fit to give "charity" status to billion dollar corporations, which means they don't pay a cent in tax. Two of these corporations are Ngai Tahu and Tainui. We also see these corporations extorting other business that need to re-apply for resource consent and have to pay the Taniwha tens of millions to billions of dollars for the privilege. Guess who ultimately pays for these excesses? Those that can least afford it as the costs are passed on, not absorbed by the business being extorted.
Solar powered devices?
When even the solar powered light in our garden could be a weapon, should we be worried?
How big a threat to us are our battery powered devices?
Can my laptop be hacked to make the lithium battery overheat, and burn my house down?
In a war between China and the US will our devices be on the front line?
Is anyone in the media investigating this problem?
If Hezbollah or Hamas had launched these attacks every resource available to our society would be invested in giving us the answer.
Afterall we already know how dangerous these devices can be, even with out evil intent.
With unintended spontaneous cockpit fires and E bike explosions.
Is this how World War III will start?
Thanks to the Israeli Butchers exploding pagers and two way radios, a huge issue has appeared for the tech and device industry and by obvious implication for users and the authorities.
International supply lines are involved in the production of devices, lines that can now be seen able to be breached for nefarious purposes. Will air carriers get the shakes about mobiles on board? Will any number of businesses look sideways at mobiles on their premises…will mobile users (say Palestine solidarity supporters) themselves become wary…
After todays attacks it doesn't seem like it's sabotage of equipment. It's just too many different types of devices – it's just seems like too wide-ranging a supply line to infiltrate.
In my opinion, it is most likely that they have changed some firmware code controlling battery controllers.
Battery controllers for rechargeable batteries are finicky things, pretty complex code lumps of code to control charging, discharging, and temperature responses. It isn’t that hard to remove safeguards if you read the programming manuals. The last manual I read on a battery controller for Lithium ion batteries was about 200 pages of dense settings.
I have blown up one Lithium ion batteries by accident during charging when I have been writing settings for a battery controller.
I don’t imagine that it is that hard to force a fast discharge causing a high temperatures. Probably targeting one of the families of battery controllers firmware. And modern batteries have extremely high energy densities.
All that would be required is to write code to talk to a controller, get it installed in a pager over the radio as a update, auto-install it, and then provide a online trigger to initiate it.
Odds that the culprits inserted modified batteries into the supply chain?
What do we know about Wednesday’s walkie-talkie explosions?
The walkie-talkies that exploded had new batteries that had arrived in a recent shipment and had been distributed to a narrower range of Hezbollah members than the pagers, people familiar with the matter said. Hezbollah members said some of the explosions on Wednesday were stronger than those in the pager attack. Lebanon’s health ministry said nine people were killed and more than 300 were wounded in Wednesday’s explosions.
https://archive.li/TMLv6 (wsj)
This would make any and every device a potential bomb.
.
B.A.C. did take on ordinary clients, for which it produced a range of ordinary pagers. But the only client that really mattered was Hezbollah, and its pagers were far from ordinary. Produced separately, they contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN, according to the three intelligence officers.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/world/middleeast/israel-exploding-pagers-hezbollah.html?unlocked_article_code=1.L04.QuJ0.eV6zIo_wjZrR&smid=url-share
Urrgh. The worst possible case. Explode and that will thermally overload the battery which would also burn of explode. I'd guess that they would trigger through a signal from the radio device passed to the battery controller. You'd just have to hook up one of the many extra lines to the controller.
The batteries are also hermetically sealed against leakage from the battery cells. So you wouldn't get a explosive smell trace. The seal is also designed to expand because that is what lithium batteries do as they deteriorate – that would help to make the explosion more violent from containment.
And with little strategic purpose…
.
“This might well be the first and frightening glimpse of a world in which ultimately no electronic device, from our cellphones to thermostats, can ever be fully trusted,” Glenn Gerstell, the general counsel of the National Security Agency for five critical years as the cyberwars heated up, said on Wednesday.
“We’ve already seen Russia and North Korea unleash cyberweapons over which they had no control, which indiscriminately damaged random computers around the globe,” he said. “Could other personal and household devices be next?”
If Mr. Gerstell is right, it raises the question of whether these attacks, widely attributed to Israel’s intelligence services, were worth the price in our shared sense of vulnerability. The explosions had little strategic purpose. As one Western diplomat with long experience dealing with the Middle East said, they were hardly about to force Hezbollah’s leaders to give up a cause they have battled over for four decades.
https://archive.li/bqFSN#selection-983.0-1001.423 (nyt)
My brain kind of switches off as soon as I read a manual but I do like how people have skills like this. Not for what happened here, but it's interesting.
War is just very sad all round and unbearable in many regards. We are the 1% when compared to so many countries and I wish we spent more time appreciating it – rather than being gaslit into poverty and culture wars by some in power.
If I were in Lebanon I wouldn't want to be carrying around a cellphone in my pocket right now or getting near a television or computer.
I feel that the Israelis have something else planned and I'm sure it won't be pleasant.
But it does raise the question: what else can be tampered with to cause injury and destruction? and what if Putin and Kim Jung Un got hold of the means to do this?
I am sure it is a preemptive strike, either to disrupt Hazbollah plans if they were about to do something, or to prepare for an Israeli invasion, as Ad points out below.
Either way, looking beyond the nastiness of it, it is a very effective strategy in either scenario.
Will there be any international investigation into how and where these supply lines were breached?
Will any effort be made to identify the operatives who carried out this so called "sensitive operation"?
Will anyone be held accountable?
Like so many other Zionist atrocities before it, will Israel's impunity see this latest atrocity being deliberately and systematically swept under the carpet?
Will the news cycle move on?|
Despite the dire implications of this new form of warfare will this shocking event go uninvestigated?
Where were, and how were, the supply line breaches made?
Is it possible for Russia to call on its Chinese ally to help it launch a similar attack against Ukraine?
Well, American top security people are very tight lipped at the moment as to implicating Israel, I’m just following media channel reports so far, but it appears a batch of Taiwanese pagers were sent to a possibly bogus Hungarian company set up by Mossad to do the explosive installs.
Will anyone be held accountable–yes, but not the Israeli butchers!
I'm reading it as a an Israeli controlled front did the deal to supply devices manufactured and sold by a Hungarian company called BAC Consulting, which had a license to use the Taiwanese brand on the pagers.
More on the BAC Consulting story.
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/18/g-s1-23547/tracking-the-exploding-pagers-used-in-attack-on-hezbollah
Thanks for the informative link Matiri.
To add to the mystery here's another story from a former Israeli operative with the 'secret Israeli weapons division’ describing the preparation:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/350421367/secrets-mossads-fearsome-reputation-revealed-ex-israeli-intelligence-officers
Fascinating article.
Fascinating?
Sounds, a little more like misdirection to me.
If this wasn't a misdirection, which country's customs service is this anonymous spook alluding to?
Hungary? Lebanon?
Were the customs officers allegedly involved, bribed or coerced by Mosad, and no other customs employees in their dempartment noticed?
The other alternative, the customs officers were ordered to divert these pagers by their government employer?
And nobody in the government bureaucracy's chain of command, who may have been a little bit uncomfortable at this order, got wind of this operation and leaked it?
Really?
Smells like bullshit to me.
Just a little too convenient, and a way bit far fetched.
We have one name: Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono
From the link supplied by Matiri:
$320?
Fancy that. A not for profit electronics company that only makes pagers.
Can we expect that a certain 'Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono', is being sought by interpol for questioning, with her description at every airport?
Probably not.
Israel's impunity makes sure that Western authorities including police and security forces will look the other way.
Who is Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono?
An A4 sheet on a glass door, sounds the definition of a front company.
British-educated businesswoman Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono (Facebook)
From the Independent 12 hours ago:
I consider that a handful of ex Mossad and related agency officers know a damn sight more than you or I how Mossad operates. That was the intent of the item I linked to. Nothing more nor less.
You on the other hand have chosen to interpret it as a pro-Mossad piece rather than an educative and factual piece of writing which was both informative and revealing.
I am sure they do. I am also pretty sure that they are very unlikely to tell us.how they operate.
No, I just think that their version is unlikely, And I said why.
I think it is unlikely that Customs officers were bribed or coerced to divert a shipment of pagers without it being noticed by someone else. Even more so, if they were ordered to do so by their superiors.
I might add that more and more and evidence is leading back to BAC, rather than border Customs of some unamed country.
However, I would be interested to look at anythiing Mossad comes up with, that they wan to to add, to back up their vierson, that it was Customs.
Which Customs? Of which Country? would be a good start.
Who is Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono?
‘
Calling Heinz, the Baron Krauss von Espy/Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono
‘
But all jokes aside, under international law, boobytrapping civilian devices is a war crime.
The ICC prosecutor Karim Khan may yet be adding another name to his list of alleged war criminals that he has applied to the ICC for arrest warrants for.
Lebanon is a not a signatory to the Rome Statute, but Hungary is.
Presumably if an arrest warrant for Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono is issued, the Hungarian secret service would have to hand her over to the Hague for trial.
So will the weird individual with the Hollywood film star looks, and the double barralled surname, and the padded CV, ever see the inside of a court room?
While the Taiwanese authorities may be taking this act of terrorism seriously, the authorities of the Western powers, not so much.
The ICC while swift to act to issue an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an approaching freight train load of Western disaproval to any challenge to Israel's impunity, the ICC have become paralysed. A paralysis from which they may never salvage enough credibility to ever issue an arrest warrant against anyone ever again, not even Yahya Sinwar.
The next 9/11 is coming.
Its not a matter of if.
Its just a matter of when.
… 23 years and counting.
Maybe the anti-terror security architecture we all rely on is working.
23 years?
Hitler festered about the Jews from 1915 and took action 25 years later in 1940.
There are now millions of Muslim Hitlers out there planning revenge.
The Jews became the most hated people in the world before the Nazis
with the support of all Western European Christian lowered the boom.
6 million Jews were not so smart between 1940 and 1944.
The Jews are on the way to becoming the most hated people in the world again.
Its gonna be 1940-1944 deja Jew all over again."
6 Muslims with two knives brought down the entire USA defence system. at 9/11.
Who will protects the millions of USA travellers when they are over seas?
In the last month a couple of old blokes have beaten the USA security system
just abut knocking out Trump.
Another big one is coming.
Will be great viewing
You are on thin ice with that kind of comment…
Oh really? What hateful things to say. No place for nazi fans here !
Disgusting comment
Koina, plenty of vids on youtube on Treblinka, Auschwitz, Ravensbruck etc for your "great viewing" . Your post is abhorrent.
Is that it … is it a curious bird … more questions than answers …
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=koina+meaning+maori
9/11 was to provoke the PNAC to action, because they needed regime change to create the vacuum for Islamic State (but Iran backed Shia rule Iraq and Syria now – what a defeat for both al Qaeda and PNAC).
Today the divide is between those who want Israeli permanent rule of the WB and defeat of Israel. Will both lose, if there is a two state peace?
Some good news for Aucklanders with an electricity account, the Entrust dividend of $350 is being paid over the next few days. If you receive it by direct credit, it may be in your bank a/c now. Some people have it credited to their electricity a/c.
Entrust dividend: Who’s in line for the $350 payout – NZ Herald
We also note that the Entrust Election is always held at the same time the dividend is paid out.
An Entrust I want would use the dividend to buy back the 25% of shares in the NZ sharemarket …
… then hand the while thing as a CCO to Auckland Council. And ACC rates would go down.
I want them to spend more $$$ undergrounding power lines instead of carving out big "V for Vector" cuts in the middle of the street trees to maintain the required clearances for the power lines. It is a tragedy that they did not piggyback off the other works being done on Hendon Ave with the new housing developments there. The street trees are great and an important part of the streetscape.
Pity about the network having $12m foregone infrastructure investment for ticket clippers who do absolutely zero toward the security of electricity supply get reelected.
It looks to me that the exploding communication devices amongst Hezbollah operatives is a preemptive strike.
From what I have read, Hezbollah received the pagers about five months ago. Perhaps the Israelis set this up so they could disrupt Hezbollah's plans if they were about to do something major.
This type of action is within the Israeli MO. For example in the Six Day War the Israelis undertook a preemptive strike against the Egyption air force and took out most of their planes befoe they even got off the ground.
You don't make the move of blinding your enemy unless you're preparing for war.
Israel's 98th Division is now on the border, and is believed to include thousands of troops, including paratrooper infantry units and artillery and elite commando forces specially trained for operations behind enemy lines.
7 October will be the 1-year anniversary. Under 3 weeks from now.
Blinding the enemy in the middle of the fight would be an ace up the sleeve, too.
Israel decided to blow up the pager devices carried by Hezbollah members in Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday out of concern its secret operation might have been discovered by the group, three U.S. officials told Axios.
https://www.axios.com/2024/09/18/hezbollah-pager-explosions-israel-suspicions
The USA does not want Israel to start a war. And Hezbollah knows starting one when Lebanese hospitals are over-run would place its forces at risk.
I intend to agree, this has all the hallmarks of a classic, 'softening up operation'
This attack seems to have combined all four of these various softening up tactics.
Step #1. May not have exactly been an artillery attack, sometimes it's not. But it did involve explosives.
In WW1 and the American Civil War, tunnels were sometimes secretly dug under enemy lines and packed with explosives, That were detonated to soften up a target just before the main assault. This attack is not too disimilar. differing only in not lieterally being an underground operation.
Steps, 2, 3, and 4 are selfe explanatory, and were all achieved by this one assualt.
The Israelis got intell a year before the Oct 7 attack. Those above said it was too ambitious for Hamas to realise. 6 months before they got intell of Hamas training for the attack. Again it was dismissed.
The biggest intelligence and IDF failure in their history.
The attack came 50 years after 1973 (Yom Kippur war – they knew an attack was coming – but the Americans said if they acted first they would not be supplied with arms).
An attack 50 years later fits the black September timing of attacks at "harvest time" because of the nature of the Jewish calendar (Sept/Oct harvest month – and there is historic significance to Oct 7 as well, in 2023 the first sabbath day after sukkoth – ending on the Friday Oct 6).
For mine, this is a pre-empting of any Hezbollah attack on Oct 7 2024, or Sukkoth later in the month.
Bravado 101, a warning that any war will involve stuff Iran has not warned them about. Iran itself, not being a safe place for pro Hamas Arabs to visit.
As our local fan of all things Rainbow (Dec 2016 UNSC decision hate speech against McCully) puts it.
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/
They get tech to spy on their citizens.
People sometimes forget that many Arabs (and Turks) see Iran as having a hegemon ambition, exploiting Israel to pose as leader of the Moslem world. The Arab League (and Turkey) position is now a two state outcome, Iran is the outlier.
An attack on those planning a Galilee operation like the one last year.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y9wyy9pr2o
There got to be more than what matches the eye here. Hamas have apparently had them for 5 months but it stretches the imagination that no one has changed a battery or tried to fix one and gone ‘ hang on, what’s this ‘ , 5 months and thousands of devices.. makes no sense. Also the sabotaging of household battery walls is just shitfuckery of the highest order.
It was probably code that sets the settings on the battery controller chip (or any power controller chip). Those things come in families and they get used in a wide variety of devices. Almost every device that stores and releases power uses controller chips or boards to make sure that the power in charged or discharged at a safe rate and that their energy store doesn’t overheat.
In lithium-ion type batteries, every one that you plug into a device has a battery controller of a particular type or type family inside the battery casing. It carries the settings allowing safe charging, discharging, and temperatures. You can typically reprogram those settings from code in the device itself.
It is usual to update code on most remote devices via comms. I’ve written a lot of code using internet, wifi, bluetooth, satellite, radio, ethernet, usb, jtag and just straight serial to update devices. Pretty hard to find a nasty even if you actually have the source code and compile it yourself. That is why remote updates or installation need a secure review / build / supply chain.
The internet is full of videos of lithium batteries bursting into fire, (which may be what gave Mossad the idea) Many of these fires have been caused by incorrect charging. ie using a different brand charger for a different brand battery. Proving the point that incorect charging parameters that could possibly be altered remotely, could cause communication devices with these batteries to catch fire.
But Mossad may have wanted more.
Rather than just catching fire, BBC footage shows percussive explosions. Which lends credence to the speculation that a small amount of high explosive had been inserted into these devices.
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cdenk2721p8o
Adding more weight to the theory that explosives were inserted in these devices.
From AP, despite quoting an anonymous source, to make this report. AP are considered an authoritive journal of record AP. So I give it some weight. But make of it what you will. Personally I don’t think the journos whose names I have left in, are trying to mislead us. Like most journalists I know they are trying to do a good job to the best of their ability. Often under trying circumstances. Often they can’t reveal the identity of their sources.
(Generally, whenever I post a link, I try to mak a point to include the names of real people authors, and journos, I do this because I don't believe the conspiracy theorists that all journalists working in the Mainstream Media are corruptted liars.)
Can we expect a blanket ban on all electronic devices being taken on to planes?
The current CAA rules:
Unitended Consequences
After 9/11 when box cutters were used to hijack planes and bring down the Twin Towers, you weren't even allowed to take nail clippers with you on to a plane,
https://www.quora.com/Why-are-nail-clippers-not-allowed-on-planes#:~:text=Although%20nail%20clippers%20are%20not,and%20prevent%20any%20potential%20threats.
When every portable device is now a potential bomb, will we see the same sort of blanket ban?
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentaerythritol_tetranitrate
Probably.
.
Beirut airport and some Middle East airlines have banned passengers from carrying certain electronic devices following the shock attacks on electronic devices in Lebanon which left 32 dead and thousands badly injured.
Lebanon's aviation authority said on Thursday that all passengers would be barred from carrying walkie-talkies and pagers on flights from Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport.
https://www.newarab.com/news/mena-airlines-ban-walkie-talkies-pagers-after-lebanon-blasts
It’s certainly a massive security breach for Hezbullah and Hamas, I could imagine a handful of devices being swapped for ones with the explosive device, but numbers are in the thousands. Now today we are hearing about other communications devices exploding.
If Israel were to invade southern Lebanon, It would make sense for the Israelis to control the pagers and communication equipment remotely, while intercepting messages and feeding misinformation, not destroying them.
This is something different, it may be part of an internal civil war within Hezbollah and other Palestinian organisations. There will be other regional players involved, not including the US, China, Russia or the UK.
We all know that the US backs Israel, and takes the flak accordingly.
So how is it that Iran gets a free pass. They’re the ones supporting, and arming Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. With Iran’s avowed intent to wipe Israel off the face of the map, is it surprising that Israel takes the fight to their proxies?
"We all know that the US backs Israel, and takes the flak accordingly."
What does that "flak" look like.
I venture the US gets off scot free.
We are told Auckland real estate values are now at 4 year low, falling below $1 million.
No worries for real estate agents though, cos of the way their commission structure operates.
It appears that a third wave of exploding electronic devices is unfolding in Lebanon.
Not just portable devices, but any internet connected device can be laced with undetectable PETN and remotely detonated.
Apparently some Lebanese retailers have been buying electronic goods including solar panels from Israel because they are cheaper.
Lebanon’s official news agency confirms solar energy systems exploded in Beirut
The video appears to show the front of a cell phone retail shop blown out.