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Conscious And Unconscionable: The Starving Of Gaza
Friday, 1 March 2024, 1:36 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The starvation regime continues unabated as Israel continues its campaign in the Gaza Strip. One of the six provisional measures ordered by the International Court Justice entailed taking “immediate and effective measures” to protect the Palestinian ... More >>
On The Newshub/Smokefree Twin Fiascos
Thursday, 29 February 2024, 10:57 am | Gordon Campbell
Here’s a tale of two sunset industries. One has a track record of quality investigative reporting, and sound reportage of the 24/7 news cycle. The other sunset industry peddles a deadly substance that kills and injures tens of thousands of New Zealanders ... More >>
Dunne's Weekly: Unseemly Rush Shows Need To Review Role Of Waitangi Tribunal
Thursday, 29 February 2024, 9:12 am | Peter Dunne
The rush to push legislation through Parliament under Urgency to abolish the Māori Health Authority, Te Aka Whai Ora, has been unseemly. No matter that the Authority’s abolition was an election commitment of all three government coalition partners, ... More >>
Trussonomics At CPAC
Wednesday, 28 February 2024, 1:41 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The silly will make print and leave bursts of digital traces; the idiots will make history, if only in small print. One such figure is the shortest serving UK Prime Minister in living memory, the woeful, joke-packed figure of Liz Truss who lasted ... More >>
Missing The Health Target
Tuesday, 27 February 2024, 8:17 pm | Ian Powell
Wilhelm Tell (more commonly known as William Tell in the English speaking world) was a 14th century folk hero in Switzerland then ruled by the Austrian Hapsburgs. Tell is widely considered to be the symbolic father of the Swiss Confederacy. Among ... More >>
Old Problems With The New: Reforming The UN Security Council
Tuesday, 27 February 2024, 2:20 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The end of the Second World War was a calamitous catalyst, laying the bricks and mortar for institutions that were always going to look weary, almost comically so, after some decades. The United Nations was meant to be the umbrella international ... More >>
Formal Democracy, Popular Will And Military Coups
Monday, 26 February 2024, 5:48 pm | Ian Powell
In its 2023 Index of the countries of the world Transparency International rated Aotearoa New Zealand the third best nation on transparency. However, as credible as this was, there was a drop in its score. The fall was in how common it was for ... More >>
A Copper’s Skewed Logic: Politicising Palestinian Visas
Monday, 26 February 2024, 5:45 pm | Binoy Kampmark
If only we could say that Peter Dutton, Australia’s federal opposition leader and curator of bigoted leanings, was unusual in assuming that granting humanitarian visas to Palestinians might be problematic. But both he, and his skew-eyed spokesman ... More >>
Imperial Venality Defends Itself: Day Two Of Julian Assange’s High Court Appeal
Friday, 23 February 2024, 2:19 pm | Binoy Kampmark
On February 21, the Royal Courts of Justice hosted a second day of carnivalesque mockery regarding the appeal by lawyers representing an ill Julian Assange, whose publishing efforts are being impugned by the United States as having compromised ... More >>
On The Perils Of Joining AUKUS Pillar Two
Friday, 23 February 2024, 10:25 am | Gordon Campbell
The lure for New Zealand to join the AUKUS military alliance is that membership of only its “second pillar” will still (supposedly) give us access to state of the art military technologies. As top US official Kurt Campbell said during his visit ... More >>
Identifying Imperial Venality: Day One Of Julian Assange’s High Court Appeal
Thursday, 22 February 2024, 7:10 pm | Binoy Kampmark
On February 20, it was clear that things were not going to be made easy for Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who infuriated the US imperium, the national security establishment, and a stable of journalists upset that he had cut their ill-tended ... More >>
Dunne's Weekly: National's Benefit Changes All About Politics
Thursday, 22 February 2024, 9:31 am | Peter Dunne
Here we go again. Another National-led government, and another round of cracking down on beneficiaries. That was the reaction of the parties of the left to the coalition government's announcement it was returning to applying sanctions to beneficiaries ... More >>
Swiftie Nonsense Down Under
Wednesday, 21 February 2024, 6:13 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Gaza. Palestinians. Israel. Genocide. Taylor Swift? This odd cobbling of words is the extent celebrities make a mockery of serious conversation, even in such middle-brow outlets as Australia’s Radio National. Admittedly, it was breakfast, and the presenter ... More >>
New Zealand Foreign Minister Seeks To Block Chinese Influence In Southwest Pacific
Wednesday, 21 February 2024, 9:24 am | Socialist Equality Group
By John Braddock New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters undertook a four-day tour of three Pacific Islands states beginning on February 7, hard on the heels of a visit to Australia that saw a strengthening of security and defence ties between ... More >>
Far-right Activist Kyle Chapman Avoids Jail On Gun Charges
Tuesday, 20 February 2024, 3:22 pm | RNZ
Far-right activist Kyle Chapman has avoided jail, telling a court he now wants to be a father first. More >>
Things Are Not What They Seem
Tuesday, 20 February 2024, 3:21 pm | Eugene Doyle
We are homo dramatis , the species that tells stories. Today more and more of us are rejecting America and Israel’s stories and are searching for a better script. That is a good thing because History is calling us to be actors, not spectators, ... More >>
On National Spreading Panic About The Economy
Tuesday, 20 February 2024, 9:03 am | Gordon Campbell
It is a political strategy as old as time. Scare the public with tales of disaster and stampede them into supporting your ideological agenda because they believe There Is No Alternative. Yet, if the NZ economy truly is as “fragile” as PM Christopher ... More >>
Joe Biden: The Damnation Of Age
Monday, 19 February 2024, 12:07 pm | Binoy Kampmark
He was sweet and well meaning, but he was old. He was hazy. His memory was poor. Doddering, confused, the self-proclaimed leader of the Free World seemed ready to check into a retirement village. That, at least, is the thick insinuation of the ... More >>
Here Come The Steroid Games
Saturday, 17 February 2024, 6:34 pm | Binoy Kampmark
To attribute weighty moral codes to athletes has always been a silly pastime of the judging classes and flesh admiring voyeurs. But sporting bodies, in a manner similar to the clergy, demand something called the level playing field. Fairness ... More >>
Download Weekly: Chorus names new fibre sites
Friday, 16 February 2024, 12:57 pm | Digitl
Chorus names new fibre areas, what the telco sector learned from Cyclone Gabrielle, PC slump continues More >>
On National Passing Bad Policies Under Urgency
Friday, 16 February 2024, 11:10 am | Gordon Campbell
If National really had faith in its welfare policies, it wouldn’t be ramming them through Parliament under urgency – a step that means the policies can’t be exposed to select committee debate, public submissions, expert commentary, media scrutiny ... More >>
Waymo Luddites, the right to disconnect, NZ streaming, consu
Thursday, 15 February 2024, 12:30 pm | Digitl
You can hear me talking about these topics on RNZ Nine-to-Noon with Kathryn Ryan. . More >>
When Courts Intervene: Halting The Transfer Of F-35 Parts To Israel
Wednesday, 14 February 2024, 1:06 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Legal challenges regarding the Israel-Gaza War are starting to bulk lawyers’ briefs and courtroom proceedings. South Africa got matters underway with its December application before the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in its campaign ... More >>
On Five Of Luxon’s Gaza Absurdities
Wednesday, 14 February 2024, 11:43 am | Gordon Campbell
Earlier this week, PM Christopher Luxon met with 48 public service CEOs to make sure they were on board with his plans to cut spending on public services so that National can proceed to give the revenue away to those New Zealanders least in need. ... More >>
Auckland train network reliability in question with CRL on horizon
Wednesday, 14 February 2024, 11:28 am | RNZ
There are concerns the problems causing rail disruption won't be fixed before the underground metro is finished next year. More >>
Silencing Francesca Albanese
Wednesday, 14 February 2024, 9:24 am | Eugene Doyle
It was with a sense of disgust rather than despair that I read in the Jerusalem Post today: " 'Antisemitic' UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese banned from Israel." We’re being gas-lighted again and this is a chance to push back ... More >>
Feathery Infiltrators: The Case Of The Pigeon Spy
Tuesday, 13 February 2024, 12:14 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Animals have, at times, been given the same dismissively nasty treatment humans love giving themselves. Be it detention, torture, trial, and execution, the unwitting creatures can be found in the oddest situations, anthropomorphised with all the characteristics ... More >>
On National’s Misleading Policy Packaging
Monday, 12 February 2024, 12:27 pm | Gordon Campbell
Truth in packaging can be a political rarity, but the gap between what the Luxon administration says it is doing and what its policies will actually deliver is looking as wide as the Grand Canyon. Is it possible to run a government for three years purely ... More >>
Absence Of Evidence: Israel’s Case Against UNRWA
Sunday, 11 February 2024, 7:31 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Statistics are often given lanky legs that take their user far. But how they are used, and how they are received, is striking. The current figure of 27,500 dead is a blighting, grotesque fact. But as they are Palestinians, the issue is less significant ... More >>
When Times Were Better: Victoria’s Ties With Israel’s Defence Industry
Friday, 9 February 2024, 12:12 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Times were supposedly better in 2022. That is, if you were a lawmaker in the Australian state of Victoria, a busy Israeli arms manufacturer, or cash counting corporate middleman keen to make a stash along the way between the two. That view is premised on the ... More >>
On The Politics As A Morality Play
Thursday, 8 February 2024, 12:49 pm | Gordon Campbell
To a striking extent, the working class vote in Western societies has been going to right wing demagogues, not to left wing social democrats. Even the mainstream parties on the right of the political spectrum are running the risk of being rejected ... More >>
Growing Call To Make Big Tobacco Pay For Health And Environment Harms
Thursday, 8 February 2024, 9:06 am | Bobby Ramakant
Would you not be surprised to learn that an industry whose products kill over 8 million people every year (even when used as the manufacturer intended), and cause an array of health and environment disasters of epidemic proportion, has not been ... More >>
Breaching The ‘Iron Wall’: How Palestinians Crushed Jabotinsky's Century-Old Ideas
Wednesday, 7 February 2024, 9:45 am | Ramzy Baroud
It seemed strange, if not out of context, when Israeli politician Moshe Feiglin told Arutz Sheva-Israel National News that “Muslims are not afraid of us anymore”. Feiglin’s comments were made on October 25, less than three weeks following the ... More >>
Muddled Analysis: Left, Right, And Wrong!
Monday, 5 February 2024, 7:02 pm | Ian Powell
Sometimes when I contemplate whether to blog on a political subject or not, I struggle with the question of relevance. The fact that the subject interests me is not a guarantee of wider relevance. On this occasion, aided and abetted by personal bias I’ve opted ... More >>
Unaccountable Hackers: The CIA, Vengeance And Joshua Schulte
Monday, 5 February 2024, 1:39 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The release of the Vault 7 files in the spring of 2017 in a series of 26 disclosures, detailing the hacking tools of the US Central Intelligence Agency, was one of the more impressive achievements of the WikiLeaks publishing organisation. As WikiLeaks ... More >>
On Tomorrow, And The Spirit Of Moana Jackson
Monday, 5 February 2024, 10:34 am | Gordon Campbell
Since ACT is sponsoring the Treaty Principles Bill, it is understandable that David Seymour should be catching most of the flak being generated by the Bill. National, by contrast, is offering soothing reassurances that the Bill will be allowed to progress ... More >>
All wards should be treated the same, says Local Government New Zealand president
Monday, 5 February 2024, 10:19 am | RNZ
Councils are attacking the government's proposal to bring back local referenda for Māori wards. More >>
The Edge Of War, Our Battle For Truth
Monday, 5 February 2024, 10:18 am | Eugene Doyle
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” George Orwell, 1984. On the opening day of the bombing last week, I had to work hard to find out what the Iraqi government thought of the wave of attacks on Iraq by the ... More >>
Forget The Kids: Social Media, Congress and Child Safety
Sunday, 4 February 2024, 3:05 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It was a struggle to see how a child’s welfare was relevant in the latest, shrill debates about technology taking place on The Hill. The Senate Judiciary Committee and the leaders of social media companies were on show to thrash out matters on technology ... More >>
New Zealand Goose-steps Towards The Moral Abyss
Friday, 2 February 2024, 11:55 am | Eugene Doyle
With its decision to suspend or “pause” funding to the United Nation’s key organisation that is providing assistance to Gaza’s famished, desperate population, New Zealand could open itself up to a charge of participating in a genocide. I first ... More >>
Collective Versus Individual: Māori Versus 'Maoris'
Thursday, 1 February 2024, 1:45 pm | Keith Rankin
Collectiveness at it most potent has been called asabiyya by macrohistorian and cliodynamicist Peter Turchin. At its least potent , collectiveness is a recipe for social division, top-heaviness, escalating inequality, and societal breakdown. The ... More >>
Collective Versus Individual: Māori Versus 'Maoris'
Thursday, 1 February 2024, 1:42 pm | Keith Rankin
Collectiveness at it most potent has been called asabiyya by macrohistorian and cliodynamicist Peter Turchin. At its least potent , collectiveness is a recipe for social division, top-heaviness, escalating inequality, and societal breakdown. The ... More >>
Flashpoint For War: The Drone Killings At Tower 22
Thursday, 1 February 2024, 12:22 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The BBC’s characteristically mild-mannered note said it all: What is Tower 22? More to the point, what are US forces doing in Jordan? (To be more precise, a dusty scratching on the Syria-Jordan border.) These questions were posed in the aftermath ... More >>
On ACT’s Flat Tax Fever
Thursday, 1 February 2024, 12:04 pm | Gordon Campbell
Party on, dudes. Repeatedly, the policy adventures of Christopher Luxon and David Seymour are taking New Zealand back in time to the most excellent year of 2017. According to Chris and Dave, that’s when government spending was being restrained most righteously ... More >>
Cannibalism, Conservatives And Lies: Australia’s Nemesis Story
Wednesday, 31 January 2024, 1:17 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Palace coups have become a seasonal tradition in Australian politics. Between 2007 and 2018, Australia had six prime ministers, four of whom were overthrown by their own parties, the first five never being allowed to complete their first term in office. ... More >>
Groundbreaking Judicial Verdict Unravelling Dark Political Layers
Wednesday, 31 January 2024, 11:44 am | Syed Atiq ul Hassan
International political experts suggest a connection between the punishment and the alleged involvement of the United States, echoing a historical pattern of Pakistani politicians facing legal consequences when opposing US or British directives .’ ... More >>
Secular Cycles And Empires
Tuesday, 30 January 2024, 1:49 pm | Keith Rankin
Peter Turchin, author of End Times , has spent many years researching cliodynamics . His works in the 2000s include Secular Cycles (2009) and War and Peace and Wa r (2007). A central concept in communicating his research is that of asabiyya , a word ... More >>
No more aid for UN aid agency until Peters satisfied - Luxon
Tuesday, 30 January 2024, 12:48 pm | RNZ
Christopher Luxon has announced contributions to UNRWA will be reviewed by the Foreign Minister, while Helen Clark has criticised nations for pulling out. More >>
Judicial Murder In Alabama
Tuesday, 30 January 2024, 12:46 pm | Binoy Kampmark
During the evening of January 25, Kenneth Eugene Smith, having failed to convince the US Supreme Court to delay his execution, became yet another victim of judicial, state-sanctioned murder. A previous, failed effort, using lethal injection, had been ... More >>
Houthis Save The World
Tuesday, 30 January 2024, 12:46 pm | Eugene Doyle
The State of Israel can butcher thousands of innocents but New Zealand would not lift a finger to provide support to its victims. IDF soldiers can gun down old men and women waving white flags, shell lines of refugees queuing for aid, and deprive ... More >>
On Wasting Money On Defence, And Melanie, RIP
Tuesday, 30 January 2024, 9:56 am | Gordon Campbell
On the weekend, the government signalled once again that “ bold” and “brave” decisions were looming on Defence. That’s political code for lavish spending on weapons systems while essential social services are being cut. The rationale for ... More >>
The ICJ’s Provisional Orders: The Genocide Convention Applies to Gaza
Saturday, 27 January 2024, 2:34 pm | Binoy Kampmark
On January 26, legal experts, policy wonks, activists and the plain curious waited for the order of the International Court of Justice, sitting in The Hague. The topic was that gravest of crimes, considered most reprehensible in the canon of international ... More >>
Mesmeric Weapons: South Africa’s Nuclear Program
Friday, 26 January 2024, 1:00 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The lessons of the South African nuclear weapons program are deep, profound and largely ignored by non-proliferation dogmatists. They show that a regime, even one subject to sanctions and exiled to the diplomatic cold room, can still show aptitude ... More >>
On How Christopher Luxon Is Turning NZ Into A US Proxy
Thursday, 25 January 2024, 11:18 am | Gordon Campbell
How many students can pack into a phone booth? Surely, nowhere near as many as the double standards the Luxon government is packing into its rationale for helping to bomb the Houthis. So outraged are we at the Houthi attacks on maritime trade that ... More >>
May His Like Never Be Seen Again: Scott Morrison Departs
Wednesday, 24 January 2024, 1:40 pm | Binoy Kampmark
His type should never be seen again. Born from the dark well of swill and advertising, former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison was always the apotheosis of politics’ worst tendencies: shallow form, public service for private interest, and, ultimately, ... More >>
When The Cookie Crumbled: The Ron DeSantis Campaign Ends
Tuesday, 23 January 2024, 2:26 pm | Binoy Kampmark
So much for that. Much had been promised by Florida Governor Ron De Santis to derail Donald Trump’s bid to return to the White House. But the attempt to wrest the Republican Party from the orange ogre’s meaty, waving hands was never convincing. In the end, ... More >>
On Treaty Principles, And Nikki Haley’s False Dawn
Tuesday, 23 January 2024, 11:18 am | Gordon Campbell
So the government wants to “debate” the principles of Te Tiriti, even though its own Māori Development Minister has been simultaneously assuring us that these principles are non-negotiable. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon appears to be delivering ... More >>
John Pilger, a Friend of Palestine and All Oppressed Nations, Has Passed Away
Sunday, 21 January 2024, 8:06 pm | Ramzy Baroud
The first and the last time I met John Pilger in person was in 2018. I was invited to deliver a speech at the NSW Parliament in Sydney, Australia. Among the large crowd were many that I knew and respected - a former foreign minister, socially conscientious ... More >>
Community of 11,000 set to lose only supermarket
Friday, 19 January 2024, 12:55 pm | RNZ
Locals in a small, low-income suburb north of Hastings are devastated by the news. More >>
100 Days Of War And Resistance: Legendary Palestinian Resistance Will Be Netanyahu’s Downfall
Thursday, 18 January 2024, 2:44 pm | Ramzy Baroud
Law number one in the ‘law of holes’, is that “if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” Law number two, “if you are not digging, you are still in a hole”. These adages sum up Israel’s ongoing political, military and strategic crises, ... More >>
