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Scoop Business: OCR Stays At 2.5%, Mid-Year Tightening Still On - Reserve Bank of New Zealand Governor Alan Bollard kept the official cash rate unchanged at 2.5%, as expected, and reierated a mid-year start to rate hikes, saying the subdued pace of recovery will restrain inflation. More>>

ALSO:

• Reserve Bank - OCR unchanged at 2.5 percent
• Labour - Bollard agrees wages won’t keep pace
• Scoop Business - FULL REPORT: NZ’s Bollard keeps OCR at 2.5%
• Scoop Business - ETS to push inflation 0.4%, says Bollard
• Scoop Business - NZ dollar slips as Bollard holds to rates timing
• Manufacturers and Exporters Association - OCR inflation targeting ‘not optimal’
• TV3 Video - Economists predict no change to OCR

Uri Avnery: A Matter of Timing - SOME WEEKS the news is dominated by a single word. This week’s word was “timing”. It’s all a matter of timing. The Government of Israel has insulted the Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, one of the greatest “friends”... More >>

ALSO:

• Obama to Netanyahu: Show us you're serious

Stephen Soldz: Iceland Sets New Path Toward Press Freedom - If all goes well, Iceland may be about to make history. No, I don’t mean the refusal of the populace to get saddled with Iceland’s $5 billion bad “Icesave” bank debt. Rather, I’m referring to the Icelandic Modern Media... More >>

Connie Lawn: President Obama’s trip to Asia and Australia– maybe - “We really wish the President would stop in New Zealand – they are good friends to us.” That was the message conveyed to me from one Asian-Pacific expert. He and many others are working very hard on President Obama’s scheduled... More >>

Moving Right and Going Wrong: The Texas Education Curriculum - Censors, it has been said, are paid to have dirty minds. Education panellists, at least in certain jurisdictions, are paid to prevent the exercise of one at all. For that reason, fifteen unknown individuals in a state should not... More >>

Ramzy Baroud: Alternative Reading Of The Al-Mabhouh Murder - The killing of Palestinian activist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh on January 19, 2010 was clearly a well-planned, violent and sadistic act, committed by Israeli assassins in the supposed safety of a sovereign country. More >>

Ramzy Baroud: Alternative Reading Of The Al-Mabhouh Murder

The killing of Palestinian activist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh on January 19, 2010 was clearly a well-planned, violent and sadistic act, committed by Israeli assassins in the supposed safety of a sovereign country. More >>

Martha Rosenberg: Rabbit--It's What's For Dinner - Not everyone cottoned to the rabbit-for-dinner piece in the New York Times' dining section this month, pun intended. "Would you have even considered reporting about raising dogs for dinner?" asked Nancy Schreiber of Great Neck, NY, appalled the Times would present... More >>

Jim Miles: Book Review - Three Kings - This concisely written and well documented work covers the “Truman Doctrine…the essential rubric under which the United States projected its power globally after World War II…the ideological foundation for the “imperial presidency.” Lloyd ... More >>

Gordon Campbell: Wellywhat? - It is pretty hard to see the logic of promoting the creativity of the New Zealand film industry via a copy of someone else’s creativity... Same as it ever was. On economic policy in recent years, New Zealand has been just as reliant on acts of ... More >>

ALSO:

• Wellywood Sign: Good Idea, Dreadful Idea

John Minto: Death Sentence For More New Zealand Kids - Act MP David Garrett’s suggestion the government pay bad parents to be sterilized will resonate with a lot of people. Like all of us Garrett says he’s concerned at the numbers of children abused and killed each year in New Zealand and suggests ... More >>

The Lying Traveler: The KapuśCińSki Case - Few would complain about the psychedelic, acid-fueled impressions of gonzo specialist Hunter S. Thompson as being accounts of the literal. Yet, despite their frenzied moments and over-heated descriptions, many could have discerned the truth in the ... More >>

Martin LeFevre: Killer Whales And Killer Apes - Orcas (“Killer Whales”) are probably the smartest animals on earth other than humans (“Killer Apes”). A caged and exploited member of their species, “Tilly,” allegedly aggravated by a trainer’s ponytail, snuffed out her life at SeaWorld ... More >>

"The Hurt Locker": When Great Art Meets Lousy Politics - I despise the implicit pro-Iraq War politics of ''The Hurt Locker'': There is no examination or even mention in the film of why the U.S. might be fighting there, no look at the neo-conservative ideology that sent our troops there, no questioning of the aggressive ... More >>

Sell! Buy! Rebel! 'Capitalism: A Love Story' - DVD-Day for ''Capitalism: A Love Story'' has finally arrived for all you good folks who just couldn't figure out how to fit in a trip to the movie theater between your three part-time jobs -- or simply weren't able to afford the $10 for the small popcorn ... More >>

Michael Collins: First Iceland, Then The World - Who cleans up the mess when ignorant, greedy bankers rack up massive debt then go broke? The people of Iceland made a strong statement Saturday. The sins of big bankers and government regulators shouldn't fall on the citizens. By a 93% to 2% margin... More >>

Interview, by Joan Brunwasser: Jason Leopold on Cheney, Torture, and Obama's Shortsightedness - Today, my guest is Jason Leopold, intrepid investigative journalist, truthout's Deputy Managing Editor andfounder of The Public Record.Welcome back to OpEdNews, Jason. You wrote a piece on February 17, aptly titled " Cheney gloats, the media ... More >>

David Robie: Samoan ‘Gangs, Drugs And Guns’ Too Gung-Ho For The BSA - SO THE Samoan government has jumped the gun on the Television New Zealand “gangsta paradise” affair. In its eagerness to win a political point or two over the state-owned broadcaster (which incidentally has just... More >>

Uri Avnery: The Harlot’s Grave - THE LATE Yeshayahu Leibowitz, an observant Jew and a resolute opponent of the religious establishment, used to praise a deed of the Wahhabis, the radical sect that arose more than 200 years ago to cleanse Islam of impurity. The first thing they did upon conquering Mecca was to destroy the tomb of the Prophet... More >>

Rosalea Barker: Get Yer Apps On! - Okay. So here’s the thing. In the first couple of weeks of April, apparently, the US will be flooded with iPads and the publishing world as we know it will change. You need only watch this video of the Wired/Adobe Systems magazine reader app, which... More >>

Julie Webb-Pullman: Ricardo Alarcon on Cuba, Democracy, and the 2010 Elections - In 2008 Cuba suffered three devastating hurricanes within a matter of weeks, followed hot on the heels by the world economic meltdown. Last week I asked Ricardo Alarcon, President of the Cuban National Assembly of Peoples’ Power, how the country and ... More >>

The Last Labour Adventurer: Remembering Michael Foot - He was called a walking obituary of the British Labour Party more prone to writing suicide notes (in the political sense), than manifestoes for survival. In a sense, Chris Patten had been right when he used that somewhat cruel description of Michael... More >>

Martin LeFevre: Atheists and Mystical Experience - After a couple of beers at the local brewery, my atheist friend made the oft-heard claim that Jesus never existed. When I retorted with the cliché that he was throwing the baby out with the bathwater, he became somewhat irate, and called me a “Jesus ... More >>

Flexible Afghanistan War Objectives: And the Agony Grinds On - Washington and its willing mouthpieces in the media have for years been trying to sell us the preposterous war in Afghanistan. While they attempt to convince us that the war is predicated on a faultless... More >>

Curriculum Battles: Australia's Banded History - ‘The national curriculum appears quite unbalanced as it stands at the moment,’ complained Opposition Education spokesman Christopher Pyne to gathered members of the press (March 1, Herald Sun ). The Australian Coalition is getting hot and bothered ... More >>

Valuing The Young: The right’s ideological crusade to bring back youth rates - Late last month, Sir Roger Douglas’ bill to scrap the mandatory payment of the minimum wage to young workers was chosen from the private member’s ballot, and thus became part of Parliament’s agenda. The avowed purpose of his Minimum Wage... More >>

Rosalea Barker, Left Coasting: Deputy Dogging - Gavin Newsom goes sub-gubernatorial in California - As March begins, and with less than two weeks to go before candidates have to file their nomination papers for the June primary elections in California, there’s a whole lotta shake-up going on. Since I last wrote about the race for... More >>

Part II: Interview with Ricardo Alarcon, President of the Cuban National Assembly - While some other defendants in this infamous case[i] were also charged with failure to register as foreign agents, false identity and various conspiracy charges, Gerardo Hernández was hit with something so far out of ... More >>

ALSO:

• Julie Webb-Pullman - IV with Ricardo Alarcon, President of the ANPP (Part I)

Logo-seditious: Lyndon Hood Responds to the Auckland Transition Agency's Invitation to Design a New City Logo - Rather than paying for a real logo, the Auckland Transition Agency has decided to run a public competition, complete with an open brief and a panel of unqualified judges. The idea is, this will be as awesome as the NZ Herald’s flag designs. More >>

James Robinson: Handwriting’s Premature Demise - There is a generational split you may have noticed. And it doesn’t lead itself to labeling as easily as the Generation X/Generation Y divide. The divide falls between those who were in school when computers... More >>

Neil Adcock: Does mainstream media coverage distort our understanding of Treaty issues? - If the most popular forms of public commentary were anything to go by – Internet comments on mainstream media sites and talkback radio – you would think that New Zealand stands at risk of being bankrupted... More >>

Playing Aussie Rules on Defence: Why the Rapid Reaction Force would do more harm than good to the ANZAC spirit

The announcement most likely to generate headlines in the Defence White Paper due on March 31 will be the official formation of an ANZAC Rapid Reaction Force to police (aka “assist”] the Pacific region. Last year, the Prime Ministers... More >>

Martin LeFevre: Shaking Up The Global Society - The huge earthquake in Chile—8.8 on the Richter scale, one of the largest ever recorded—drives home the point that it isn’t nature that’s at war with humankind, but humankind that’s at war with itself. More >>

Dolls and Drudges Don Pants: Interview with New York Times columnist Gail Collins About Her New Book - Q: Your new book, When Everything Changed (Little, Brown) covers the cascade of rights women won between 1964 and 1972 from equal pay and the right to their own credit rating to the right to wear pants and to be called by the honorific ''MS.'' ... More >>

Remembering The Nangpa La Shootings: The Story The Mountain Guiding Industry Doesn't Want You To Know - On the morning of September 30, 2006, around 75 Tibetan refugees trod through deep snow toward Nangpa La, a Himalayan pass at 5,716m that is within view of the area used for Advanced Base Camp (ABC) on Cho Oyu. Exhausted from their two-week journey... More >>

Deadly Purchases: Unintended Acceleration At Toyota - Even David Letterman found room to mock it, but Toyota’s recent acceleration debacle is an episode the company would rather forget. The Japanese giant is mired in a controversial recall of vehicles for sudden acceleration defects, numbering 8.5 million in the ... More >>

Suzan Mazur: David Noble - Peer Review, Where Are The Scholars? - No, passing peer review is not the scientific equivalent of the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. . . I confess that decades ago as a Hearst Magazines fledgling I would on occasion pass by, and with some curiosity, peek in the glassed-in Good ... More >>

Scott Hamilton: In Defence Of Brainwashing - It is unusual for the details of an academic course to become a hot topic of conversation in the blogopshere, but over the last week or so a paper offered by Mohsen al Attar at the University of Auckland’s Law School has engaged the attention... More >>

Martin LeFevre: The Troll Under The Bridge - Why does Dick Cheney keep setting up this straw man of “we are at war, not dealing with criminal acts,” when the Obama Administration’s handling of captured alleged terrorists is essentially the same as the Bush Administration’s? More >>

World Cheating The Americans: The Pinot Noir Fraud - Does it really matter that one is not drinking what it purports to be? The stories of fraud and wine are a continuing feature of the industry. In 2000, it was revealed that wine merchants from Burgundy were engaged in a scheme of mixing vintage ‘grand ... More >>

Mamoon Alabbasi: Two 'Iraq War' Movies Compete For Awards - James Cameron's "Avatar" and Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" had battled for best film and best director at the BAFTA awards on Sunday. Bigelow's so called Iraq war movie won best film and director awards. It also picked up gongs for original screenplay, cinematography, editing and sound. More >>

Welcome To Scannergate: Terror Scares A Boon for Security Grifters - Call them what you will: bottom feeders, corporate con-men, flim-flam artists, peddlers of crisis, you name it. You can't help but marvel how enterprising security firms have the uncanny ability to sniff-out new opportunities wherever they can find, or ... More >>

Mossad’s Murderous Reach: The Larger Political Issues

On January 19 Israel’s international secret police, the Mossad, sent an eighteen member death squad to Dubai using European passports, supposedly ‘stolen’ from Israeli dual citizens and altered with fake photos and signatures, in order to assassinate ... More >>

ALSO:
• Uri Avnery - Dubious in Dubai
• Sol Salbe - Mossad is supposed to gather intelligence

Binoy Kampmark: Alexander Haig Obituary

The bluff and bluster of history stills itself from time to time, leaving in its wake the busy activity of revisionism and more sympathetic readings of its figures. A figure who is unlikely to deserve such treatment is the late Alexander Haig, a ... More >>

Gordon Campbell: The Government’s Environmental Credibility Problems In Canterbury

Reportedly, Ronald Reagan’s aides would go into in panic mode whenever the avuncular President started to ad lib a few additional points of clarification. The aim may have been candour, but the remarks tended to give a terrifying glimpse into the abyss behind the mask... More >>

Susan St John: John Key's Claims On Saving Money - As Tapu Misa noted in the NZ Herald (15th Feb) , the victims of the global crisis are now apparently to blame for their own misery. Key states that many of them "lack the will or desire to work as hard for their living as their fellow New Zealanders"... More >>

Rosalea Barker: Larry Ellison on the Future Of The America’s Cup - It’s a “back to the future” scenario four millennia in the making. Larry Ellison, whose BMW Oracle racing team brought the America’s Cup to San Francisco this past Saturday, is aiming to turn the competition for the Auld Mug into a high-tech, extreme... More >>

ALSO:
• Rosalea Barker - Stateside: America’s Cup at San Francisco

Richard S. Ehrlich: U.S. & Thai Military Targeted By Anti-Coup Reds - BANGKOK, Thailand -- The Commander of the U.S. Army Pacific, Lt. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, predicted a coup was "unlikely" during the Pentagon's military training exercise on Thai soil, but a powerful Red Shirt opposition movement has now targeted... More >>

Hillary Clinton’s final offer to Iran: “one more bundle of ‘crippling sanctions’-one more T list!’ - “The current situation in the region was David Welch’s worst nightmare and he saw it coming!, explained a demonstrably frustrated US Embassy staffer in Beirut as she mused about what Hilary Clinton was really doing in the region this week... More >>

ALSO:
• Sherwood Ross - Ms. Clinton Says IRAN Headed For “Military Dictatorship”

Pfizer's Ghostiwritten Journal Articles: Still Standing, Still Bogus - Plagiarism, "unethical research" and unreliable findings from "fabricated data" are grounds for retraction of medical journal articles says the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)... More >>

Federal Bureau Of Invention? Anthrax Case Closed - The FBI's report , documents and accompanying information (only pertaining to Ivins, not to the rest of the investigation) were released on Friday afternoon... which means the FBI anticipated doubt and ridicule... More >>

Ramzy Baroud: Western Media, Not Israeli Hasbara - With the dreadful threat of yet another Israeli war in the Middle East looming, Israeli propaganda machine is likely to go into full gear. In fact, trial balloons have already been sent out bearing supposedly unrehearsed comments by former Israeli Army general... More >>

Bill Berkowitz: Are some Tea Partiers telling the Religious Right to take a hike? - In a crowded universe of conservative mandates, declarations, and statements, two more, ‘The Mount Vernon Statement,’ which aims to unify the three legs of the conservative movement, and the ‘Contract From America,’ which wants nothing to ... More >>

ALSO:

Stewing In Corruption: Punishing the British Arms Giant, BAE - Members of the arms industry are far from scrupulous, and the recent fine of BAE to the tune of £285 million will do much to harden convictions about that fact. For two decades, the British arms giant has been engaging in obscure, intricate transactions ... More >>

Connie Lawn: Obama approves $8.3 billion loan for two new nuclear reactors - Perhaps it took the tough Eastern blizzards to convince President Obama to support more nuclear power plants, but many people remain uneasy with the concept. His decision to go nuclear may have been influenced by the heaviest snowfalls in the Washington ... More >>

ALSO:

• Harvey Wasserman - Obama's atomic blunder

Martin LeFevre: Knowledge, Tradition, and Insight - In ancient times, and not so long ago in many parts of the world, each tradition was completely distinct and whole. Tradition wasn’t something that a people had; it was the total way of life in which people were completely immersed. More >>

Stateside With Rosalea Barker: Oregon - Coincidentally, I’m writing this Oregon piece on Valentine’s Day, when masses of roses exchange hands to win hearts. Portland, OR, is known as the City of Roses. Search “Oregon roses” on Google, and the first link that’s returned goes... More >>

Cheney Admits to War Crimes: Media Yawns, Obama Turns the Other Cheek - On Sunday, in an exclusive interview with Jonathan Karl of ABC News' ''This Week,'' Cheney proclaimed his love of torture, derided the Obama administration for outlawing the practice, and admitted that the Bush... More >>

ALSO:

• David Swanson - Cheney's Crimes and Confessions

The Stink Of Corruption In Phnom Penh: Lake development fueling thousands of forced evictions - Phnom Penh, Cambodia - There are plenty of guns in Cambodia, but I cannot get used to them being pointed at me, even in jest. After all, I'm just picking at my lunch, staring lazily at Phnom Penh's biggest lake, Boeung Kak, and the... More >>

Gordon Campbell: On The Looming Elections In Iraq - Early next month, Iraq is due to hold an election. One of the ironic outcomes of the US/UK led invasion in March 2003 has been to put into power a bloc of Shia religious parties long dependent on support from Iran, the star player in George Bush’s... More >>

Julie Webb Pullman: Clinton, Time to Take a Break - and give Haiti one at the same time - Ban Ki-Moon obviously has a very twisted sense of humour. As if the Katrina fiasco wasn’t sufficient evidence of the singular unsuitability of the U.S. to lead any sort of disaster effort, appointing a power-abusing sex-offending lying ex-President ... More >>

M. Shahid Alam: A Eurocentric Problem - In no other major civilization do self-regard, self-congratulation and denigration of the ‘Other’ run as deep, nor have these tendencies infected as many aspects of their thinking, laws, and policy, as they have in Western Europe and its overseas ... More >>

The Useless Logic of Round Numbers: War is Criminal Any Day - The media’s habit of revisiting certain issues at set intervals can be strange and even illogical at times. For example, many news outlets commented on President Barack Obama’s first 100 days in office, as well as on the anniversary of his election ... More >>

Peter Dyer: Brits, Dutch Confront Illegal Iraq War - On March 18, 2003, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, Elizabeth Wilmshurst resigned as Deputy Legal Adviser to the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), the British equivalent of the U.S. State Department. More >>

Martin LeFevre: Arusha - A Light In The Genocidal Darkness? - Arusha Tanzania is uniquely positioned to take the lead in forging an end to genocide. In 1994, neighboring Rwanda experienced the second worst genocide since the Holocaust, after Cambodia. For the last decade, Arusha has been host to the International Criminal... More >>

Gordon Campbell: John Key’s Agenda For The Nation - There seemed to be three main components to John Key’s speech : (a) tax cuts largely paid for by a hike in GST (b) mining in national parks and on conservation land, while building more roads. (c) giving firms easier access to the r&d from Crown Research... More >>

Michael Collins: Cuomo Takes On The Money Party - ''This merger (Bank of America and Merrill Lynch) is a classic example of how the actions of our nation’s largest financial institutions led to the near-collapse of our financial system,'' said Attorney General Cuomo. ''Bank of America, through... More >>

Trouble at The Lancet: Wakefield and the Medical Profession - ‘It has became clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al are incorrect, contrary to the findings of an earlier investigation.’ So concluded one of the longest misconduct inquiries in medical history. The editors of Britain’s... More >>

Gordon Campbell: Free Trade With US More Monty Python Than Holy Grail - Perhaps we can all quietly sign a pact to forego comparing a free trade deal with the US to the quest for the Holy Grail. This ‘free trade as Holy Grail’ notion is a cliché that will not die, because the media loves it so much. More>>

Martin LeFevre: Wellsprings Of Insight - Indigenous people felt that the rocks and rivers, clouds and creeks were alive with spirit. In the few native cultures that are still relatively intact, people still do. Science has conditioned modern people to believe this way of seeing is superstition, ... More >>

From Gaza to Lebanon: Beware the Iron Wall, the Coming War - The Israeli military may be much less effective in winning wars than it was in the past, thanks to the stiffness of Arab resistance. But its military strategists are as shrewd and unpredictable as ever. The recent rhetoric that has escalated from... More >>

Stateside with Rosalea Barker: Getting Bleaty - What’s a girl to do? Nine Old Home folks have been nominated for Oscars ; and nine golden nods have come to New Home folks as well—some of them for the same category and film on account of collaboration on Avatar . I guess I’ll just have to lay... More >>

Steven Ratuva: Quiet diplomacy needed to thaw ‘cold war’ with Fiji - After New Zealand offered an olive branch to Fiji to ease diplomatic tension between the two countries, Fiji responded in two unexpected ways. Firstly, Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, while welcoming the move, was also quoted by Fiji media as saying that he was... More >>

Prof. Francis Boyle: Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza - Jan. 27--``What we're seeing in Gaza now, is pretty much slow-motion genocide against the 1.5 million Palestinians who live in Gaza.... If you read the 1948 Genocide Convention, it clearly says that one instance of genocide is the deliberate infliction of conditions... More >>

Historical Amnesia: Haiti and its Canadian media presentation - The disaster of Haiti is well represented in Canadian media, with significant coverage in print and on television. MacLean’s magazine’s recent cover article photo is one of the very few that perhaps accidentally represents what is really happening... More >>

Suzan Mazur: Free Science Peer Review From Cultish Conspiracy - While the hacked emails episode several months ago revealing attempts by scientists to withhold information about global warming from publication has put the matter of peer review under scrutiny like never before , secrecy in peer review continues ... More >>

Shaping Up To Fight: Gordon Campbell traverses the new White Paper on Defence - Defence policy tends to be the mumblespeak of grey men in and out of uniform – which is unfortunate, given that our defence policy says a lot about New Zealand’s plans for survival, who our friends and enemies are regarded to be and the level of... More >>

Denis O’Reilly: The Real Three Strikes: Mad, Sad And Bad - When Rufus Marsh, a poster boy for the promoters of the 3 Strikes legislation, died earlier this month there was no tangi at his papakainga, Mangaroa Marae. The first I knew of his passing was a story in the Dominion Post. I’m told that he had been... More >>

Lyndon Hood: Installing a crime-prevention camera in the Justice Minister’s mind. - Pity Simon Power. On his sofa watching The Shawshank Redemption, crying into his ice cream while Judith Collins and Rodney Hide announce a new Three Strikes plan. The Minister of Corrections and the Minister of... More >>

Rosalea Barker: Californian voters learn to live with constitutional gridlock - In the photo at left, the pages held together by the pink paper clip are the US Constitution; those held together by the binder clip are California’s as it was when this book was published by the California State Assembly in 2001. In his foreword, the Chief... More >>

Cushla McKinney: The mixed blessings of commercial gene testing - Imagine being able to send a sample of saliva off to a laboratory and (for a small fee) receiving a personalised assessment of your chances of developing a host of physical and mental illnesses, the medications which will be most effective in treating or... More >>

Prakaj Roy: Hebron’s spiral of despair - Hebron is a sad, lost city hidden deep within the West Bank – despite it being only 40km away from the metropolitan, cosmopolitan and similarly contentious Jerusalem. Outside of Gaza, it’s arguably the site where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is felt the most... More >>

Scott MacWilliam: Fiji Electoral Reform Vital To Speedily End Malapportionment - The current regime in Fiji has correctly identified one vote one value as an important democratic principle which should underpin electoral reform. The system used under the 1997 Constitution for the 1999, 2001 and 2006 elections grossly... More >>

‘Noisy and Messy’: Obama’s First State of the Union Address - The need was there to mount a rearguard action after the Democrat’s defeat in Massachusetts and a dip in the polls, and President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address went some way in doing so. The usual charismatic ingredients were there: the proverbial ... More >>

ALSO:

• Connie Lawn - Fallout from The State of the Union
• Michael Collins - "Capitalist Tool"
• The White House - U.S.: State Of The Union Address

Crosbie Walsh: Diplomacy With Fiji – The Regime Should Build Bridges Not Threaten Them - Having spent 20 minutes on Radio New Zealand in an interview with Bryan Crump this week, arguing a case that the nomination of Lieutenant-Colonel Neumi Leweni – the regime’s chief media minder - as Fiji diplomatic counsellor in Wellingon is not... More >>

Martin LeFevre: Our Place In The Universe - For at least 100,000 years, since ‘modern man’ first emerged from East Africa, we have been as we are—tribal, self-centered, and dominated by the adaptive strategy of ‘higher thought.’ Now, as the fragmentation of the earth and humanity by the ... More >>

An Open Letter: From John Minto To Willie Apiata - It’s a long way from Te Kaha to Kabul but our newspapers have been full of big photos of you last week emerging from a house in the Afghani capital where three “insurgents” lay dead after a firefight. PM John Key didn’t like the pictures. ... More >>

Paul Buchanan: Why The NZDF Is In Afghanistan - The controversial publication of photographs of NZSAS soldiers in action in Kabul has again raised questions about the reasons why New Zealand military forces are deployed in Afghanistan. Critics from both ends of the political spectrum question the utility of the mission as well as... More >>

Gordon Campbell: The SAS in Kabul, and the media’s duty to report on their actions - The saga of media coverage of the SAS in Afghanistan took another turn on the weekend with National MP Eric Roy bizarrely blaming Helen Clark for the ‘ degeneration’ in media coverage of our special forces.More >>

Varieties of eating dirt: the United States, Haiti and Nicaragua - The US government and its international and regional allies view real autonomy and independence for Caribbean nations and for Central and South American countries as a threat. The US government response has been to militarize Latin America and the... More >>

Uri Avnery: The Liebarak - THE BUSINESS is registered in the name of Binyamin Netanyahu. But the reality is different. Netanyahu has never been more than a slick patent medicine salesman. That is a type that appears frequently in American Westerns and sells an elixir that is... More >>

Randall Amster J.D., Ph.D.: Invasion Of The Body Scanners - The concept of ''stimulus'' may soon take on new connotations in the days ahead. The federal government is poised to emplace full-body scanners at airports across the nation, capable of peering under a person's garments. As noted by a former Cabinet ... More >>

Michel Collins: It's The "New Haiti!" - The appointment of former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush as key players in Haitian relief should cause the people of Haiti grave concern, if they weren't otherwise preoccupied with survival. These former presidents' records as... More >>

US Supreme Court Shreds Campaign-Finance Laws: Overturns Ban on Corporate Spending - In a sweeping 5-4 ruling, the US Supreme Court on Thursday struck down several longstanding prohibitions on corporate political contributions, saying legislative measures to control such spending infringed upon corporate First Amendment free speech rights... More >>

ALSO:

• Greg Palast - Manchurian Candidates: Supreme Court allows China and others unlimited spending in US elections

Connie Lawn in Washington: Reflections On Politicians - This has been a mixed week for American politicians – President Obama had a less than stellar first year Anniversary; Republican Scott Brown swept to a game changing victory in Massachusetts, and former Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards... More >>

Ramzy Baroud: Iran And Latin America - The Media States Its Case - Should the United States be concerned about Iran’s determined efforts to reach out to Latin America? Or, as was suggestively described in the Economist, by the Ayatollahs’ strategy of cozying up to Latin America? More >>

John Chuckman: The Horror Of Haiti - What The Press Coverage Tells Us - It is relentless, the pictures of terror-stricken people, broken limbs, and bloated dead, and many of us cannot stand to see or hear more. One has to ask: what are we to do with such information? Create pressure on governments to keep the assistance ... More >>

Scott MacWilliam For Pacific Scoop: Boosting Fiji Engagement A Wise Move Towards Encouraging Democracy - Now that New Zealand has started to recognise the need to change its previous hard-line against the military regime in Fiji, a range of suggestions are being made about the most appropriate policy changes.More >>

Martin LeFevre: Meditation Isn't Navel Staring - A reader asks, “Can the people who have a natural talent to quiet their thoughts and clean their mind, not by effort and struggling, but only through insight, point the way for others?” More >>

Ernest Partridge: Don't Ridicule The Tea-Baggers -- Recruit Them - Along with the rest of you, I am amused and entertained when Ed Schultz, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, et al, lampoon the tea bag brigades. It is so easy to target those poor souls, with their stupid signs, their incoherent slogans, and their appalling ... More >>

Martha Rosenberg: Holiday Dieting--An Oxymoron - If you over imbibe during the holidays you can fall back on Winston Churchill's famous riposte, ''Ah, but tomorrow, I shall be sober.'' (And you, who accuse me of being drunk, will still look the way you look.) More >>

Sol Salble In Sydney: Is Shahar Peer Just Another Tennis Player? - [ Middle East News Service comments : The decision by Australians For Palestine to demonstrate against Israeli tennis player Shahar Pe’er has raised a few eyebrows. Of course the AfP demonstrated in a peaceful manner that earned praise from the Herald-Sun ... More >>

Damien Kingsbury: Regional Conflicts Defy Asia-Pacific Optimism About 2010 - It is usual to look forward to a new year with a degree of hope and optimism but, so far as much of Australia and New Zealand’s region is concerned, there is little chance for that. Given the conflicts... More >>

Stateside With Rosalea Barker: California - If I’d been living in 1840 where I live today, the last line of my mailing address would have read “Mexico”. Twenty years earlier it would have read “New Spain”, but the 1821 Mexican Revolution resulted in the ousting of a colonial power and its... More >>

Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman: Will Diebold steal Ted Kennedy's seat – and the Senate? - The same types of machines that helped put George W. Bush in the White House in 2000, and “re-elect” him 2004, may now decide who wins the all-important “60th Senate seat” in Massachusetts. Th