RAM media release 14.9.04

RAM reverses huge gender imbalance in ARC election

Of the 70 candidates in the Auckland Regional Council election, just 20
are women, a paltry 29%.

The gender breakdown of most ARC tickets is even worse:

* Zero women in 8-person Advancing Auckland ticket.

* Zero women in 6-person Rates Rebellion - Fresh Start ticket.

* Zero women in 2-person People's Choice ticket.

* Just one woman in 4-person Citizens & Ratepayers Now ticket - 25%.

* One woman in 3-person Manukau Vision ticket - 33%.

Two tickets have 50% women - the two-person Team West ticket and the
4-person City Vision ticket.

The only ticket containing more than 50% women is RAM - Residents Action
Movement.

Five out of 8 RAM candidates are women - 63%.

"Since there's no bigger ARC ticket than RAM's 8-person team, our five
women
candidates represent an important reversal of the huge gender imbalance
in
the ARC election," said Rachel Asher, a RAM candidate in Auckland City.

"It's time to vote more women onto the ARC," said Rachel Asher.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>