by Selwyn Manning:

A “skyrocketing” number of homeless people are seeking help from the Auckland City Mission.

The centre provides shelter for people, opening twice daily, providing hot drinks and left over restaurant food.

Over 13,300 visits have been made to the City Mission in the past six months. That is up more than 50 percent on the same period last year.

The Methodist Mission, which runs a central city night shelter reportedly is seeing a 20 percent rise in people needing a bed for the night.

The increases are placing a financial strain on the charities.

Spokespersons for the Mission are asking Government to assist before the problem of homelessness spirals out of control.

© 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>>