CER Caution - Predictions of huge potential benefits as the CER agreement is extended. Australia and New Zealand are looking to open up the agreement to another of other countries including the United States and Singapore. Trade Minister Lockwood Smith says two way trade with Australia has increased by 400 percent since the conception of CER. He says our manufactured exports to Australia have almost doubled to half a billion dollars. But an economist this morning has warned that extending CER to other countries should be considered very carefully. Victoria University economist Sir Frank Holmes agrees the potential is huge, but says New Zealand cannot afford to be too selective about who it lets into the club. He says New Zealand should look at making a success of larger projects such as the World Trade Round.

Conspiracy Call - Alliance Health spokesperson Phillida Bunkle sees a conspiracy in the decision to allow the manufacture and importation of irradiated food. Health Minister Wyatt Creech and his Australian counterparts have voted to clear the way for irradiated foods to be sold in New Zealand. Ms Bunkle says that is a payback to major food manufacturers for its earlier decision this week to make it mandatory to label genetically modified foods.

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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>>