East Timorese Count Costs Of Referendum - Many East Timorese may be regretting
their vote for independence. New Zealander James Addis is working for World Vision in West Timor where 190,000 East Timorese are now living in squalid camps set up by the Indonesians. He told Paul Holmes the militia’s have quite a strong influence on the camps and it is starting to impact on some of the refugees who now say they are pro-integration: “They have lost everything, they are traumatised, and I think many of them are believe independence has come at too high a price,” James Addis says. He says the camps are very dangerous for outsiders to go into - they are unwelcome.

Taiwan Quake - A powerful earthquake has struck Taiwan this morning bringing down buildings and cutting power across the country. The quake is estimated at over seven on the R-Scale, and is the most powerful quake to strike Taiwan since 1916. Taiwan government representative in New Zealand, Richard Chee, says his relatives in Taipei have spoken of widespread devastation. Taiwan authorities are counting the cost in human terms.

Shipley Up In PM Poll - APEC may have done the trick for Jenny Shipley, her
popularity is up in the latest opinion poll, the first taken since APEC. The TV3 poll shows Jenny Shipley up six points to 20 percent support for preferred prime minister.Labour’s Helen Clark is on 18 percent, but her party on 39 percent is six points ahead of National. Political Editor Barry Soper says last week’s TVNZ poll showed little change at all, that poll was taken on the weekend of APEC. The TV3 poll, he says, is a better reflection. But at the end of the day National will be worried about the party’s standing in this poll - there is no point being a popular leader, Barry Soper says, when you have an unpopular party.

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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>>