Pete Hodgson has welcomed confirmation that the international climate change talks suspended last year at The Hague will resume in June or July.

Jan Pronk, Environment Minister of the Netherlands and chairman of the 2000 conference, has announced the resumption of talks for two weeks within mid-June to late July. The exact dates are yet to be determined.

"I share Jan Pronk's belief that members of the United Nations Climate Change Convention remain committed to making the 1997 Kyoto Protocol operational," said Mr Hodgson, Energy Minister and Convenor of the New Zealand Government Ministerial Group on Climate Change.

"New Zealand ministers will continue to be fully involved in the international efforts to reach agreement."

New Zealand aims to ratify the Kyoto Protocol by mid-2002, around the tenth anniversary of the Rio Conference on Environment and Development.

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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>>