Prime Minister Helen Clark and Defence Minister Mark Burton today conveyed their sympathy to the families of a New Zealand military liaison officer and the Americans killed during a training exercise in Kuwait.

"Our immediate thoughts are with the parents of the New Zealand Army Major John McNutt, and his colleagues in the New Zealand Defence Force.

"This is a terrible accident and the New Zealand government is certainly expecting an urgent explanation as to how a large bomb was dropped in an area of a training range where observers were based.

"We are shocked that a training exercise could go so horribly wrong.

"This tragedy reminds us that deployment of New Zealand defence personnel overseas is never without risk," Helen Clark and Mark Burton said.

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>>