New Zealand will follow the United Nations in imposing sanctions against Liberia, Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff announced today.

"The international community has been deeply concerned for some time about the financial and military support Liberia is giving the Sierra Leone rebel organisation, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).

"Liberia's illicit diamond trade which is fuelling the internal conflict in Sierra Leone is particularly disturbing.

"The sanctions prohibit the export of arms and associated material to Liberia, the provision of technical military assistance and training, and the importation of diamonds from Liberia. There is also a ban on entry to New Zealand of certain senior Liberian officials and military personnel and their families," Mr Goff said.

The range of new sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council extend and broaden the UN arms embargo adopted by New Zealand in 1992.

Ends

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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>>