17 August 2001

Greens call for peace monitors in West Bank

Green Party Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Keith Lock today called on the Government to endorse a resolution before the United Nations Security Council for peace monitors to be sent to the West Bank.

"International monitors would do a lot to restrain the waring parties. The violence is escalating out of control, with suicide bombings and repeated Israeli air strikes causing many civilian casualties," said Mr Locke.

"The Israeli Government has to know that the world is watching when they use helicopter gun-ships or push into Palestinian towns with tanks and bulldozers," he said.

"The New Zealand Government must also do more on a diplomatic front.

"A few months ago the Government urged both sides in the Middle East conflict to implement immediately the key recommendations of the Mitchell Commission Report. It is time to do this again," Mr Locke said.

The Report asks for an immediate cease-fire, a freeze on Israeli settlement construction, resumption of joint security cooperation and negotiations to resolve the underlying causes of the conflict.

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>>