16 November 2001 Media Advisory

Minister to attend Secretariat of the Pacific Community Ministers’ meeting in Noumea

Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Matt Robson will leave New Zealand on Sunday for Noumea, New Caledonia to attend the two-day Secretariat of the Pacific Community Ministers’ meeting.

“The key theme for the conference is human resource development, says Matt Robson.

“Forty percent of New Zealand’s official development assistance has been spent on education and training. The establishment of a new stand alone aid agency, with its own vote, its own top executive and reporting directly to Ministers, means we will have a stronger focus on the Pacific and on basic education.

“The conference provides an important forum in which to discuss the refocusing of New Zealand’s official development assistance directly with Pacific governments and build a stronger partnership approach.

“It is essential that we strike the right balance in the support New Zealand provides to the different levels of education and training in order to meet the needs of our partner countries in the Pacific,” says Matt Robson.

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>>