Anti-US PM Risks Creating Anti-US NZ

Tuesday 24 Aug 2004

Rodney Hide - Press Releases - Foreign Affairs

ACT New Zealand Leader Rodney Hide today said that US Ambassador Charles Swindells was right to warn of anti-Americanism.

"Mr Swindells is also right to say that New Zealanders are not anti-American. The problem that we have is that our Prime Minister and some of her Ministers are.

"Miss Clark has never made a secret of the fact that she views the US unfavourably. She has overseen the deterioration of our relationship with the US from the status of US `ally' to `friend'. She also blew our chances of a place at the US/Australia free trade negotiation table.

"The only way to nip anti-Americanism in the bud is to get rid of the Labour Government," Mr Hide 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>>