The Minister of Internal Affairs, Jack Elder, has agreed to contribute $150,000
from his Ministerial Lottery Discretionary Fund toward upgrading Pitt Island s
wharf and barge.

Pitt Island, in the Chathams group, will be an international focus at the
dawning of the new Millennium and residents are concerned that already
inadequate facilities will come under further strain by a rush of visitors, Mr
Elder said.

The wharf and barge, which form a lifeline for the island, are owned and
operated by the community. The islanders have been seeking for some time to
upgrade them.

“Obviously as a small, isolated rural community, Pitt Island has limited means,"
Mr Elder said. "However Pitt Islanders will not only provide the balance of
funding required to complete the $250,000 project, but will also voluntarily
give of their time and labour to help carry out much of the upgrading work.”

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>>