4 November 2004

New MFAT deputy secretary appointed

New Zealand’s Ambassador to China, John McKinnon, is to become Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, MFAT CEO Simon Murdoch has announced.

Mr McKinnon’s new job will involve oversight of programmes covering the Americas, North Asia, Security Policy, and South/South East Asia. He will replace Michael Green, who has been appointed High Commissioner to Fiji.

Mr McKinnon will take up his position in Wellington in early December.

Before taking up his current position in Beijing in 2001, Mr McKinnon was Director of the External Assessments Bureau in Wellington. Earlier positions included Deputy Permanent Representative in New York, Deputy Director of the Australia Division and First Secretary in Washington.

Mr McKinnon has been in the Ministry since 1974. He was educated at Nelson College, Victoria University and the London School of Economics.

He will be in Wellington early next week and is available for interview on his experiences as Ambassador in Beijing. Mr McKinnon will also be speaking at the China Wood conference in Rotorua on 11 November.

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>>