MFAT Tsunami Update 7 At 2230 On Wednesday 29 December

1 An RNZAF 757 Aircraft will depart from Whenuapai Airbase for Phuket tomorrow afternoon. On board the aircraft will be a 10-member Disaster Victim Identification Team, comprising eight Police personnel, a dentist and a pathologist. Also on board will be an Emergency Response Team comprising officials from Police, NZ Defence Force, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This team will strengthen the team of Police and NZ Embassy officials already working in Phuket.

2 NZ officials in Thailand have just over 600 entries on their database. Of these, 250 are confirmed OK, one is confirmed deceased and 17 are in hospitals in Bangkok, Phuket and Krabi. Two New Zealand medical personnel, a nurse and a paramedic, are visiting the injured New Zealanders to check on their condition. Of the around 340 people unaccounted for, there appears to be around 116 New Zealanders missing in the affected areas.

3 In order to account for people registered on our databases, we continue to encourage New Zealanders to advise us if they have heard from their friends and relatives in the affected areas.

4 Last evening, enquiries had been made through the Red Cross and MFAT call centres concerning just over over 2000 New Zealanders. Of these around 850 have been accounted for. Many further calls are being processed - some of these are likely to relate to additional names, while others will relate to previous enquries.

5 Separate updated travel information has been sent to media and has been posted on the MFAT website.

6 Initial information to hand suggests that no New Zealanders were on the fatality list in the Maldives.

© 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>>