SOE Minister Tony Ryall's announcement today that Timberlands beech logging scheme has got the go-ahead shows the government bending to the political campaign that has been waged by Timberlands and its PR companies over the last three years.

"What this says to the public is that the over a million dollars that Timberlands has spent over the past two years on public relations is the price it took for buying the support of Tony Ryall and Jenny Shipley for the beech logging scheme," said Native Forest Action spokesperson, Dean Baigent-Mercer.

"The government has today guaranteed that native forest logging is an election issue. It has ignored three years of campaigning, and 10,000 submissions against the beech scheme and it leaves the public no option but to decide the issue at the election," said Mr Baigent-Mercer.

"The public should watch with scepticism as the arguments Tony Ryall uses to justify the beech scheme mirror the PR lines that have now been exposed in the book, 'Secrets and Lies'."

© 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>>