Gordon Campbell: On National’s Less Than Stellar Choices

Government: Workplace Vaccination Requirements Extended To Cover Police And NZ Defence Force
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Michael Wood announced today that workplace vaccination requirements will be extended to include the New Zealand Police and Defence Force in preparation for the transition to the new COVID-19 Protection Framework on 3 December 2021... More>>

RNZ: Judith Collins removed as National Party leader
Dr Shane Reti is interim leader of the National Party after Judith Collins lost a no-confidence vote. Simon Bridges was demoted and stripped of all portfolios over allegations of an inappropriate comment made five years ago at a party function. Judith Collins was voted out as National's leader today after the party was locked in a caucus for more than three hours... More>>

Government: Supporting New Zealanders To Recover From COVID-19 In The Community
The Government is increasing the support for New Zealanders who test positive for COVID-19 through the rollout of the COVID Care in the Community model and a $300 million funding boost to Pharmac to purchase new medicines to treat the virus, Health Minister Andrew Little announced today... More>>

ALSO:

• Government - Additional Support For People Isolating At Home

Energy Resources Aotearoa: New Law On Decommissioning Could Be Costly Overkill
A new law on decommissioning oil and gas fields passed by Parliament today has good intentions but is overkill, according to Energy Resources Aotearoa. "We strongly support operators taking responsibility and paying the costs for decommissioning, which is what all good operators do," says chief executive John Carnegie... More>>

Commerce Commission: News Publishers’ Association Seeks Authorisation To Engage In Collective Bargaining

News Publishers’ Association of New Zealand Incorporated seeks authorisation and provisional authorisation to engage in collective bargaining with Facebook and Google. The Commerce Commission has received applications from News Publishers’ Association of New Zealand Incorporated (NPA) seeking authorisation and provisional authorisation on behalf of itself... More>>

Reserve Bank: MPC Continues To Reduce Monetary Stimulus
The Monetary Policy Committee agreed to raise the Official Cash Rate (OCR) to 0.75 per cent. The Committee agreed it remains appropriate to continue reducing monetary stimulus so as to maintain price stability and support maximum sustainable employment... More>>

Binoy Kampmark: Totalitarian Cyber-Creep: Mark Zuckerberg In The Metaverse

Never leave matters of maturity to the Peter Panners of Silicon Valley. At their most benign, they are easily dismissed as potty and keyboard mad. At their worst, their fantasies assume the noxious, demonic forms that reduce all users of their technology to units of information and flashes of data... More>>

Keith Rankin: 'Influenza' Pandemics In New Zealand's Past
On Tuesday (16 Nov) I was concerned to hear this story on RNZ's Checkpoint (National distances itself from ex-MP after video with discredited academic). My concern here is not particularly with the "discredited academic", although no academic should suffer this kind of casual public slur. (Should we go further and call Simon Thornley, the academic slurred, a 'trailing epidemiologist'? In contrast to the epithet 'leading epidemiologist', as applied to Rod Jackson in this story from Newshub.) Academics should parley through argument, not insult... More>>

Digitl: When the internet disappears
Kate Lindsay writes about The internet that disappears. at Embedded. She says all that talk about the internet being forever is wrong. Instead: "...It’s on more of like a 10-year cycle. It’s constantly upgrading and migrating in ways that are incompatible with past content, leaving broken links and error pages in its wake. In other instances, the sites simply shutter, or become so layered over that finding your own footprint is impossible... More>>

Human Rights: China Journalist Jailed For COVID Reporting Seriously Ill, Must Be Released
UN human rights experts* today urged China to immediately release imprisoned citizen journalist and woman human rights defender Zhang Zhan on humanitarian grounds, saying her health is deteriorating rapidly and her life is in danger... More>>

CID: PNG Deadly Covid Crisis Getting Worse
People in Papua New Guinea are not getting enough Covid vaccines due to misinformation. This is causing immense stress and suffering throughout the country, says Quenelda Clegg Chair of CID’s Humanitarian Network...More>>

Sudan: Bachelet Condemns Killings Of Peaceful Protesters

At least 39 people have been killed by security forces in Sudan since the 25 October military coup, 15 of whom were reportedly shot dead on Wednesday, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights...
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Howard Davis: Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman'

The Guardian needed not one, but three reviews to do justice to Fennell's unsettling approach, which indicates exactly how ambiguous and controversial its message really is. More>>

Howard Davis: Jill Trevelyan's Rita Angus

Although Angus has become one of Aotearoa’s best-loved painters, the story of her life remained little known and poorly understood before Jill Trevelyan's acclaimed and revelatory biography, which won the Non Fiction Award at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards in 2009, and has now been republished by Te Papa press. More>>

Howard Davis: The Back of the Painting

Painting conservators are the forensic pathologists of the art world. While they cannot bring their subjects back to life, they do provide fascinating insights into the precise circumstances of a painting's creation, its material authenticity, and constructive methodology. More>>