Latest Top Scoops Headlines
There’s Only One News Story, Repeating Over And Over Again
Tuesday, 2 March 2021, 3:28 pm | Caitlin Johnstone
Doing daily commentary on world power dynamics feels a lot like staring up at the sky watching clouds. Sometimes you see a three-legged pony up there, sometimes a gargoyle, sometimes a laughing baby, but really you're only ever watching tiny water ... More >>
Delusions Of Self-Defense: Biden Bombs Syria
Tuesday, 2 March 2021, 3:14 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Every power worth its portion of salt in the Levant these days seems to be doing it. On February 25, President Joe Biden ordered airstrikes against Syria. The premise for the attacks was implausible. “These strikes were authorized in response to ... More >>
COVID-19 Jabs In Kiwi Arms – How, Where & When?
Tuesday, 2 March 2021, 2:05 pm | The Health Reformist
Great news New Zealand has begun its COVID-19 vaccination programme. We are all pleased to have heard Minister Hipkins and Director General Bloomfield declare that small batches of vaccine have arrived for border and managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) ... More >>
What’s Happening To The Most Remote Coral Reefs On Earth?
Tuesday, 2 March 2021, 12:20 pm | Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation
Scientists from the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation have published their findings on the state of coral reefs in the Chagos Archipelago, considered the last frontier for coral reefs. ©Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation In the middle ... More >>
On Who Decides On The Priority List For Covid Vaccines
Tuesday, 2 March 2021, 11:26 am | Gordon Campbell
During the past week, the nation has gone through a range of mixed feelings about south Auckland. Understandably, there’s been a hankering in some quarters to punish a few of the rule breakers who plunged all of Auckland back into lockdown…Yet alongside ... More >>
Despite claims NZ's policing is too 'woke', crime rates are largely static — and even declining
Tuesday, 2 March 2021, 10:21 am | The Conversation
Recent political arguments about policing methods aren't supported by the evidence: New Zealand crime rates are static, and even declining in some categories. More >>
Katya Rivas' Passion: The Passion ( Begins )
Tuesday, 2 March 2021, 1:13 am | Katya Rivas
My little daughter, let yourself be embraced by My most ardent desire that all souls come and purify themselves in the water of penance, and that the feeling of confidence, and not fear, may penetrate them, because I am a God of Mercy and I am always ready ... More >>
The Universe Is Just Trying To See Itself
Monday, 1 March 2021, 6:03 pm | Caitlin Johnstone
We each have an eye deep inside us, and it is all the same eye, and it is the universe's eye. The eye wants the same thing any eye wants: to see. The eye wants to see it all, especially that which is hidden. That which is hidden behind veils of unconsciousness. ... More >>
Harvard Law School Victimized The Korean Sex Slaves
Monday, 1 March 2021, 8:42 am | Prof. Francis A. Boyle
In his recent paper entitled "Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War" and accompanying editorial “Recovering the Truth about the Comfort Women”, Professor J. Mark Ramseyer, the Mitsubishi Professor of Japanese Legal Studies at Harvard Law ... More >>
Reforming The Funding Of District Health Boards
Monday, 1 March 2021, 7:31 am | Ian Powell
There is a compelling case for reforming the way New Zealand’s district health boards (DHBs) are funded starting with two relatively low cost technical measures. DHBs are important because they are responsible for both community and hospital healthcare ... More >>
Covid-19: Auckland Back To Alert Level Three After One New Community Case Revealed
Saturday, 27 February 2021, 9:48 pm | RNZ
Auckland will move to alert level three for a week at 6am tomorrow morning after two new Covid-19 community cases announced this evening could not be directly linked to earlier cases, the Prime Minister has confirmed. The rest of the country will ... More >>
Culpability And Recalibration: MBS And The Killing Of Jamal Khashoggi
Saturday, 27 February 2021, 3:24 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It was a brutal way to go, and it had the paw prints of the highest authorities. On October 2, 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian insider turned outsider, was murdered by a squad of 15 men from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He was dismembered ... More >>
Greater Climate Ambition Urged As Initial NDC Synthesis Report Is Published
Saturday, 27 February 2021, 6:21 am | UNFCCC
(Bonn, 26 February 2021) – UN Climate Change today published the Initial NDC Synthesis Report, showing nations must redouble efforts and submit stronger, more ambitious national climate action plans in 2021 if they’re to achieve the Paris Agreement ... More >>
US Bombs Syria And Ridiculously Claims Self Defense
Friday, 26 February 2021, 4:59 pm | Caitlin Johnstone
On orders of President Biden, the United States has launched an airstrike on a facility in Syria. As of this writing the exact number of killed and injured is unknown, with early reports claiming " a handful " of people were killed. Rather than ... More >>
On February 4th, The Greatest Investigative News Report That Has Ever Been Done Was Issued. Will It Win Any Awards?
Friday, 26 February 2021, 4:57 pm | Eric Zuesse
On February 4th was anonymously published online at https://telegra.ph/OP-HMG-Trojan-Horse-Part-4-Undermining-Russia-I-02-04 not merely a data-dump such as Wikileaks famously does, but also a detailed news-report, which shows the key evidence, and which links to massive supporting evidence, proving ... More >>
Classic Blunder; The Sequel - Part 4
Friday, 26 February 2021, 4:24 pm | Tom Frewen
The sheer folly of Radio New Zealand’s plan to sacrifice half the public broadcaster’s classical music listeners to attract a new audience to a multi-media youth music “brand” was obscured somewhat by the outraged protest after news of Concert FM’s ... More >>
On The Rivals For The Covid Saliva Testing Dollar
Friday, 26 February 2021, 1:59 pm | Gordon Campbell
As the cliché goes, every crisis is an opportunity. The pandemic seems no exception. To be clear though: at any time, it is quite OK to make money from working in, with or on behalf of the public health system. It is also OK to be making money after ... More >>
War Mongering For Artificial Intelligence
Friday, 26 February 2021, 12:42 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The ghost of Edward Teller must have been doing the rounds between members of the National Commission on Artificial Intelligence. The father of the hydrogen bomb was never one too bothered by the ethical niggles that came with inventing murderous ... More >>
Public Health System Subsidises Private Health System But!
Thursday, 25 February 2021, 6:41 pm | Ian Powell
The relationship between New Zealand’s public and private health systems has long been a subject of debate, wariness and occasional controversy. Yesterday the results of a University of Otago study of patients who needed public hospital care after ... More >>
Imagining Palestine: On Barghouti, Darwish, Kanafani And The Language Of Exile
Thursday, 25 February 2021, 11:09 am | Ramzy Baroud
For Palestinians, exile is not simply the physical act of being removed from their homes and their inability to return. It is not a casual topic pertaining to politics and international law, either. Nor is it an ethereal notion, a sentiment, a poetic ... More >>
No new community cases of Covid-19 today - Chris Hipkins
Wednesday, 24 February 2021, 4:43 pm | RNZ
There are no new community cases of Covid-19 today, the Ministry of Health has confirmed. More >>
Health Over Profit: Why Pharma Companies Should Share Their Vaccine Patents
Wednesday, 24 February 2021, 4:24 pm | Philipp Stadler
A lot of tax money goes into researching covid vaccines, but the profits are only cashed in by the pharma industry. For the sake of profit, pharmaceutical companies keep their patents under wraps, which prevents the production of enough vaccine. ... More >>
Secretly, Biden’s Foreign Policies Are Trump’s Foreign Policies
Wednesday, 24 February 2021, 4:19 pm | Eric Zuesse
Eric Zuesse, originally posted at Strategic Culture Though U.S. President Joe Biden is publicly critical of Donald Trump’s foreign policies, he’s continuing almost all of them and is changing only minor ones. The changes are almost entirely in rhetoric, ... More >>
Refriended In Defeat: Australia Strikes A Deal With Facebook
Wednesday, 24 February 2021, 3:19 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Australian Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, was unconvincing in his efforts to summon up courage. The Australian government had been left reeling in the wake of Facebook’s decision to scrap and block Australians from sharing and posting news items on hosted ... More >>
Is The New Zealand Travel Industry Out Of The Woods?
Wednesday, 24 February 2021, 2:52 pm | Kalkine
The COVID-19 pandemic hit the pause button on travel plans last year, derailing NZ’s tourism settings. While the rebuilding process initiated immediately after the early relaxations in shutdown, the travel industry may have to hold their horses for the ... More >>
Corona Vaccine: Why Pharma Companies Should Not Make Billions Out Of Tax-funded Government Research
Wednesday, 24 February 2021, 12:45 pm | Creative Commons
Since December, the EU has been waiting in vain for more than ten million doses of the Biontech/Pfizer vaccine, according to EU insider sources. In many countries of the global south , there is no vaccine available at all. Due to the production ... More >>
No indication to change alert levels at this stage - Bloomfield
Wednesday, 24 February 2021, 11:20 am | RNZ
The Director-General of Health says people who have been in contact with the latest cases need to go into lockdown, but Auckland itself does not. More >>
A Classic Blunder: The Sequel - Part 3
Wednesday, 24 February 2021, 10:26 am | Tom Frewen
“Things have changed,” Radio New Zealand’s chief executive, Paul Thompson, advised staff in an email on Wednesday 12 February last year, a week to the day after they were summoned to hear RNZ’s Music Content Director, Willy Macalister, “consult” ... More >>
On Labour’s Fudging On Child Poverty, And America’s Diplomatic Dance With Iran
Wednesday, 24 February 2021, 10:21 am | Gordon Campbell
If you want a good insight into what the limits of tiny, barely discernible steps to reduce poverty actually look like, delve into the latest Statistics Department figures on poverty in New Zealand Most of the nine measures utilised reveal little ... More >>
Freedom Camping Needs New Regulations And Foreign Tourists Aren’t The Only Villains
Tuesday, 23 February 2021, 4:37 pm | The Conversation
By Michael Lueck, Professor of Tourism, Auckland University of Technology & Sabrina Seeler, Senior research fellow, Nord University Freedom camping has a long tradition in New Zealand. Using your own vehicle as accommodation and parking in ... More >>
Why We Should Release New Zealand’s Strangled Rivers To Lessen The Impact Of Future Floods
Tuesday, 23 February 2021, 4:31 pm | The Conversation
Gary John Brierley , University of Auckland ; Dan C H Hikuroa , University of Auckland ; Heide Friedrich , University of Auckland ; Ian Christopher Fuller , Massey University ; James Brasington , University of Canterbury ; Jo Hoyle , National Institute of ... More >>
The News Media Bargaining Code Could Backfire If Small Media Outlets Aren’t Protected: An Economist Explains
Tuesday, 23 February 2021, 4:17 pm | The Conversation
By Simon Wilkie, Dean, Faculty of Business and Economics; Head of Monash Business School, Monash University When I was the chief economist at the US Federal Communications Commission, we oversaw was the acquisition of DirecTV, the satellite pay-TV platform, ... More >>
Uyghur Movement: Challenges To The Ethnic Movement
Tuesday, 23 February 2021, 3:52 pm | Dr Burhan Uluyol
The Xinjiang autonomous region in China is facing the worst kind of cultural and ethnic genocide. There is a long history of dissonance between the indigenous ethnic Uyghur and Chinese authorities. The Chinese government refuses to categorize Uighurs ... More >>
Dying An Inhumane Death: How Slaughterhouses In New Zealand Get Away With Murder
Tuesday, 23 February 2021, 3:40 pm | Lynley Tulloch
Photo by Sandra Kyle A recent article in Stuff claimed that “meatworks are ‘gory and messy and nasty’, but the slaughtering’s humane”. While the article acknowledges the stressful process of transportation of animals, it makes the assertion that the ... More >>
Ten Years After New Zealand Earthquake, No Justice For Victims Of Building Collapse
Tuesday, 23 February 2021, 3:10 pm | Socialist Equality Group
Tom Peters, Socialist Equality Group Monday marks ten years since the February 22, 2011, Christchurch earthquake, which killed 185 people. Thousands of buildings were destroyed or severely damaged, and entire suburbs in the city’s working class east, ... More >>
Universality Or Fighting Over Scraps
Tuesday, 23 February 2021, 10:05 am | David Swanson
Why should rich people get pandemic survival checks? Why shouldn’t descendants of enslaved people get reparations payments? Why should someone who doesn’t go to college pay taxes to make college free? Why should smokers get health coverage? ... More >>
Morons, Vaccines And Tennis: Booing At The Australian Open
Monday, 22 February 2021, 1:07 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It was a fittingly poor conclusion to a tournament that risked being cancelled, run to ground, or even rendered stillborn. The tennis world number one, Novak Djokovic, had captured his eighteenth grand slam against would be usurper Daniil Medvedev, ... More >>
On Australia’s Attempt To Demonise Facebook
Monday, 22 February 2021, 12:43 pm | Gordon Campbell
It is a free country. Feel free to treat the battle between Australia and Facebook as a case of Facebook using its immense power to bully a sovereign nation, and as prime evidence for why Mark Zuckerberg needs to be taken down a peg. That’s certainly ... More >>
First-hand accounts of the Christchurch 2011 earthquake: 'I just felt I'm gonna die'
Monday, 22 February 2021, 12:16 pm | RNZ
Those who were in Christchurch on 22 February 2011 all have a story to tell. Their accounts are all fragments of the same story - the story of a broken city. More >>
The Once-Proud New Yorker Soils Itself In Radioactive Offal
Monday, 22 February 2021, 11:16 am | Harvey Wasserman
For decades, The New Yorker has set a high bar for journalistic excellence. Graced by its signature brand of droll, sophisticated cartooning, the magazine’s exquisitely edited screeds have reliably delivered profound analyses of the world’s most pressing ... More >>
How Corrupt Is America? David Sirota Reports, But Will America's Media Stop Covering-Up?
Monday, 22 February 2021, 10:21 am | Eric Zuesse
On February 19th, The Hill headlined “Sirota: It's up to Democrats to hold Cuomo accountable” and hid the bigger and still hidden story, which is that America’s ‘news’-media had been hiding this enormous corruption-story for as long as they ... More >>
The US Empire Is An Abusive Narcissist: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Sunday, 21 February 2021, 4:23 pm | Caitlin Johnstone
Americans: healthcare please Government: Sorry did you say a new military base in northeastern Syria? Americans: no, healthcare Government: Alright you drive a hard bargain but here's a new military base in northeastern Syria . Sorry we're not going ... More >>
Open Letter To Australian Media & MPs - Murdoch’s Australia Censors Google, Facebook, Science & Freedom Of Speech
Sunday, 21 February 2021, 2:33 pm | Dr Gideon Polya
Dear fellow truth-seeker, The mendacious Australian Mainstream media, Coalition Government and Labor Opposition demand via a news media Bargaining Code that Google and Facebook pay Murdoch and Nine media huge sums for quoting Links to their “information” ... More >>
On Welcoming Pfizer’s Vaccine, And Saying Goodbye To Afghanistan
Friday, 19 February 2021, 11:16 am | Gordon Campbell
Good news, meet bad news. Co-incidentally, on the same day that New Zealand delivers its first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to our frontline border security and managed isolation unit workers, the Pfizer company has (a) conceded that its vaccine ... More >>
It’s Not A Political Problem, It’s A Propaganda Problem: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Thursday, 18 February 2021, 3:52 pm | Caitlin Johnstone
While we all fixate on electoral political solutions, the powerful focus on narrative control, because that's where real power is at. The people who pose an actual threat to the machine are those who disrupt its narratives and narrative control agendas. ... More >>
Snap Decisions: Victoria’s Third Lockdown
Thursday, 18 February 2021, 2:38 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The Queen Victoria Market in Australia’s second largest city, Melbourne, is usually a thriving affair. Like any ancient agora, people travel to meet there, purchase fresh produce, and natter. The fruit and vegetable vendors are all colour, a profusion ... More >>
‘Leaving Aside’ International Law: Why Democrats Are As Dangerous As Republicans To A Just Peace In Palestine
Thursday, 18 February 2021, 10:11 am | Ramzy Baroud
Motivated by their justifiable aversion to former US President Donald Trump, many analysts have rashly painted a rosy picture of how Democrats could quickly erase the bleak trajectory of the previous Republican administration. This naivety is particularly ... More >>
How Reddit Censors-Out Criticism Of Mainstream ‘News’-Media
Wednesday, 17 February 2021, 5:48 pm | Eric Zuesse
On February 15th, this article appeared at the “Scoop Independent News” site: “N.Y. Times Lies To Say WHO Investigators Dissatisfied W. Chinese Cooperation” America’s mainstream ‘news’ sites, such as the New York Times , routinely lie ... More >>
The Empire Attacks BDS For The Same Reason Nixon Started The Drug War
Wednesday, 17 February 2021, 4:49 pm | Caitlin Johnstone
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Arkansas' anti-BDS law violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution, because it plainly does. " The Arkansas Times has successfully challenged a law that prohibits the state from doing business ... More >>
Auckland to drop to alert level 2, rest of NZ to level 1, at midnight
Wednesday, 17 February 2021, 4:48 pm | RNZ
Auckland and wider New Zealand will drop one level each - to levels 2 and 1 respectively - from midnight tonight, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced. More >>
Keeping The Dark Side Of Human Nature In Check—the Paradox Of The Mountain
Wednesday, 17 February 2021, 3:08 pm | Dr Nayvin Gordon
Ever since humans have walked the earth, history has revealed the dark side of human nature- the human propensities for rage, violence, aggression, unscrupulousness, domination, and tyrannical behavior. All previous forms of social organization have ... More >>
Why I’m Still Optimistic About Myanmar
Wednesday, 17 February 2021, 3:02 pm | Creative Commons
Adam McConnochie Watching the recent coup unfold in Myanmar has got me thinking about the famous ‘60s protest slogan ‘the revolution will not be televised’. And while Gil Scott-Heron was not being literal, it seems the opposite is true – ... More >>
Sexual Assault In Canberra
Wednesday, 17 February 2021, 2:11 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Who knew what? In many cases of sexual assault in politics, events take place behind bolted doors, the perpetrator and victim bound by ties of power, seediness and suppression. The victim is left with an odious and onerous task: to report the event. The risks ... More >>
Revolutionary Years: 2020-2021
Wednesday, 17 February 2021, 2:04 pm | Richard S. Ehrlich
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thailand's 68-year-old king and his loyal, testy prime minister suffered a dangerous 2020, relentlessly exposed to loud, satirical, young revolutionaries in the streets demanding democracy and limits to the monarch's wealth and security ... More >>
With their mother’s Australian citizenship cancelled over alleged ISIS-links, how will NZ deal with her children?
Wednesday, 17 February 2021, 1:59 pm | The Conversation
The trans-Tasman diplomatic stand-off is complicated by the fate of two young children. Their rights will be central to resolving the situation. More >>
On Another Epic Failure By Australia To Act Decently On The World Stage
Wednesday, 17 February 2021, 10:20 am | Gordon Campbell
Not for the first time, New Zealand’s leaders did us proud yesterday while – faced with the same moral challenge- Australia leaders fouled their nest. The case of 26-year-old Suhayra Aden and her two surviving pre-school children is clear cut. ... More >>
As NZ gets serious about climate change, can electricity replace fossil fuels in time?
Wednesday, 17 February 2021, 9:12 am | The Conversation
Investment in renewable electricity needs bipartisan political support and some bold decisions if New Zealand is to meet its future energy commitments. More >>
Why more contagious variants are emerging now, more than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic
Wednesday, 17 February 2021, 9:09 am | The Conversation
The rapid increase in the number of infections is the most obvious reason why new variants of the virus have been emerging recently. Case numbers doubled in just two months at the end of 2020. More >>
Would 'COVID loans' be a more affordable and sustainable way to support national economies?
Wednesday, 17 February 2021, 9:06 am | The Conversation
Instead of wage subsidy and business loan schemes, allowing households, workers and employers to borrow against future income could be more efficient and equitable in the long run. More >>
Close Contact Test Results Will Be Crucial To Whether Auckland’s Level 3 Lockdown Is Extended Beyond Three Days
Tuesday, 16 February 2021, 4:33 pm | The Conversation
Authored by Michael Plank, Professor in Applied Mathematics, University of Canterbury, Shaun Hendy , Professor of Physics, University of Auckland & Siouxsie Wiles , Associate Professor in Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, University of Auckland. ... More >>
