Latest Top Scoops Headlines
Standard mobile handsets at evolutionary dead end
Monday, 24 January 2022, 12:10 pm | Digitl
Samsung’s Galaxy S21 FE 5G press release leads with the phone’s case design. More >>
hy Alexa, Amazon's smart speaker, is not winning friends
Monday, 24 January 2022, 11:59 am | Digitl
If you got an Amazon Echo smart speaker this Christmas, there’s a good chance you lost interest in the device and the Alexa voice technology before the holidays ended. More >>
Selling broadband and energy together
Monday, 24 January 2022, 11:55 am | Digitl
Connections between telecommunications and the energy sector are not new. They could soon become more important. More >>
Traditional PC sales boom as market resets
Monday, 24 January 2022, 11:43 am | Digitl
After a decade of falling sales, the Covid pandemic has seen traditional PC sales reach the highest level in that time. More >>
Ten years of Markdown and iA Writer
Monday, 24 January 2022, 11:40 am | Digitl
It may not work for everyone, but switching Microsoft Word for a Markdown editor boosted my productivity. More >>
Typora markdown editor review
Monday, 24 January 2022, 11:14 am | Digitl
Typora is a great Markdown editor that brings distraction-free writing to Windows and Linux. More >>
Phone sales peaked five years ago
Monday, 24 January 2022, 10:46 am | Digitl
In 2016 the industry shipped a shade under 1.5 billion phones. By 2020 that had slipped to under 1.3 billion. More >>
Google ends free legacy G Suite accounts
Monday, 24 January 2022, 10:42 am | Digitl
Google says customers with legacy free edition G Suite accounts will soon need to pay for Workspace apps. That is bad news for many people. More >>
How Israel’s ‘Facebook Law’ Plans To Control All Palestinian Content Online
Saturday, 22 January 2022, 8:01 am | Ramzy Baroud
It is ironic that even former right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had rejected a Knesset (Israeli Parliament) bill which proposed to give the government greater power to control and suppress online content. This was in 2016, and the bill ... More >>
How Israel’s ‘Facebook Law’ Plans To Control All Palestinian Content Online
Saturday, 22 January 2022, 8:00 am | Ramzy Baroud
It is ironic that even former right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had rejected a Knesset (Israeli Parliament) bill which proposed to give the government greater power to control and suppress online content. This was in 2016, and the bill ... More >>
SRI LANKA: Who Should Be In The Constitutional Convention?
Friday, 21 January 2022, 3:36 pm | Asian Human Rights Commission
The making of a new Constitution through a constitutional convention is now being discussed in the community. This is against the privately-drafted Constitution through a group of lawyers which the Government intends to introduce in early 2022. The difference ... More >>
Morocco Drives A War In Western Sahara For Its Phosphates
Friday, 21 January 2022, 3:32 pm | Globetrotter
By Vijay Prashad In November 2020, the Moroccan government sent its military to the Guerguerat area, a buffer zone between the territory claimed by the Kingdom of Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). The Guerguerat border ... More >>
Surrender, Accommodation And RATs
Friday, 21 January 2022, 3:11 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test has been the mainstay of COVID-19 testing. But reliance upon such a regime, which requires the administration of middlingly competent personnel at appropriate testing sites, has caused its fair share of global ... More >>
New Zealand COVID-19 Experts Take Action Against Auckland University Over Online Abuse
Friday, 21 January 2022, 3:08 pm | Socialist Equality Group
By Tom Peters Two of New Zealand’s most prominent COVID-19 experts are taking legal action against their employer, the University of Auckland, for allegedly failing to take steps to protect them against a bombardment of threats and abuse from individuals ... More >>
On Responding To The Need In Tonga
Thursday, 20 January 2022, 11:26 am | Gordon Campbell
The power of the Tonga eruption (and the size of the aid response being mounted) have been sobering indications of the scale of this disaster. The financial impact is certain to exceed the damage done by Cyclone Harold two years ago, which was estimated ... More >>
The Smearing Of Emma Watson
Thursday, 20 January 2022, 10:08 am | Globetrotter
Anyone who has ever been critical of Israeli actions toward the Palestinian people knows what to expect next—an avalanche of pit-bull attacks and smears that their criticisms of Israel are motivated by racism and anti-Semitism. The latest example ... More >>
Arise, Pandemic Profiteers
Wednesday, 19 January 2022, 4:19 pm | Binoy Kampmark
History’s annals are filled with war profiteers and hustlers for the opportunistic return. They come in the form of hoarders, arms manufacturers and wily business folk making a steal on slaughter and mayhem. But the other conflict – that of battling ... More >>
How Cambodia AS ASEAN Chair Can Play A Key Role In Rohingya Refugee Crisis Solution
Wednesday, 19 January 2022, 10:07 am | Jubeda Chowdhury
The Rohingya issue is currently an important international issue. More than 1.1 million Rohingyas have taken refuge in Bangladesh since August 2017 due to genocide and ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. About 50,000 newborn Rohingya children are added ... More >>
One Drinks Party Too Many: Boris Johnson And Breaching Lockdowns
Tuesday, 18 January 2022, 3:05 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It might not be quite within the bounds of good taste to compare military calculations of a bridge too far – the title used in Cornelius Ryan’s work on the disastrous Allied airborne operation during the Second World War – with the latest foolish, ... More >>
Overthrowing Governments Is A Giant Failure
Tuesday, 18 January 2022, 10:25 am | David Swanson
In a new, very U.S., very academic book by Alexander Downes called Catastrophic Success: Why Foreign Imposed Regime Change Goes Wrong, the immorality of overthrowing other people’s governments cannot be found. The illegality of it seemingly does not exist. ... More >>
On Sending An Orion P-3 To Tonga
Tuesday, 18 January 2022, 10:14 am | Gordon Campbell
Because the undersea volcanic eruption in Tonga cut communications with the more remote parts of the country, it wasn’t at all surprising that as a good Pacific neighbour, New Zealand sent a reconnaissance aircraft up there to gather information ... More >>
In South Africa As In Palestine: Why We Must Protect The Legacy Of Desmond Tutu
Tuesday, 18 January 2022, 8:06 am | Ramzy Baroud
Long before intersectionality became a prevailing concept which helped delineate the relationship between various marginalized and oppressed groups, late South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu said it all in a few words and in a most inimitable style. ... More >>
Dangerous Precedents And Hypothetical Threats: The Deportation Of Novak Djokovic
Monday, 17 January 2022, 4:12 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Australia’s treatment of Novak Djokovic, the tennis world number one, has been revelatory. Unintentionally, this has exposed the seedier, arbitrary and inconsistent nature of Australia’s border policies. The approval by the Australian Federal Court ... More >>
Djokovic Is The New Covid Poster Boy For World Order Versus Disorder
Monday, 17 January 2022, 12:03 pm | Jerome Irwin
We are living in tempestuous, tumultuous times now where authoritarianism and its extension, fascism, are everywhere on the rise and democracy, the rule of law and democratic governments worldwide are in decline. On many levels of political-economic-cultural-ideological-societal ... More >>
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh And Nepal Need China In Their Development Process
Monday, 17 January 2022, 9:14 am | Pathik Hasan
It is true that South Asia needs China in its development process because ‘China’ is synonymous with the term “Development”. China’s ambitus project ‘Belt and Road Initiative” provides benefits for almost all South Asian Countries. Nepal, ... More >>
Chief Executives And Health System Improvement: A Canterbury Tale
Friday, 14 January 2022, 7:41 am | Ian Powell
The online daily publication Newsroom has impressed me with its investigative journalism. It certainly punches above its weight. Among its quality investigative journalists is Christchurch based David Williams. Among Williams’ subjects has been the unprincipled ... More >>
Julian Assange: A Thousand Days In Belmarsh
Thursday, 13 January 2022, 4:23 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Julian Assange has now been in the maximum-security facilities of Belmarsh prison for over 1,000 days. On the occasion of his 1,000th day of imprisonment, campaigners, supporters and kindred spirits gathered to show their support, indignation and solidarity ... More >>
Anachronistic Frivolity: Australia’s Recent Tank Purchase
Wednesday, 12 January 2022, 3:12 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The operating doctrine of many a defence ministry is premised on fatuity. There is the industry prerogative and need for employment. There are the hectoring think tanks writing in oracular tones of warning that the next “strategic” change is ... More >>
On The Global War Against Plastics
Wednesday, 12 January 2022, 11:42 am | Gordon Campbell
Compared to Covid and climate change, the threat from plastics seems like a low rent version of planetary disaster. Can that plastic bottle, this fast food plastic knife and fork, and the plastic packaging wrapped around everything from supermarket ... More >>
On The Global War Against Plastics
Wednesday, 12 January 2022, 11:40 am | Gordon Campbell
Compared to Covid and climate change, the threat from plastics seems like a low rent version of planetary disaster. Can that plastic bottle, this fast food plastic knife and fork, and the plastic packaging wrapped around everything from supermarket ... More >>
Djokovic Versus The Australian Commonwealth
Tuesday, 11 January 2022, 4:09 pm | Binoy Kampmark
January 10, 2022 will be remembered as one of the odder days in the annals of sport. For one, it had little to do with physical exertion. Tennis proved secondary to the claims of one Novak Djokovic, currently the world’s number one ranked player. Instead ... More >>
The Mauling Of Novak Djokovic
Monday, 10 January 2022, 2:32 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Rarely can the treatment of a grand sporting figure by officialdom have caused such consternation. Novak Djokovic, the tennis World Number One, has always had a tendency to get under skin and constitution, creating a large following of admirers and detractors. ... More >>
On Australia’s Failed Model Of Covid Best Practice
Friday, 7 January 2022, 12:44 pm | Gordon Campbell
In decades gone by, New Zealanders tended to diss this country by comparing it to how much better things were in the States, or in Australia, or almost anywhere else except the godforsaken town in which we’d had the misfortune to be born and raised. ... More >>
On Australia’s Failed Model Of Covid Best Practice
Friday, 7 January 2022, 12:43 pm | Gordon Campbell
In decades gone by, New Zealanders tended to diss this country by comparing it to how much better things were in the States, or in Australia, or almost anywhere else except the godforsaken town in which we’d had the misfortune to be born and raised. ... More >>
As Israel Plots Endgame In Occupied Golan, Bennett Must Remember Lessons Of The Past
Friday, 7 January 2022, 7:36 am | Ramzy Baroud
With Syria still embroiled in its own war, Israel has been actively rewriting the rule book regarding its conduct in this Arab country. Gone are the days of a potential return of the illegally occupied Golan Heights to Syrian sovereignty in exchange ... More >>
Unemployable but doing fine
Thursday, 6 January 2022, 6:25 pm | Digitl
Many of us work in the part of the economy where there are no jobs, just clients and projects. We market our services, try to find interesting opportunities and finance our larger interests with the revenue. We’ve been out of the hierarchy for so long ... More >>
RCG flips switch on Chatham Islands 4G network
Thursday, 6 January 2022, 5:45 pm | Digitl
Chatham Islanders, one of the most remote communities in New Zealand, is now connected to the rest of the world. RCG flips switch on Chatham Islands 4G mobile network A new 7.5 metre satellite dish and five mobile towers mean Chatham Islanders now ... More >>
Supply chain woes see printer sales down 20 percent
Thursday, 6 January 2022, 5:42 pm | Digitl
IDC reports manufacturing constraints and logistical issues are behind a 20.4 percent drop in printer sales in the third quarter of 2021. More >>
The year we filled in the telecommunications gaps
Thursday, 6 January 2022, 3:06 pm | Digitl
In the first part of this week's technology segment on RNZ's Nine to Noon show I talk with Kathryn Ryan about some of the big trends in tech this year, starting with plugging gaps in broadband coverage, the work done by the Rural Connectivity Group ... More >>
Sky cost cutting delivers, Vodafone drops TV
Thursday, 6 January 2022, 3:02 pm | Digitl
Vodafone is pulling the plug on its short-lived Vodafone TV service [/caption] Sky cost cutting delivers profit upgrade Sky doubled its profit guidance for the 2022 financial year. More >>
ComCom finalises fibre regulations
Thursday, 6 January 2022, 2:54 pm | Digitl
Some concessions, but Chorus has not got the final regulatory ruling it wanted from the Commerce Commission. ComCom finalises fibre regulations Chorus will be able to earn a maximum revenues of $690 million next year under new rules set by the Commerce ... More >>
How the Orcon-2degrees merger affects market competition
Thursday, 6 January 2022, 2:50 pm | Digitl
Simple answer is ‘less than you might think in the short term, but watch this space’. More >>
Voices Of Concern: Aussies For Assange’s Return
Thursday, 23 December 2021, 2:31 pm | Binoy Kampmark
With Julian Assange now fighting the next stage of efforts to extradite him to the United States to face 18 charges, 17 of which are based on the brutal, archaic Espionage Act, some Australian politicians have found their voice. It might be said that a ... More >>
Visualising A Way Out Of The Pandemic
Tuesday, 21 December 2021, 4:05 pm | Keith Rankin
Public policy has a number of biases. One is that certain real or alleged emergencies require (or seem to require) an urgent policy intervention. The result is a consortium of elected politicians, bureaucrat officials, and expert technocrats get on board, ... More >>
On The Obscure Bill That Erodes Our System Of Justice
Tuesday, 21 December 2021, 11:54 am | Gordon Campbell
The pandemic continues to bury any number of major news issues. Understandably, there has been a deluge of stories in recent weeks about the beginnings of the traffic light system, the end of the Auckland lockdown, and the arrival of the Omicron variant. ... More >>
On The Obscure Bill That Erodes Our System Of Justice
Tuesday, 21 December 2021, 11:52 am | Gordon Campbell
The pandemic continues to bury any number of major news issues. Understandably, there has been a deluge of stories in recent weeks about the beginnings of the traffic light system, the end of the Auckland lockdown, and the arrival of the Omicron variant. ... More >>
Double Standards: The UK-Australian Free Trade Agreement
Monday, 20 December 2021, 3:36 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Any agreement between governments led by the UK’s Boris Johnson and Australia’s Scott Morrison must be treated with a healthy dose of suspicion. A few minutes with the UK prime minister would lead you to believe that “Global Britain” is a meaningful ... More >>
Covid Testing Rackets And Flying Again
Friday, 17 December 2021, 2:30 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The young boy of seven or so was kissing a toy doll affixed with an alarmed face. The doll, no doubt of full Chinese make, was fully tarted up, lips glossy, eyes wide, a blonde with curls. “Stop making out with her,” cried her mother, sitting in ... More >>
On Fostering The Culture Of Covid Complaint
Thursday, 16 December 2021, 1:31 pm | Gordon Campbell
Success can be its own worst enemy. If the plane doesn’t crash or the ship doesn’t sink, that doesn’t prove the safety measures were unnecessary, or that anyone can fly a plane. It can also be taken as an indication that the safety measures are working. ... More >>
Jailing Former Immigration Ministers: Denmark’s Inger Støjberg
Wednesday, 15 December 2021, 12:38 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It’s not the sort of thing you encounter regularly. A member of a government cabinet, responsible for arguably one of the country’s most important portfolios, found both wanting and culpable for their actions after leaving their post. But this is ... More >>
How Do We Stop The Neocons From Starting Another Disaster In Ukraine
Wednesday, 15 December 2021, 12:20 pm | Globetrotter
If anything, Washington’s neoconservatives have an unerring instinct for survival. Having brought about multiple disasters in the two decades since 9/11—from the Iraq War to the twin debacles in Libya and Syria—the neoconservatives seem to have ... More >>
On Why We Should Oppose The Persecution Of Julian Assange
Tuesday, 14 December 2021, 9:51 am | Gordon Campbell
Julian Assange is a polarising personality. Admired by many for his work as a whistle-blower, Assange is famously loathed by other people who still hold him accountable for the sexual assault charges that the Swedish authorities finally dropped back in November ... More >>
Auckland And All Other 'red' Regions, Except Northland, Moving To 'orange'
Monday, 13 December 2021, 4:45 pm | RNZ
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced Auckland and all other red regions, excluding Northland, will move to Covid-19 framework setting orange at 11.59pm on Thursday 30 December. More >>
How To Chill Free Speech: Defamation Down Under
Monday, 13 December 2021, 1:02 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The free speech argument in Australia has always been skewed. Lacking the confidence, courage and maturity to have a bill of rights that might protect it, Australia’s body politic has stammered its way to the frailest of protections. The Australian ... More >>
New Zealand’s Daily Blog Glorifies Fascist Killer Kyle Rittenhouse
Monday, 13 December 2021, 9:14 am | Socialist Equality Group
In the latest sign of the stampede to the right by New Zealand’s Daily Blog, its editor Martyn Bradbury wrote an article on November 24 defending Kyle Rittenhouse, who was recently acquitted of murdering two people and attempting to murder a third ... More >>
The Omicron Shame: Why Is The World Punishing Instead Of Helping Africa?
Monday, 13 December 2021, 8:03 am | Ramzy Baroud
The decision by several governments across the globe to institute travel bans on seven African countries, starting on November 27, due to the discovery of a new Covid-19 variant, Omicron, was perceived to be hasty in the eyes of some and fully justifiable ... More >>
Diablo's Planet-Killing Nuke Insanity Keeps Escalating
Saturday, 11 December 2021, 7:13 pm | Harvey Wasserman
Harvey Wasserman/Reader Supported News 09 december 21 Amidst our ever-escalating climate Apocalypse, the viral insanity of atomic power gets ever worse. Now it’s spread deep into the Biden Administration, with no apparent cure in sight. Nowhere ... More >>
Why Xiomara Castro’s Win In Honduras Could Address The Country’s Endemic Corruption And Violence
Friday, 10 December 2021, 12:35 pm | Independent Media Institute
After more than a decade of violent repression and undemocratic rule that emerged after the 2009 ouster of Manuel Zelaya, a new leader takes the reins of the Central American nation. “I am overwhelmed with joy; I just cannot believe it,” says ... More >>
On Defence’s Desire To Join The ”Lets Confront China” Club
Friday, 10 December 2021, 12:05 pm | Gordon Campbell
China has been put on notice by us. According to the New Zealand Defence Assessment 2021 report released on Wednesday , and set out in bold type: “ The establishment of a military base or dual-use facility in the Pacific by a state that does not share ... More >>
Ineffectual Boycotts: The Beijing Winter Olympics
Thursday, 9 December 2021, 1:18 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Making moral statements in the blood and gristle of international relations can often come across as feeble. In doing so, the maker serves the worst of all worlds: to reveal a false sense of assurance that something was done while serving no actual ... More >>
