Latest Top Scoops Headlines
Wither Encryption: What Operation Trojan Shield Reveals
Friday, 18 June 2021, 12:44 pm | Binoy Kampmark
My, were they delighted. Politicians across several international jurisdictions beamed with pride that police and security forces had gotten one up on criminals spanning the globe. It all involved a sting by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, ... More >>
Goodbye To An AUMF
Friday, 18 June 2021, 9:04 am | David Swanson
https://worldbeyondwar.org/goodbye-to-an-aumf/ With the U.S. House voting and the U.S. Senate promising to vote on repealing an AUMF (Authorization for the Use of Military Force) from 2002 (essentially a sort of weasely pseudo-permission ... More >>
Ransomware is online threat number one
Thursday, 17 June 2021, 6:32 pm | Digitl
GCHQ cybersecurity boss sounds alarm over extortion by hackers who are mostly based in former Soviet states More >>
NZ peak fibre speed rises 160 times in a decade to 8Gbps
Thursday, 17 June 2021, 6:27 pm | Digitl
Orcon has connected its first 8Gbps broadband account. It runs at 160 times the speed of New Zealand's first fibre connections. More >>
Colombia Burns: It’s Not About “Tax Reform”, It’s About Hunger And Dignity
Thursday, 17 June 2021, 4:45 pm | Scoop.me
Provided by by Amerika21. The millions of poor in an enormously rich country can no longer bear to choose between very little and nothing. They have very little to lose. The tax reform proposal of 2021 was the straw that broke the camel’s back. ... More >>
Policies For Reducing The Environmental Costs Of Urban Transport
Thursday, 17 June 2021, 4:42 pm | Keith Rankin
Environmental costs are a big deal, which need to be properly factored into our economic decision-making. Last week the Government announced a rebate scheme for electric and hybrid vehicles . These days we emphasise the very important greenhouse ... More >>
On The America’s Cup, Critical Race Theory And A New, Weekly Music Playlist
Thursday, 17 June 2021, 10:36 am | Gordon Campbell
So… Why don’t they just cut to the chase, and call it the Emirates Cup? As this column predicted several months ago, the next America’s Cup challenge is headed overseas. Here’s what Werewolf said back in March : Emirates has made a major commitment ... More >>
RNZ’s Magna Charter – Part 3
Thursday, 17 June 2021, 9:15 am | Tom Frewen
The utter shambles that has developed under Labour’s Broadcasting and Media Minister Kris Faafoi, a former TVNZ political reporter, is revealed in correspondence between his office and the Ministry of Culture and Heritage obtained under the Official Information ... More >>
On Trumpism And Netanyahu-ism: How Benjamin Netanyahu Won America And Lost Israel
Thursday, 17 June 2021, 7:04 am | Ramzy Baroud
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is as much American as he is Israeli. While other Israeli leaders have made their strong relationship with Washington a cornerstone in their politics, Netanyahu’s political style was essentially American ... More >>
On Britain’s Pathetic Trade Deal With Australia
Wednesday, 16 June 2021, 10:27 am | Gordon Campbell
So much for those assurances that New Zealand would be the first cab off the ran k for any post -Brexit trade deal with the United Kingdom. Assuming for the moment that this was ever a good idea, the Aussies have managed to get there first. Yesterday, ... More >>
Beware Atlantic Charters
Wednesday, 16 June 2021, 8:48 am | David Swanson
The last time the U.S. President and UK Prime Minister announced an “Atlantic Charter” it happened in secret, without public involvement, without Congress or Parliament. It laid out plans for shaping the world upon the conclusion of a war ... More >>
Publicity And Exploitation: Fortress Australia And The Family From Biloela
Tuesday, 15 June 2021, 2:14 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Australian officials and paper mad types are running out of ideas as to how to be cruel towards refugees. We need to give them some credit: for years they have tried to do what most autocratic and murderous regimes do in a heartbeat: ignore international ... More >>
On ‘Conflict’, ‘Peace’ And ‘Genocide’: Time For New Language On Palestine And Israel
Tuesday, 15 June 2021, 6:53 am | Ramzy Baroud
On May 25, famous American actor, Mark Ruffalo, tweeted an apology for suggesting that Israel is committing ‘genocide’ in Gaza. “I have reflected and wanted to apologize for posts during the recent Israel/Hamas fighting that suggested Israel ... More >>
Eight technology must-haves for small businesses
Monday, 14 June 2021, 8:15 pm | Digitl
Done well, technology can help small businesses thrive. None of the technologies mentioned here are expensive. Each offers a fast return on your investment. Broadband A fast internet connection is essential. If you live in a place where fibre broadband ... More >>
Starlink will be a lifeline for left-behind rural broadband
Monday, 14 June 2021, 8:12 pm | Digitl
If you are stuck with a slow, unreliable rural fixed wireless connection, Starlink will change your life. More >>
The Difference Between Totalitarian Regimes And Free Democracies
Monday, 14 June 2021, 4:36 pm | Caitlin Johnstone
In totalitarian regimes they have massacres and wars. In free democracies they have humanitarian interventions. In totalitarian regimes they use torture. In free democracies they use enhanced interrogation techniques. In totalitarian regimes they fund terrorist ... More >>
Slogans And Sound-bytes Don’t Make A Collective Bargaining Strategy; Ask New Zealand’s Nurses
Monday, 14 June 2021, 2:08 pm | Ian Powell
Originally published at https://otaihangasecondopinion.wordpress.com/2021/06/14/slogans-and-sound-bytes-dont-make-a-collective-bargaining-strategy-ask-new-zealands-nurses/ The Labour government’s ‘strategy’ for collective bargaining between district health boards (DHBs) and the various health unions can best be described as a slogan. ... More >>
Gordon Campbell On The Mosque Movie, And The Demise Of Netanyahu
Monday, 14 June 2021, 11:54 am | Gordon Campbell
Plainly, a whole lot of New Zealanders – including PM Jacinda Ardern - are not on board with They Are U s, the mooted film project intended about the Christchurch mosque shootings. Here’s how the original Hollywood Reporter story described the ... More >>
Poverty Is A Weapon Of The Powerful: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Friday, 11 June 2021, 4:16 pm | Caitlin Johnstone
Learn enough about what's happening in the world and you realize that most people in your society have worldviews that are completely and utterly wrong. This can seem bold, perhaps even arrogant, but if most people weren't deluded about the world, ... More >>
Countries With The Lowest Wages Also Working The Most
Friday, 11 June 2021, 3:47 pm | Compare the Market
Mexico simultaneously records the longest work week (41 hours) and the lowest wages ($8.25 USD per hour) of the OECD member countries Denmark residents have the shortest work week at just 26.5 hours Iceland has the highest average hourly rate at $46.87 ... More >>
Less Freedom, More Money: Tony Blair’s Vaccine Passport
Friday, 11 June 2021, 2:08 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Sincere Tony is again on the stump, promoting his vision of how best to return to a lovely, unruffled world of capitalist endeavour, circuit lecturing and summit meetings that no longer need to be held online. And when Blair has visions, they are bound ... More >>
Nurses Strike Against New Zealand Labour Government’s Pay Freeze
Friday, 11 June 2021, 12:47 pm | Socialist Equality Group
Tom Peters, Socialist Equality Group About 30,000 nurses, healthcare assistants and midwives at public hospitals across New Zealand held an eight-hour strike on June 9 to demand a decent pay offer and safe levels of staffing. Thousands of healthcare ... More >>
Silence Of The Calves: New Zealand’s Sacrifice At The Dairy Altar
Friday, 11 June 2021, 11:19 am | Lynley Tulloch
(Warning from the Scoop Team: This Op-Ed contains imagery that may be shocking or disturbing to some readers) Cattle are raised in New Zealand for meat and milk production. They are also killed in enormous numbers. According to the Ministry ... More >>
Abolishing Police And Abolishing Militaries
Friday, 11 June 2021, 9:47 am | David Swanson
The similarities between the movement to abolish war and the movement to abolish police and prisons jump out at me anew when reading Mariame Kaba’s We Do This ‘Til We Free Us , which is about police and prison abolition. The book has a foreword ... More >>
Proceed To Your Nearest (virtual) Exit: Gaming Technology Is Teaching Us How People Respond To Emergencies
Friday, 11 June 2021, 9:31 am | Ruggiero Lovreglio
Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) aren’t just for gaming anymore, they’re also proving to be useful tools for disaster safety research. In fact, they could save lives. More >>
Power At Any Cost: How Opportunistic Mansour Abbas Joined Hands With Avowed ‘Arab Killers’
Friday, 11 June 2021, 9:06 am | Ramzy Baroud
We are led to believe that history is being made in Israel following the formation of an ideologically diverse government coalition which, for the first time, includes an Arab party, Ra’am, or the United Arab List. If we are to accept this logic, ... More >>
Power At Any Cost: How Opportunistic Mansour Abbas Joined Hands With Avowed ‘Arab Killers’
Friday, 11 June 2021, 6:51 am | Ramzy Baroud
We are led to believe that history is being made in Israel following the formation of an ideologically diverse government coalition which, for the first time, includes an Arab party, Ra’am, or the United Arab List. If we are to accept this logic, ... More >>
On Some After-thoughts About The Climate Change Commission Report
Thursday, 10 June 2021, 12:09 pm | Gordon Campbell
The notion that New Zealand is pluckily - or foolishly – punching above its weight in the march towards carbon neutrality by the year 2050 seems entirely deluded. Either way though, the idea seems too useful for the politicians to surrender it willingly. ... More >>
RNZ’s Magna Charter – 2
Thursday, 10 June 2021, 8:51 am | Tom Frewen
The words “charter” and “charter obligations” are prominent in Radio New Zealand’s 2019 strategy document “The Music Opportunity” which unveiled its staggering ambition to double its total audience from 600,000 people to one million More >>
On The Politics Of Victory And Defeat: How Gaza Dethroned The King Of Israel
Thursday, 10 June 2021, 6:32 am | Ramzy Baroud
How did Benjamin Netanyahu manage to serve as Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister? With a total of 15 years in office, Netanyahu surpassed the 12-year leadership of Israel's founding father, David Ben Gurion. The answer to this question will become ... More >>
Sony WF-1000XM4 noise cancelling ear buds review
Wednesday, 9 June 2021, 4:20 pm | Digitl
Sony’s NZ$500 WF-1000XM4 ear buds promise clearer sound, better noise cancellation and longer battery life than any rival. More >>
'Biggest Tax Story Of The Year, If Not The Decade': Analysis Shows Just How Little Richest .001% Pay In Taxes
Wednesday, 9 June 2021, 4:13 pm | Common Dreams
A first-of-its-kind analysis of newly disclosed Internal Revenue Service data shows that the richest 25 billionaires in the United States paid a true federal tax rate of just 3.4% between 2014 and 2018—even as they added a staggering $401 billion More >>
Corporate Ad Giant WPP Targeted For Helping Big Oil Greenwash Its 'Net Zero' Hogwash
Wednesday, 9 June 2021, 4:10 pm | Common Dreams
By Julia Conley, Staff writer at Common Dreams The climate-focused Clean Creatives campaign released a mocking ad video Tuesday to rebuke the greenwashing of corporate advertising giant WPP, which represents some of the world's biggest polluters. The ... More >>
ET, You Bore Me: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena And The Pentagon
Wednesday, 9 June 2021, 4:09 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Those of you drawing sustenance and stimulation from the traditional acronym UFO best brace yourselves. The less exciting and dull term accepted by the defence clerks – unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) – is renewing its march into the extra-terrestrial ... More >>
Brazil: Bolsonaro’s Conservative Government Brings Hunger Back
Wednesday, 9 June 2021, 10:58 am | Lateinamerika Nachrichten
Originally posted at https://scoop.me/brazil-bolsonaros-hunger/ By Lateinamerika Nachrichten / Claudia Fix, Julia Ganter At the end of April, the official number of covid deaths in Brazil surpassed 400,000. Measured by the number of inhabitants, ... More >>
The Origin Of The Hypothesis That Covid-19 Is Man-Made
Wednesday, 9 June 2021, 10:28 am | Eric Zuesse
Back on 3 February 2020, the brilliant lawyer, Francis Boyle, who drafted America’s Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 , was interviewed by the anti-imperialistic website “Great Game India,” headlining “Francis Boyle Creator Of BioWeapons ... More >>
The Nuclear Danger Gone?
Wednesday, 9 June 2021, 9:37 am | David Swanson
You can talk with perfectly intelligent, educated, well-rounded people in the United States who don’t happen to work on trying to save the world from war (this is one of the dangers of relaxing your social distancing, that you run into these people), ... More >>
On The McLachlan Interview, And The G-7 Global Corporate Tax
Tuesday, 8 June 2021, 12:10 pm | Gordon Campbell
TVNZ’s excuse for screening the Craig McLachlan interview last night was really flimsy. According to a TVNZ spokeswoman : “ It looks at his trial by media in Australia, and the impact this had on his wellbeing over a three and half year period.” This, ... More >>
Paying The Bills
Tuesday, 8 June 2021, 9:34 am | Andy Loader
Whether we like it or not and whether we agree with it or not, it is an incontrovertible fact; Agriculture in NZ pays the majority of our bills!!! Yet we have now got to the stage with this current government where they value a cycle way over the Auckland ... More >>
Mainstream Politics Offer Pretend Revolutions To A Discontented Public
Tuesday, 8 June 2021, 9:23 am | Caitlin Johnstone
In 2008 the American public was fed up with the disastrous status quo politics of George W Bush, so they came together and elected a progressive candidate who campaigned on hope and change to replace him. But no progress happened; the hope and change ... More >>
Collabora Office: Unfinished open source productivity suite
Monday, 7 June 2021, 5:23 pm | Digitl
Collabora Office is a promising mobile open source document editing suite based on LibraOffice . There are versions for iOS, tested here, and Android. More >>
Divide And Brainwash: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Sunday, 6 June 2021, 4:45 pm | Caitlin Johnstone
In 2016 the most corrupt and murderous government on earth dealt with public discontent by selling a sociopathic billionaire as the anti-establishment presidential candidate, then in 2020 sold a lifelong empire lackey as the revolutionary people's uprising ... More >>
Free Market Illusions: What Is The US’ Endgame In China?
Sunday, 6 June 2021, 1:28 pm | Ramzy Baroud
Why does the US advocate a free market while doing its utmost to stifle it? The current US-China economic war is a perfect example of this perplexing question. The legacy of Milton Friedman, the founder of America’s modern political economy, was ... More >>
Smart homes: For people who love to tinker
Saturday, 5 June 2021, 1:07 pm | Digitl
The switch in question controls Philips Hue lights, nothing else. It won't control your standard light bulbs. It's expensive. To use it you need to dig around in your house wiring. Strictly speaking that's a job you should leave to a qualified tradesperson. ... More >>
New Zealand phone market rebounds
Saturday, 5 June 2021, 1:01 pm | Digitl
IDC says New Zealand mobile phone shipments for the first quarter of 2021 were up 30.1 percent on the previous year. This is the highest growth in a quarter since 2013. More >>
Huawei's "I don't believe it's not Android" HarmonyOS
Saturday, 5 June 2021, 12:55 pm | Digitl
To an untrained eye Huawei’s HarmonyOS looks like the Android phone operation system. Officially the company says it is not a copy of Android. But that’s not what your eyes will tell you if you give it try. More >>
BE HUMAN !!!
Friday, 4 June 2021, 3:05 pm | Lois Griffiths
Very recently demonstrations have been held in many cities around the world in support of Palestinians especially, but not only, the Gazans. <img src="https://img.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/2106/31cf07f0576cfb71ba97.jpeg" width="720" height="631"> The devastation and death rained ... More >>
Suicidal Games: Tokyo’s Coronavirus Olympics
Thursday, 3 June 2021, 12:49 pm | Binoy Kampmark
A pandemic crisis. A state of emergency. Overwhelming public opinion bristling with alarm. Notwithstanding these factors, Tokyo is still on track to host the Olympics that was cancelled last year in response to the global pandemic. The first sports ... More >>
On The Media’s Hissy Fit Over Naomi Osaka
Thursday, 3 June 2021, 11:02 am | Gordon Campbell
Last Sunday as we all now know, Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open. She had felt that the compulsory after-match press conferences would affect her mental health, and detract from her ability to play at her best. She eventually ... More >>
The Fumbling King Of Palestine: Palestinians Are Defeating The Oslo Culture
Thursday, 3 June 2021, 6:39 am | Ramzy Baroud
The political discourse of Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, is similar to that of an ineffectual king who has been isolated in his palace for far too long. The king speaks of prosperity and peace, and tirelessly ... More >>
Drivers Of The New UFO Narrative Keep Absurdly Saying They Could Be Dangerous ETs
Wednesday, 2 June 2021, 5:10 pm | Caitlin Johnstone
Listen to a reading of this article: I've been learning as much as I can about the new UFO narrative the political/media class have been pushing in conjunction with the US military to prepare for the Senate report that's due to be released this month ... More >>
U.S. Expats Demand Washington Provide Vaccines
Wednesday, 2 June 2021, 4:02 pm | Richard S. Ehrlich
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Some of Biden's and Trump's most active boosters here in Southeast Asia have joined forces, demanding the State Department vaccinate all American expats in Thailand, as a model for international distribution, instead of discriminating ... More >>
That Old Story: Spying On Friends
Wednesday, 2 June 2021, 1:03 pm | Binoy Kampmark
One has to be repeatedly reminded that the theatre of international relations knows no friends and only national interests, whatever those might be. Intelligence services, being an expression of those interests, do not necessarily discriminate in targeting ... More >>
China, The Coronavirus, Australia, And A Yearning For World War 3
Wednesday, 2 June 2021, 11:42 am | Keith Rankin
There has been a lot of western angst shown towards China this year, only a miniscule amount of which can be attributed to geopolitical threats coming from China. Leading the charge of the anti-China brigade is Australia. I commented about a month ago ... More >>
US Troops Die For World Domination, Not Freedom
Tuesday, 1 June 2021, 3:56 pm | Caitlin Johnstone
Vice President Kamala Harris spent the weekend under fire from Republicans, which of course means that Kamala Harris spent the weekend being criticized for the most silly, vapid reason you could possibly criticize Kamala Harris for. Apparently the ... More >>
On Why It's Getting Harder To Walk The Tightrope Between China And The US
Tuesday, 1 June 2021, 10:57 am | Gordon Campbell
This morning, China announced it is changing its “two child” family limit to a “three child” policy. This looks like a desperate attempt to fix the problems that China is facing with its rapidly ageing population. Hard to see how this change ... More >>
U.S. Has The Most-Unequal Wealth Distribution Of Any Major Country
Tuesday, 1 June 2021, 10:26 am | Eric Zuesse
The most-reliable information-source regarding the distribution of wealth inside each country is the periodic nearly 200-page Credit Suisse “Global wealth databook,” which is produced by a large team and is therefore too costly to generate annually, ... More >>
Malcolm Gladwell Claims Satan Won WWII But Jesus Does Drone Strikes
Tuesday, 1 June 2021, 8:18 am | David Swanson
I wish I were joking, even a little. Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Bomber Mafia , maintains that Haywood Hansell was essentially Jesus tempted by the Devil when he refused to burn Japanese cities to the ground. Hansell was replaced, and Curtis ... More >>
Laying The Bear Trap: Orbán Visits No 10 Downing Street
Monday, 31 May 2021, 2:21 pm | Binoy Kampmark
His comments would not have fallen on deaf ears. While metropolitan London would have been aghast at his pedigree and remarks, a Brexit-audience in the rustbelts and areas of deprivation, would have felt a twang of appreciation. For them, migration ... More >>
Gaza Must Prepare For Israel’s Next War
Monday, 31 May 2021, 2:18 pm | Jamal Kanj
Eleven days of another asymmetrical Palestine/Israel confrontation. America’s most sophisticated technology left behind a trail of devastation, including the life of more than 60 children, and a generation born under years of Israeli blockade with ... More >>
