5: 

A new chapter in the New Zealand story

When Simon Bridges announced the areas of Aotearoa that he wants to open up for oil and gas exploration in 2016 (the “Block Offers”), he probably wasn’t expecting this.

In just six weeks since the announcement 25 communities around the country have mobilised and publicly demanded that their local councils say NO to deep sea oil and Block the Offer.

Christchurch City Council was the first to listen to their constituents and have called the Government’s deep sea drilling plans “sheer lunacy”.  Kaikoura District Council followed suit soon after.

Over the next week many other councils will be deciding where they stand.  Auckland Council will decide at a public meeting on November 29th and we will all get see what they’re made of.

In recent history decisions like the one Christchurch and Kaikoura just made caused huge ripples throughout our country and changed the course of history.

Thirty three years ago Wellington City became the first council to go against the Government of the time and declare itself a nuclear-weapon-free zone. This was a brave move and it had an effect far beyond Wellington City.   “Wellington became a benchmark for others… and by the end of 1984, 40 local authorities had nuclear-free policies.”  Central Government then finally stepped up to the plate and at the end of 1984 had banned nuclear armed or powered ships from entering New Zealand’s territorial waters.  This legislation was broadened and strengthened over the next few years and it still remains today.

4: 

LAWSUIT CHALLENGES A MISSISSIPPI DEBTORS PRISON

LOW-INCOME RESIDENTS of Jackson, Mississippi, are being coerced into working on a penal farm in a “modern-day debtors prison” for being unable to pay municipal fees and fines for misdemeanors, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in a federal court last week.

The suit alleges that the City of Jackson, in Hinds County, employs a “pay or stay” system in which impoverished plaintiffs who are unable to pay court-ordered fines must work off their debts at the county’s penal farm in nearby Raymond at a rate of $58 per day. Those unable or unwilling to work can sit out their debts in jail at a rate of $25 per day.

Seven Hinds County residents are listed as plaintiffs in the complaint, all impoverished black men. Many of them also have physical disabilities.

Jerome Bell, 58 years old and disabled following a series of strokes, owed more than $4,000 in fines and other fees related to traffic violations when he was arrested in July. In court, Judge Gerald Mumford ordered Bell to pay the fines or sit in jail until the debt was paid off. Bell, who lives off a monthly Social Security disability check and food stamps, could not afford to pay and was consequently jailed. The lawsuit claims Bell’s public defender made no effort to assess the accuracy of the court’s charges, nor did he ask the court to consider Bell’s financial difficulties.

According to court documents, Bell was housed at the Raymond Jail for more than 35 days. For 20 days he “slept on the concrete floor of a holding cell in the booking unit of the jail with no mattress or cushion of any sort.” According to his attorney, Jacob Howard, who works with the University of Mississippi’s MacArthur Justice Center, Bell suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, and weakness on the left side of his body as a result of multiple strokes.

Despite his physical impediments, Howard told me, Bell would have preferred to be jailed on the penal farm because the living conditions there are said to be better than those at the overcrowded Raymond Jail. Unfortunately for Bell, the county kept him in the jail because his daily insulin shot was unavailable at the penal farm, which sits less than 1 mile from the jail. “I have no idea why they’re incapable of providing daily insulin,” Howard said.

Those incarcerated at the farm pay off their debts by cleaning up horse and chicken dung and collecting eggs, among other tasks.

The Intercept

3: 

Russel Norman gives final speech to Parliament

Former Green Party co-leader Russel Norman has used his final speech in Parliament to lament what he says is a loss of democracy in New Zealand.

Radio NZ

2: 

The Guardian 

1: 

Last Month was the Hottest September Ever Recorded Worldwide

Last month was the hottest September worldwide, and 2015 is now virtually guaranteed to be the hottest year in recorded history. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the first nine months of this year have been the hottest such period ever recorded. Driven by warmer temperatures, the strongest El Niño on record is fueling extreme weather, from typhoons in the Philippines to historic summer rains and a looming winter drought in Hawaii. This all comes as negotiators prepare for the U.N. climate summit in Paris November 30.

Democracy Now!