And finally the remaining news that went under the radar were your usual suspects, the brutal continuing occupation of Palestine (that no one can say anything about unless they want to be labelled anti-semitic), the brutal Saudi fuelled civil war in Yemen and the true magnitude of what climate change catastrophe will really do.
Sure we had some limited overage of the ongoing atrocities in Israel, but News media ignored it in case coverage was attacked by the very vocal pro-Israel lobby in NZ
Joint ministerial group sign accord for stronger Saudi-New Zealand cooperation
A Saudi and New Zealand joint ministerial group ended a two-day series of meetings in Auckland on Friday with an agreement to strengthen cooperation between the two countries.
The committee’s minutes were signed by Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture Abdulrahman Al-Fadhli, and New Zealand Minister of Trade and Export Growth David Parker.
Saleh Al-Nuweiser, charge d’affaires of the Saudi Embassy in New Zealand, and representatives of the government bodies took part in the meetings.Al-Fadhli said: “Trade between the two countries has witnessed remarkable development in past years, rising from SR675 million ($16 million) to about SR3 billion in 2016.”
He said the committee will contribute to the development of sustainable cooperation in all fields.
Abdulaziz Al-Hewesh, director-general of the ministry’s General Administration of Legal Affairs and International Cooperation, said that the joint ministerial committee recommended strengthening work and partnerships to achieve the objectives of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 in the fields of diplomacy and justice, trade and investment, consumer protection, standardization, finance and banking, as well as cooperation in the fields of energy, industry, mineral wealth, information technology and sports.
This didn’t get much attention from the local NZ media, but last year we held a two day cuddle festival with a regime that is killing thousands of civilians in Yemen, crucifies people, beats bloggers, arrests women who drive oh and who butchered a Washington Post journalist.
We were sold some bullshit that banning single use plastic bags was somehow meaningful in the fight against climate change….
Supporters were celebrating all over the media. The announced move to ‘ban single use plastic bags’ was seen as a victory against plastic pollution; a saviour for our marine life, otherwise choking on ingested plastics; it’s a boon for our clean, green, pure environment; a show of leadership.
But as with most policy announcements, the devil is in the detail. And though it might seem churlish, if you look closer, this is more a victory for public relations than it is for our environment. As usual, political measures are too little, too late, and not even what they seem.
…the true magnitude of climate change catastrophe was watered down so as to not spook the consumers or suggest that anything other than business as usual was needed.
Our denial on all three fronts was a disgrace and beneath our collective intelligence.
I was silenced by Te Reo Putake for suggesting radical solutions to climate change.
The Standard has become a centrist chattering club with tints of Mccarthyism.
Israhell and head chopping hand cutting Saudis are both the product of British Imperial colonialism. They were basically created at the same time when the Ottoman empire fell during and after WW1. https://mondoweiss.net/2016/01/zionism-kingdom-arabia/
‘the true magnitude of climate change catastrophe was watered down so as to not spook the consumers or suggest that anything other than business as usual was needed’
Absolutely! There has deliberate understatement of the pace of change and the likely future impacts, primarily for commercial reasons.
On the scientific front, in recent years there has been improvement in the acquisition of data, particularly that relating to previously difficult-to-measure ocean heating -which is what really counts, since it is in the oceans that most of the accumulating heat ends up.
‘Observations and models agree that the oceans are warming faster’
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-observations-and-models-agree-that-the-oceans-are-warming-faster?fbclid=IwAR2qDLFAWOFtmcX2tcHQbRf_y-PpqNmmzw4P19UmfBwfjdiA49myM4lHCLg
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Was Murray McCully’s multi-million dollar sheep con job included in the trade figures?
How is our Agricultural Research Hub going in Saudi Arabia by the way ?
Since there is no nation called “Palestine” how can Israel be occupying it?
The term “Palestine” was invented by Arafat in the 1970’s – if you’re referring to the West Bank, that was (for a while, post the ’47 war) Jordanian territory.
As for Yemen, you need to consider the strategic picture. The Houthi rebels began a civil war against the democratically elected government in Yemen. They’re Iranian armed, funded and trained. So this is in reality a strategic flanking action by Iran against Saudi Arabia.
Bro, the anti Palastinians lost the debate, not just on modern cultural grounds but historical and biblical grounds as well.
And your analysis of Yemen? A flanking action? Give me a break. It’s just training for the Saudis.
According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, Palestine comprises parts of modern Israel and the Palestinian territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The land of the Philistines was called Philistia by the ancient Greeks and Palestine is the English translation of Philistia. Thus, it is evident that the existence of Palestine goes back at least until the 12th Century BC. Abbas arrived on earth too late to invent the name Palestine. The Palestinians were led to believe that, with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War One, they would be accorded self-determination. The Palestinians supported the Allied war effort (the name Palestine is on the wall of the Auckland War Museum) but they were betrayed by Great Britain, which allied itself to Zionism.
Leslie,
Palestine is the name given to the region by the Romans
The Palestine Mandate the British had covered all of present day Israel and all of TransJorden – today’s Jordan.
In the 1947 partition that was enacted by the UN, it was cut in two along the Jordan river. The Arab states immediately attacked the fledgling Israel and took an area to the west of the river, that included Jerusalem.
In a subsequent attack in 1967 by it’s Arab neighbours, Israel took back their mandates homeland, including Jerusalem.
As for Gaza, it always was part of Israel apart from a small period when it was occupied by Egypt during the 47/48 war. In 1994 the Israelis granted Gaza autonomy to the Palestinian Authority. Unfortunately Iranian money influenced the outcome of Gaza’s first (and only) election and Hamas took control. Since then Hamas has used Gaza as a staging post for terrorism; firing missiles into Israel and indoctrinating the youth. Hamas also tortures and kills any opposition in Gaza in order to remain in control.
In 2006 Hamas won in a free and fair election, as international observers noted. But that was not the result the Israelis wanted, so Israel imposed and continues to impose an extremely cruel, illegal by international law, collective punishment ie closure on the entire population.
Israel uses Gaza to test its latest weaponry which it then sells to thuggish regimes world-wide.
Andrew are you a Zionist or are you just trolling for them.
You’ve answered your own question Andrew.
For your edification ANDREW. Plenty of info just at wiki on the History of the Middle East that DOESN’T HAVE AN ISRAELI FILTER.
Always a good place to start and if your are serious about really being INFORMED i can give you a reading list of worthy tomes I have digested over the years. Spouting Israeli propaganda goes down like a cup of cold vomit these days.
Happy new year!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Palestine
The first appearance of the term “Palestine” was in 5th century BC Ancient Greece when Herodotus wrote of a “district of Syria, called Palaistinê” between Phoenicia and Egypt in The Histories.[7][8][9] Herodotus was describing the coastal region, but is also considered to have applied the term to the inland region such as the Judean mountains and the Jordan Rift Valley.[10][11][12][13]
Sadly our ” collective intelligence ” was sold off like everything else not screwed down in this country.
Human rights or lack of them and the pollution of this planet will always be a long way behind the most powerful thing known to man , that is MONEY and the vested interests that control it.
If Nazi Germany had prevailed I suspect we’d be doing a roaring trade with them. Just replace Saudi Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture Abdulrahman Al-Fadhli in the above picture with that of a Third Reich minister.
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