National Eyes Nuclear-Free New Zealand Debate
National calls it a conversation. The rest of us should call it what it is: the first greasy step toward selling nuclear-free New Zealand.

National calls it a conversation. The rest of us should call it what it is: the first greasy step toward selling nuclear-free New Zealand.

Ian Powell warns that New Zealand is far from Nazi Germany, but far-right momentum, neoliberal drift and authoritarian instincts should not be dismissed.
Iran was supposed to be the distraction. Now Cuba is suddenly in the frame. Trump’s empire politics are starting to look less like strategy and more like panic.
Trump followed Netanyahu into a war with Iran. Tehran answered by choking the Strait of Hormuz. Now the price of reopening it may be billions in frozen assets.

Trump and Israel reportedly wanted to replace Iran’s hardliners with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. When that is your regime-change master plan, the lunatics are clearly running the war room.

Stephen Colbert made America feel sane under Trump. Now The Late Show is gone, and the silence feels less like cancellation than warning.

Luxon said Winston Peters mischaracterised him on Iran. Now his own office says the evidence doesn’t exist. That is not a footnote, it is the story.
Trump can’t bomb his way out of Iran, the Epstein Files or the economy, but that won’t stop him eyeing Cuba like the next cheap trophy.
The Democrats had the money, the consultants and the moral lectures. Trump had the anger. That should terrify them far more than it does.
As Shane Jones courts international mining interests, critics warn donor influence and deregulation are reshaping New Zealand politics.