Oh no- John Clarke has died – his wit and satire was the best comedy ever to leave NZ.
He was able to decipher the bullshit spin of the elites to people who suffered the most from their machinations. He highlighted the madness our leaders tried to get us to swallow and he championed holding the pricks to account by making us see the insanity of their empty words and promises.
He left NZ in the end because TVNZ were too gutless and spineless to allow him to do what he wanted to do. Another footnote in the history of how our supposed Public Broadcaster has betrayed the best and brightest amongst us.
His passing leaves us with a deep sense of dread, how are we to speak truth to power without him?
Are we really this simple to allow Bill English to trash the ethical beliefs of Sonny Bill Williams to distract from questions about war crimes committed by his Government?
Yes, apparently we are, rather than investigate the lies of the NZDF and this PM in covering up those lies, here is what will dominate the bloody news cycle for the rest of the week, Sonny Bill Williams stand against banking…
Prime Minister BIll English has weighed in on Sonny Bill Williams’ decision to cover up a bank sponsor’s logo during a game, saying it’s hard to understand why one player would act differently to the rest.
Williams put himself back in the news by taping over the BNZ logo on his Blues jersey in his Super Rugby comeback on Saturday night.
It’s been seen as a religious stand by Williams, a Muslim, who was playing his first match in the 15-man game since the 2015 World Cup final, after recovering from a ruptured Achilles tendon suffered at the Rio Olympics sevens.
Asked about it this morning, English reluctantly weighed in.
“It is hard to understand that one guy has to behave differently than the rest,” he told Newshub. “I don’t understand all these professional contracts, but if you’re in the team, you’re in the team.
“You wear the team jersey … but they’ll sort it out.”
…the fact that the Prime Minister of NZ can’t possibly comprehend another human being having an ethical position different to his should be focus of this story.
A leader who can shrug and go along with a missile strike on a sovereign nation with bugger all evidence lecturing others about their ethical stands while hiding war crime allegations is about as much hypocrisy as I can tolerate in one statement.
Along with 7.5 billion other humans on this planet, I was dumbfounded when the newsflash came over Radio New Zealand that the US had launched cruise missiles against Syria, nearly obliterating a military airfield at Shayrat airbase;
Despite my many reservations about Trump’s fitness to be the leader of the most powerful nation on the planet; despite his gullibility in listening to dubious “news” sources; despite his slavishness toward Israel; despite his racist diatribes against ethnic groups; despite his stated intention to squander billions on the military; despite gagging aspects of family planning services; and despite his covert right-wing agenda to pare-back healthcare, environmental protections, and slash critical government services for the poor – there was one thing about him that stuck in my mind. His willingness to “do deals” to overcome problems;
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Trump made no discernible attempt to deal with the Russians – Syria’s main sponsor – to determine who had launched the poison gas attack on Khan Shaykhun. There was no “deal making” in evidence as Trump gave the order to unleash the destructive firepower of 59 American ‘Tomahawk’ cruise missiles.
“The horror of the chemical weapons attack in Syria this week requires a credible, independent investigation, not a random barrage of missiles ordered by a clueless President.”
It’s OK when our ‘side’ does it
Despite a previous poison gas attack in Ghouta, Syria in 2013 – for which the Assad regime was implicated, but not proven – there is little actual firm evidence that the Syrian government was responsible for the gassing at Khan Sheikhoun on 7 April. Whilst it is known that Syria does (or did) indeed posses sarin gas – so does Israel. (Though Israel has signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, to date it has not ratified it.)
It is, however, not unknown for middle east despots to use poison gas to suppress rebel groups, as Saddam Hussein did in March, 1988, in Halabja. Saddam’s target at the time were Kurdish rebels fighting for independence. Some 6,800 men, women, and children were killed outright, and estimates put the eventual civilian death toll at 12,000.
Iraq used poison gas in it’s war with Iran without sanction. The West continued to support Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime despite the use of chemical weapons against Iraqi villages as well as Iranian combatants;
In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq’s war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein’s military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.
Means, Motive, and Opportunity
When considering a crime and it’s possible perpetrator(s), law enforcement officials take into account motive, means, and opportunity. The Assad regime certainly has two of the criteria: means and opportunity.
Fellow blogger and political commentator, Chris Trotter, recently questioned what would motivate Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad to launch an attack using banned weapons that would earn near-universal condemnation from the international community – and possibly embarrass and alienate critical support from Moscow. Chris asked;
… “Why would Assad do such a thing?” Syria was en route to a new round of peace talks. More importantly, she was about to enter negotiations in which the usual American, British and French demands that “Assad must go!” were to be, for the first time since the Syrian Civil War broke out in earnest, quietly put to one side. Having won the war on the ground, the Assad regime was on the brink of clearing away its enemies’ unrealistic preconditions. Finally, a serious conversation about Syria’s future could begin.
And yet, we are being invited to believe that, with all this at stake, President Assad ordered the use of Sarin gas on his own citizens. Somehow, instigating a reprehensible war crime against women and children was going to strengthen his moral authority. Somehow, by revolting the entire world, he would improve his chances of being accepted as Syria’s legitimate ruler. Somehow, by embarrassing the Russian Federation, his country’s most valuable military ally, he would enhance Syria’s national security. The whole notion is absurd.
Fair questions.
Did Assad believe that he could get away with it? Did he feel that Russia’s success in East Ukraine and Crimea, and the West’s unwillingness to challenge Moscow’s flexing of its “hard power” gave him free license to use whatever means he had at his disposal? Did Assad feel emboldened at Trump’s “close relationship” with Russia’s President Putin?
But why chemical weapons, which, in this case resulted in no appreciable military gains for Assad’s military? Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a chemical weapons adviser to NGOs (and former commanding officer of the UK Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment and NATO’s Rapid Reaction CBRN Battalion) offered one possible rationale;
The fear of chemical weapons is the real terror of war. Less than 0.5 percent of casualties during World War I were attributed to chemical weapons, yet the Great War has become synonymous with their use. The current conflict in Syria and Iraq depicts a similar picture.
ISIL employs a morbidly brilliant psychological warfare, and chemical weapons are the ultimate psychological weapon against all their enemies.
It would seem unlikely to engage in such a risky gamble. Especially for such little military advantage. It would be a colossal mis-judgement on Assad’s part if he thought that reliance on Western inertia and Trump’s isolationistic worldview would pay off.
…denied claims that the military used chemical weapons in the western city of Idlib. Speaking at a news conference on Thursday, Muallem said an airstrike by Syrian military had targeted an arms depot where chemical weapons stockpiles were stored by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and Al-Nusra Front militants.
He said it’s impossible that the army – which has been making significant gains in almost all theaters of the Syrian war – would use banned chemical weapons against its “own people” and even terrorists.
The lack of clear motive on Assad’s part raises real doubt as to who launched the gas attack on Khan Shaykhun.
If not Assad, who?
There have been suggestions that rebel groups operating in Syria to overthrow Assad’s regime launched the gas attack as a ‘false flag’ operation to draw the U.S. into the conflict.
I have doubts on this.
Until Trump’s ascendancy to the White House, the United States has been reluctant to supply Syrian rebels – including the Free Syrian Army – for fear they could end up in the wrong hands;
In theory, the embargo aims to prevent anti-aircraft weapons getting into the hands of terrorists who might down civilian planes. Yet such weapons exist on the black market; since the US has gone out of its way to prevent the FSA from getting any – even from there – the weapons that do get snapped up end up in the hands of anyone but the FSA.
Even anti-tank weaponry supplied to certain rebel groups was closely monitored;
While warplanes and helicopters had replaced tanks as the main form of regime slaughter by mid-2012, this US embargo blocked not only anti-aircraft but also anti-tank weaponry. Thus only small arms and ammunition were allowed, in the face of a massively armed regime continually supplied by Russia and Iran.
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US pressure is clear: Only “vetted” groups get TOW [anti-tank] missiles, sometimes only three or four at a time, they have to apply for them for specific operations, and they have to return the shells to make a claim for more. Even favoured groups soon found supplies dwindling, and the program diminished by late 2014.
By December 2016, after Trump’s inauguration, the US government softened it’s policy forbidding anti-aircraft weaponry being sold to Syrian rebels;
The House voted for the first time today to explicitly authorize the incoming Donald Trump administration to arm vetted Syrian rebels with anti-aircraft missiles.
While the language in the annual defense bill also creates restrictions on the provision of the controversial weapons, it represents a win for Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., a fervent advocate of helping the rebels resist President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies.
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Trump was outspoken about his reluctance to get dragged into the Syrian civil war throughout the presidential campaign. He has since picked hawkish advisers and candidates for Cabinet positions, including retired Marine Gen. James Mattis as secretary of defense.
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Mattis is well known in military and foreign policy circles for his aggressive determination to take on America’s foes, notably Iran, including in Syria and Iraq.
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The new provision “would require the secretary of defense and secretary of state to notify the congressional defense committees, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee should a determination be made to provide MANPADs to elements of the appropriately vetted Syrian opposition,” according to the explanatory statement accompanying the compromise bill. “The conferees expect that should such a determination be made, the requirement for the provision of such a capability and the decision to provide it would be thoroughly vetted by and receive broad support from the interagency”.
At least one US lawmaker realised the lethal consequences of allowing anti-aircraft missiles into rebel hands. Representative John Conyers (Dem-Michigan) warned;
“I am disappointed that the House of Representatives’ explicit prohibition on the transfer of these dangerous weapons into Syria was reversed — behind closed doors — by the conference committee. This brazen act shows that some in Congress still hope to further escalate the civil war in Syria. Sending these weapons would only prolong this horrific conflict — and endanger civilian airliners across the region, including in Israel.”
Writing for the Huffington Post, Charles Lister reported that the Free Syrian Army had tried – and been stopped – from purchasing anti-aircraft missiles on the black market. One FSA leader was reported as saying;
“Somehow, the Americans found out and our purchase was blocked.”
To date, use of anti-aircraft weaponry by rebels forces has been minimal.
If the US was wary of handing over anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry to Syrian rebel groups – from where they could disperse to who-knows-where – it is hard to believe that even more deadly weapons such as poison gas would be permitted into rebel hands.
If anti-aircraft missiles could be used by ISIS operatives to bring down civilian passenger jets – imagine those same operatives with poison gas in subways in New York, London, Paris, Moscow.
And remember the comment made by Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, above;
“The fear of chemical weapons is the real terror of war… chemical weapons are the ultimate psychological weapon against all their enemies.”
Which suggests that the only other ‘player’ in the Syrian civil war capable of deploying chemical weapons would be a sovereign state.
If not rebels, who?
In a June 2013 story, the BBC reported on who was supplying the myriad ‘players’ in the Syrian conflict. One of the arms traffickers in the region was Saudi Arabia;
In late 2012, Riyadh is said to have financed the purchase of “thousands of rifles and hundreds of machine guns”, rocket and grenade launchers and ammunition for the FSA from a Croatian-controlled stockpile of Yugoslav weapons.
These were reportedly flown – including by Royal Saudi Air Force C-130 transporters – to Jordan and Turkey and smuggled into Syria.
Saudi Arabia has financed a large purchase of infantry weapons from Croatia and quietly funneled them to anti-government fighters in Syria in a drive to break the bloody stalemate that has allowed President Bashar al-Assad to cling to power, according to American and Western officials familiar with the purchases.
The weapons began reaching rebels in December via shipments shuttled through Jordan, officials said, and have been a factor in the rebels’ small tactical gains this winter against the army and militias loyal to Mr. Assad.
So, what sort of weapons was Croatia selling on the open market? Interrogate Google with the parameters ‘Yugoslavia Croatia chemical weapons’. It offers this April 1999 story in the UK Guardian;
After months of prevarication, Nato launches a ground war against Slobodan Milosevic’s forces in Kosovo. But no sooner do British and US troops begin to move in and threaten Serb army units than Milosevic unleashes his secret weapons sarin nerve gas and BZ, a psychochemical incapacitant.
[…]
According to former Yugoslav chemical weapons officers, Milosevic’s arsenal is far larger than previously thought. Besides sarin and BZ, it includes the blister agent sulphur mustard and the choking agent phosgene. And it is thanks to scientists in Britain and the US that he could use them on Nato troops.
[…]
In total, the Serb army may have as many as 5,800 122mm sarin-filled shells and 1,000 mustard gas shells, say these sources. In addition, Serbia is also known to have been developing a multiple rocket delivery system for sarin and a bomb capable of delivering 20 litres of the nerve gas to the battlefield.
[…]
Even the Pentagon, which is sceptical about Croatian estimates of the numbers of chemical shells and rockets in the Serb arsenal, accepts that Milosevic inherited from the JNA a programme capable of producing a deadly 3,000 rockets filled with sarin and 100 shells filled with mustard gas.
[…]
Although the Pentagon says it has no evidence that Serbia has continued to manufacture and test chemical weapons since the break-up of the Yugoslavia federation, officials told the New York Times they were ‘concerned’ about the stockpiles.
The Pentagon would be right to be “‘concerned’ about the stockpiles“. Where would they end up?
There is no proof that amongst the weapons purchased from Croatia there was included chemical weapons such as sarin gas. But the facts are clear;
Former-Yugoslavia developed massive quantities of poison gas weapons, including sarin gas
After the break-up of Yugoslavia, Croatia sold plane-loads of weapons to Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia supports rebel forces in Syria
Sarin gas was used in the gas attack on Khan Shaykhun
It is all circumstantial, of course. But it seems plausible that Saudi Arabian military/intelligence agents could have transported sarin gas shells/rockets to Idlib Governorate where, under close supervision, they were launched against a defenceless city.
The plan was simple; to provoke a politically unsophisticated, naive, and impressionable Donald Trump into military retaliation by blaming the attack on the Syrian regime.
Clinton – Not helping!
Hillary Clinton’s remarks on the Syrian regimes alleged poison gas attack on Khan Shaykhun do her no favours;
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Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears on stage at the Women in the World Summit in New York, US, 6 April 2017. The interview took place a few hours before the attack was launched on Syria. Acknowledgement: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton
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“Assad has an air force, and that air force is the cause of most of these civilian deaths as we have seen over the years and as we saw again in the last few days. And I really believe that we should have and still should take out his air fields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them.
I still believe we should have done a no-fly zone. We should have been more willing to confront Assad.”
Her strident jingoism confirms her critic’s description of her as a warmonger.
We can excuse Trump’s political inexperience, naivete, and unsophisticated view of the world around him. This is a man who gets his “news” from the Republican Party-mouthpiece, Fox News, or the far-right Brietbart website. His political development appears arrested and not to far from that of an adolescent.
Trump may blunder into WWIII but a President Hillary Clinton would apparently have egged it on. With decades of political experience behind her, Clinton should know better. She has no excuse for her simplistic jingoism.
She should also have deeper insights into Middle East politics than this. Her willingness to perpetuate the Syria-Is-Guilty narrative cannot be excused as easily as Trump’s stupidity.
Which means she is manipulating current events for her own agenda.
With the planet edging closer to WWIII, whatever ‘game’ she is playing is a dangerous one.
World War III – Are we there yet?
Moscow’s unofficial mouthpiece, RT News, relayed a chilling message to Washington’s power-establishment (not Trump) to ‘back off’. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned that the illegal missile attack the Syrian airfield was putting the US “on the verge of a military clash” with Russia.
Not since the Cuban missile Crisis in October 1962 have the two nuclear-armed super-powers faced off, bringing the planet to the verge of atomic annihilation.
At that time, the Cold Warriors of the former USSR and USA still remembered the destruction caused by WWII. The Soviets, in particular, understood what Total War meant.
Alarmingly, though Putin has some understanding of military service, Trump has never served in the armed forces. Trump’s understanding of war most likely comes from brief news clips and popular entertainment from Hollywood;
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Hopefully someone in his national security council is advising Trump that real war is not like ‘The Green Berets’ or ‘Hogan’s Heroes‘.
Sanders – the voice of calm sanity from a President the Americans never had
In a world of vicious dictators, Syria’s Bashar Assad tops the list as a dictator who has killed hundreds of thousands of his own citizens to protect his own power and wealth. His regime’s use of chemical weapons against the men, women and children of his country, in violation of all international conventions and moral standards, makes him a war criminal.
As the most powerful nation on earth, the United States must work with the international community to bring peace and stability to Syria, where over 400,000 people have been killed and over 6 million displaced. The horror of Syria’s civil war is almost unimaginable.
If there’s anything we should’ve learned from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in which the lives of thousands of brave American men and women and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan civilians have been lost and trillions of dollars spent, it’s that it’s easier to get into a war than get out of one. I’m deeply concerned that these strikes could lead to the United States once again being dragged back into the quagmire of long-term military engagement in the Middle East. If the last 15 years have shown anything, it’s that such engagements are disastrous for American security, for the American economy and for the American people.
The Trump administration must explain to the American people exactly what this military escalation in Syria is intended to achieve, and how it fits into the broader goal of a political solution, which is the only way Syria’s devastating civil war ends. Congress has a responsibility to weigh in on these issues. As the Constitution requires, the president must come to Congress to authorize any further use of force against the Assad regime.
Further, the US must work with all parties to reinforce longstanding international norms against the use of chemical weapons, to hold Russia and Syria to the 2013 deal to destroy these weapons and to see that violators are made accountable.
There appears to be mixed-messaging from Sanders on this issue.
The only positive from Sanders is that he would (apparently) “work with all parties to reinforce longstanding international norms against the use of chemical weapons“. Though naming Syria and Russia in the same breath ignores the reality that these weapons still exist in American stockpiles and Israel has refused to ratify treaties to eliminate them.
However, anything that pulls Moscow and Washington back from the brink of the abyss of WWIII must be viewed positively. At this point, Sanders appears less insanely unstable than Trump, and certainly less insanely hawkish than Clinton.
By the way, Mr Trump…
Israel also possesses atomic bombs – which seems not to concern Washington one bit. It would not be an over-statement to point out that detonating an atomic weapon over the Middle East would set the planet on fire.
Game over.
New Zealand’s Response to an Illegal Attack
Hours after the US attack, Bill English responded by explaining;
“We’ve seen the atrocities with the use of chemical weapons … We support action that is proportionate to the requirement to stop further atrocities.”
Which raises four questions and an observation;
#1 How can bombing a Syrian government airbase “stop further atrocities” when it has not been clearly established who was responsible for the gas attack on Khan Shaykhun? Is that not “jumping the gun” (excuse the inappropriate metaphor) before guilt/innocence is proven?
#2 Considering that English refuses point-blank to initiate a Commission of Inquiry into a 2010 SAS raid in the Tirgiran Valley, in Afghanistan – despite a former Minister of Defence confirming that there were civilian casualities – is the National government in a moral position to endorse a potentially illegal bombing of Shayrat airbase?
#3 There is no firm evidence that the Assad regime is guilty of using poison gas on Khan Shaykhun – why has English rushed to judgement and pre-determined guilt?
#4 There is evidence that the SAS may have committed war crimes in 2010 in the Tirgiran Valley – why has English rushed to judgement and pre-determined innocence?
#5 English’s “moral compass” is highly dubious, to put it politely.
Chaos in Trump’s Administration?!
Washington’s renewed appetite for military adventurism in the Middle East (which, by the way, rarely ends well) has cloaked two recent events that the White House wanted off the nation’s front pages and lead-bulletins.
#1: Bannon
Arch far-right activist, Steve Bannon has been quietly removed from Trump’s National Security Council a day before the missile strike on Shayrat airbase. According to a New York Times report;
…White House officials said, the ideologist who enjoyed the president’s confidence became increasingly embattled as other advisers, including Mr. Trump’s daughter and son-in-law, complained about setbacks on health care and immigration. Lately, Mr. Bannon has been conspicuously absent from some meetings. And now he has lost his seat at the national security table.
In a move that was widely seen as a sign of changing fortunes, Mr. Trump removed Mr. Bannon, his chief strategist, from the National Security Council’s cabinet-level “principals committee” on Wednesday. The shift was orchestrated by Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, who insisted on purging a political adviser from the Situation Room where decisions about war and peace are made.
But Bannon will still be present at certain meetings, on an “ad hoc”* basis, according to this report;
“He is off the memo as a member of the principals committee,” said the source familiar with Wednesday’s meeting, “but the president or McMaster can invite him to attend at any time.”
Asked why Bannon attended a meeting on the same day his departure was being announced, the source said, “He is one of the president’s closest and most trusted advisors.”
Asked whether Bannon would continue to regularly attend NSC meetings, the source said, “I don’t know. It’s going to be ad hoc, I think.”
(* Ad Hoccery appears to be the defining basis upon which the Trump Administration is predicated.)
One does not have to be political scientist to realise that a power struggle is taking place in the White House – a struggle for ascendancy over a President who appears easily influenced.
Another event which has slipped well under the political radar is the “voluntary temporarily stepping down” (aka, removal) of Devin Nunes (Republican-Tulare), from the House Intelligence Committee. Nunes is (was?) Committee Chairperson until it was discovered that he had inappropriately leaked information obtained from the White House regarding an investigation into possible collusion with Russia by Trump associates during last year’s election campaign;
In short, the new chronology is this: White House officials leaked intelligence information to Nunes, who then announced them last Wednesday as fresh revelations, saying that he had received them from an unnamed source and that the White House was unaware. Nunes then made a show of going to the White House to brief President Trump on revelations that had come from his staff in the first place. The administration finally used the information to claim vindication on its still-evidence-free claims that President Obama surveilled then-candidate Trump.
Nunes blamed unnamed “left-wing activists” for his “voluntary stepping down”.
Devin Nunes is the second (third? I’ve lost count) casualty from Trump’s erratic presidency, following on from the resignation (not “voluntarily temporarily stepping down”) of national security adviser Michael Flynn on 13 February.
Hey! Look over there!
If ever Trump needed a diversion to deflect public attention away from ongoing turmoil in his Administration, what better than a spectacular show of American military muscle in a country he had previously said the US had no interest in intervening;
“ Using a deadly nerve agent, Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many. Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror.”
Meanwhile, Breibart ‘News’ has been an ongoing cheerleader supporting military action against the Assad regime, in 2012, as well as more recently. On both occasions, unsubstantiated allegations of Assad using poison gas against civilians and rebels was reported as ‘facts’ by Breitbart;
2012:
Rebel forces in Syria report that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is now using chemical weapons on them. Moreover, intelligence operatives from the West have confirmed those reports as well. But there has yet to be a peep out of the Obama administration over it.
2017:
The strike was aimed at deterring another chemical weapons attack by the regime.
This is the same far-right Breitbart ‘News’ where Steve Bannon – Trump’s current Chief Strategist – once held the position as Executive Chairperson.
President Trump ordered a military strike on Syria Thursday night in response to a recent chemical attack. By Friday afternoon, a supportive PAC was fundraising off of the strike.
“Last night, President Trump ordered military action against Syria in response to their chemical weapons attack,” an email from the Great America PAC, first flagged by Dave Levinthal at the Center for Public Integrity, read.
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“59 United States tomahawk missiles destroyed the airfield used to store Syria’s toxic weapons and aircraft involved in the Sarin gas attack.
What are your thoughts?”
The message asks respondents to vote on whether they approve of the strike and subsequently includes a request for money. The email was signed by Ed Rollins, currently the national co-chair of the PAC who joined the group in May of 2016.
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In case the wording on the second image is too difficult to read, it says;
Thank you for your vote. President Trump sent a message to the world by striking Syria. Help us support our Commander-in-Chief by making a special contribution below.
It should come as no surprise. There has always been money to be made from war, especially in the American Empire where industries such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Bell Helicopter Textron, and many others have made billions in profits making weapons for the US military.
But it must be a novelty (or new low, depending on which way your moral compass is pointing) that a political fund-raising organisation has exploited death and destruction to raise cash for their candidate/office-holder. Especially when that death and destruction may be predicated on a lie.
This must give even the most ardent Trump supporter pause for thought.
Infowars Turns on Trump
…And at least one previous Trumpista has indeed paused, thought, and turned his back on the Orange One.
Although this may be fake news/false flag/deception/deep-state conspiracy and the real Paul Watson is safe aboard the Mothership, along with JFK, Trotsky, Elvis, and Doris Day.
Israel – the Red Flag to Middle East Bulls
Israel has voiced it’s support for the US attack. As reported in the Jerusalem Post, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu – himself no stranger to aggression against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank – congratulated the US for it’s missile attack on Shayrat airbase;
“Israel supports the recent US missile attack in Syria because it is morally right and because it makes clear there is price for the use of chemical weapon. We are doing this because of moral reasons in light of the difficult images from Idlib, and also so that it will be clear that there is a price for the use of chemical weapons.”
“When we identify attempts to transfer advanced weapons to Hezbollah and we have intelligence and it is operationally feasible, we act to prevent it. That’s how it was yesterday and that’s how we shall continue to act.”
“We attack if we have information and the operational feasibility. This will continue.”
Israel’s arrogant sense of entitlement extends it’s military operations from Gaza and the West Bank to another sovereign state – Syria.
Syria, predictably has exercised it’s legal right to attempt to shoot down Israeli warplanes that crossed into it’s airspace. Just as Turkey exercised it’s right to shoot down a Russian warplane that crossed into Turkish airspace in November 2015;
Vladimir Putin has called Turkey “accomplices of terrorists” and warned of “serious consequences” after a Turkish F-16 jet shot down a Russian warplane on Tuesday morning, the first time a Nato country and Moscow have been involved in direct fire over the crisis in Syria.
The Russian president, speaking before a meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan in Sochi, said the plane had been shot down over Syrian airspace and fell 4km inside Syria. Putin said it was “obvious” the plane posed no threat to Turkey.
The complexity of the conflict – coupled with information that may or may not be true – creates a potential powder-keg. In some ways, I am reminded of Europe, in 1914; an interwoven web of imperial powers jostling for supremacy; strategic alliances; revolutionary groups; unstable monarchies; and ethnic tensions.
Sound familiar?
The drums of war are beating, and they are getting louder. This time, we may have to rely on the stability of the Russian leadership to deliver us from another Sarajevo, 1914.
That stability appears dangerously lacking in Washington right now.
Citizenship rightly should be prized and earned. It is not a commodity to be traded.
Which brings us to the curious case of Peter Thiel, the controversial American billionaire whose “exceptional circumstances” somehow allowed him to become a citizen of this fine country.
[…]
He apparently had a strong desire to be a citizen of a country he hardly visited – certainly not enough to qualify for an application in normal circumstances.
So was it the fact that citizenship enabled him to bypass the Overseas Investment Office’s scrutiny when he bought his Wanaka property? You’d have to say given all his amazing qualities, that shouldn’t have been a problem anyway.
I listened to Xero boss Rod Dury – a strong supporter of Mr Thiel’s application – not surprising given Mr Thiel made a significant investment in Xero. Mr Drury accepted that many successful people like Peter Thiel want a bolt hole in case it all goes pear-shaped in the Northern Hemisphere. And if you could afford it, why wouldn’t you?
But is that what it really comes down to? That we are a convenience, a Hobbit-themed panic room for the super rich?
Let’s just call it for what it is: We are a haven for sale.
The great irony, of course, is that any implosion in the Northern Hemisphere could likely be triggered by another of his influential friends; the man he backed for the US presidency: Donald J Trump.
Bill English has claimed that New Zealand had to support the US strike on a Syrian airfield because the UN Security Council had been “unable to act at all on Syria”.
In fact, Trump’s raid was aimed at preventing UN Security Council scrutiny of the chemical weapons attack which had taken place barely two days before.
Prior to the US missile attack the Security Council had been in session with two proposals before it. The US proposed an immediate condemnation of the Assad regime, while the Russians wanted the UN to allow time for an independent investigation of the chemical attack. Even though the Russians are protective of the Assad regime, their request for an investigation was a reasonable one, and in accord with normal UN practice.
Trump’s green light for the raid had little to do with helping the Syrian people, and more to do with boosting his public standing as a “strong” leader. This worked, with much of America’s “liberal” establishment (including Hillary Clinton) backing Trump’s “decisive” action.
One reasons for taking the time for a UN investigation is that the chemical weapons attack, if conducted by the Assad regime, doesn’t make much sense. The regime is certainly capable of heinous acts, but why would it resort to chemical warfare, drawing global condemnation, just days after the US had in effect accepted Assad’s hold on power, saying it was “a political reality that we have to accept”? That being said, dictators sometimes do stupid things, contrary to their own interests. Someone associated with the Assad regime is still the most likely culprit, but let this be tested by a proper inquiry. Even the announcement of an inquiry would inhibit the guilty party from launching another chemical attack.
The rapidity with which Bill English fell in behind Trump’s unilateral strike on Syria shows how little the NZ government values the UN Security Council, despite just having completed two years on it. New Zealand sidelined the Security Council and supported a US strike contravening the UN Charter. Article 51 of the Charter allows one nation to strike another only in “self-defence”. America wasn’t being attacked by Syria.
The NZ government still talks about having an “independent foreign policy”, but these days it is hard to locate that independence.
In April 1967, FIFTY YEARS AGO, Dr Martin Luther King spoke at the Riverside Church in Manhattan, NYC, warning of the moral failure of a country addicted to war.
Dr King began his speech by admitting that many of his critics, saying ‘peace and civil rights don’t mix’, wanted him to remain silent about the Vietnam War. But Dr King’s reply to this argument was, “ A time comes when silence is betrayal.” Furthermore, those who want him to remain silent, “do not know the world in which they live.” Martin Luther King explained how promised programs to improve social conditions were abandoned to finance the war machine. “ It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. Then came the buildup in Vietnam … and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.” Dr King described his experiences when trying to convince angry young men in the black ghettos of American cities, to reject violence. “As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, and rightly so, what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. “
Martin Luther King in his famous speech of 50 years ago, opposed not just the Vietnam War but all war. His speech was attacked by many, including prominent American newspapers.
Dr King was assassinated one year after his Riverside anti-war speech. What a loss, not just to the US but to the world.
President Trump has just told us that beautiful babies have been killed in Syria and he would do something about that, by launching missiles. Overnight Trump has become the darling of mainstream American media and even of the Democrats. That’s a political lesson he won’t forget.
Yes, beautiful babies died from gas poisoning in Syria. Just as beautiful babies died in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Beautiful babies died because of the siege on Iraq; Madeleine Albright said that “the price was worth it.” Beautiful babies died from the bombing of Afghanistan and the “shock and awe” bombing of Iraq. Beautiful babies died, as collateral damage, from Obama’s drone attacks on countries the US was not at war with. Beautiful babies died in Libya from Hillary’s war. Libya by the way, had the highest standard of living in Africa. Now beautiful babies are drowning in the Meditterranean because North African and Middle Eastern families are desperate to find a place where their beautiful babies can live and thrive. Beautiful babies were killed in Gaza with American approval and American weapons. The UN tells us that Gaza will soon be unliveable! Beautiful babies are dying in Yemen as that very poor country is being bombed by the West’s friend, big spender on weaponry Saudi Arabia.
War means beautiful profits for military corporations.
Martin Luther King said at the Riverside Church “….we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
Shouldn’t we , here in NZ, reflect on Dr King’s anti-war speech of 50 years ago?
When visiting the US in the 1980s, I was surprised that whenever I mentioned New Zealand, people commented, favorably, on our nuclear-free stance.
There is an important role New Zealand could play today. We could withdraw from our military and electronic spying agreements, telling the world that we oppose militarism. Such an action would not be anti-American. It would be pro those many Americans who realise that their country is dysfunctional, dangerous, unpredictable. Such a stance would be welcomed by Quaker groups, Peace Action, Codepink, Ploughshare Activists, WarNoMore. BlackLivesMatter and others .
New Zealand could provide the leadership that the world is longing for. Now is an excellent time for New Zealand to take such a stand, in honour of the memory of Dr Martin Luther King.
For The Worst Transnational Corporation Operating In Aotearoa/New Zealand
IAG/State Insurance Is Second. Uber Third
The full Judges Report, with details on all winners and finalists, is online here.
The six finalists were: Bathurst Resources, Coca Cola, IAG/State Insurance, Uber, Westpac and Youi.
The criteria for judging are by assessing the transnational (a corporation which is 25% or more foreign-owned) that has the most negative impact in each or all of the following categories: people – unemployment, impact on tangata whenua, impact on women, impact on children, abuse of workers/conditions, health and safety of workers and the public;environment – environmental damage, abuse of animals; political interference – interference in democratic processes, running an ideological crusade; and economic dominance – monopoly, profiteering, tax dodging, cultural imperialism.
The five judges were: David Small, a lawyer and Associate Dean in Education at the University of Canterbury; Dean Parker, Auckland writer and former Writers’ Guild delegate to the Council of Trade Unions; Sue Bradford, community activist with Auckland Action Against Poverty and Economic and Social Research Aotearoa (ESRA); Deborah Russell, feminist, social and political commentator and tax expert, Tertiary Education Union member, and candidate for the Labour Party in 2014; and Teresa O’Connor, Co-Editor of Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand, the national nursing magazine; a celebrant; and a founding member of Voice Nelson, a social justice activist group in Nelson, primarily concerned with housing, employment and health.
The winners were announced at an event in Auckland on April 6th.
Youi was a finalist because, as the nominator wrote: “Youi uniquely, does not do business online. Very deliberately, they insist on everything being done over the phone. Once engaged in conversation, their call centre staff insist on being given the caller’s credit card details on purely spurious grounds. Once the company has those details, it starts taking money off the card or out of the caller’s bank account. Despite the caller not being a Youi customer or having taken out a Youi policy (this is the most egregious aspect of this corporate crime). The caller may simply have rung up for a quote for car insurance, decided not to join Youi and stuck with his or her existing insurance company.. But Youi, having got his or her credit card details, proceeds to start taking money out. Youi has pleaded guilty to 15 representative charges filed by the Commerce Commission (and was fined $320,000). Plus it has been fined $100,000 (the maximum possible) by the Insurance Council of NZ, of which it is a member (and has been allowed to remain so)”.
The judges had this to say about Youi:
Deborah Russell: What makes Youi the leader of the pack is the way that it set up conditions that pressured its employees to behave in ways that deceived and defrauded customers. It’s clear that the individual employees engaged in behaviours that bullied and deceived, but it’s also clear that it was the working and remuneration conditions that pressured them into engaging in this behaviour.
David Small: Their approach to hounding people into signing policies, or taking money from people who have not signed is unlawful, unethical, highly disturbing and traumatising. It becomes a huge, time-consuming and complex task for people to try and extricate themselves from the clutches of Youi without losing money to them. If Youi are this bad at creating policies, I shudder to think what they would be like if one were in the unfortunate position of having a claim against them.
Teresa O’Connor: The Insurance Council of New Zealand’s imposition of its maximum fine of $100,000 on Youi is proof positive that this transnational corporation is indeed a rogue among rogues.
Dean Parker: Youi – outright criminals!
Chief Judge Sue Bradford wrote: Youi and (third placegetter) Uber are very similar. They don’t care about breaking the law. They just carry on abusing legal niceties and workers because they have had so much money poured into them. They are part of the new face of global capitalism taken to state-of-the-art levels of local illegality…Youi seems unrepentant despite court cases and fines for its outrageous rip off of customers and potential customers. For sheer cheekiness and disregard for the law Uber and Youi are up there.
The decision is accompanied by an extremely detailed and referenced Judges’ Report on South African-owned Youi: “In 2015, insurance company IAG/State won the Roger for its use of ‘delay-deny-defend’ tactics as it weaseled out of full and prompt settlement of the Canterbury earthquake claims of its small policyholders. In 2016, newcomer YouInsurance (Youi) storms into the lead with its guilty plea to a proven record of outright theft and fraud at the expense of its customers. Investigative journalist Diana Clement, who broke the story, says ‘I have been a journalist for over 30 years and this is one of the most despicable and shameful companies I have ever come across. I am still completely gobsmacked on a daily basis at how they treat New Zealanders’ Needless to say, although the company was successfully prosecuted and fined a token sum in 2016, not one of the managers and executives responsible has been prosecuted, the company continues to operate in New Zealand under its Reserve Bank licence, Youi remains a full member of the New Zealand Insurance Council, Hansard records no mention of the scandal in Parliament, television continues to carry the company’s deceptive advertising, and the Chief Executive Officer on whose watch it all happened has been promoted”.
The subheadings of the Judges Report tell the story very succinctly: “One Of The Most Despicable And Shameful Companies”; Incentivises Staff To Falsify And Defraud; No Written Record; Unauthorised Deductions; Caught Red-Handed In Full-Scale Criminal Scam; Minimal Penalty, Fine Effectively Refunded; Fraud And Theft Continue; Everything Depends On Reinsurance.
The Judges Report concludes: “While ideally, a new entrant into insurance should have been welcome as a means of keeping the others honest, this one looks to have introduced a new low in an already disreputable industry”.
I never met Doug Myers but in the anti-apartheid movement we battled his father Kenneth Myers in the 1970s and 1980s. Myers was Chair of the Board of South British Insurance – a company happy to reap profits from investments in apartheid South Africa.
Myers senior would pooh-pooh concerns about racism in South Africa when questioned at company AGMs. He’d say things to the effect that the company didn’t necessarily agree with apartheid but business was business…
We were successful with our insurance companies campaign which, after massive disruption to company AGMs and many public protests, ended when New Zealand Insurance and South British Insurance withdrew their investments from South Africa.
20 years later I wrote to his son Doug Myers about another issue where morality and business collided and received a similar response. Morality had no place in business.
Like father like son.
When I heard of Doug Myers death yesterday my first thought was to wonder if he was one of the “highest net wealth individuals” in New Zealand who declared incomes of less than $70,000 a year. (The Inland Revenue Department tells us that half this group don’t pay the top tax rate which comes in at $70,000)
In November 2013, the Herald published an interview with Myers which gave an insight into the idle lives of the super-wealthy:
“And he’s still having fun. He sold his luxury superyacht Senses. That’s freed up time to try other things. This year he’s been in New York with his son, fishing in Alaska, flew to Burgundy with friends to visit vineyards and then down to Tahiti to go fishing with Marlon Brando’s son.”
Across the media Myers is being praised as a business leader and philanthropist yet he made money not through his own efforts but through using his massive inherited wealth to exploit the free-market economic policies he championed, as a leading light in the Business Roundtable, alongside the Labour Party of the 1980s. That wealth he gained was at the expense of middle and low-income New Zealanders who continue to struggle today to provide that triple lining to the pockets of the super wealthy.
The November 2013 interview with Myers finished like this.
“Life’s not fair and you need to accept it and get on with it. And do the best with the hand you’ve been dealt.”
Myers would have said the same thing to African slaves.
In reply to Chris Trotter and other New Zealand Leftists and Liberals rushing to excuse, or explain away, the Syrian Regime’s aerial gas attack on the liberated Syrian province of Idlib.
I was in Syria for during September/October 2010 as a member of the Kia Ora Gaza team attached to the Viva Palestina mission to break the siege of Gaza.
We were hosted by Palestinian refugees in the Northern coastal city of Latakia refugee camp of
It may not have been a long time, but I can tell you it was long enough to recognise that we were in an oppressive police state.
We had entered Syria from the Southern Turkish University city of Asana, following a route through the Turkish cities of Kay Saree, Ankara, and Istanbul.
All the way we were hosted by Palestinian refugees, residents in the cities we passed through. Following not long after the Turkish aid ship Mavi Marama massacre, our overland convoy had got a lot of media attention, enough to attract the attention of then Dictator of Egypt Hosni Mubarak. While we were in Turkey Mubarak issued a press statement that the overland convoy would not be allowed to enter Gaza through the Rafah Gate.
At an information rally in the main square in Istanbul, during an impromptu TV interview, I was asked to comment on Mubarak’s statement that our convoy would not be allowed to enter Gaza by the Egyptian State. I knew that a smaller previous overland convoy made up of Westerners had embarrassed the regime of Mubarak into opening the crossing against Israel’s wishes. So I made a statement to the Turkish media that We will be entering Gaza, and we will accept nothing less”. My defiant reply to Mubarak was translated into Arabic and played across the Arab World, even in Egypt.
To prevent a repeat of his experience with the last overland convoy, Mubarak then announced that we would be banned from entering Egypt completely. (This was an unprecedented move by Mubarak, as the Egyptian tourist business which makes up a large of the Eygptian economy is heavily reliant on Western visitors which have a special status not accorded the locals.
That is how we became stranded in the Palestinian refugee camp in Latakia.
During this period it became clear that we were also an embarrassment to the Syrian authorities.
Almost very night during our stay in the refugee camp, political rallies over Mubarak’s ban attracted large gatherings of Palestinians, and Syrians from the nearby city.
Meanwhile we were not going anywhere. And the political rallies were growing bigger and bigger.
Eventually a deal was struck between the Egyptian and Syrian Governments that we would be allowed to leave Syria for Egypt. On the understanding that we would be escorted under close military guard all the way to Rafah and through the crossing into Gaza.
The agreement was that we were not to stop or interact with the Egyptian populace in any way.
And so it was, the surreal event unfolded where under the muzzle of Egyptian guns we were escorted into Gaza, and after delivering our medical aid to the besieged city, and after a short 3 night stay in the city, we were again escorted out through Egypt under armed Egyptian guard in the middle of the night and immediately deported.
It was while we were in Gaza that we saw the first stirrings of the Arab Spring. In the lobby of the Palestinian Hotel where we stayed in Gaza, there was a flat screen TV that was always tuned to Al Jazeera Arabic. The screen showed massive demonstrations breaking out in Egypt in the universities. Many of the student protesters among the massive crowds were flying the Palestinian flags. I asked the Palestinian concierge behind the desk to change the channel to Al Jazeera English, which he did. But the feed was completely different, game shows and trivia. No mention of the huge student protests in Egypt. (I asked the concierge to change the channel back to Al Jazeera Arabic, (getting him to translate the commentary for me) in the end Mubarak ordered the army to violently occupy and close down all the universities, with some deaths and many arrests.
Being Westerners we seemed to be in safe place in the eye of the storm. But all around us we witnessed the seething resentment of the totalitarian regimes that were keeping the Arab people down, both in Syria and Egypt. In fact of the three societies I witnessed, Gaza, (apart from the murderous Israeli terrorist invasions and attacks) was the most liberated and relaxed and free of the societies, where we could go where ever we liked and talk to whoever we met. But even while we were there, there was a small Israeli air raid on the tunnel complex in the South of the Gaza strip and Israeli jets buzzed the city at night waking us up.
The point of all this, is that during my stay in Latakia Syria I got to meet many people both Syrian and Palestinian and the their hatred and distain for the dictatorship was palatable. The refugees explained to me that far from being a liberator and protector of the Palestinians, the Assad regime had made their peace with the Zionists.
If I had time I could write at length of the many personal interactions I experienced. Many of the refugees were intrigued and fascinated that I as a secular Westerner were interested in their cause, whereas the authorities of the Arab country of Syria treated them with suspicion and antipathy.
Some of the refugees I met had fled Zionist violence in Israel and had remained traumatised by it, they told me that they and others suffered flashbacks and panic attacks whenever the Syrian military regime made a show of force in the camp.
On returning to New Zealand I followed events in Middle East and in Syria very closely. The Arab Spring which is the biggest protest movement in history, involving the mobilisation of tens of millions, overthrew the Western backed dictatorships of Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt. As well as giving some serious frights to the reactionary emirate autocracies.
I knew from my experience that the Arab Spring would have a harder time in Syria, and that the regime would have no hesitation on turning to massive violence to put down any popular movement opposed to the dictatorship.
I remember being shocked and appalled watching You Tube video of feeds of the regime bombing and shelling the refugee camp in Latakia where I had stayed. The refugee camp in Latakia was one of, if not the very first, community attacked with full military force by the regime.
Having met the people and walked its streets I can vouch that the people would have been completely helpless in face the massive military violence unleashed against them. Some of the refugees I had met had fled Zionist violence in Israel and still remained traumatised by it, and told me that they and others suffered flashbacks whenever the Syrian military authorities made a show of force in the camp. I watched helplessly as live feeds showed Syrian warships shelling the refugee camp from the sea and army tanks rolling into the camp, as fighter planes straffed the camp from the air.
And what was the refugees of Latakia’s crime?
Joining with the Syrian people protesting the regime in the City centre.
At the beginning of the repression Palestinian refugee camps, particularly the biggest refugee camp in Syria on the outskirts of Damascus offered a haven to Syrian civilians fleeing the violence. Only to attract the regime’s wrath to themselves, with starvation siege and aerial bombardment.
In the end in Latakia, in a scene reminiscent of the Pinochet Junta in Chile, the majority of the population of Latakia refugee camp were herded into the Latakia football stadium, from where many were sent into detention never to be seen again and the rest were scattered to join the 13 million refugees and internally displaced.
North Korea refuses to end its nuclear testing program.
The US sent naval warships to waters near the Korean peninsula Sunday as North Korea continues to defy calls from world leaders to end its nuclear testing program.
An aircraft carrier, along with several other ships, make up the Carl Vinson strike group which moved toward the peninsula Sunday. The ships have the ability to both fire and intercept missiles.
“The number one threat in the region continues to be North Korea, due to its reckless, irresponsible and destabilising programme of missile tests and pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability,” US Pacific Command spokesman Dave Benham told the BBC.
Allies of Damascus have threatened reprisals against any party that carries out “aggression” against Syria, two days after US missile strikes hit a Syrian airbase.
“The aggression against Syria oversteps all red lines. We will react firmly to any aggression against Syria and to any infringement of red lines, whoever carries them out,” said a statement on Sunday from the Syria-based joint operations room for government backers Russia, Iran and allied forces including Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
“The United States knows very well our ability to react,” said the statement published on the website of Al-Watan, a daily newspaper close to the regime.
The statement also accused the US of acting before any investigation into the suspected chemical attack was conducted and did not wait for any UN approval.
We continue our roundtable discussion on Syria after the United States carried out a missile attack on a Syrian airfield, saying it was a response to a chemical weapons attack that killed 86 people, including at least 30 children. Syria denies carrying out the attack. “Both these superpowers … do not give a damn about Syrian self-determination nor justice for Syrians,” says Yazan al-Saadi, a Syrian-Canadian writer who joins us from Beirut. “We do want something that will be positive for the Syrian people,” adds Medea Benjamin, cofounder of CodePink. “That means immediately lifting of the Trump ban on Syrian refugees coming to the United States, of funding of the $5 billion that the U.N. says is desperately needed to help the humanitarian crisis facing the Syrian refugees, and demand that the U.S. work with Russia to finally come to a ceasefire and work for a political solution.” We are also joined by Alia Malek, journalist and former human rights lawyer, and Phyllis Bennis, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.
IN EVERY TYPE of government, nothing unites people behind the leader more quickly, reflexively or reliably than war. Donald Trump now sees how true that is, as the same establishment leaders in U.S. politics and media who have spent months denouncing him as a mentally unstable and inept authoritarian and unprecedented threat to democracy are standing and applauding him as he launches bombs at Syrian government targets.
Trump, on Thursday night, ordered an attack that the Pentagon said included the launching of 59 Tomahawk missiles which “targeted aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, air defense systems, and radars.” The governor of Homs, the Syrian province where the attack occurred, said early this morning that the bombs killed seven civilians and wounded nine.
The Pentagon’s statement said the attack was “in retaliation for the regime of Bashar Assad using nerve agents to attack his own people.” Both Syria and Russia vehemently deny that the Syrian military used chemical weapons.
Back-to-back severe bleaching events have affected two-thirds of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, new aerial surveys have found.
The findings have caused alarm among scientists, who say the proximity of the 2016 and 2017 bleaching events is unprecedented for the reef, and will give damaged coral little chance to recover.
Scientists with the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies last week completed aerial surveys of the world’s largest living structure, scoring bleaching at 800 individual coral reefs across 8,000km.
The results show the two consecutive mass bleaching events have affected a 1,500km stretch, leaving only the reef’s southern third unscathed.
Where last year’s bleaching was concentrated in the reef’s northern third, the 2017 event spread further south, and was most intense in the middle section of the Great Barrier Reef. This year’s mass bleaching, second in severity only to 2016, has occurred even in the absence of an El Niño event.
The Greenpeace boat Taitu has intercepted the world’s biggest seismic blasting ship, the Amazon Warrior, AKA The Beast, about 50 nautical miles off the Wairarapa Coast.
Greenpeace NZ executive director Russel Norman is on board and has made a call through to the master of the Amazon Warrior. In the call he demanded that the Amazon Warrior cease seismic blasting, informing them of the widespread opposition to oil drilling in NZ waters by local councils, iwi and large numbers of New Zealanders. He also informs the Amazon Warrior that he and Taitu will act consistently with the principles of non-violence at all times but are there to take action to protect our common future.
Taitu was crowdfunded by Greenpeace in only seven days specifically to venture out and confront the oil exploration that is being carried out on behalf of Chevron and Statoil.
Youth organisation Generation Zero is today launching its blueprint for a powerful new climate change law to get New Zealand to zero carbon by 2050 or sooner, and is calling for cross-party support.
“Climate change is bigger than politics,” says Lisa McLaren, national convenor for the Zero Carbon Act campaign.
“We need political parties to work together on this and look beyond election cycles.”
The proposed Zero Carbon Act will work by requiring future governments to set five year ‘carbon budgets’ on track to the zero carbon target, and then make plans to meet these. It will set up an independent Climate Commission whose role is to provide expert advice on targets and policies and to monitor the Government’s progress.
The idea is based on the UK’s successful 2008 Climate Change Act, which has helped the UK cut its carbon pollution by 28% at the same as reducing energy bills.
The Act will also require a National Climate Risk Assessment updated every five years, a climate change adaptation programme, and transparent planning and reporting on New Zealand’s contributions to climate action in other countries.
“We are a decade behind leading countries like the UK. The Zero Carbon Act is the solution we need to get our country on the right track,” says Miss McLaren.
“In the last few months our country has been battered by storms, droughts and wildfires. Climate change is already affecting our own backyard.”
“I am worried because things will keep getting worse for my generation unless we act. It is going to be our homes that are damaged, and our friends and family trying to clean up the mess. The burden of inaction will be too much.”
Forest & Bird, WWF-New Zealand and Oxfam New Zealand are urging people to support the Zero Carbon Act.
Forest & Bird climate advocate Adelia Hallett says; “Right now, we’ve got floods affecting not only people, but also our precious wildlife, and at the rate we’re going, this is going to be the new normal.”
“Cutting emissions is one of the most effective things we can do to reduce the impact of climate change, but we need to work together to do it.”
WWF-New Zealand campaigner David Tong says; “Setting a long-term goal and establishing a climate commission could be the key to unlocking climate action beyond short-term electoral cycles. It brings transparency to government’s climate change commitments.”
“It would give businesses, councils and ordinary Kiwis a predictable pathway for our national shift to a clean energy future. Businesses and investors especially need that information to make sensible, future-proof budgeting decisions.”
Oxfam New Zealand advocacy and campaigns director Paula Feehan says; “Carbon pollution is threatening the air that you, me and our children breathe, the seas we swim and fish in, and even the land which gives us our food. And our neighbours in the Pacific, who have caused some of the very least pollution, are those who are facing the worst effects right now.”
“All the political parties who care about New Zealanders, who care about our way of life, who care about our Pacific neighbours, should be backing this important proposed piece of legislation right now.”
Generation Zero spent over six months developing its detailed blueprint for the Zero Carbon Act and consulted with dozens of experts and organisations.
“Our proposal isn’t just a ‘carbon copy’ of the UK Act. We’ve thought long and hard about how to make this work for New Zealand,” says Miss McLaren.
A key difference from the UK model is the introduction of a ‘two baskets approach’ for the different greenhouse gases. Short-lived gases (such as methane) do not need to go to zero and will have a separate target under the Act.
“The Zero Carbon Act needs cross-party support for it to work. We will be pushing for all political parties to back the Act and we want New Zealanders from all walks of life to join us,” says Miss McLaren.
Alongside the blueprint, Generation Zero has launched a petition to the next Parliament to work together to develop and pass the Zero Carbon Act. The group intends to table this in Parliament after the September election.
The Government is not moving fast enough to protect New Zealanders say advocates, following a third fatal crash involving a truck and a cyclist in a month.
Five of the last 7 cyclist fatalities involved a truck.
“It’s been two and half years since the Cycling Safety Panel recommended 15 high priority actions to make our roads safer,” says Patrick Morgan, spokesman for Cycling Action Network (CAN).
“Action has been too slow. It is clear how to make our roads safer, so why are we waiting? How many more people will die?”
The Cycling Safety Panel recommended, among other things:
• Investigate the costs and benefits of introducing mandatory truck side-under-run protection and other vehicle safety features (such as better mirrors, sensors and cameras).
• Design intersections so they are safe for cyclists. Trial European design guidelines for roundabouts and other innovative treatments.
• Increase and incentivise training for commercial drivers about driving safely near cyclists.
Raise cyclist awareness of the risks of riding near heavy vehicles.
“After more than two years, nothing has come out of the recommendation to investigate truck safety features,” says Mr Morgan.
“There are proven features that should be adopted as a requirement on trucks. Specifically, more effective mirrors, sensors, cameras and side under-run protection.”
“Intersection design and a lack of road shoulders are factors in some fatalities – known black spots – and should be addressed as a priority by Councils.”
CAN runs a Share the Road programme, which educates truck drivers and cyclists to be more aware of each other and adopt safer behaviours.
Share the Road is funded by NZTA and shows positive results. It has engaged with around 3,500 people over the past 5 years. However the programme reaches only a small proportion of truck drivers.
“We are only ever going to touch a small percentage of drivers until we are involved in the national driver training qualification system,” says Mr Morgan.
The recent deaths occurred near Tekapo on 15 March, in Hamilton on 5 April, and at Pakowhai in Hawkes Bay on 6 April.
