If factories can pick up and move overseas when they want, then why can’t workers? That’s what the US Socialist Worker Party’s candidate for the Presidency, Roger Calero, reckons.

I interviewed Calero a few weeks ago and, on the whole, our perspectives on world affairs were so far apart that I sometimes wondered if we were both talking about the same global system.

But I agreed with what he had to say about immigration.
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How do you conduct a credible study? Well, if you’re looking into the effects of a company’s practices, it might look a little more kosher if that company doesn’t fund the research.

This story in today’s Herald reports on a Dow-funded study into the health effects of a Dow weed-killer factory in Taranaki.

The study concluded that “there is no evidence of increased cancer or disease” related to dioxin exposure at the factory.

But buried at the bottom of the story (page two on the web version), is the study leader’s acknowledgement that the research “incorrectly suggested that health effects had been studied”.

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When Winston Peters holds up his little “No” placard, it makes me want to say “yes”. It’s a knee-jerk reaction, but I can’t help it.

So I say that this free trade deal with China is not the end of the world as we know it.

I can’t help thinking that more than a few of those who give Chinese human rights abuses as a reason not to sign were just using a new wagon for an old band. By which I mean ardent protectionists - who simply don’t want to open the country to a trade liberalisation agreement with China - used the recent protests in Tibet as a vehicle to make their point.
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The sentence: six months home detention
The crime: coming to New Zealand on a false passport, and using a false name (and, one would presume, false documentation) to apply for citizenship and a New Zealand passport.
Now, I’m no Sensible Sentencing Trust fanatic, but to me this story just doesn’t add up.

A Ukranian guy who came to New Zealand in 2004 with a false passport was sentenced to 3 years in jail (on appeal reduced to 18months). In 1997 a woman arrived with a false Dutch passport and claimed refugee status - even she was given three months jail.

The Department of Internal Affairs tells us that passport forgery “ is not worth the risk - don’t try it you will be caught“. But it seems that if you have the right connections, then getting caught doesn’t even land you in much trouble.

What is this guy still doing in New Zealand?
What are we not being told in this story??

What do Elliot Spitzer and Ben Bernanke have in common?
Greg Palast reckons that Spitzer aggravated important people with his meddling in the affairs of banks which were throwing around cash at sub-prime mortgages.
Have a look at this story and ask yourself how the media got wind that Spitzer was throwing around cash at expensive hookers.

I’m all for the wee guy sticking it to the big bully… but I think we need to remember that the wee kid isn’t always spotless (or even particularly good) himself.
I am of course referring to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his aggravation of the United States. The super power has rampantly mixed itself up with Latin American affairs over centuries. But that doesn’t mean that any opposition is good opposition.
So I was disappointed with John Pilger’s documentary “The War on Democracy”, which provides a remarkably un-nuanced view of intra-American affairs.
Chavez good, USA bad: the world just doesn’t work in black and white.
Anyway, have a look at the review I did for the Pacific Media Centre online and let me know what you think. So far I’ve been told that it’s “fair and balanced”, and I must say it worries me that Fox News comes to mind when someone reads my writing…

I saw a great film on Saturday. It wasn’t Lions for Lambs. No. While Robert Redford’s War on Terror film touched some interesting ideas – political discourse, the role of the media, and where your average Joe America fits into the big picture – it treated them in an insultingly facile manner.
If you’re interested in these themes, you will have thought about them beyond what this film shows you. Flick on the news and you can see that politicians are smarmy and calculating, that big television networks consider that reading out government press releases constitutes broadcasting news, and that despite its billions spent on defence the US ain’t making much progress in Afghanistan.
And if you’re not interested in these ideas… well then you’re probably not about to run out and see the film, are you?

In compensation for Redford’s film being so disappointingly weak, we headed for FNAC in search of Michael Mann’s The Insider. It took a while to track it down – over here they call it El Dilema – but it was worth the wait. I recommend you hire the DVD, and leave Lions for Lambs till it comes out on free-to-air TV and you can be bothered taking the time to set the video.

Bisher al-Rawi was a UK-based informant for the MI5. As a way of saying thanks for all the hard work he put into liaising with and providing information on people under watch, the agency forwarded incorrect information to the CIA, and al-Rawi was kidnapped, put in nappies and a blindfold, strapped to a stretcher, and flown to Guantánamo bay. For a bit of variety the CIA threw in a three month stopover in a “Dark Prison” in Afghanistan where the only light he saw was the occasional dim beam from the guard’s torch and it was so cold he could feel ice crystals forming in his drinks.

We’ve heard about the horrors of Guantánamo Bay and the CIA’s black sites, but the level of official complicity seen in al-Rawi’s case is astounding. al-Rawi’s arrest was due to the MI5 deliberately passing on completely false information to the CIA, according to the Observer article which broke the story on Sunday. Read the rest of this article »

A while ago in Spanish class we got chatting with the teacher about Spanish attitudes towards the Royal Family. Some students remarked on the overwhelmingly positive coverage of the monarchs in gossip rags: the press gushes over them in a way completely foreign to the snarky tabloids in Britain, for example. Our teacher explained that it was in line with Spanish attitudes: that the public loves the royals and just wouldn’t tolerate criticism of them.

More specifically, as it turns out, it’s the police who won’t tolerate criticism – or even mickey-taking – of them. Recently a judge ordered all copies of the weekly satirical magazine El Jueves to be seized by police. The issue featured a tasteful cartoon of the Prince and Princess engaging in an act generally glossed over in fairy tales, with the Prince remarking that, due to a new initiative to pay couples to have children, if the Princess got pregnant, then this would be the closest he’d ever come to actually doing work. Read the rest of this article »

I’m seeing London through new eyes since I’ve been back. The thing that has struck me the most is the omnipresent environmental awareness: it almost makes me feel a little out-hippied at times.

Carbon footprints and organics are not topics left for soap-dodging Marxist vegetarians to rant about – environmental affairs are so mainstream that huge companies like Marks and Spencers or Sky Television advertise their commitment to ecological principles. Seeing the packaging-heavy programme for the recent Diana tribute concert, a genuinely concerned Prince Harry leaned over to an aide and asked: “What happened to saving the planet?”

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