They can be a serious lot in New Zealand. They got upset at – forgive this author such reference – the use of a rule in cricket back in February 1981 which led to expressions of misty anger from the Prime Minister of the day, Robert Muldoon. While permissible within the laws of cricket, sides […]
FIFA is a funny organisation. Mafia-run, obscenely corrupt, it governs the most popular game on the planet with a shameless, muscular vigour that must make other criminal enterprises green with envy. But even its members must find the curious limitations to viewing matches of the 2023 Women’s World Cup being held in Australia and New […]
Profligate, a betrayal of public service, a misspending of state goods, a fiscal barbarism. By any estimation, recent efforts regarding sport in the small Australian state of Tasmania, unmoored from the mainland, distant, and, in many ways, depressed, has become the unexpected centre of a debate: Why on earth should the public purse at both […]
Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, grabbed the global limelight a few years ago, making headlines by stating she wanted to put “kindness” into politics. In 2019, Foreign Policy, a publication closely associated with the Atlantic Council and the US State Department, published the article ‘The Kindness Quotient’, a glowing promotion of Ardern. The strategic […]
Obscenities occupy the annals of State behaviour, revolting reminders about what governments can do. One of Australia’s most pronounced and undeniable obscenities is its continuing effort to gut and empty international refugee law of its relevant foundations. Instead of being treated as a scandal, populists and governments the world over have expressed admiration, even envy: […]
Not wishing to be left out from the brutal closed border system that has characterised COVID-19 policy in Australia, New Zealand has also been every bit as extreme in limiting the return of its nationals. Pandemic policy, if not logic, has taken issue with the nature of citizenship, which, truth be told, is simply not […]
The result of a vote, on December 14, in the US House of Representatives regarding the combating of Islamophobia, may possibly appear to be a positive sign of change, that Washington is finally confronting this socio-political evil. However, conclusions must not be too hasty. Disquietingly, Congress was nearly split on the vote. While 219 voted in […]
The U.S. is home to the largest number of privately-operated charter schools in the world (about 7,400). While they take different forms and are called different things, charter schools also exist in much smaller numbers in New Zealand, England, United Arab Emirates, Australia, and Canada. Charter schools are privatized, marketized, corporatized school arrangements buttressed by […]
It was such a noble public health dream, even if rather hazy to begin with. Run down SARS-CoV-2. Suppress it. Crush it. Or just “flatten the curve”, which could have meant versions of all the above. This created a climate of numerical sensitivity: a few case infections here, a few cases there, would warrant immediate, […]
The post Funeral Rites for COVID Zero first appeared on Dissident Voice.
There are some crises that never touch the well-heeled. Money, like flab, insulates them from bruising. The generally applied laws of a state can be treated as meaningless jottings; the citizenry ignored with class contempt. But few can blame the world’s sixth wealthiest person, Larry Page, for circumstances that were gifted to him. An opportunity […]
