We thought it might be a nice feature to from time to time present a serious review of stories in the international press, with at least some indirect relevance to New Zealand.
We begin by taking apart an issue (Friday’s) Singapore’s Straits Times. Even though Singapore doesn’t exactly allow a free press, the Straits Times is hugely superior to any New Zealand paper as far as international news is concerned.
We Are Running Out Of Food Again – Thanks Frogblog and friends
The paper is devoted almost exclusively to stories about every Singaporean’s worst nightmare, bare shelves where there should be rice on the supermarket shelves. Ministers are calming concerns by assuring the population that there is plenty of rice in stock, but expect price rises. Why has this problem arisen? Poor Government policy says Singapore’s Government. Anything in particular? A breakdown in governance in Myanmar and the shift to biofuels in Thailand. Thailand doesn’t seem to be too worried about having its priorities in the wrong place. Just this week the Thai Government approved a NZ$15 billion subsidy programme to switch more agriculture land to biofuels.
Is this just a problem being felt in Singapore – no way. The same paper has an article about life sentences being handed out in the Philippines for people hoarding grains. And there is an AFP story about the World Bank calling on Governments to act to counter rocketing food prices now or else “many people will suffer and starve”. World Bank Chief Robert Zoellick is calling for a “new deal” for global food policy. Some on The Hive team know Bob well. He is not one to conjure up images of Democrat Party policy from the 1930s lightly. We should be very worried. Bob’s “New Deal” might not be that good for the sustainability of current dairy price levels.
But if we don’t act, we will be soon facing, thanks to our ill thought out reflex reaction to Al Gore’s movie and pressure from the “Greens”, millions facing starvation to our North. And we are not just talking poor countries. Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan are far from self sufficient. Dust off your history books readers. We could be in for “interesting times” – in China this is a curse…..
UN Gets It Very Wrong – Too Much Free Speech?
Ok we know that New Zealand is not currently on the UN Human Rights Council (you have to get elected on to the Council – there are only 47 members), but we should be going berserk at what has just happened. The Council – hijacked by Arab and other Muslim Countries, has passed a resolution that will see the Council monitor abuses of free speech. Great, you might say, NZ will be in trouble because of the Electoral Finance Act. But you are wrong. An abuse of free speech means being too free with your speech. Great news for those wanting to curtail freedom of expression and dissenting views, but bad for those who hold freedom of expression (as we do at The Hive) to be a fundamental right. What is really frightening is that this dreadful resolution was passed 32-0. Canada, Britain, Switzerland and a total of 15 abstained (why they did not vote against we can’t explain). Like our friend the jailed Saudi blogger, here we have an issue that is a direct threat to a right that most New Zealanders hold dear (in previous generations we were prepared to put our lives on the line for it) but our Government is strangely silent. Why?????
Obama’s Trade Policy Sucks
AFP and Reuters report frightening details of the product of the tortured thought processes going on in Barak Obama’s mind when it comes to trade policy. In a desperate bid to win votes in Pennsylvania Senator Obama has let fly again at Nafta and deemed the yet to be finalised Korea-US FTA “bad for American workers”.
This shows Obama to be a complete idiot, but it is good news for New Zealand. We lost huge markets in Mexico thanks to Nafta and the US FTA with Korea will kill us there unless we can get an FTA quickly (Chile has wounded us pretty severely in Korea). So much as we hate him, we say go Barak. Keep up the good work in killing US export competitiveness.
