By Geoffrey Miller Winston Peters has made his first comments on the ongoing crisis in Belarus, following rigged elections in the country often referred to as ‘Europe’s last dictatorship’. Belarus’s President, Alexander Lukashenko, is refusing to give up power despite days of mass protests following presidential elections that have been widely seen as fraudulent. Official …
By Geoffrey Miller Prominent refugee advocate Murdoch Stephens says he is disappointed by Judith Collins’ reaction to Immigration New Zealand’s decision to grant refugee status to Kurdish-Iranian writer Behrouz Boochani. Judith Collins told media last month that “there’s a lot of concern in New Zealand about what they see as queue jumping and so I’m …
By Geoffrey Miller A New Zealand academic specialising in Latin America believes that NZ’s relationship with Latin America will remain strong, even if direct flights do not immediately resume to the continent after the immediate coronavirus crisis subsides. Nikita Kent, a Victoria University of Wellington graduate who studied in Peru and recently completed a UN …
By Geoffrey Miller A former Labour press secretary and speechwriter who worked under late Prime Minister Mike Moore says that it’s far from certain that the lockdown solution is the best response to Covid-19 – and we should be questioning the government’s response to the pandemic much more vigorously. Mark Blackham, now director of Wellington …
By Geoffrey Miller The National Secretary of the Unite union, Gerard Hehir, says government departments are failing to ensure low-paid hotel cleaners are given personal protective equipment while the hotels are housing returning New Zealanders in quarantine. Hehir gave the Democracy Project podcast an example of a Christchurch hotel which told its employees that they …
By Geoffrey Miller A New Zealand-based academic from Iran says the coronavirus pandemic is unlikely to spark fundamental change in the country. Iran was one of the first countries outside China to see a major outbreak of the coronavirus. Figures from Johns Hopkins University on Sunday showed there were 35,408 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in …