ABC Updates
21 June 2019
1/
Donald Trump has announced that he is running for re-election in 2020
and has started campaigning (in reality that is all he's ever been
doing while supposedly "governing" as President). In light of that,
put the dates
November 8-14, 2021, into your diaries. Why? That is
Leaders' Week for APEC 2021 in Auckland. NZ is the
2021 host nation for APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation), which
involves a whole year of APEC meetings and activities.
So, if Trump
is re-elected he will be in Auckland during that week.
See
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/95803010/new-zealand-confirmed-as-host-nation-of-apec-in-2021 and
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12176552.
Put
those November 2021 dates in your diary regardless of whether Trump is
re-elected or not.
Whoever is US
President will be at APEC in Auckland (along with the
leaders of countries like China, Russia and the Philippines. So
Auckland could be hostingTrump, Putin, Xi Jinping and Duterte all at
the same time). The last time a US President - Bill Clinton - visited
NZ was the last time NZ hosted APEC, in 1999, also in Auckland.
2/
Funny things involving the NZ covert State happen when NZ hosts APEC
Meetings. Let's not forget that it was during Christchurch activities
in opposition to the APEC Trade Ministers' meeting in 1996 that
Security Intelligence Service
(SIS)
agents were caught breaking into the Christchurch home of activist
Aziz
Choudry. The best summary of the whole fascinating
ensuing saga can be read at
http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/choudry.htm Not only did Aziz win
his civil damages case against the Crown but so did
David Small,
the fellow activist who caught the SIS agents in the act and, for his
trouble, was raided by the Police on totally Mickey Mouse grounds.
David's victory can be read here
http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/94/7david.htm
3/
The annual NZ Defence Industry Forum (better known as the
Weapons Expo)
has attracted very vigorous protests in recent years, wherever it has
been held - Wellington or Auckland and, in 2018, in Palmerston North.
See
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/369867/ten-arrested-in-protests-at-weapons-expo-in-palmerston-north Now,
the good news is that the
Palmerston
North City Council may have been shamed into not hosting it in 2019
4/ "Talking
of the nation’s defence and security, the
annual budget allocation for the security services
that did such a great job recently in protecting us from extremism has
gone
up from $83,577 million to $106,145 million, a 27% increase.
Feeling safer? Not." Gordon Campbell on the Budget,
Scoop,
31/5/19.
5/
The
Listener's Australian columnist on the recent Police raids
there on journalists, to find their sources for stories on Aussie SAS
war crimes in Afghanistan and domestic mass surveillance
https://www.noted.co.nz/currently/world/police-abc-raid-australia-united-fractious-media/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=LISTENER_newsletter_25-06-2019&utm_content=B&utm_term=list_nzlistener_newsletter
6/
The most recent development in the ongoing (and mostly secret)
NZ inquiry
into NZ SAS war crimes in Afghanistan is that it has
now been established that Taliban members were present at the place
where civilans were killed. Does this make any difference to the
claims made by Nicky Hager and Jon Stehenson in their book "Hit And
Run", which is the reason that the inquiry was set up? Not a bit of
it. Here's a
Stuff
editorial
7/
It is good news that
NZ is pulling
its military out of Iraq (but not for another year,
and there are no plans to do likewise in Afghanistan). The official
propaganda story has always been that NZ's role in Iraq has been
"training" the local military. Oh yeah. In fact, NZs hands are as
dirty as those of everybody else involved in Iraq. None more so than
being involved in the use of
white
phosphorus, a hideous chemical that burns through
flesh to the bone. Here's a 2017 story from US National Public Radio,
about the uise of white phosphorus to "liberate" the Iraqi city of
Mosul from ISIS (it was "liberated" by being bombed flat, with huge
loss of civilan life).
Note that the
General quoted in the story is - a New Zealander.
Winston Peters, Minister of Foreign Affairs, defends the use of white
phosphorus in Iraq (in a letter, 25/6/19, to peace activist Maire
Leadbeater): "New Zealand has consistently condemned any use of
incendiary weapons against civilians or civilan objects, and any other
uses incompatible with rules of international humanitarian law. The
precise and discriminate use of white phosphorus for obscuration
effect is not unlawful, however, it can have military and humaniatrian
utilty, for example in facilitating the escape of civilans from
conflict zones". Well, that's all right then. Winston Peters is pretty
good himself at the old "obscuration effect".
8/
ABC's latest
Peace
Researcher (June 2019) is at
http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr/pr-backissues/PR57.pdf
Secretary/Organiser
Anti-Bases Campaign
Box 2258, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand
abc@chch.planet.org.nz
www.converge.org.nz/abc
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