Your sovereign rights being flushed down the toilet by our politicians

[Brian d marge]

meanwhile ....back in modern day England;

The bourgeoisie have made further progress in the art of hiding the distress of the working-class. But that, in regard to their dwellings, no substantial improvement has taken place, is amply proved by the Report of the Royal Commission “on the Housing of the Poor,” 1885. And this is the case, too, in other respects. Police regulations have been plentiful as blackberries; but they can only hedge in the distress of the workers, they cannot remove it

TX1138

[oldrider]

letters to the editors

some people write them.

some are really good at it

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...bc1_story.html

TPPA will bring in FDA into NZ and that is the worst aspect of the whole "agreement" IMHO - the FDA are a bunch of self interested crooks!

The TPPA has too many one way fish hooks that favour America - John Key's special friends!

[yokel]

interesting talk from Barry Smith.

http://youtu.be/JSi__wuFDTw?t=25m

[Brian d marge]

might help broaden some horizons

Stephen

[Brian d marge]

Might go down to the beach today and have a walk....

oh wait I cant ....private access only ....bum

Stephen

[ellipsis]

...I need some more sovereigns...right's always turn to wrong's down the track a bit...shit has been a constant through the whole span of sentient life, um?...shitting on the planet...

[Ocean1]

Might go down to the beach today and have a walk....

oh wait I cant ....private access only ....bum

Stephen

You mean Maori access only.

[Brian d marge]

You mean Maori access only.

and russian

[awayatc]

and russian

Rublish....

[blue rider]

Regarding this global network of surveillance stations, the Sunday Star-Times reports:

Altogether, these bases can snoop on the entire world, friend as well as foe.

The leaked documents do not talk about "Waihopai". They use the station's secret Five Eyes code name Ironsand ("IS"). It's not clear why Waihopai is Ironsand.

An NSA map shows it is one of a global network of oddly-named satellite interception stations. These stations are the eyes of the Five Eyes alliance.

Australia has a base near Geraldton, a small port city on the west coast of Australia. Its codename is Stellar.

The British station in Oman has the codename Snick. Britain's Kenya base is known as Scapel. Britain also spies on satellites from Carboy, a station in Cornwall, and from a base in Cyprus called Sounder.

The American equivalents of Waihopai are Jackknife in Washington State on the Pacific coast, Timberline in West Virginia and Coraline in Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. The biggest of these is the Moonpenny base in Harrogate, Yorkshire.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/201...all-process-it

New Zealand’s prime minister John Key insisted that the revelations were wrong, but then refused to explain why, telling a press conference he had “no intention of telling you about how we do things.” Meanwhile, GCSB chief Sir Bruce Ferguson admitted that “mass collection” of data was indeed being undertaken in the Pacific, and said it was “mission impossible” to eliminate New Zealanders’ communications from the data being swept up.

rights? you have no stinking rights.
Gutless comes to mind. Middle NZ is gutless.

[Brian d marge]

http://www.commondreams.org/news/201...all-process-it





rights? you have no stinking rights.
Gutless comes to mind. Middle NZ is gutless.

Heres the reason why NZers dont give a fk....


http://markmanson.net/not-giving-a-fuck#fu25aqgmf


Stephen

[Brian d marge]

Bye bye Health care , its been nice knowing you

Snip

The KiwiSaver-style approach to boosting the number of people with private health insurance could take pressure off the state health system, according to a report to be published today.
The report by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) canvases the policy options that politicians have at their disposal to encourage people to buy their own private health insurance.
One option would be to mimic an aspect of KiwiSaver and auto-enrol people in a health insurance plan when they start a new job. The report was paid for by the Health Funds Association, the lobby group for health insurers such as Southern Cross, nib, and Sovereign.

[blue rider]

stuff on the internets

https://wikileaks.org/tpp-investment/press.html

Current TPP negotiation member states are the United States, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Chile, Singapore, Peru, Vietnam, New Zealand and Brunei. The TPP is the largest economic treaty in history, including countries that represent more than 40 per cent of the world´s GDP.

The Investment Chapter highlights the intent of the TPP negotiating parties, led by the United States, to increase the power of global corporations by creating a supra-national court, or tribunal, where foreign firms can "sue" states and obtain taxpayer compensation for "expected future profits". These investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) tribunals are designed to overrule the national court systems. ISDS tribunals introduce a mechanism by which multinational corporations can force governments to pay compensation if the tribunal states that a country's laws or policies affect the company's claimed future profits. In return, states hope that multinationals will invest more. Similar mechanisms have already been used. For example, US tobacco company Phillip Morris used one such tribunal to sue Australia (June 2011 – ongoing) for mandating plain packaging of tobacco products on public health grounds; and by the oil giant Chevron against Ecuador in an attempt to evade a multi-billion-dollar compensation ruling for polluting the environment. The threat of future lawsuits chilled environmental and other legislation in Canada after it was sued by pesticide companies in 2008/9. ISDS tribunals are often held in secret, have no appeal mechanism, do not subordinate themselves to human rights laws or the public interest, and have few means by which other affected parties can make representations.

also in plain english here

http://www.itsourfuture.org.nz/wp-co...-Korea-FTA.pdf

[mashman]

Have some synchronicity

Oh what an interesting history we have when it comes to sovereignty

[SPman]

Wikileaks has leaked the latest draft of the investment chapter of the US-backed TPPA, revealing that National has sold us out and is signing us up to an investor-state dispute clause which would allow foreign corporations to sue New Zealand for compensation if they are denied resource consent or are forbidden to do anything by New Zealand law:

‘As anticipated, the deal gives foreign investors from the TPPA countries special rights, and the power to sue the government in private offshore tribunals for massive damages if new laws, or even court decisions, significantly affected their bottom line’.

‘Prime Minister John Key once described the idea of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) as “far-fetched”.’

‘After he was briefed about the TPPA he changed tack, promising there would be effective safeguards. But the leaked text shows very little has not been agreed. That means the New Zealand government has accepted virtually everything the US has proposed with absolutely no effective safeguards.’

And just to give an example of what's at stake:

‘Just last week, as protestors rallied against an extension of the port into the Auckland harbour, an investment tribunal upheld a case against Canada because an environment review panel refused to grant a US firm a permit for a quarry and marine terminal, saying it violated community values and there was inadequate consultation. The investor wants $300 million compensation. The local council is likely to be made to pay the bill.’

So, if National signs this, the RMA will effectively no longer apply to foreign corporations (but will still apply in full to New Zealand ones). Which seems to be the very opposite of the "level playing field" they say its about.

Such fun..........