Deploying a veto on an EU treaty is a rare and rather major action – vetoes on particular laws or particular paragraphs in summit conclusions may be two-a-penny , but vetoing a whole treaty rather than negotiating to a …
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The UK and Europe: how much damage did Cameron's veto do …
Get other General Politics hereAn exploration of the causes of the growing schism within Spanish society between 1914-1923 and the political polarisation and social violence that culminated in the Spanish Civil War. Essays analyse the crisis and eventual downfall of Spain’s elitist liberal order and its replacement by an authoritarian dictatorship.
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Get other General Politics hereIn this book Geoff Mulgan offers a powerful analysis of the crisis of contemporary politics and argues that a new politics based around the quality and reciprocity of relationships is slowly emerging.
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Get other General Politics hereBuilding upon his analysis in the first volume of the series Canada in Crisis: An Agenda to Unify the Nationlongtime federal employee Robert A. Battram goes beyond explaining what will unify the nation to provide a working roadmap that can help ensure its continued success.Battram identifies problems in all areas of governance from the simple to the complex and offers a range of solutions to these problems. He examines why law enforcement agencies and immigration policies are failing and also explores issues of infrastructure such as how the placement of electrical transmission grids affects different areas of Canada.Take a deep look into how to improve all areas of government including- economic policies – transportation systems – security of communications – security of energy and power – measures taken to combat extremismJoin the author as he examines the many changes threatening Canada. Discover ho
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For decades people have tried to persuade the leader of the Cuban Revolution to tell his own story. But only now after stepping down from almost fifty years in power has Fidel Castro been prepared to set out the full detail of his autobiography. In these pages he provides a “panoramic view” of his years in power (Los Angeles Times). Castro discusses his childhood and earliest influences; the unlikely beginnings of the revolution; his intense comradeship with Che Guevara; his perspective on the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis; the repeated dramas of Cuban migration to the United States; his dealings with ten successive presidents from Eisenhower to George W. Bush; and his relationships with other storied statesmen from Nikita Khrushchev to Hugo Chvez. Along the way Castro tackles a number of controversial questions including those dealing with human rights and freedom of the press in Cuba. Displaying a frankness that is often breathtaking this book is nothing less than …
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New Zealand is seen as a soft target by gangs, which launder millions of dollars through this country, says the head of an Australian police unit set up to combat Melbourne’s criminal underworld. .
New Zealand needed to target organised crime rings, or risk reaching a crisis point of its own, he said.
Mr Edwards heads the Purana Taskforce, set up after a “crisis” of gangland killings in Melbourne, on which the television drama Underbelly was based. You will get shootings, you will get killings – if you do nothing about it. “Hopefully you realise that you need to stop it before the problems start. She said examples included:
Killer Beez gang owned the hip hop record label Colourways.”
Police Minister Judith Collins told the conference gangs had infiltrated businesses, and turned legitimate enterprises into money-laundering outlets.
– Gangs increasingly attended public and community celebrations, projecting themselves as harmless groups with a strong community spirit. Its music videos were thinly disguised recruitment advertisements for the gang and played on mainstream television.
– Gangs partnered with businesses in finance, transport, private security, entertainment, real estate and various trade-related industries. They had run lotteries, and uniformed police had been sent to oversee the draws.
Mrs Collins said gangs existed to make money and gain power, and their new level of sophistication was presenting a serious challenge. These partnerships help facilitate their real businesses – violence, extortion, drug-dealing and money-laundering.
Mr Edwards cited one of his taskforce’s cases, the busting of a cannabis-growing operation run by an organised gang.
But the Criminal Proceeds Recovery Act, which made possible the seizure of any assets that were probably gained illegally, would help dismantle organised crime.5 million was found to have been sent to New Zealand bank accounts from Australia. A$2.
Police Association president Greg O’Connor said the drug trade here was already leading to money-laundering and violence by organised groups. It was then sent to Vietnam and its value eventually returned to Australia in the form of drugs.”
Police tackling organised crime needed to be tasked with targeting those at “the highest level”, he said, but that could mean no tangible results in the short term. “All the things he’s talked about are already here.
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Money-laundering – by which criminals try to hide the origin of money or property gained illegally – was the result of gangs making large sums from the methamphetamine trade and needing to find legitimate places for it
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AFP – French President Nicolas Sarkozy and a panel of the world’s top economists said on Monday that countries need to find ways to measure happiness and well-being alongside raw economic growth.
Welcoming a report that he commissioned from a panel including Nobel Prize winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, Sarkozy said France would pioneer the new techniques and urge other countries to follow suit.
The experts’ report was released at a time when many economies are beginning to emerge from recession but unemployment is continuing to rise and consumer confidence is still too shaky to drive a strong recovery.
France will fight for all international organisations to modify their statistical methods.
Across the whole world, citizens think that we’re lying to them, that the figures are false and, worse, that they’re being manipulated, Sarkozy warned, calling for a new measure for economic performance.
In February last year, Sarkozy asked Stiglitz — a former White House advisor and World Bank chief economist — and 21 other international experts to find new ways to measure growth taking into account social well-being. France will urge its European partners to set an example and will therefore modify its own systems, he said.
There’s no single number that can capture anything as complex as our society, Stiglitz told in an interview to launch the report.
Currently, growth is measured as a percentage increase or decrease in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is a measure of the value of goods and services generated in a country and has long been seen by many as a crude benchmark.
So what we argue for is the need for an array of carefully-chosen numbers, with a better understanding of the role of each of those numbers.
GDP was originally created as a measure of economic activity but has increasingly become used as a measure of societal well-being.
As an example of how GDP could be misleading as a quality of life index, the report said an increase in fuel consumption would boost growth figures even if it only reflected more unproductive traffic jams and pollution.
The economist said that in the runup to last year’s credit crunch, many world policy makers had sought to follow the American growth model because it had produced impressive GDP increases for the United States. It wasn’t designed for that and it doesn’t measure that, Stiglitz said.
Even if the financial sector were working perfectly, the problem is that Americans’ wealth has been devastated, they’ve been very hard hit, he said. .
One of the first experts to welcome the report was the secretary general of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development, Angel Gurria, who said that his body was ready to help create a new array of indicators.
If countries had focused instead on plans to increase the median income of households, they might have protected themselves better from the crisis and improved the general well-being of their populations, the report suggests.
We need better measures of people’s expectations and levels of satisfaction, of how they spend their time .
Economic resources are not all that matter in people lives, he said…
The report recommends GDP growth be used simply to measure market activity and that new systems take into account environmental health, safety and education — what Bhutan already calls its Gross National Happiness. and we need to broaden the range of assets that we consider important to sustain our well-being.
This data should be recorded in such a way as to enable policy makers to evaluate the population’s level of well-being and make plans to increase it.
Countries should publish an annual report, much like a corporation does, and the figures given should include measures of household buying power and of inequality between genders, age groups and social classes, the report said.
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Economic growth – economy – France – Nicolas Sarkozy
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There are no parliamentary rules in place preventing convicted former MP Taito Phillip Field from claiming thousands of dollars worth of travel entitlements.
Field was found guilty this week at the High Court in Auckland of 11 charges of bribery and corruption as an MP and 15 charges of wilfully trying to obstruct or pervert the course of justice.
The convictions relate to him accepting work on his homes from Thai tradesman in return for immigration assistance, and his attempts to derail investigations.
Speaker Lockwood Smith admitted there appeared to be no rules suggesting former MPs convicted of criminal offences were exempt from general privileges, The New Zealand Herald reported.
Having entered Parliament in 1993, Field is still entitled to claim for up to 12 free domestic return air fares a year, along with a 90 percent discount on international travel as long as it does not exceed the cost of a return business-class flight to London on Air New Zealand – about $10,000.
Prime Minister John Key, who is in Cairns at a Pacific Islands Forum meeting, said morally the entitlements – which include perks for Field’s wife – were inappropriate.
But he said, under the circumstances, he was “willing to explore how provision could be made to address the situation”.
Labour’s chief whip Darren Hughes told Radio New Zealand this morning Field’s case was a serious one, and MPs in such a position should not be able to claim future entitlements.
“Certainly he is eligible under the criteria that existed for those MPs, but he’s been found guilty by a jury on these charges, which are serious and relate to his work as an MP.
“I don’t think they should, and I don’t think many people listening would think they should either,” he said…
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Mr Hughes said he would support any procedural rule changes which would make those entitlements ineligible under circumstances such as Field’s
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The identity of an Auckland health worker charged with numerous sex offences against young girls can now be revealed.
Dion Selwyn Tau, 41, of Glen Eden faces 18 charges, including abduction, assault with intent to commit sexual violation, sexual violation with unlawful sexual connection, indecent assault, burglary, threatening to kill and attempted abduction.
Tau made a brief appearance in the Waitakere District Court this afternoon and has been remanded in custody overnight, pending a bail hearing.
The investigation was initially launched in January 2007.
Four of the six complainants were aged between 13 and 17 when the alleged offending occurred.
“There might well be other young women who now wish to speak to police about their interactions with this man who, on one occasion in November last year, allegedly posed as a truancy officer for North Shore and West Auckland,” Mr Scott said.
Detective Inspector Bruce Scott said today’s arrest was a significant development in the investigation.
Detective Inspector Scott confirmed today’s arrest was linked to a high-profile case in November last year when a teenager was abducted by a man posing as truancy officer in West Auckland.
At the time of the 2007 attack police described the offender as a stocky, Pacific Island man aged about 40.
“It is alleged to be the same offender as that incident,” he said.
He then allegedly drove her to her home and attacked her shortly after she opened her door.
Police alleged the man lured a 15-year-old school girl into his car by telling her he had to drive her to her home to ensure she was not wagging school.scott@police. .govt.govt
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AFP – Protesting French farmers blockaded 81 dairies around the country on Monday as producers from 10 European countries demonstrated in Brussels against low wholesale milk prices, officials said.
According to the FNSEA union, some 12,000 dairy farmers were involved in the action, which halted work at around 81 sites across France. That’s 4,000 more protesters than last week, a labour spokesman said.
Nothing is going in and nothing’s coming out, declared Joel Limouzin, a farmers’ leader in the Loire Valley.
France has around 150,000 dairy farmers and more than 3,000 dairies.
Farmers accuse retailers of exploitation, complaining that the price they are paid for milk by wholesalers has fallen dramatically in recent months, while the cost to consumers in supermarkers has remained stable.
Some 900 farmers, according to police, marched in the streets of Brussels ahead of a meeting by European Union agriculture ministers to discuss the crisis in the country. .
The French government has appointed mediators to attempt to broker a deal between farmers and milk buyers, but unions have vowed to step up protests across the continent. Consumers pay around a euro per litre.
agriculture – EU – France
