UN Mission became Impossible
The United Nation’s Security Council seat was viewed as the best showcase for New Zealand’s noble intentions. But within a few days of its tour of duty ending New Zealand found itself the fall-guy in two bitter feuds—the eternal Israel-Arab one and now the grudge one between the outgoing and incoming Presidents of the United States.
How did the tiny agrarian South Pacific nation with its international do-good mission find itself caught in these two bitter sets of cross-fires?
New Zealand’s presence on the United Nations Security Council was the culmination of a decades-long diplomatic strategy designed to underpin the nation’s ability to bring to bear common sense and good deeds where and when on the globe these were required.
Instead and at the 11th hour the nation’s participation in the Security Council drew forth hitherto unknown vituperation from the prime minister of a democracy, Israel-- the “act of war” comment.
Then, and more woundingly still, New Zealand found itself being distanced by the one democracy whose approval it values and in fact needs most of all – Australia.
The purpose of diplomacy is to avoid confrontation. We now examine the background to New Zealand’s increasingly curious role on the United Nations Security Council..................
The portents all looked favourable. The two year term would fit neatly into the conclusion of president Obama’s last term.
The President liked the scheme, and in practical terms even more significantly, so did his State Department, so recently led by Hillary Clinton.
New Zealand had put its shoulder to the wheel of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement. In return Auckland would be chosen as the place to sign the mighty trade treaty itself.
So what could possibly go wrong? In a couple of words, the unanticipated.
The US media has always been close to the New Zealand Embassy. The Washington media was forecasting a seamless transition between the Obama one and an incoming Hillary Clinton one.
There were some lingering doubts about the likelihood of a third consecutive Democrat administration. A few cynics wondered about two Democrat pc presidents in a row.
Still, even if a Republican candidate did win the election, the transition was hardly likely to be disruptive. A distinct possibility in such an instance was the restoration of the Bush dynasty in the form of Jeb..
Again there would be no end of term friction, disruptions. Especially of the type to involve the Security Council. The Bushes and the Clinton - Obamas had long made up anyway.
The completion of New Zealand’s two year temporary term would take place at the very end of the year within just a few weeks of the end also of the final presidential term of Mr Obama.
Back home in New Zealand this happily coincided with the most suitably receptive time for institutional news, and what better news than about New Zealand’s distinguished stint at the top table of the United Nations?.
Few among the general public are aware of the distinction between the major-power permanent members of the Security Council and the countries which serve short tours of duty as temporary members.
Countries such as currently Angola, Malaysia, Senegal, Uruguay, the Ukraine, and of course New Zealand.
So in 2017, there was scheduled to be a nice start at the very beginning of an election year with smiling New Zealand diplomats and politicians being congratulated, and congratulating each other for all the good work they had been doing around the world and while at the highest level of United Nations, on the Security Council, no less.
The good news would have capped a long and in many ways remarkable association between New Zealand and United Nations.
Sir Leslie Munro, a founder of the National Party was president of the United Nations General Assembly, and also served three times as president of the Security Council itself.
Terence O’Brien, still an urbane presence on the Wellington diplomatic scene had similarly occupied high office.
Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark by this time was a familiar presence heading one of the United Nations key agencies and for a while even mentioned as secretary general, a post not wishing to leave such matter to chance, that she vigorously campaigned for.
And yet....and yet....
In Wellington and Washington New Zealand diplomats started to feel the chill as it became daily more evident that the transition between Mr Obama and the unanticipated Mr Trump was going to be anything but friendly.
They hunkered down when president-elect Donald Trump coolly announced that on taking office he would immediately trash the Trans Pacific trade deal signed in Auckland in 2016.
They held their tongues resisting the New Zealand impulse to speak up for the underdog when the incoming president spoke of his immigration plans.
In diplomacy though it is the unexpected that determines the outcome of even the most delicately thought-through plan of action.
The problem when it came was from President Obama. Not his replacement, Donald Trump.
The outgoing President Obama was by now showing signs of uncharacteristic ill-grace as his replacement was making it clear that he intended to sweep aside the cherished Obama legacy.
Mr Obama by now had had enough.
He emptied a bag of nails out of the back window of the presidential limousine in the form of the resolution calling for the end of Israeli urbanisation of its occupied territories.
This Mr Obama knew would get under the skin of a resolutely pro-Israel Donald Trump.
He was right.
New Zealand was now chosen as one of the Security Council nations to support it.
Which New Zealand did, incurring the instant incandescent wrath of Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu.
In the longer term it is safe to assume that it probably also jaundiced the view of an initially glad-handing to New Zealand Mr Trump himself
Australia the world’s 12th largest industrial nation now pointed out that this was not New Zealand’s fight. It would not be shoulder-to-shoulder with its trans Tasman cousin on the resolution.
Could the resolution have been filibustered, dragged over into 2017? By which time the New Zealand Security Council team would have been safely out of the Security Council and thus out of the cross-fire.
It couldn’t. The Obama people, sensing the ire of their departing chief, called in their Atlantic IOUs and ramrodded it through.
| From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk | Saturday 31 December 2016 |
| MSCNewsWire - Wednesday 28 December 2016 | The absence in New Zealand of an effective political Jewish lobby was largely responsible for the South Seas nation being summoned to co-sponsor at the United Nations the resolution calling for the halt to building within Israel’s occupied territories.
Two sponsoring nations were islamic – Malaysia and Senegal.
The third, Venezuela, was a founding member of OPEC.
The political lobby vacuum meant that New Zealand could be the western, and better still, English speaking nation to sponsor the resolution –and do so without there being any danger of formal internal political repercussions.
The resolution gives all the appearance of having been engineered on an Atlantic axis between Britain and the United States.
It was then fronted by nations which were either islamic (Senegal and Malaysia) part of the Arab oil economy anyway (Venezuela) or were likely to encounter absolutely no internal political repercussions (New Zealand.)
It is also understood on this Atlantic axis that New Zealand has to step warily in regard to Arab nations.
New Zealand informed trade officials that it would be shipping live sheep to the region.
The government then had to deliver a complete about-face.
The current National government, under pressure from the Greens, had to revoke the live sheep export licences
This was not taken lying down. The New Zealand government was informed that among the Gulf states its exports would be boycotted.
New Zealand has still only partially soothed feelings in the region by establishing an extensive stock handling and processing depot in the region.
The freeze in diplomatic relations between Israel and New Zealand called by a livid Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu will take time to thaw.
In spite of a delicately arranged surface cordiality between the two tiny nations, recent decades have been characterised by an increasingly embedded suspicion at the New Zealand end of its small country counterpart Israel.
This chill can only become frostier if and when United States president elect Donald Trump follows through on his policy promise to approve the transfer of Israel’s capital from its current site at Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
So there will be relief in Wellington that New Zealand’s two year term on the Security Council finishes at the end of this year.
This means that the Pacific nation which in terms of population and socially-inclined political outlooks seemed once upon a time to be so compatible with Israel can sidestep becoming directly crunched in another great power game which offers so little in the way of tangible benefits.
| From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk | Wednesday 28 December 2016 |
Merry Christmas enjoy the festive season and may 2017 be a prosperous year for you.
L’Affaire Tapie now engulfing Francis Fillon campaign
IMF managing director Christine Lagarde’s exit from the Paris court room with only the charge of “negligence” attached to her has served only to intensify the anger in France over the porosity between their country’s judiciary and it politicians, writes our European correspondent.
The gathering storm is of interest to New Zealand because of a widespread impression that former prime minister John Key is in line to succeed her as chief of the International Monetary Fund, an economic stabilising agency that had its origins in Bretton Woods.
The possibility initially arose when Mr Key was still serving as prime minister and Miss Lagarde’s five year tenure came up for renewal amid the re-convening of a high level investigation into what is known as the Tapie Affair.
In the event Miss Lagarde toughed it out and signed on at the IMF for another five years.
This seemed to close off the opportunity for Mr Key.
But with the presidential election looming in France the burner keeps getting turned up on the Tapie Affair.
The reason is that the episode was ignited during the tenure of the previous president Nicolas Sarkozy whose minister of finance was Miss Lagarde.
It was she who signed off on the pivot of the whole affair which was to submit the Tapie Affair to special external arbitration rather than run it through the standard judicial process.
The recent Paris trial revealed that her advisers had recommended that Miss Lagarde do exactly this—turn the matter over to the standard judicial process.
In the event the finance minister, Miss Lagarde, handed the matter over to an ad-hoc collection of arbitrators.
The upshot of this was that the external arbitrators now proceeded to award to the sometime politician-impresario-speculator Bernard Tapie considerably in excess of half a billion dollars of taxpayer money.
This was in compensation for a Barnard Tapie business deal that went wrong.
This was the famed Adidas deal.
It remains a deal for which most French taxpayers still cannot work out how in the first place they became involved in, let alone how they became liable for it.
In France the affair is often described as an “arnaque par l’etat contre l’etat,” a swindle by the state against the state.
An extraordinary insight during the recently-completed proceedings into the French politico-judicial relationship was that a big slice of this half billion dollar compensation was awarded directly to the Tapie family and tax free.
This it turned out was because of the stress that the Tapie family were considered to have endured during the family’s efforts to claim the compensation.
Even by Latin standards of the spoils system, this was considered a bit much
The unspoken inference hovering over the affair was to the effect that the appointed independent arbitrators in arriving at their generous compensation had somehow and personally been accessed during their deliberations.
By forces favourable to the litigant.
Back now to Mr Key.
He is the logical replacement to Miss Lagarde for a number of reasons.
There cannot be a third IMF managing director from France because the last two have figured so prominently in court proceedings.
There was Dominique Strauss-Kahn who was Miss Lagarde’s predecessor. He figured in a New York courtroom. Then, just days ago, and in Paris now, there was Miss Lagarde herself.
The tradition has always been that the head of the World Bank comes from the United States and that the International Monetary Fund chief comes from Europe.
The World Bank swerved away from this. It was felt that that the IMF would follow.
When it looked as if Miss Lagarde might have to stand down there was mooted an idea to recruit someone to fill the IMF role from a developing nation.
The problem is that developing nations are highly suspicious of the IMF and its motives. So a candidate from an emerging economy, should they be made available, is likely to be regarded as part of a wider conspiracy perpetrated by the United States.
Even so, it is the United States that has in effect the casting vote on the appointment of the IMF managing director.
President Obama is something of a soul brother with Mr Key and if public indignation were to mount to boiling point in France there is still time for Mr Key’s name to go forward.
The reason the Tapie Affair will stay on the burner is that front-runner to become the next president of France is Francis Fillon.
He was prime minister during the previous Sarkozy presidency.
It was during Mr Fillon’s watch as prime minister that the Tapie deal was so surprisingly routed through arbitration instead of the judicial process.
The endless Tapie Affair is now lapping around his presidential campaign.
More recently still there are signs that a president Donald Trump might be favourable to the appointment of the New Zealander to head what he regards as a chaotic and even dangerous agency, the IMF.
Mr Key (pictured above with Chrstine Lagarde) is said in Europe to be grateful to be out of the political epicentre to a large extent because of the way in which in the Westminster sphere such as New Zealand, a prime minister assumes a show business status in which every aspect of their life, private and public, becomes part of the national entertainment.
Curiously under the republican modus operandi in France this is forbidden by statute and the way in which media can cover the lives of elected official is drastically curtailed.
The belief therefore is that if Mr Key with his solid Wall Street and international political careers was to be called, that he would serve.
| From the MSCNewsWire reporters desk | saturday 24 december 2016 |
The World Trade Organisation has upheld New Zealand's challenge to 18 agricultural non-tariff barriers imposed by Indonesia.
New Zealand and the United States jointly brought the case against Indonesia in 2013 over a range of barriers imposed on agricultural imports since 2011.
They included import prohibitions, use and sale restrictions, restrictive licence terms and a domestic purchase requirement.
Trade Minister Todd McClay says they've cost the New Zealand beef sector alone between half a billion and a billion dollars.
"This is an important result for New Zealand's agricultural exporters, and for trade fairness," he said on Friday.
"As a result of this process, we have already seen some improvements to Indonesia's regulations and gains for New Zealand exporters - these will only improve following implementation of the WTO decision."
Mr McClay has given an assurance that New Zealand still has a very strong relationship with Indonesia.
"Even close friends have occasional disagreements, and the WTO helps insulate trade policy differences from wider bilateral relations."
Immersive Construction with guest writer Alison Crady
Immersive reality technology has exploded throughout 2016, with more creative uses invented every day. Many huge corporations are placing massive investments in its development. According to ABI Research predictions, immersive reality will balloon into a $100-billion-dollar industry by 2020.
The exciting technology can be broken down into three distinct categories: Mixed Reality (MR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Virtual Reality (VR). The Microsoft’s HoloLens is a great, recent example of mixed reality, which is a split combination of reality and the virtual world. Augmented reality uses “markers” to add pieces of virtual information within the known world. And then there’s virtual reality which fully immerses users into an alternate world.
Whether you’re creating safer training scenarios, developing project blueprints, working out technical issues or showing off a completed project, immersive technologies will take construction to a new level of efficiency and effectiveness. Though immersive devices are still very early in commercial development stages, experts and industry leaders are grasping on. Because when you can change the way you see the world, you can change the world you see.
HOLOLENSES HEADSET MASTER MIXED REALITY
Perhaps one of the most exciting, user-friendly pieces talked about this year has just been released. Microsoft has been working all year to produce the HoloLens headset, which noticeably resembles a StarTrek device. This wireless headset hit the market just in time for 2016 Christmas gifts. Though with a $3,000 price tag, only a privileged few will find one wrapped beneath the tree.
The headset resembles two rings of a 3D solar system, which unfold in concentric circles. The first, inner circle rests around your head and uses a bicycle-helmet-style ratcheting dial to tighten it securely. The front sticks to your forehead, and the back rests below the backside of your skull.
Users interact with their environment by making specific changes with their index finger. Journalists with early-release experiences noted some user inconvenience due to the precise index finger movement and overall headset discomfort. But at the end of the day, it lets you add the virtual world to your current reality, completely transforming the world you see. Comfortable or not, that’s pretty amazing.
DEVELOPERS PRODUCE AUGMENTED REALITY GLASSES
Using “markers” AR glasses allow users to note ultra-specific adjustments in real time and space. Participants add pieces of virtual information to the known environment. Google glass has already begun providing AR glasses for military uses. But the goal is to branch out into enterprise customers within the year.
DAQRI, a California-based company, has a mission to create the most powerful AR platform humanly possible. They made a huge push forward with their smart helmet, which has great construction project application. It can accurately be described as a visionary tool for the 21st century worker.
Using AR glasses, field workers can find enhanced solutions. Entire repair manuals can be displayed before their eyes during technical difficulties. DAQRI’s smart helmet greatly improve efficiency with an enhanced degree of situational awareness. The glasses could easily be used in construction helmets, opening up the next level of project possibilities.
BETA-TESTING FOR VIRTUAL REALITY EXPANDS AND EXCITES
Completely surrounding and all-encompassing environments are possible with VR. Single-users can don a device which allows them to move within a virtual scene. Using kinesthesia and proprioception, the device can track the direction of motion distinct from the direction of eye gaze. While the range of view will vary according the device, participants will be able to turn around, look up and down and see a complete environment, known as virtual reality.
Several construction companies, such as PCL Construction Services and Sellen Construction, have begun beta-testing VR uses onsite using a new product from a Seattle startup called Context VR. It’s a mobile app that contractors can use for as-built records, remote walk-throughs, progress reports, estimating, safety training and facility management. By simply uploading engineering drawings or floor plans as PDF, app users can “walk through” the space, taking photos from a 360-degree camera.
This startup is just one example of the many ways VR can transcend the construction industry. Using VR can help construction workers discover new ways to envision projects. They can allow potential buyers and investors to explore first-hand the new environment without needing to be present in the exact location.
The Cave Automated Virtual Environment (CAVE) is another great virtual reality technique with direct application for construction. Firms such as the Boston-based Suffolk Construction have begun using this technique for immersive experiences through mid-construction project sites. This ability has greatly cut down on time and costs due to a reduced number of changes requested mid-project.
THE RAPIDLY EMERGING STARTREK DREAM WORLD
If you grew up watching futuristic series such as the Star Wars or Star Trek phenomenon, then the emerging immersive technology will seem familiar. We are entering a whole new phase of possibilities with our technological advances.
At this point, it’s more about the price range and its wide-spread availability. Companies such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft are constantly exploring new ways to fully utilize immersive reality. Emerging headsets, interactive hand controllers and movement sensors will revolutionize the entire construction process.
Developing construction firms should take note. Not only could safety be significantly improved through enhanced off-site training scenarios, but also the production and display of commercial projects can significantly improve. Designers, contractors and architects will be able to make better decisions, earlier on. While there’s a high ticket price, VR, AR, and MR are here to stay.
| An MSCNewsWire Guest Post by Alison Crady from This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Friday 23 December 2016 |
3 Exciting Construction Industry Uses For Mixed Reality, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality
While you were sleeping: Oil gains, stocks slip
Restored train link seen as 'exciting opportunity'
New Zealand's biggest gold miner to expand
Solid growth for NZ despite fragile world economy
ASX-listed Caltex Australia agrees to buy Gull NZ for $340 mln
Auckland Airport has welcomed its 29th international airline this morning, with the arrival of the inaugural Tianjin Airlines flight from Chinese cities Tianjin and Chongqing.
Scott Tasker, Auckland Airport’s acting general manager – aeronautical commercial, says, “We’re delighted to welcome Tianjin Airlines to Auckland Airport and New Zealand, and excited that they’ve chosen Auckland for their first Australasian service.”
“Regional China is a rapidly developing market for New Zealand tourism and the new flights we’re welcoming today will provide more choice for Chinese visitors to experience New Zealand, and for New Zealanders travelling to China.”
Tianjin Airlines will operate year-round between Tianjin, Chongqing and Auckland with three flights a week using an A330 aircraft. The new service will add 83,000 seats to the China-Auckland route every year and Auckland Airport estimates that this will deliver a $102 million boost to the New Zealand tourism industry.
Tianjin and Chongqing are Auckland Airport’s 47th and 48th international destinations respectively. Tianjin is the largest coastal city in northern China, with a population of more than 15 million people. Chongqing is a major economic centre in the Yangtze basin and has population of more than 30 million people.
Mr Tasker says that Auckland Airport is undertaking the most significant upgrades seen for several decades. The airport is currently spending more than $1 million dollars every day on infrastructure improvements and expects at least this level of investment to be maintained over the next five years.
“Tianjin Airlines is arriving in Auckland at an exciting time. A major upgrade of our international departure area is well underway, as is the expansion of Pier B of the international terminal, which will add two more gates that can each accommodate an A380 or two smaller aircraft. We are also progressing the concept design of the new domestic section of our combined domestic and international terminal.”
The New Zealand economy continued to grow solidly in the September quarter, posting a higher than expected 1.1 per cent growth rate for the quarter and 3.5 per cent over the last year, Finance Minister Steven Joyce says.
“New Zealand’s focus on developing a strong and open economy is delivering good results for Kiwi families, especially relative to most of the rest of the developed world,” Mr Joyce says.
New Zealand’s economic growth in the year to September was the fifth strongest in the OECD ahead of Australia (1.8 per cent), the USA (1.6 per cent), Canada (1.3 per cent) and the Euro Area (1.7 per cent).
“We are starting to see the benefits of a clear and stable focus on economic fundamentals coupled with a determination to build a competitive environment from which Kiwi companies can succeed on the world stage.”
Growth in the quarter was strong across 13 of 16 industries, including:
“It’s hard to overstate the importance of key service sector exports like tourism and education in New Zealand’s economic success in recent years. They have taken up a lot of the shortfall as the dairy sector went through its downturn. Other food sectors and hi-tech exports have also contributed significantly,” Mr Joyce says.
The Current Account deficit was unchanged at 2.9 per cent for the year, well below the long-run average. New Zealand’s external debt was 58 per cent of GDP, compared with 83.8 per cent of GDP back before the GFC in 2008.
Treasury’s half-yearly Fiscal Update predicts growth to average 3 per cent per year out to 2021, with a further 150,000 jobs expected to be added to the New Zealand economy over the same period.
“The future is looking positive for New Zealand, but these are of course just forecasts. The world remains an uncertain place and it is important that the Government, businesses and households collectively keep our feet on the ground and not go crazy with the credit card. If we work hard, maintain our economic programme and increase our competitiveness we can continue to improve the outcomes for Kiwi families,” Mr Joyce says.
YANGON - Myanmar's economy is slowly emerging from the crippling effects of decades of military rule, where a poorly-managed resources industry dominated much of the country's trade. The Aung San Suu Kyi-led government is encouraging foreign and local investment in job-creating export industries, with a strong focus on manufacturing. Boosted by U.S. President Barack Obama's recent removal of executive sanctions on Myanmar, the country's garment industry is on the rise, and aims to be the nation's largest employer.
The NLD-led government hopes new factories can provide employment for hundreds of thousands, whose education and work opportunities were stunted under 50 years of military rule.
Exports have almost doubled in the last five years, to $1.1 billion for the 2015 financial year when, according to the United Nations' International Labor Organization (ILO), the sector employed 380,000 people, mostly women.
The government recently passed an investment law that allows tax breaks for investment in the industry, while the U.S. dropped longstanding sanctions in September that will give international firms greater confidence in dealing with Myanmar.
The Myanmar Garment Manufacturing Association estimates the industry will employ up to 1.5 million workers by 2024.
"So with all these interests, the will of the government side, and the lifting of the sanctions, and the private sector also, the garment sector also the will grow," said Khine Khine New, secretary general of the association.
However, many problems persist.
An inexperienced government has been slow on detailing policies that give businesses the predictability they need, said factory owner Sai Maung.
While his company has benefited from foreign help to meet international labor and production standards, many factories are still coming to grips with Myanmar's transition.
"Before we are closed, but now we are moving to a democratic country and the people have no experience at all, I mean with how to deal with the issues," said Maung.
Industrial relations are struggling to keep up with pace of growth, according to ILO deputy liaison officer Piyamai Pichaiwongse.
"Myanmar was never a country that was operated by the rule of law. So therefore, the law does not have supremacy in anything that they do. There is not the reference for things that they do in the past," she said.
The ILO is working with the government to rewrite labor laws.
In the meantime, strikes have increased since a minimum wage of just $2.75 a day was introduced last year. Unions complain of increased persecution of their members, workers have little understanding of their rights and employers are struggling with compliance.
With an industry on the rise, these relations hold the key to improving the living standards of hundreds of thousands of workers and their families.