International justice for North Korea

The Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has found that the North Korean regime is committing crimes against humanity on a scale not seen since Nazi Germany:

A prisoner is forced to haul emaciated corpses up a mountain ready for burning so their ash can be used as fertiliser but sees that the flesh on their faces has been gnawed away by rats. Horrified inmates watch as a guard angered by the crying of a baby forces its mother to drown it face down in a bucket of water.

These are just two in a litany of alleged “unspeakable atrocities” described in a nearly 400-page report released by an independent UN panel of inquiry into the North Korean regime and its decades-long subjugation of its citizens through incarceration, enforced starvation, torture, rape, enslavement and sexual abuse. “Hundreds of thousands” of detainees have lost their lives over 50 years, it claims.

Presenting the report in Geneva, the panel chairman, Michael Kirby, said some of the crimes described evoke those committed by the Nazis, like forcing prisoners to load corpses into pots for burning. “At the end of the Second World War so many people said ‘if only we had known... if only we had known the wrongs that were done in the countries of the hostile forces’,” he said. “Well, now the international community does know... There will be no excusing of failure of action because we didn’t know.”

The Commission of Inquiry is recommending that the UN security Council refer the North Korean regime to the International Criminal Court, or in the event of a big power veto, for the UN General Assembly to create an ad-hoc tribunal to do it instead. I agree. The international community has looked the other way on atrocities like this for too long; its time for international justice to prevail.

An entirely avoidable disaster

If you've been watching the news recently, you'll know that great chunks of the UK are under water or under threat of flooding at the moment, thanks to the worst rain since records began. Why? Because the current government cut funding for flood defences:

Flood-stricken communities, including those visited by David Cameron in the Somerset Levels and Yalding in Kent, have been left without planned defences following government funding cuts, the Guardian can reveal.

Undelivered defences, totalling many millions of pounds, also include schemes on the stretch of Devon coast at Dawlish where the mainline railway fell into the sea and near the nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset.

Ministers have been heavily criticised for cutting flood defence spending by almost £100m a year after taking power, but this is the first time specific projects affected by the cuts have been identified.

There's more detail here on the effects of the cuts on the Thames valley (some parts of which are flooded out).

Governments aren't responsible for the weather (except insofar as they ignore climate change), but they are very much responsible for how they plan for it. The UK government appears to have thrown such planning out the window in search of easy cuts so it could cut taxes for its rich cronies. They need to pay a price for it. At the least, there are Ministers who should be resigning - but a government which simply allows this scale of disaster to happen needs to go.

Shane Taurima

Last night TV3 revealed that TVNZ's Shane Taurima had been using TVNZ facilities for his political work for the Labour Party. Taurima has resigned, but this isn't just an employment matter: TVNZ is a crown-owned company, and its employees (but not its board members) are covered by the SSC's Standards of Integrity and Conduct - which among other things requires political impartiality, "an absolute obligation not to bring our political interests into our work". And its deeply troubling that the culture of TVNZ, both as a journalistic organisation and a public-sector one, seems to have let that standard slide.

The "Pacific solution" devolves into torture and murder

Something I missed last month: the Australian Navy has been torturing refugees, beating them and burning their hands on hot engines. This is what happens when politicians systematically dehumanise and demonise a group: the grunts who interact with them start acting on the politicians' message that they are not people, and that you can do whatever you want with them. Naturally, Tony Abbot is refusing any investigation, and prefers to smear the media than uphold core human rights standards. Its hard to see this as anything other than official sanction.

And then there's today's news: over the weekend, there was a riot at Australia's gulag on Manus Island, PNG. And in response, Australia's hired goons from G4S evacuated their staff from the camp, then stood back and watched as a mob of locals (led apparently by local police) stormed the place. Scores of people have been injured in the attack, and at least one is dead. Duty of protection? Australia doesn't recognise that, any more than it recognises the prohibition against torture, or the Refugee Convention itself.

And remember: the Australian government will not let its Human Rights Commissioner investigate its gulags.

Once upon a time Australia was a decent country. Now its one with torture, gulags and death squads. And John Key wants us to adopt their tactics? Again, someone should ask him whether he stands my that comment now...

London says it will reject the will of the Scottish people

Just a week after English politicians united to threaten Scotland with a forced departure from the Pound, London is now saying that it may simply ignore a Scottish vote for independence:

UK ministers could block full independence for Scotland if Alex Salmond makes “impossible demands” after a Yes vote in September’s referendum.

The Independent has learned that, even if Scots vote to break away from the UK, this would not guarantee that all the Scottish National Party's demands would be met.

One senior government source said: "A Yes vote in the referendum would be the start of a process, not the end of one. We would start negotiations. But if Alex Salmond made impossible demands, we would not just roll over and agree to everything he wanted. If we could not reach agreement, the status quo would be the default option."

"The status quo" being "Scotland subservient to London". But if the Scots vote to leave, then refusing to let them seems to be pissing in the face of democracy. But then, isn't that what English colonialism was always about?

Meanwhile, it speaks volumes that the English think they can only get Scotland to stay in the same country by threats, bullying, and dirty tricks. And those tactics seem designed to backfire messily.

Spying on lawyers

The latest NSALeak: The US got its toadies the Australian Defence Signals Directorate to spy on American lawyers representing Indonesia in trade talks:

A top-secret document, obtained by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden, shows that an American law firm was monitored while representing a foreign government in trade disputes with the United States. The disclosure offers a rare glimpse of a specific instance in which Americans were ensnared by the eavesdroppers, and is of particular interest because lawyers in the United States with clients overseas have expressed growing concern that their confidential communications could be compromised by such surveillance.

The government of Indonesia had retained the law firm for help in trade talks, according to the February 2013 document. It reports that the N.S.A.’s Australian counterpart, the Australian Signals Directorate, notified the agency that it was conducting surveillance of the talks, including communications between Indonesian officials and the American law firm, and offered to share the information.

The Australians told officials at an N.S.A. liaison office in Canberra, Australia, that “information covered by attorney-client privilege may be included” in the intelligence gathering, according to the document, a monthly bulletin from the Canberra office. The law firm was not identified, but Mayer Brown, a Chicago-based firm with a global practice, was then advising the Indonesian government on trade issues.

On behalf of the Australians, the liaison officials asked the N.S.A. general counsel’s office for guidance about the spying. The bulletin notes only that the counsel’s office “provided clear guidance” and that the Australian agency “has been able to continue to cover the talks, providing highly useful intelligence for interested US customers.”

So we now have clear evidence that our spy agencies use each other to circumvent bans on spying on their own citizens, and that they do not care about basic norms such as attorney-client privilege when doing so. This is utter contempt for the law. And note that its not being done in the name of "national security", but of commercial interests and petty trade disputes.

Again: the only way to end these abuses is to vote out the spies. Defund them, disband them, and destroy their equipment. Nothing else will do.

No freedom of religion in Britain

Back in the Sixteenth Century, the English government banned those who espoused religious views different from those officially approved from preaching in public or otherwise disseminating their views. Back then the target was Catholics - or Protestants, depending on how the monarch felt that morning. Today, its Muslims:

A Muslim convert who targeted members of the public as part of a campaign for a sharia state in Britain has been given a groundbreaking asbo, police have said.

Jordan Horner, 20, from northeast London has been ordered to stop preaching in public, in a legal first.

[...]

He was also told he must not be in possession of a loudhailer in public or enter any educational establishment, unless he is a student there.

As well as being forbidden to preach and hand out leaflets in support of sharia law, Horner was banned from defacing public adverts.

But now the UK is a party to the European Convention on Human Rights, which affirms both freedom of religion (including the right to manifest a religion in public) and freedom of expression. I don't think there's much of a question that Horner's religious-political views are hostile to the established order and policies of the UK - he appears to be part of a group which has supported (or in some cases, merely laughed about - which shows you the degree of British intolerance) the deaths of British soldiers - but the UK is supposed to be a democracy which respects the freedoms of religion and expression. And in such a society, people who oppose your wars as unjust, say that the soldiers who fight in them deserve to die (or at least, deserve no pity), and who call for radical changes to the social order are something which must be accepted. You might not like them, you might find their views repellent, but if you support human rights and a democratic society, then you cannot support this persecution.

(I should also note that its incredibly stupid. Banning people from preaching on transparently religious-political grounds is exactly the sort of grievance which radicalises others).

New Fisk

Civilians are dying. Campaigners are being kidnapped. The world cannot turn a blind eye to America’s drone attacks in Pakistan
Proof that politics hasn’t changed

A sensible policy

Over the weekend the Greens launched a new solar energy policy [PDF], which would see the government provide low-interest loans for home photovoltaic installations, while also ensuring fair sell-back to the grid. So how does it stack up? Very well indeed.

Firstly, the policy goal: more solar energy (and by implication, more distributed generation). Its a good goal, which both reduces greenhouse gas emissions and network upgrade costs, while adding some local survivability into the electricity grid. In Germany, the widespread introduction of photovoltaics (encouraged by a feed-in-tariff, which saw PV electricity paid according to its costs, not market rates) has been hugely successful at flattening the daily peak in demand, which reduces high spot prices, and therefore electricity costs. Its also contributed strongly to the reduction of Germany's energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. That's something worth doing, which will benefit kiwis.

Secondly, the policy instrument: government-backed, low-interest loans. This ought to be absolutely uncontentious; we already use such schemes all across New Zealand to fund the installation of insulation and heat-pumps. Those systems are run by local authorities, rather than the government, but the principle is no different. Its cost-neutral (apart from trivial administration costs, which could be loaded onto the loans in the form of an annual fee), well-understood, and unlikely to go wrong.

So why does the government hate it? Firstly, lower peak electricity demand is bad for big generators, who either see their thermal plants become uneconomic, or lose the daily profit peak from their greener assets. In Germany, this has been the biggest source of opposition to solar: it is putting Big Coal out of business. There's also no obvious big corporate winner from this sort of distributed economic activity, no-one who gets to make a lot of new money. So, no opportunity for patronage and cronyism - just a lot of people employed in small business doing installations, and lower wholesale prices for kiwi business. Bad for their allies, no obvious upside for them, and so its down to their natural hatred of change (National is the party of established economic interests, and therefore supports the status quo), and of their true ideological enemies, the Greens. Fortunately, Labour does see the benefits, so it looks to have a reasonable chance of happening if we get a change of government this year.

Equality wins in Virginia

In a perfect Valentine's Day gift, Virginia's ban on same-sex marriage has been overturned in federal court:

A federal judge ruled Thursday that Virginia's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, making it the first state in the South to have its voter-approved prohibition overturned.

[...]

"The court is compelled to conclude that Virginia's Marriage Laws unconstitutionally deny Virginia's gay and lesbian citizens the fundamental freedom to choose to marry. Government interests in perpetuating traditions, shielding state matters from federal interference, and favoring one model of parenting over others must yield to this country's cherished protections that ensure the exercise of the private choices of the individual citizen regarding love and family," Wright Allen wrote.

The ruling has been stayed pending a Supreme Court appeal, but its unclear who would lodge it - the State Attorney-General did not contest the case, because they agree that the ban violates the 14th Amendment. And the Christian bigots who make so much noise about other people's private lives are just going to have to get used to that.

One law for all on torture?

A US man has just been convicted for waterboarding his stepdaughter. Which raises the obvious question: isn't it about time the same happened to the CIA's torturers? Or does the law somehow not apply to them?

Filling in the gaps on Cabinet conflicts of interest

Last year, in response to an OIA request I made back in 2010, DPMC decided to come clean and proactively release summary information on Cabinet Ministers' conflicts of interest. But there was a problem: the release only covered the period from October 2012 - September 2013. My previous OIA had forced release of information from June 2009 to July 2010, but there was a two year gap in the data. That gap has now been filled, and the documents are available on DocumentCloud, including statistical information on declared conflicts and how they were handled, and a summary of conflicts and action from July 2010 to September 2012. The core data:

• The Cabinet Secretary was informed of a conflict of interest under paragraph 2.69 on 168 occasions between July 2010 and September 2012
  
• 131 of these conflicts were sufficiently serious that the Prime Minister was advised of them in writing
  
• Ministers declared a conflict during a meeting on 135 occasions during that period
  
• Arrangements were made for Ministers not to receive papers on an issue on which they were conflicted on 8 occasions during that period
  
• Ministerial decisions were transferred to other Ministers 42 times to avoid a conflict of interest
  
• No Minister ever transferred a conflicted decision to a department
  

Note that conflicts can be very broad (such as an entire industry), or very narrow (such as a particular company). Some conflicts are also portfolio based e.g. for shareholding Ministers in SOEs. Sadly the information is vague, because the Cabinet Office believes all real details must be withheld so that Ministers declare such conflicts in future, but there's still some interesting stuff there, and enough to allow real journalists to do some digging if they want to. Craig Foss and Amy Adams declared extensive corporate conflicts. Anne Tolley declared a personal conflict of interest in a particular Ministry of Education property, and Paula Bennett did the same about an organization potentially eligible to receive crown funding. In both cases the decision was transferred, but it would be interesting to know the details and how the decision (if any) turned out.

Pure waste

Last week the government ended its persecution of the Waihopai Three. So how much did this pointless exercise in vengeance cost? $93,000 according to an OIA request lodged through FYI. $87,000 of that will be billed to the GCSB; the remainder is time which will be written off by Crown Law.

This is pure waste. The damages claim against the protesters would not have achieved anything, as they had no money to extract. All it was was revenge for the GCSB's deflated ego. You can judge whether that was an appropriate use of taxpayer's money at the ballot box later this year.

Taken for a ride

Last year, the government agreed to subsidise foreign-owned Rio Tinto to the tune of $30 million. At the time they were pleading poverty; now its clear that they played us for suckers:

In a year where its aluminium subsidiary was able to extract a $30m payout from New Zealand taxpayers, world mining giant Rio Tinto has delivered a larger than expected profit and dividend - despite the prices of most of its products falling.

Rio's underlying profit in 2013 was up 10 per cent on the previous year to US$10.2 billion, above analysts' expectations of $9.7 billion.

Net profit, which included impairments, was $3.7 billion.

That $30 million could have paid for a full school lunch program which would have made a serious difference to child poverty. Instead, its gone straight into the pockets of this company's foreign shareholders. That noise you can hear is them laughing all the way to the bank (and trampling over hungry kids to get there).

And this is National's "better economic management" in a nutshell: robbing kiwi kids to subsidise foreign fatcats. Isn't it time we had a government which actually worked for us, not big business?

Muldoonist bullshit

Yesterday the Auckland Council started wringing its hands over misogynist rap group Odd Future's planned concert this weekend. Today, the government has responded by banning them from New Zealand. Their reason?

"The Immigration Act 2009 provides that entry permission may not be granted where there is reason to believe there is, or is likely to be, a threat or risk to public order or the public interest.

"Odd Future has been deemed to be a potential threat to public order and the public interest for several reasons, including incidents at past performances in which they have incited violence. In one instance, a police officer was hospitalised following a riot incited by Odd Future,'' the statement read.

That riot? Was caused by cops when they broken up a signing when too many fans showed up. And the injury was a cop falling over and hurting his back. From the sound of them, I wouldn't like Odd Future at all - but as a "threat to public order" goes, that's exceptionally weak, and certainly no grounds to violate their freedom of expression, or that of their New Zealand fans. This ban is simply Muldoonist bullshit.

(I'd suggest Odd Future seek to have the ban judicially reviewed for illegality, but it would take too long, the harm will already have been done, and those who made the decision will not go to jail for BORA violation. Which is one way governments get away with unlawful actions: because they effectively have impunity from any consequences)

As for how to deal with groups like Odd Future, I've said it before and I'll say it again: the answer to speech you don't like is more speech, not less.

Customs on digital border interceptions

The increased public scrutiny of Customs' search and seizure of digital devices has forced them to release some statistics - and some spin:

Last year, Customs detained 295 computers and 548 electronic devices for detailed examination of equipment that were suspected to contain objectionable material or other evidence of border offending.

In 2013, targeted searches of passengers’ luggage at airports led to a number of arrests, including a German tourist who was jailed for importing objectionable publications and images after Customs found over 35,000 child sexual abuse images on his laptop.

Customs would have you believe that this is all about child pornography. But stats released last year showed that half of all seizures were in fact for "materials breaching intellectual property rights". Those stats also showed that between september 2012 and August 2013, only 234 searches resulted in finding prohibited material. Assuming the number of searches has not jumped dramatically in the last four months, this suggests that only around a quarter of these grossly intrusive searches are successful.

Plus of course there's their unlawful searches of bystander's devices to allow Police to circumvent the Search and Surveillance Act, and their searches for the FBI for "brownie points".

But that's OK, because they assure us that "“Those who don’t break the law have nothing to worry about". Bullshit. The unreasonable seizure of Sam Blackman's devices shows that the innocent have a lot to worry about - and that Customs may be misusing its powers to conduct political searches.

While Customs' openness is welcome here, there needs to be a lot more of it, as well as much tighter constraints on their powers. We have a right against unreasonable search and seizure. Customs' limitless powers seem to be the very definition of "unreasonable".

A warmongering nation

The Guardian has an appalling statistic: after the withdrawal from Afghanistan next year, the UK will be at peace for the first time in a century. And here's the timeline to prove it.

Except its worse than that, because the UK was constantly at war long before 1914. In fact, it has been constantly at war, stealing colonies, enslaving independent nations, suppressing colonial rebellions, and squabbling with other imperial powers over the spoils of its robbery, since 1760:

You need to go back before Britain's foundation as a state and the English civil wars to find a time when government-backed privateers, slavers and settlers weren't involved in armed conflict somewhere in the world.

There are in fact only a handful of countries British troops haven't invaded at some point. What is so striking about the tally of the past 100 years is that only in 1940 were British troops actually defending their own country from the threat of invasion.

[Link added]

Seamus Milne attributes this to a ruling elite which conflates the exercise of military force with prestige and influence (not to mention private profits for the few). I'd add in a "democracy" in name only which has insulated the warmongering policies of that elite from popular opposition. But last year, that insulation finally cracked over Syria, and now the elite are lamenting their inability to get their war on ever again.

The lesson for New Zealand is obvious: if we want to be a peaceful nation - and most kiwis do - then we need to take the power to wage war in anything other than immediate domestic self-defence out of the hands of the executive and make it subject to a Parliamentary vote. That gives both democratic legitimacy and public accountability.

But there's something else we want to consider: is warmongering Britain really a nation we want to celebrate on our flag? I don't think so. The values of Britain's warmongering elite ar enot our values; its time we showed that, by removing the Union Jack from our flag.

New Fisk

Iran’s dead poets society: The execution of Hashem Shabaani shows the pen can be mightier than the sword

Worrying

Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index 2014 is out. The good news: we rank 9th, up there with the sorts of Scandawegian countries we like to compare ourselves to. The bad news? we've dropped a place. The reason?

In New Zealand, the interception of reporter Jon Stephenson’s metadata by the military, which thought his articles were overly critical, and the release of journalist Andrea Vance’s phone records to a leak investigation is indicative of growing government mistrust of the media and their watchdog role.

A free press is a vital safeguard in a democratic society. it speaks volumes about National's authoritarian mindset that it has eroded it.

Ticket clipping

National's charter schools are predicate don the idea that the public education system is doing a bad job. They're (over-)funded to do things differently. So its more than a little odd that He Puna Marama Trust's charter school is simply getting local state schools to do all their teaching for them:

Chris Hipkins: Is she satisfied that the taxpayer is getting good value for money from the $1.8 million given to He Puna Marama Trust for its establishment costs, given that it has leased facilities at a cost of just $58,000 a year and is asking the existing State schools in the area to deliver teaching on its behalf?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: Different choices are made between leasing, owning, and servicing over the life of a property. As I have said, these schools are contracted for the term of their contract to deliver educational outcomes. They are free to make those choices but they must deliver the educational outcomes expected of them.

And to add insult to injury: He Puna Marama is the most generously funded of all charrter schools, at $40,000 per pupil. By contrast, state schools are funded at less than a fifth of that rate. So they can sit there, contract out all the actual education to state providers at double the government rate, and still make $1 million for doing nothing.

This is ticket-clipping at its finest: promise something different, then provide the same service from the same institutions, just with a crony middleman inserted into the process to cream off profits. There's no public benefit whatsoever from such "innovation". Instead the benefit is all private - to the charter school operators. And it is simply corrupt.