Sydney Morning Herald

Hamas claims responsibility
2008-03-08 08:49:20
Hamas Islamists say they staged the shooting attack at a Jewish religious school in Jerusalem that killed eight people.(01:45)

http://media.smh.com.au/?category=Breaking%20News&rid=36138


Myanmar rejects UN proposal for observers at referendum
March 9, 2008 - 1:53AM
Myanmar's military government has rejected a UN proposal for the regime to allow observers at its constitutional referendum planned for May, state television said Saturday.
The proposal was made by visiting UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari during his talks with election officials on Friday, when he offered to help provide independent observers and UN technical assistance with the polls.
A member of the commission organising the balloting, Thaung Nyung, rejected the offer, saying the referendum was a domestic affair.

http://news.smh.com.au/myanmar-rejects-un-proposal-for-observers-at-referendum/20080309-1y4a.html


Putin warns West his successor to be just as tough
March 9, 2008 - 1:44AM
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday warned the West against expecting a thaw under his "nationalist" successor Dmitry Medvedev.
"Dmitry Medvedev will be free to demonstrate his liberal views," Putin said after talks at his Novo Ogaryevo residence outside Moscow with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
"But he is no less a Russian nationalist, in the good sense of the word, than I am, and I do not think that with him the partnership will be more simple."
Putin issued the warning just before Merkel went to a separate meeting with Medvedev, the first between a Western leader and the new president-elect since his controversial election March 2.

http://news.smh.com.au/putin-warns-west-his-successor-to-be-just-as-tough/20080308-1y45.html

Serbian PM resigns
March 9, 2008 - 2:17AM
Serbian nationalist Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica resigned on Saturday following a government crisis over the independence of Kosovo and the country's EU future.

http://news.smh.com.au/serbian-pm-resigns/20080309-1y4b.html


Zimbabwe bans Western election observers
March 7, 2008 - 11:24PM
Zimbabwe's government will not invite observers from countries critical of President Robert Mugabe's rule to monitor a general election due later this month, a government official said.
The state-controlled Herald newspaper on Friday quoted Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi as telling diplomats in Harare that the government had selected 47 foreign observer teams, "on the basis of reciprocity, objectivity and impartiality in their relationship with Zimbabwe."
"Clearly, those who believe that the only free and fair election is where the opposition wins, have been excluded since the ruling party, ZANU-PF, is poised to score yet another triumph," Mumbengegwi said.
The southern African country - in the middle of a severe economic and political crisis - votes on March 29 in presidential, parliamentary and council elections.

http://news.smh.com.au/zimbabwe-bans-western-election-observers/20080307-1xyd.html

Thatcher 'stable' in hospital
March 9, 2008 - 1:22AM
Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher was in a stable condition in a London hospital today after being admitted for tests, an official said.
The 82-year-old spent the night at St Thomas' Hospital where she was driven from her home in the capital late yesterday after complaining she felt unwell.
A spokeswoman for the hospital said: "Baroness Thatcher has remained stable overnight and we have nothing further to add at this stage."
Britain's first female prime minister, nicknamed "the Iron Lady" for her uncompromising stance on policy issues, has appeared in public less and less frequently after doctors banned her from addressing large audiences in 2002.
She has suffered a series of minor strokes which friends say have affected her short-term memory, leading her to occasionally lose track mid-conversation.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/thatcher-stable-in-hospital/2008/03/09/1204780143675.html

For women, love of labour's being lost
Anne Manne
March 8, 2008
On each International Women's Day there is a united chorus of concerned opinion over the barriers to women's advancement. We bemoan the absence of equal numbers of women in high-status professions such as politics, business, and the law.
And the solution offered? One book's title says it all: Get To Work: A Manifesto For Women Of The World. The author, Linda Hirshman, instructs women to put work first. Those caring for children live a "lesser life … bearing the burden of … work … associated with the lowest caste: sweeping and cleaning bodily waste … They have voluntarily become untouchables."
Hirshman is right on one thing - it does matter that our elites include fewer women than men. Women are now investing time, money and energy as never before in training and education. Our society needs their talents. But what exactly is the problem?
Our society is hoping to get something of immense value - talented women working at a time of increasing labour shortages - while making few concessions to women's needs. We are not doing even remotely enough to support them in combining child-rearing and work. Far more women, surveys show, want children than end up having them. Why? It is not just a lack of affordable child care or paid maternity leave. The problem is far deeper.
The Get To Work! program has a fatal flaw. The sanctification of paid work fails to challenge a crucial element in women's continued disadvantage: the ideal worker norms which make it difficult for women to combine motherhood and work. Our model for the ideal worker is based on the old male life cycle: training early, getting established in the professions, working long hours, taking no time out and competing against other men. The ideal worker has no family responsibilities to conflict with work. Someone else - a wife - takes care of all that.
The values surrounding the "proper" worker act as a subtle but pervasive form of covert discrimination. At one academic conference, the young women were advised to write several extra articles before motherhood, and to store them away. After giving birth, they could then submit them at regular intervals to conceal any gap children might create in their publication record.
It suits us to let mothers "manage like a man", wilfully blind to the extent of the change really needed. One publisher, encountering a mother breastfeeding a baby in the office, shouted furiously: "Breasts don't belong in the office!" But they do, of course, so long as they are sheathed beneath a silk blouse in a power suit, for male delectation, not lactation. When a young business executive feels anxious that if she takes more than one week's holiday she will lose her job, she is sent a powerful message about the possibility of combining work with family life. Yet if she opts out, or is childless, we claim airily: "Oh, it was her choice!" Our consciences are clear.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/for-women-love-of-labours-being-lost/2008/03/07/1204780063490.html

Keeping a Lo profile
Simon Webster
March 8, 2008
Authorities are too lenient with celebrities who have had babies, the United Nations has warned, calling for the sterilisation of anyone who has ever appeared in OK! magazine. Critics of the controversial proposal say it is unnecessary as the current fad for getting pregnant and giving birth won't last long and celebs will soon go back to hiring assistants to do that kind of thing for them.
Film star and pop icon J Lo (daughter of eccentric Australian supermarket multimillionaire Bi-Lo), set a new standard for glamorous celebrity weddings in 2004 when she donned a golden toga to marry the late Roman general Marc Anthony.
Despite Anthony having committed suicide in 30BC, following a passionate affair with troubled royal supermodel Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt, Lo gave birth to twins last month. She scandalised America's jet set by giving them the names Max and Emme, becoming the first Hollywood mum since the silent movie era not to give her offspring a name that can only be pronounced correctly by the clicking Xhosa tribe of South Africa.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/keeping-a-lo-profile/2008/03/08/1204780123577.html

Harlem faces a new executioner
Ian Munro
March 8, 2008
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There is cold comfort for the unpopular and the just-not-good-enough at the Apollo Theatre's amateur night in Harlem: they are dispatched with some flair.
The one they call The Executioner, whose job it is to clear the stage when the booing reaches its peak, tap dances onstage and drives off the unfinished acts.
One of his predecessors did his work with a broom, sweeping the stage clean. Now, wearing a loud, checked suit, a police uniform or a white laboratory coat with an outsized syringe to put down a dud comedian, today's incarnation does it with style.
The Apollo, a Harlem landmark, central to the place that 125th Street has in black American culture, fostered the careers of Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Stevie Wonder - but it has always been a tough room.
That much has not changed. Yet now the audience is as likely to be from Europe or Asia as from Morningside Heights.
While tourism may prove to be the Apollo's saviour, the future of the community that fostered the theatre is much less certain now that New York's planning department has proposed sweeping zoning changes for 125th Street.
The city's plan would allow the mostly low-rise street to accommodate office towers up to 29 storeys, and introduce 2000 private apartments and art galleries and hotels.
A New York City councillor, Inez Dickens, says African-Americans helped make Harlem "a black homeland, an international cultural destination … I have never lived anywhere else but Harlem and never wanted to."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/harlem-faces-a-new-executioner/2008/03/07/1204780063511.html

Hopefully, the last person out remembers to turn off the Opera House lights
Richard Glover
March 8, 2008
DESPITE this week's headlines about the exodus from Sydney, there must be someone who wants to move to our town. For instance, David Hicks is quite keen. Yep, in order to enjoy living in Sydney, you just need the right point of comparison. For instance, five years being tortured at Guantanamo Bay.
For everyone else, the experience of living in Sydney can be a little underwhelming.
According to a poll this week, one in five Sydneysiders is considering leaving town, driven mad by the pure hassle of living here. The other 80 per cent are presumably just waiting for the F3 to clear so they get a fast run north. Hopefully, the last person out remembers to turn off the Opera House lights and to close down that stupid desalination plant.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/richard-glover/hopefully-the-last-person-out-remembers-to-turn-off-the-operahouse-lights/2008/03/07/1204780063098.html


Employers ignore value of older workers at their peril
Adele Horin
March 8, 2008
A friend is planning a career change. At 56, he has decided to become a fitter and turner and has applied for an apprenticeship. He has always been handy and has never much enjoyed his job as a primary school teacher. We had expected him to retire soon into a life of frugal leisure. We had imagined him pottering happily in the shed, but he wants to retrain and work on.
Not so long ago his chances of fulfilling his ambition would have been zilch. A 56-year-old embarking on an apprenticeship? Tell me another one. Now the idea is not so outlandish. Indeed it is ageing workers who may hold the key to solving the skills and labour shortage.
A study by the economic modelling company Econtech says it is the 55-plus workforce that is growing fastest, and employers must shift their focus from the young to the old to maintain productivity.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/employers-ignore-value-of-older-workers-at-their-peril/2008/03/07/1204780063496.html


US job cuts seen signalling a recession
March 8, 2008 - 10:13AM
US employers unexpectedly cut jobs in February at the steepest rate in nearly five years, a second straight month of employment losses that heightened fears the world's largest economy has skidded into recession.

``The question appears no longer to be are we going into a recession but how long and deep it will be,'' said economist Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors Inc in Holland, Pennsylvania.

The Labor Department on Friday said 63,000 nonfarm jobs were eliminated on top of an upwardly revised loss of 22,000 in January, sharply contrary to Wall Street economists' forecasts that 25,000 positions would be added in February.

The department also halved the number added in December to 41,000 from the 82,000 estimated a month ago, in a move that underlined the steady deterioration in the US labor market.

http://business.smh.com.au/us-job-cuts-seen-signalling-a-recession/20080308-1y0w.html



Jobs decline sends Wall Street lower
March 8, 2008 - 10:10AM
US stocks fell for a second straight day on Friday after the biggest drop in US jobs since 2003 sent energy and mining stocks lower. The slide eclipsed gains by banks spurred by a Federal Reserve plan to make more cash available to lenders.
Chevron Corp., Alcoa Inc. and Boeing Co. led declines that sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average below 12,000 for the first time in two months and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index to its lowest level since August 2006. Wells Fargo & Co. and CIT Group Inc. gained, helping spur a 2.5% advance in financial stocks during the final 90 minutes of trading.
The declines are likely to be echoed when Australian markets reopen on Monday. The March futures contract for the S&P/ASX 200 benchmark index was down about 1.8%, or 94 points, to 5176.
On Friday, the S&P/ASX 200 index slid 3.2%, or 171.5 points to close at 5,264 points. That drop shaved about $40 billion from the share value of the top 200 companies. The main finance sub-index is now 30% lower for 2008 compared with a 17% slide for the ASX 200 as a whole.

http://business.smh.com.au/jobs-decline-sends-wall-street-lower/20080308-1y0p.html


Wall St.'s kings getting by on $200,000 a day
''There seem to be two different economic realities operating in our country.''
March 8, 2008 - 11:28AM
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, awarded $US67.5 million each to Co-Presidents Gary Cohn and Jon Winkelried, boosting their pay 27% from the prior year as the company evaded the mortgage losses spreading through the economy.
Cohn, 47, and Winkelried, 48, received 40% of their compensation in cash and 60% in restricted stock and options, New York-based Goldman said today in a proxy filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The payouts amount to $US185,000 ($200,000) per day, including weekends. The median annual income of US households was $US48,201 in 2006, the most- recent figures available from the Census Bureau.
The awards ''are not doing anything to take the focus off executive compensation,'' said Laura Thatcher, head of the executive pay practice at the Alston & Bird law firm in Atlanta. ''Those numbers innately are high.''

http://business.smh.com.au/wall-sts-kings-getting-by-on-200000-a-day/20080308-1y1e.html


US job losses send greenback lower
March 8, 2008 - 12:44PM
The US dollar dropped for a fourth straight week against the euro after a government report showed the US unexpectedly lost jobs for a second consecutive month in February.
The Australian dollar rose to as high as 93.72 US cents, before easing to close at 93.11 US cents.
The US currency earlier fell to the weakest ever against the euro and an eight-year low versus the yen as the government report bolstered speculation the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates this month for a sixth time since September.
The US currency rose from the day's lowest levels as the Fed said it will boost loans to banks, leading traders to trim bets on a cut of as much as a full%age point at the central bank's March 18 meeting.
''There is the view that we're quickly sinking into recession and that the Fed only has a limited ability to offset that,'' said Michael Woolfolk, senior currency strategist in New York at the Bank of New York Mellon Corp. ''We will certainly see more dollar weakness from here.''

http://business.smh.com.au/us-job-losses-send-greenback-lower/20080308-1y1v.html


Volvo relocating US headquarters
March 8, 2008 - 1:07PM
Volvo Cars of North America LLC said it will relocate its US headquarters from Southern California to New Jersey, where customer service and other operations are based.
"The relocation will make North American operations more efficient by bringing everyone together in one location, as well as bringing everyone three time zones closer to the Swedish headquarters," the company said in a statement.
Volvo Cars of North America, a subsidiary of Volvo Car Corp. of Goteborg, Sweden, shifted its headquarters to Irvine in 2001.
The move from Irvine to Rockleigh, New Jersey, will affect fewer than 80 employees, the company said.
On Friday, it also named Doug Speck as president and chief executive officer, replacing Anne Belec, who became Ford Motor Co. director of global marketing.

http://news.smh.com.au/volvo-relocating-us-headquarters/20080308-1y22.html


US employers slashed 63,000 jobs in Feb
March 8, 2008 - 6:12AM
Employers in the US slashed jobs by 63,000 in February, the most in five years, the starkest sign yet the country is heading dangerously toward recession or is in one already.
The Labour Department's report, released on Friday, also showed that the US unemployment rate dipped to 4.8 per cent as hundreds of thousands of people - perhaps discouraged by their prospects - left the civilian labour force. The jobless rate was 4.9 per cent in January.
Job losses were widespread, with hefty cuts coming from construction, manufacturing, retailing and a variety of professional and business services. Those losses swamped gains elsewhere including education and health care, leisure and hospitality, and the government.

http://news.smh.com.au/us-employers-slashed-63000-jobs-in-feb/20080308-1xz9.html


European stocks fall on US fears
March 8, 2008 - 6:32AM
European shares ended the week on a downbeat note, led lower by mining stocks as disappointing US employment data raised more fears about the health of the world's largest economy.
The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index fell 1.1 per cent to 307.98 - chalking up a second straight day of losses - with miners posting the biggest losses after the data.
Of mining firms, shares of BHP Billiton skidded 5.4 per cent and Rio Tinto shares fell 3.7 per cent. The losses came despite a big rise in gold futures after the employment data.
In the clearest sign yet of a recession, US non farm payrolls fell by 63,000 in February, the second straight decline in employment, the Labour Department reported.

http://news.smh.com.au/european-stocks-fall-on-us-fears/20080308-1xzg.html


SE Asian markets fall after US slide
March 7, 2008 - 11:12PM
Most Asian markets were battered on Friday as investors spooked by Wall Street's tumble sold blue chips.
Fears over the US economy's mortgage crisis re-emerged following news of a default at a high-profile US mortgage lender, dealers said.
Japan's Nikkei average fell 3.3 per cent to a six-week low on Friday, with investors dumping blue-chip exporters such as Honda Motor Co Ltd on a stronger yen and fears of a US recession, while silicon wafer maker Sumco Corp tumbled more than 10 per cent after predicting weaker profits.
In a broad sell-off tracking sharp falls on Wall Street, banks such as Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group took a beating after US mortgage lender Thornburg Mortgage Inc said it failed to meet a $US28 million margin call, the latest setback in the global credit crisis.

http://news.smh.com.au/se-asian-markets-fall-after-us-slide/20080307-1xy8.html

New Zealand Herald

Lasting effects from blows to head
5:00AM Thursday March 06, 2008
A blow to the head that knocks a person unconscious can result in widespread loss of brain tissue, Canadian researchers say, explaining why some people who suffer head injuries are never quite the same.
The more severe the injury, the more brain tissue is lost, they said.
"There is more damage and it is more widespread than we had expected," said Dr Brian Levine of the Rotman Research Institute and the University of Toronto, whose study appears in the journal Neurology.
Dr Levine studied brain scans taken from 69 traumatic brain injury patients whose head injuries ranged from mild to moderate or severe. The researchers used high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging or MRI to study changes in brain volume a year after the injury. They ran a computer analysis of these images and found that even patients with mild brain injuries with no apparent scarring had less brain volume.
"When you have a blow to the head, it causes a neurochemical reaction in the brain cells that leads to cell death," Dr Levine said. "The more cells that die, the less tissue you have."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=82&objectid=10496350


Rising metal costs may change size of Aussie coins
New 8:59AM Sunday March 09, 2008
SYDNEY - The size and composition of some Australian coins may have to change due to the soaring cost of copper and nickel.
This year the metal value of the 5c, 10c and 20c coins will overtake their face value for the first time, News Ltd reported today.
The metal content in 10c, 20c and 50c coins was now worth more than the metal in the $1 and $2 coins.
But melting down coins to make extra by selling the metal was illegal and heavy penalties applied.
The 5c coin has a current metal cost of A4.89c (NZ5.74c), the 10c coin 9.78c and the 20c coin 19.56c compared with the $1 coin on 8.3c and the $2 coin on just 6.1c.
But with copper and nickel prices up about 30 per cent this year, some new coins will cost more to make than their face value, New Ltd says.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10497033


Sweden demands boycott of Australian wool
5:00AM Sunday March 09, 2008
Australia's lucrative wool exports to Europe are under threat amid allegations of intimidation and bribery by Australian government and wool industry officials in Sweden, the Sydney Morning Herald reported yesterday.
The paper reported the Swedish government is urging consumers to boycott Australian wool, and retailers are banning it because of mulesing, the practice of cutting skin from the backsides of sheep, without pain relief, to prevent flystrike.
A Swedish current affairs show, Kalla Fakta (Cold Facts), is reported to have filmed a consultant for the Australian Wool and Sheep Industry Taskforce, and a man - said to be an Australian embassy official - offering a free trip to Australia to an anti-mulesing campaigner in exchange for not appearing on a TV show.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10496986


Clinton and Obama battle for superdelegates (+video)
2:27PM Friday March 07, 2008
Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are putting forth arguments to superdelegates that they should be the party's nominee.
The quality of wins argument may win Hillary Clinton the nomination, but there's a fear that it could divide the party - with supporters of Barack Obama staying home in the general election.
Although Barack Obama has a lead in pledged delegates - 1,366 to 1,227 - neither candidate is likely to gather enough delegates to reach the 2,025 votes needed to clinch the nomination without help from the superdelegates.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10496758


Swedish socialite jailed for hitman plot
4:02PM Friday March 07, 2008
A sentencing judge today warned Charlotte Lindstrom that she would spend her life "looking over her shoulder" after assisting police.
The 23-year-old Swedish socialite and model will be behind bars until May next year for soliciting murder, after she pleaded guilty to plotting in 2007 to wipe out two Crown witnesses who were to give evidence in drug case against her then Sydney boyfriend.
After her arrest last year, she agreed with detectives to testify against her former lover and others involved in the murder scheme. She is now in a protective custody in prison after a series of death threats.
Prosecutors accused her of trying to get an undercover police officer, posing as a hitman, to kill the witnesses.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10496780


Nuke talks raise fears for the 'lost'
Page 1 of 2 View as a single page 5:00AM Saturday March 08, 2008
By Anne Penketh
Japanese family members of the abducted protest against efforts to normalise relations with North Korea. Photo / Reuters.
A cruel, biting wind is blowing in from the Sea of Japan, as waves crash on to the breakwaters lining the shore of the Japanese fishing port of Niigata.
It was a day like this that 13-year old Megumi Yokota vanished 30 years ago, on her way home from badminton class in the school gym.
Her disappearance set off the biggest search for a schoolgirl ever launched in Japan.
Investigators have confirmed she was one of several Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea in its revolutionary zeal to reunite the Korean peninsula. They were bundled on to ships to North Korea, where they were used as language teachers for North Korean spies, who then planned to infiltrate South Korea using Japanese identities.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10496823


From homeless to mayor in Paris (+video)
10:45AM Friday March 07, 2008
Jean-Marc Restoux is standing as a mayoral candidate in municipal elections in Paris's 6th district on Sunday.
The local vote will be the first electoral test for President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose poll ratings have fallen sharply since his election last May.
Some local politicians with allegiance to the president's party fear his unpopularity may rebound against them, to the benefit of outsiders such as Restoux.
From the streets to Town Hall - that is the dream of Jean-Marc Restoux, a 54-year-old Parisian who has spent half his life homeless. Restoux is standing for mayor in municipal elections in Paris's 6th district on Sunday. Disillusioned with modern politics, he says his electoral list is apolitical.(
"I want to gather a maximum of people from different horizons and open the people's eyes so they can realise that it's for them to get involved, that it's not only the State or the town hall that decides, but everyone together."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10496684

Mugabe woos voters with tractors, retire says rival
9:03AM Sunday March 09, 2008
By Cris Chinaka
HARARE - Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe handed out tractors and fuel on Saturday as he courted votes ahead of elections this month, and a leading opponent urged the veteran president to end decades of misrule and retire.
Mugabe handed out the farm equipment to blacks given land seized from whites, a reform his critics say has helped plunge Zimbabwe into economic crisis, and predicted an overwhelming victory that would confound Britain and other critics.
The 84-year-old Mugabe is seeking to extend his 28-year hold on power in presidential, parliamentary and local council polls set for March 29, and has blamed the West for Zimbabwe's economic crisis.
At a ceremony in the capital Harare, Mugabe provided farm equipment worth millions of dollars to thousands of new black farmers, machinery for women and youths to establish small businesses and buses to try to ease public transport problems.
He also gave traditional chiefs at the same ceremony thousands of litres of fuel, also in short supply.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10497035

British government pulls plug on bottled water
9:30AM Friday March 07, 2008
LONDON - Bottles of water will no longer be served at British government meetings under a "tap water only" policy announced on Thursday to protect the environment.
Britain's top civil servant, Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell, sent the order to all government departments, saying the policy would come into effect by the summer.
Britain has seen the stirrings of a public backlash against bottled drinking water, with politicians and public figures saying they never order it and newspapers calling on restaurants to stop serving it.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10496698

World Bank optimistic about Samoa's economy
4:14PM Friday March 07, 2008
By Cherelle Jackson
Vice President of the World Bank East Asia and Pacific Region remains positive about the future of Samoa's economy.
James Adams spoke about his hopes for the Samoan economy during a recent trip to Samoa.
"I'm quite optimistic," he said.
"I think the performance will continue to be solid. I think that the big challenge is the one that the Government effectively is addressing and thinking through and working on. That big challenge is, how does the Government mobilize additional investment in private sector, both foreign and domestic, where policies can improve."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10496784


Maori party warns against policies to abolish Maori seats
5:00AM Friday March 07, 2008
The Maori Party is warning that policies to abolish the Maori seats in Parliament could compromise post-election negotiations to form the next government.
National yesterday confirmed its intention to abolish the seven seats, linked with its goal of settling all historical Treaty claims by 2014.
Labour has never had a policy to abolish the seats, and has said that will happen only when Maori want an end to special representation.
Maori Party MP Hone Harawira did not specifically mention National, but he said other political parties should "tone down their rhetoric".
"We won't be doing deals with parties who plan to silence our peoples' views," he said.
"It took us 150 years for our voice to be heard in the halls of power and our people won't stand for anyone trying to take it away again," he said.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10496683


Key admits blunder over Treaty
5:00AM Thursday March 06, 2008
By Claire Trevett and Audrey Young
National leader John Key has admitted that he blundered yesterday over his party's Treaty settlements policy.
He said on breakfast television that National had not previously had a date by which it wanted settlements completed.
In fact, its position at the last election was that grievances be settled by 2010.
The party changed that in February last year, shortly after Mr Key became leader. The settlement target was extended to 2014 and tied to the abolition of the Maori seats.
Mr Key said then that instead of abolishing the seats as soon it became Government, it would start the process in 2014, when it believed historical Treaty settlements would be resolved.
He issued a statement last night saying that in trying to distinguish between the party's present position and the formal policy document that would follow later in the year, "I gave the impression that National did not have a date for the settlement of historic Treaty claims".

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10496419

Anthony Doesburg: Digital television, without the satellite dish
5:00AM Saturday March 08, 2008
By Anthony Doesburg
It's going to be a big year for digital broadcasting - starting next month, when Freeview begins terrestrial transmission of its dozen or so digital TV channels.
You could say the excitement kicks off sooner than that, on March 30, with the switching on of TVNZ 7 - the state broadcaster's second digital-only channel (TVNZ 6 went live about six months ago).
That means Freeview's fare will be TV One, TV2, TV3, C4, TVNZ Sport Extra, TVNZ 6, TVNZ 7, Maori Television, Stratos, Parliament TV, Cue and Radio New Zealand's National and Concert programmes.
And there's more. Last week, the Radio Broadcasters Association, representing commercial stations, agreed to join a digital radio trial in Auckland of DAB+, one of numerous options for moving radio out of the analogue era.
At the centre of all of this excitement is Kordia, the state-owned enterprise whose origins go back 60 years to when it built the national radio and television transmission network.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10496825

Bill Ralston: Face it, we're in deep doo-doo
5:00AM Sunday March 09, 2008
By Bill Ralston
Forget all the usual economic indicators, when Lotto suffers a 4.6 per cent drop in net profit you know the country is, to use a technical term, in deep doo-doo.
More traditional analysts might point to the $700 million shortfall in tax revenue, mostly from reduced GST takings, but the answer is the same. New Zealanders are spending less.
We are tightening our belts as the economy falters. In an election year this could prove the last nail in the coffin of the Labour government. Voters can be churlish and if they are suffering, they will make whoever is in power suffer with them.
A while ago, I wrote that we were entering a "perfect economic storm", with a high dollar, high interest rates, rising inflation, falling property values, a sagging share market and punitive tax rates.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10496955

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