December 2025

On this last day of 2025 I shudder about a new political development in the Middle East. My view is that Israel has just made plans for a possible future war. They recognised Somaliland as an independent state. No other UN country has done this. Somaliland is a self-declared republic in the Horn of Africa. It has a history of colonial rule, a failed political union, and a journey to build a stable democracy.  Israel’s is making hard-nosed strategic calculations about its future in the turbulent Horn of Africa and Red Sea region. Over the past decade, there have been intermittent talks and in 2025,Read More →

This week our politicians have been extremely busy throwing insults at each other.  So here is one more from Shakespeare.  I dedicate it to two politicians who throw insults around like confetti or rice at a wedding.  This is for David Seymour and Shane Jones from the Sweet Swan of Avon: “A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander. It insultsRead More →

Wow – how – a look into the future??????????  Important News from government. Minister Simon Watts,  the Local Government Minister has announced cost cutting measures for wastewater aimed at boosting savings for ratepayers. He says new national wastewater environmental performances standards hope to save up to $830 million over the next 35 years by streamlining wastewater consents. Who would forecast  35 years into the future  on the effectiveness of wastewater consents or anything else and expect any accuracy, unless they  had too much Xmas optimism or something else!!! Answer:  Minister Simon Watts And he got news coverage for this rubbish. I heard it several timesRead More →